JJohnson

Stop contradicting trivial points and warping my words. The goal of a war is to win. Who decides when we have won is not the point. The fact that politicians decide stupidly when battle begins and ceases is not the point. Victory is the goal of war. Sometimes the battle strategy requires high losses. But if a cleaner method of victory is open, any commander will take it, as it reduces possible losses to his own side. It is also common knowledge that a sure way to cause major disruption in a chain of command is to remove the command. Why else would snipers take out the guys with the shiny shit on their collars? Destroying a country is NEVER the goal of a war. If you destroy it, you can never claim any of the benefits of it. I know you are an intelligent person, but how fluent are you on military thinking? If destruction were the only goal, we would have used nukes in Viet Nam, Korea and any other place we pitched battle. It kills lots of them and none of our guys, cool!!! What a great way to win!! Wrong. Any country that has ever invaded another did so to achieve something...be it a seaport, land wealth whatever. To destroy the country kind of defeats that purpose. Show me one example of a countries SOLE purpose was the utter destruction of another land. And killing as many people as possible being the point?? Not even. Were that true there would be no Germans left, because the Allied and Russian forces would have slaughtered them on the way to Berlin. If the point of war were to kill as many as possible there would a lot less Iraq citizens as well because we certainly could have killed more by indiscriminately bombing whole neighborhoods. Yes we used nukes once...and never again since. I think that says something about us. That to do so again is crossing a line that the rest of world might never forgive. If we had not used them, somebody else would have, you can be sure. We were just cursed to have them made before anyone else. If Japan would have had them first, we would have had a few craters here. Even though there is a plan for the use of nukes (and there has ALWAYS been a plan for their use ever since they were first made) that does not means that IF they are used it will be to level Iraq to nothingness. So again the purpose for war is not the utter destruction of land and people. AND I am not advocating the use of nukes. As for contradicting myself, no I am not. Perhaps I was not clear. If it takes somebody 10 years to not comply and you give him another 10 to comply...are they really complying at all? My point was that Saddam is stalling and trying to see just how far he can go. Try it with your mortgage payment and see what kind of resolution the bank will give you. I think its called foreclosure. As for disagreeing with our President? Again you bicker fine points and apply small things to prove them. I do not seem to recall overwhelming coverage of Iraq people out in the street waving U.S. flags. We may be friends to the people of Iraq, but the majority of them would not exactly welcome us to lunch. I think the Presdents words were more intended to say that we are not against the people of Iraq, only their leader. I am trying to deal with principles here and they are pretty clear. What is not clear is the information you and I base our logic on. Both you and I and everybody else is at the mercy of our governments and media for information. We know what they tell us. Obviously what they tell us is intended to prove their points. But the principles as I see them remain: 1) Iraq is not complying. 2) The U.N. remains a great concept 3) The U.N. remains a force that nobody seems afraid to reckon with. 4) The U.S. is not the bad guy here. 5) Unless Iraq does an about face, we are going in. People are going to die and that is a sad fact. I respect your attitude for achieving peace, but I don't think its realistic in practice in this situation. And I do not profess to have the answers either. JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

Well said. The U.N. is about as effective as its ancestor the League of Nations. Great concept, but not effective due to the players involved are not gathered for a higher purpose but to voice their own countries ideals and agendas. Again, all other shit aside Iraq rates a whooping. Unless they do a real quick turnaround I don't see it being avoided. Bill Von, I respect you, but I don't think the powers that be are gonna give them another 10 years. Saddam and Co. may or may not be the most dangerous threat of the minute. But I don't want to wait around to find out either. Maybe life would be easier if our civilizations were run by a warchief. And he had to be the biggest and baddest fighter of the group. Then when war broke out, the two warchiefs got together and duked it out. At least that way the body count goes up slower. Maybe we made killing too easy and impersonal. Pull a trigger, push a button. Maybe we go back to swords, at least then we gotta look our enemy in the eye to kill him. It's funny, we all know killing is wrong. Yet none of us are willing to lower our guard for fear of someone else breaking the rules. Pacifism is a wonderful concept that gets blown out of the water by one person willing to use violence. Once the line is crossed the arms race begins. Mankind has been doing this shit since the day we crawled from the ocean. Maybe its in our nature to be hateful, spiteful, arrogant and proud. Don't none of you other countries try to claim innocent either. You all are as fucked up as the rest of us supposed civilized nations. I don't know the answers, but I gots lots of questions. JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

You said forgtten, not liberated. And lets be real, we don't really care what they do with their country. If so we should have "liberated" them years ago. It's not like theri poor situation developed overnight. We went there for one reason only. To get Bin Laden. We failed. Now it is in our best interest to help them for sure. I hope we do, most sincerely. But I agree with you. We will probably move onto the next bullshit crisis. JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

Again, Saddam is. He runs a country. One with wealth. He does not need to leave his country to fund shit, to put plans into motion. He knows he cannot stand up to us in an armed confrontation. Does that leave him powerless? Bin Laden couldn't leave Afghanistan and look what he did. Like Bin Laden has access to anything Hussien doesn't? If Hussien can fund anything that will hurt us, he will. He don't need 20 years, he probably has plans laid already for more dickless terrorists to do shit the minute things don't go his way. I am not comparing him to North Kores either, so I'm not sure where you drag that in from. We will deal with that when the time comes. Perhaps a show of force here will let North Korea know we are not willing to back down. If we play pussy with Iraq, maybe North Korea will think they can get away with whatever they want? Saddam may not be the biggest threat to us, but he makes top 5. And he is the one that is overdue to be rectified. JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

No they are strangled by politicians who won't let them win, by any means available. The goal of a war is to win. Not to kill as many as possible. Cut off the head and let the body die. The only time that your concept of war holds true is when nukes are used. Yes in mass battle you need to fight en mass. But if given the chance to divide and conquer, to rob the military of it's leadership you take it. Trying all the other options is fine. But waiting another 10 years is stupid. If it takes him.them 10 years to comply, they are only stalling for time to relocate their power base and fortify their positions. Now will innocent people die? yes. But if they wanted to do something about it, they would have. The majority of their population sides with him, not against. JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

Bin Laden is the guy in the field. Hussein is the whacko in the background who will fund shit to let Bin Laden harm us. And if it ain't Hussein and Bin Laden there are few dozen others that would take their place. JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

Don't take me out of context. I meant in military might. Anytime any other country wants to claim global leadership have at. I'd like to hear all the other countries pissing and moaning about someone else for change anyway. Anytime someone needs help, the U.S. chips in. When we destroy someone, we dole out money to rebuild them. No matter what the U.S. does, we get critized for it. JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

Anthrax is the least of our worries. And yes it was of a U.S. source. The ingredients for bio weapons can be had pretty easily. What Saddam has access to could wipe out way more than 350,000. And be a lot easier to use on us than a nuke. Pat Robertson did not give the cash over to be used against us. More of that good intentions shit. Saddam, you can rest assured intends on the money he spends being used against us. Saddam is a bigger threat to us than Bin Laden. Saddam is a bigger source of potential attack than Bin Laden. He has more resources. I goota go...more on this later....... JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

The few we missed are Saddam and his ruling tribe, perhaps my sarcasm was not clear. If we target him, we can spare quite a few. Maybe keep it under tens of thousands. However, the worst wars we have ever been involved in were screwed up by diplomats and dimplomacy. Once the armed forces are unleashed, don't strangle them like we always do and prevent them from finishing what has begun. We have a history of that. JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

Peace bro. Take care. JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

Little kids are it. Nothing better. JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

No we did not punish a country for the act itself, we dropped bombs looking for Osama Bin nut case. ANd we toppled a government that supported. Knocking off Hussien is no different. A war against terroroism is stupid. It's a war against bullshit ideals. Hunting Bin Laden is a criminal case because he claims no country. He won't be caught until anyone harboring is afraid enough to turn him over. And where am I saying killing tens of thousands?? I'll take whatever course of action saves U.S. lives the most and protects our civilians from radical ruthless dickheads. How many Iraq soldiers and civilains did we kill 12 years ago? Obviously a couple too few or we would not be here again today. Invading Kuwait was one. Not abiding to the terms of surrender is two. He is on three now. The U.S. is not a war mongering country. We are pretty damn patient with threats to us. But our own welfare is our prime job. JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

At some point the violence has to end..very true. If the U.S. doesn't finish the situation I don't think it will end. We leave and Saddam will do something again. Saddam is worse than Hitler. Hitler did not have Bio weapons. Those scare me more than nukes. Any numbnuts can smuggle a bio weapon into the U.S. with little real effort. Castro didn't have anything compared to Mr. Hussein. Iraq'a army was also te 5th largest in world 12 years ago. What did Castro have? 3 life rafts, an ATV and a helicopter? We all knew the only threat Castro posed was as a launching platform for the Soviets. And I got to think that he is fronting, supporting, funding terrorists against us in some role. More so than Pat Robertson to be sure. If I recall correctly, was there not also rumor/evidence that the Saudi's were backing terrorists also? At this point I don't think we are acting the bully. We have not demanded anything unreasonable. What wrong were the terrorist righting by the WTC stunt?? I understand the message you are saying, and I agree. Violence should not be the first resort but the last. But I still don't see any other options. We have talked and talked about this numbnuts for 10 years. No changes. To say that there is no connection between the Middle East governements and terrorism (yes all of them, whether they profess to be our allies or not) is like saying there is no connection between cold and snow. Our governement has another responsibility and that is to protect us from letting this get more out of hand than it already has gotten. If strategic bombing is better, cool. If another 5 days of inspectors does the trick, cool. But giving the whack jobs another few years?? Not cool. How much more time do you think we should give negotitions and inspectors? Until Iraq makes the first move against us? There is some truth to the saying: peace through superiour firepower. Once everybody has the ability to destroy each other it is just a matter of waiting for a clear shot so you can get away with it. The U.S. has had the power to wipe out anybody for a long time. But we have not used it. I think getting a little saftey margin by keeping the radicals from getting better armed is a good thing. Here is something else I don't understand. They call us the Great Satan. Why? Are we not paying enough for the oil? JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

This requires way too much thinking. Use cyclone fence and be done with it.

be afraid, be very afraid. I've seen Amithy Horror and Poltergiest and Exorsist...this is how the shit starts...next thing you got voices, moving objects..get out now while you still can!!!! JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

No shit? Any specific examples of boogie or sports videos? The fine amounts? JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

Why? JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

I'm not saying I advocate might makes right. But if every country thinks they are justified in doing what they feel is in their best interest, then who wins? The strongest. This is the U.S. right now. It was the Romans back in their heyday. The Nazis at one point thought they were. Pick your country and their not so great moments. And those terrorists did think they had the right to do what they did. Otherwise they would not have done it. Might makes Right does not fit into our core beliefs does it? The bible is what our core beliefs were when this country was founded and we have strayed far from that. JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

I hope so and I hope we use them. JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

There should be a mandatory retirement age for models. JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

The repercussions of ignoring Iraq might very well be another plane into a building or something like it. JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

Well now we are back to might makes right and who can enforce their will. In which case we are. Which is obvious as the only strikes against us are terrorist actions, that we find the hardest to retaliate against. JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

I don't think the terrorists claim a country, they claim religous war. Thus protecting their homes. Its a pretty smart move really. I don't doubt that there are quite a few governments that support terrorists against the U.S. JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

Your a smart man Bill. I think you know that no matter what we try, it will lead to war at this point. More inspectors will just be accused of being more spys. No matter what we do, Saddam will just put his own spin on it. It is tragic that people suffer for their leaders. But the only solution is for the Iraq people to stage a revolution. Our policies are already being turned against us. "The U.S. has great might but don't do anything, so lets screw with them." JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

I'll bring up the terroist angle for what its worth. What makes it effective? Because we have no country to punish for it. They hide behind their religous cause and the government that funds them gets to see us attacked with no strings attached. We leave, the same shit that happened 10 years ago or two years ago happens again. If we don't make a stand and live up to what we say we are going to do, then every radical tyrant is going to think he can take pot shots at us. "Oh, it will take the U.S 15 years to find evidence another 10 to do anything about it" HAHAHAH. We look like a joke. Most countries think we are either over active and stick our noses where it don't belong, or they think we are a fucking joke and don't do anything. We can't win! We are not going to make any other country 100% happy with us so we should at least make sure our asses are covered. Our foreign policy should be something like: Screw with us once, we will negotiate, screw with us twice we'll hurt you. Third time you need to make peace with your God. JJ "Call me Darth Balls"