Re: What has America lost?

"Don Swayser" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote

> Only because you choose to consider it so. You are making assumptions
> which are unwarranted. The threat was, ultimately, the mushroom cloud
> but only after he had attained hegemony over the Persian Gulf which his
> previous actions demonstrate was his goal. Hussein had already invaded
> the three other largest oil producers in the gulf. The nations od Iraq,
> Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia produce 90% of the worlds excess oil.

So, if this invasion could be started "at a
time of our choosing," why not wait until our
intel showed SOME hint he was strong enough
to invade one of his neighbors?  I bet the U.N.
Security Council would have shat themselves
getting in line to support our devestating
attack on Iraq at such a point.

As it happened, Iraq was fangless, and any
attack it MIGHT have mounted would have been
both futile and suicidal.

> Controlling that would give Hussein power which neither Hitler nor
> Stalin could ever dream of. He could stranggle the economy of any
> country in Western Europe at will. He could drive the price of a barrel
> of crude to any price he wanted or he could lower it and break the
> economy of almost every other major oil producing country. He could
> balckmail any country possessing nuclear weapons into providing them.
> Think about Hussein, or one of his successor sons, possessing nuclear
> armed ICBM's buried in the vast tracks of sand in the Arabian penninsula
> AND absolute power over the worlds economy. That's the very real
> possibility Bush, Blair and Howard saved the world from facing.

No, that's a fantasy that not even using
worst-case scenarios from cherry-picked intel
(and ignoring the many caveats and firsthand
info gaps) could dream up. Write a book, already.

> So what? Have you any idea how few presidents ever told the truth about
> the reasons for going to war?

So, what do YOU think the REAL reason for
this latest Iraq war is all about?  Please, it'll be
great practice for your first draft.  :)

> Ths sanctions were devastating the Iraqi people, not Hussein. The
> "weapons inspectors" never found a munition production plant over a
> quarter mile square less than twenty miles from Baghdad, and that was
> after nearly a decade of "inspecting". And his threat range was
> expanding geometrically. What do you suppose that new missile engine
> test stand was for?

For a prohibited missile that didn't exist yet.
That's not a WMD. Btw, have any sites on that
UNSCOM claim?  I seem to remember some of the
"evidence" Colin Powell used at the U.N. as
being smaller than you describe, and more than
20 mi. from Baghdad.

Face it -- Saddam was weak, and HIS whole
ploy with WMD was to scare off anyone who held
ambitions to invade or depose him. We could have,
and SHOULD have waited before sending in troops,
as we pre-emptively attacked a country that may
have had a lot of aspirations, but little or no way
of achieving them anytime soon.

-- 
Toucan
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