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lummy

Why we should attack Iraq

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I'd reply, but I haven't encountered any open minds on the political threads.

Electronic arguments are silly.

But what the heck, our form of government REQUIRES that civilians send the military into war. We don't let the military decide where and what they get to fight. Civilian control of the military, it's in there, look it up.

:)
Hi Lummy! Boogieboogieboogie!

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I think the Tom Lehrer song says it best:
http://www.wiw.org/~drz/tom.lehrer/the_year.html#marines
Every family has an asshole member. BUT, generally if someone from outside the family attacks the asshole, the family generally defends him. Saddam is the asshole, no doubt. I just think we're likely to piss off the rest of his family. I don't think we're big enough to "take them all on" so that we can have whatever we damn well please.
Wendy W.
There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

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Then you'll appreciate this....

[warning: largely insensitive attachment. PC types with no sense of humor please move on]


That reminds me of a joke (equally insensitive):

What's better than winning the gold medal at the special olympics?
Not being retarted.
A One that Isn't Cold is Scarcely a One at All

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>I was just being funny with the cheap gas comment.

Yeah, I figured. Unfortunately, I've seen it that sentiment a lot on other BBSes (not this one.)

>I think it has far more to do with our national security.

I agree. But take the $200 billion that we plan to spend on the next war and apply it all towards a switch to local oil and gas supplies and we could be independent of Middle East oil in five years. Solves both our national security problem (the war machine runs on oil) and our economic conflicts over there (i.e. we'd be less likely to get dragged into the next war over there.)

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I agree. But take the $200 billion that we plan to spend on the next war and apply it all towards a switch to local oil and gas supplies and we could be independent of Middle East oil in five years. Solves both our national security problem (the war machine runs on oil) and our economic conflicts over there (i.e. we'd be less likely to get dragged into the next war over there.)



Or we could actually seriously develop some alternative energy sources and use hydrogen as our energy currency. This is a problem would should have started tackling decades ago. Frankly, the middle east problem has been perpetuated by our addiction to oil, when we could (with much effort, granted) have weaned ourselves off by now. Or, at least, reduced our need to the level of our own supplies. It's annoying to me that we want to go to war over oil and people are still buying 10mpg SUVs.

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But take the $200 billion that we plan to spend on the next war and apply it all towards a switch to local oil and gas supplies and we could be independent of Middle East oil in five years. Solves both our national security problem (the war machine runs on oil) and our economic conflicts over there (i.e. we'd be less likely to get dragged into the next war over there.)



Or, you could put that $200 billion into R&D for alternative fuels and just end our dependence on oil altogether. Of course, the big oil companies would NEVER allow that. :P

Just another worthless $0.02

Bill



Damn, just a little too slow. :S

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Its not just oil, if you believe that our motives are totally oil then you're fooling yourself. What about Sadam's ambitions for regional domination. He sees himself as a modern Nebekanesser (sp?), destined to rule the middle east. Top that off with his on going desire to build weapons of mass destruction, that's just scary. Never mind he's known for his brutality and gassing his own people, etc.

The plain and simple truth is that this is one messed up dude that's out to do some serious evil in the world.
--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

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I don't think there is any question that Saddam Hussein is a horrible thug with evil ambitions. The question is really whether or not he is capable of it. The answer, truly, is no. He is a tinpot dictator in an underindustrialed nation with no ability to purchase modern weapons. He would try to cause more mayhem regionally, but he is kept in check by other nations with bigger weapons. Whenever his radar paints an allied plane, it draws a missile. He's stuck in a corner and he can't really do anything. If he managed to build a (primitive) nuclear device, it would be huge and low-yield. He has no delivery system. Such a device would be useless to terrorists, as it would be impossible to smuggle. The only threat he poses is biological. However, if he does have WMD, the only likely scenario for his using them is if he thinks he is going to lose big. Remember that he didn't use WMD in Gulf I, because he knew that he was likely to draw a nuclear response from Israel. If he thinks he's going down, he's going to use whatever he has. I don't pretend to know the solution to the problem, but I think that attacking him is precisely the wrong approach.

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>Never mind he's known for his brutality and gassing his own people,
>etc.

While I agree, we were giving him military aid while he was doing that. If we avoid doing things like that in the future we can cut down on abuses like that.

>The plain and simple truth is that this is one messed up dude that's
> out to do some serious evil in the world.

Well, that's what we thought about Castro. The Bay of Pigs incident was considered by many to be the biggest threat to US security in the 60's, and Castro was the leader of a communist nation that had its sights set on global domination (along with the rest of the USSR.) We dealt with that without killing very many people at all, and nowadays he's a frustrated old man that runs an island that makes cigars. Not such a bad result.

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If we didn't need the oil we wouldn't give a flying F who dominated that region. And if we weren't involved in the politics over there, they wouldn't bother using and weapons of mass destruction against us. If were truly being altruistic and going to war over genocide or crimes agains humanity, I'd be 100% behind it. But it ticks me off that we have to go through this crap because of some smelly black liquid.

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