...and we have a WINNER! If any of these things are part of the government's agenda, they are all insane. The next major war could come from their meddling with the rest of the world.
Bush is not verry popular in Europe, most people dislike him. atleast most people that care for politics.We get the impression that he cares nothing for europe and the rest of the world.And he wants war too much. (atleast i get the impression that most europeans feel this way, i'm not sure maybe GBRocket and sirjackiechiles can give theyre impression) i do not want war. i dislike Saddam, but an war is not the awnser. And bush is verry agressive against eastern countries. First Afganistan (i understand this one). then Iraq i think alot of muslims get the feeling Bush is after they're religion and not after terorists.
What if it's because Iraq has violated the peace agreement after the first war and he is building nuclear weapons?
Mr. Clutch, building Nukes with what?? Now if he has the money and the means, I'm sure he would buy one from North Korea. They're supposed to have a couple of Hiroshima-type weapons. Primitive, but deadly. Yeah, North Korea... the crisis "that's not a crisis". They place where we SHOULD be sending what's going to the Gulf. The country that Clinton threatened with military action if they didn't stop their nuke program (which they did). The country that's looking at Bush's actions and seeing an opportunity.
Bush in the above article states that the US does not have evidence that the Iraqis have a nuclear program. Your bad.
The Irony of the situation in my eyes is that Oil, like coffee for example is simply a commodity. Orange juice, pork bellies and other commodities are used daily and are important for american everyday lives. Yet we have never heard of the US wanting to take over Colombia for such reasons. The third world economies will always be commodity and maybe industry based, versus an economy like the US is almost entirely service based. Look at how changes in the price of oil affected the DJIA in the 1970's versus in the 1990's. Yet we want to attack Iraq for Oil? If we offered Iraq money today for their oil they would sell it in a heartbeat. Marc Rich was the guy who bought oil from Iran and then sold it on the black market for billions. I just think the whole Arab-Israeli conflict is what is causing this whole fiasco and that once it is resolved I don't have to hear about people hating our freedom's etc. If they hate freedom then why aren't they bombing Amsterdam where you can do mar1juana on the street while you shop for hookers?
Another nail on the head post. The people in those countries hate us because they aren't enjoying the benefit of the most important commodity in the world today, and if we truly want peace the we have to understand that we will have to start paying $4 a gallon for gas. We have pipelines running through those countries and do you see how they live? If it was truly about democracy then they would start to receive their share of the money and we would have to start paying.
If Iraq is building nuclear weapons, the burden of proof is on their accusers. Bush claims to have it, let's see it.
He said he doesn't know whether they have nuclear weapons. That's not the same as the Iraqis not having a nuclear weapons program. At least he got the weapons inspectors back in there, will you give him credit for that? If Iraq doesn't have nuclear weapons, of course I don't want a war with Iraq. As for the people who suggest that Bush not attacking North Korea as evidence of something, what would you do with North Korea? Would you attack a country that has nuclear weapons? I'm sure Bush has considered a pre-emptive strike. How many of you guys would start up your protest marches if he did that? Don't post stuff like "your bad."
Funny how North Korea had to admit it before they would acknowledge it publicly (that is assuming they even knew). Then again, after all of the mistakes that were made that could have lessened or even prevented what happened on 9/11, it's obvious the feds have their heads up their own @sses. These are the same people who liberated Afghanistan without catching Bin Laden. The same people who are trying to link Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein to support war with Iraq. When does the insanity end? ARRRRRGHHHHH!
not true....i found this interesting too...the burden of proof is not on the party making the claim here. the un resolution says the burden is on Iraq to prove it has no WMD. it's like suing somebody for breach of a fiduciary duty...you prove they owed you a duty and that they breached it...and it's their duty to prove they managed the property properly. you can't prove what someone else is doing in secret... the burden rests squarely on iraq, and that's been made clear.
Look. I'm not a Saddam fan, but how's he supposed to prove a negative? The inspectors are apparently allowed to look wherever they like. So Iraq publishes reports and allows universal access and all Bush can say is "not good enough." As it was in 1991, the administration has thrown various accusations around, promising but never delivering proof, hoping that several unproven accusations later people will just figure Saddam must be doing something that warrants an invasion. And it works. Even though the administration now admits they have no evidence of a meaningful 9/11 link, recent polls show most Americans believe they do. Why? They heard it from the president. As it was with the bogus incubator story it is with the 9/11 connection or Bush's previous assertion that they had proof of WMD and nuclear programs. Going back to the beginning of this thread (as I only just read it), revisionist history is on the fast track these days. Max is complaining that Bush is being accused of unilateral action, etc, before he's committed it. He's not being accused of unilateral action -- he's being warned against it. And it's a damn good thing. If he hadn't been warned against it so forcefully before, Bush would have acted unilaterally. It's well documented that that was the advice from Cheney and that only a strong effort from Powell, coupled with strong language from virtually all quarters (UN, allies, prominent members of both parties), prevented it. Please don't cry foul when Bush is warned against doing something he showed all signs of doing and please don't pat him on the back for doing something he was (thankfully) forced into doing. You might as well call Lott's resignation an act of courage and decency.
Interesting....so why do you suppose that a diplomatic solution would not work in Iraq's case? After all, North Korea not only admits to being able to produce nukes on short order, they have disabled UN equipment and give the monitors the boot. I smell crisis. Meanwhile inspectors have been in Iraq for a few weeks now and still haven't found anything yet. That despite literally free access to the entire country. Seems like a country at least begrudgingly trying to do as the UN says this time around. Crisis? Um, no. Now why on earth couldn't the *suspected* WMD issue be addressed diplomatically through sanctions? If there is proof and I am being asked to support my government's cause here, show it to me.
Well, I can tell you what Bush has answered in regards to this question and that is Iraq has used WoMD on its neighbors and North Korea has not. Not to mention Saddam played his little games of "hide and seek" with his WoMD all the way up until 1998 and, after that, had 4 years to figure out and implement clean ups and hide his WoMD....thus allowing for the return of the inspectors. This is all Bush Sr.'s fault. If he wouldn't have done a half-ass war and finished this in 1991, then we wouldn't be in this mess for more than a decade. Why give Saddam even a chance after what they did in Kuwait to the Kuwaitis which included, among many other things, dumping approximately a million barrels of oil in the sea and devastating all Kuwait's oil fields causing an environmental disaster. To me, that is a form of WoMD right there and we are sure not going to let that mistake happen again. I suspect when we invade...that we will protect not only Kuwaiti oil fields but Iraqi oil fields as well from that murdering scumbag. How Saddam was ever our ally is beyond belief? Yes, we werew afraid of what Iran would do had they won a war with Iraq. It's amazing how you go from ally to enemy in a matter of a few days. I don't trust the Bush's in office. I want a president with a different name and from a different family. I think they got us in this mess and they are only going to make it worse before it gets better. A war with Iraq now is only going to create many more unforeseen spin-off problems. To assume we can just take care of all the problems in the world is what got us in this mess in the first place.
I honestly believe that we hate Saddam more than we love their oil. He's has been the mistake of American foreign policy past, present, and future. And he continues to flaunt his human rights violations, arms proliferation, and veiled forms of aggression. He's another Castro but far worse. The Soviet Union shielded Cuba, who will protect Saddam? Who wants to? There is no answer for attacking North Korea. If we invade them, their people are in ruin and have no path to rebuild. Iraqi oil is probably the Administration's meal ticket towards rebuilding Iraq and its people (with the oil companies making their share of the buck).
1. we prove negatives in courts every day...particularly so in my previous example about breach of fiduciary duty cases. you make an accounting of what you had and where it went. we asked iraq to do that, and they didn't..they loaded the un down with worthless documents with notable omissions. but that's not the point...the point is the UN mandate puts the burden squarely on Iraq 2. wait...are you sitting in these meetings?? how do you know what bush's actual take is?? i don't think bush ever actually intended on acting unilaterally...but talking big got results in a big way...if you want the moon, ask for the moon and the stars...then when they give you the moon you can appear as if you compromised...it's a pretty basic negotiation tactic...and a pretty effective one, i might add. and bush has been criticized...unilateral action, particularly before the un mandate, was being discussed as a foregone conclusion in the media...to date, not one bullet has been fired in iraq in dealing with this current crisis. there is no war...tonight on CNN there was a show titled, "Countdown: Iraq." this despite the fact the administration has said (and bush said earlier this week) that military action is not a foregone conclusion.
Actually, Bush, Sr. was doing what the people on this BBS want Bush, Jr. to do and that's follow the U.N. resolutions and not act unilaterally. The U.N. mandate only allowed Saddam to be removed from Kuwait. It did not allow for the U.S. (or anyone) to go into Iraq and remove Saddam. People criticize Bush, Sr. for not acting unilaterally and the criticize Bush, Jr, for threatening to. You just can't win, can you?
We don't need to take over the world, just a little chunk of it. Iraq is central to the war on terror; without taking it (and truly liberating it), we will almost certainly lose the war on terror, because unless this step occurs, we will have no way of forcing the sociopolitical changes that need to occur for the islamic/arab world to stop attacking us. We are going to accomplish two very important things by going into Iraq: 1) We are going to establish a functioning democracy with a successful market economy smack dab in the Middle East. This is going to take a little while, but everyone else is going to see this and want one too (a free and prosperous form of government and economy, that is). In the long run, there will be a domino effect, and the Middle East will be a different world in 20 years because of it. 2) We are going to put a large land army and air force smack dab in the middle of the Middle East, and we are going to use it against any number of countries who still refuse to get their s*it together and start acting like civilized societies. Syria, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Kuwait, Yemen, Libya - all will be within reach of us then. It will be a very]/I] powerful warning to all of them that if they do not change, then we will change them. Iraq will be the second step in winning the war on terror. And far more important than Afghanistan in its scope and long-term effects.
Yeah. That's not likely to inspire ongoing and increasingly violent resentment or anything, like western support of Israel has. Right.
