Re: What Is Jonnie's problem here?

Rat & Swan wrote:
> > Here are some of your callous remarks about it.
>
> >     The attack on 9/11 was just dandy because it involved an
> >     airplane?
>
> >     Try asking yourself -- how would we feel if Iraq decided they   
> >     didn't like our government and engaged in violent attack to try
> >     to depose our government? Oh -- that was what the Al-Qaida did
> >     (in much less violent form than our invasion of Iraq) on 9/11.
> >     Doesn't seem we accepted the rationale when someone used it on
> >     us.
>
> > I still take issue with your contention that 9/11 was less violent 
> > than our war with Iraq.
>
> With casualties at 10,000 and rising daily -- Yeah, it was less violent.

Is this a counting game like your "ethical" diet, too?

> I'm currently reading _Iraq Under Siege: The Deadly Impact of Sanctions
> and War_, edited by Anthony Arnove.  The things we have done to Iraq --
> including deliberately dropping bombs on civilians -- are truly 
> appalling. 

War is hell. So are sanctions. You're wrong, though. *We* didn't cause 
these problems for Iraq, Saddam Hussein al-Tikiriti did. If Saddam had a 
gram of decency in him, he would've followed his agreements following 
the Gulf War just for the sake of his people. He was the lynchpin in the 
whole equation with respect to war AND sanctions.

> No one says that the 9/11 attack (which had no connection
> whatever to Iraq)

I don't think that's settled with all certainty yet. Laurie Mylroie, who 
served as an advisor to Bill Clinton during his 1992 run for the White 
House, has her share of critics, but I think her theories are worthy of 
consideration.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/gunning/interviews/mylroie.html

> was justified, or anything less than tragic.  But the
> U.S. _has_ done equally horrible things, and things which, as I noted
> above, we would regard with justifiable outrage if the Afghanis or the
> Iraqis had done them to us.

The Taliban ruled Afghanistan and gave al-Qaeda safe haven. The Taliban 
were given opportunity to turn over those in al-Qaeda we demanded. The 
Taliban said no, and were defiant about it. We justifiably put them out 
of power and continue to pursue them and their al-Qaeda cronies.

Saddam Hussein, too, had plenty opportunity to get right with the world. 
We dealt with his rank insolence for over 12 years. In that time, some 
eighteen UN Security Resolutions warned of consequences to Saddam and 
Iraq if terms of the 1991 ceasefire were not followed. Following 9/11, 
our government, along with many others, determined that enough was 
enough. Saddam posed threats to his own nation, to his region, and to 
the rest of the world. He did not abide by ceasefire conditions. He was 
pursuing WMD and programs forbidden by the terms of the ceasefire. Did 
you hear about this one the other day?
http://www.news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2246401

> It's always the innocent civilians who get caught in the middle when
> governments go to war -- their civilians, our civilians.  And I don't
> regard their civilians as any less worthy of concern than our civilians.

Unfortunately, civilians get caught in the middle -- and often for 
public consumption. Why else would Saddam put his weaponry amid 
residential areas, or hide materiel in mosques? Why else would Fedayeen 
thugs try to ambush our soldiers in residential neighborhoods where 
collateral casualties and deaths are likely to occur?

I consider our soldiers more worthy of concern than their roving bands 
of Fedayeen.