From: Ryan Gill (rmgill@mindspring.com)
Date: Sun Sep 12 2004 - 22:44:03 PDT
At 1:09 AM -0400 9/13/04, J. Forster wrote:
>Ryan Gill wrote:
>
>Where's the A-bombs? Where's the poison gas ?
>Where's the war germs ? WHERE'S THE
>BEEF ??
Rotted away? Buried in the desert. Some of it's
destroyed. Some of it is probably not. I suspect
only a few alive know and they aren't saying.
Doesn't mean it wasn't there. Doesn't mean they
didn't want and desire a program or more over
didn't have some ducks in a row to start it up.
Do you trust the Baathist to not start up again?
>
>I don't know for sure, but IMO it was self preservation. Had Saddam admitted
>everything was destroyed, Iraq or other
>neighbors could well have overrun him in a
You mean Iran right? They're in no shape to
attack Iraq. Certainly not given their economy
and state of military forces.
>few days. I doubt the US would have protected
>him from the Ayatollahs minions and
>their tanks and infantry, even if all our stuff had not left the area. Iran
The republican guard was still very much a force.
It took some skill and excellent maneuver warfare
for our guys to get into Bagdad. They didn't
waltz in there. They took a lot of ground and
fought for it.
>was a
>proven threat that cost 8 million lives as I
>remember. WMDs had kept Iran at bay
>before. So he put up a strong PR campaign and resisted the UN to enhance the
>bluff. He became a victim of his own propaganda in the end.
Looks like you might have an answer. But if a cop
is telling you to drop it (he thinks you have a
gun) are you going to keep bluffing or show your
hand. Especially when he's drawn down on you.
The fact is, Iraq was under the gun and Saddam bluffed when he shouldn't have.
> > Iraq agree'ed to cease fire terms at our
>> insistence because we had them between a rock and
>> a hard place.
>
>Hmmm... A contract made under duress. I'd look
>for loopholes too. The allies did
>that at Versailles with a poor outcome. WW II.
Yeah, he could have re-negotiated. What was it
Vader said. "If you think you're being treated
unfairly...." Not that the US is the Empire of
Emporer Palpatine. Iraq invaded, figured we'd do
what we did in the past. They were wrong. We
called their bluff and they were on the ropes. We
let them up. We went in 12 years later to finish
the job because they didn't abide by the terms.
If only Britain and France had done so in 1935 vs
waiting to 1939 to figure out Peace wasn't going
to be had in their time.
>
>True. And it partly cost Bush 41 a second term.
He was going according to world opinion. Which do
you want. Not go according to World opinion or go
according to it. We tried it the Arab' Leagues
way the first time. It didn't work. We footed the
bulk of the bill so we'll finish it our way.
>
>
>The Kurd areas are fairly quiet and likely just
>want to be left alone. I don't know
>what a Shia would say. Perhaps " if this is
>freedom, it's a high price to pay".
>Perhaps "foreigners go home".
Read some blogs of the average Iraqi. Salam Pax
is a damn good gauge on the heartbeat. Maybe I'm
just more connected. But I've read blogs from
Iraqi's, US soldiers and seen more than a bit of
footage from my seat at CNN. The extremist shias
in Bagdad and elsewhere were going around blowing
up liquor stores that were owned by Christian
Iraqi's in the Christian districts. The locals
didn't like that. Guess who was in a position to
do something. The US. Guess who's trying to do
something, the US. I'll bet you $5 the average
Iraqi doesn't want Al Sadir's dudes to be running
the police.
--
--
Ryan Gill rmgill@SPAMmindspring.com
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