Should we bomb/strike Iraq

[Bill Gold]

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Why has Hussein been allowed to remain free?
-Michael Murphy

Why has Kadafi been allowed to rule? Why haven’t we ever successfully assassinated Castro or otherwise removed him from power? It’s not your place to decide who can or can’t lead a country that isn’t yours. It’s that type of thinking which makes people from other countries dislike us, because our leaders seem to believe they should be able to pick their counterparts.

In 1993, Saddam attempted to assinate then-President Bush and the Emir of Kuwait. Iraq is also suspected of harboring two Palestinian terrorist groups, as well as placing a bounty on the families of suicide bombers, which he more than doubled this year.
-Michael Murphy

Well, in 1993 Bill Clinton was sworn in so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. The US has attempted to assassinate heads of state too, so why is it bad when someone else tries to do it? Can you say double standard? Also, the term “placing a bounty on one’s head” to me means paying someone to kill that person. If Saddam were to place a “…bounty on the families of suicide bombers…” I’d take that as a good thing, since I don’t like suicide bombers, and doubling that price would be even better. Although, I’m sure you didn’t intend on having your words interpreted that way.

Umm, Bill? That's the easiest way I can think of to end a war. Beat the opponent into submission as quickly and completely as possible. You can help them rebuild afterward, when your people are safe. No military wants to get its troops killed.
-Michael Murphy

Erm. Michael? You totally took that quote out of context, and drew a tangent which has no relevance to this threads original topic or train of thought, but I’ll follow suit in response. It’s pretty disgusting to think that you wouldn’t be appalled if a country were to win a war by obliterating its opponent with chemical/nuclear weapons. Do you not care for human lives? Do you not care about all of the suffering people screaming in agony as their skin is melted off of their bones? There has never been a war where the predominantly used weapons were not conventional weapons. You know why? Because no one wants to win a war, but live in a place that’s radioactive for decades.

Foto, Bill, Doanie8, et al., wysiswyg was making a semi-valid point. His methods may not have been very PC, but c'mon. There's a valid reason that Arabs are under added scrutiny on airplanes. One year ago last month, four planes were hijacked by Arab terrorists and crashed into the Pentagon and World Trade Center. So while I feel bad for the innocent people who had and have nothing to do with terrorists, I would feel even worse were something like that to happen again.
-Michael Murphy

How can you condone the anti-Arab sentiments posted by wysiswyg? The statement “So while I feel bad for the innocent people who had and have nothing to do with terrorists, I would feel even worse were something like that to happen again.” does not begin to repair the damage of your (and wysiswyg‘s) shortsighted racial profiling. I don’t care what kind of people flew those planes into the WTC complex and the Pentagon. It could have just as easily been white Americans like Timmy McVeigh. There’s absolutely no reason to be more suspicious of ANY minority being a terrorist. That type of thinking is what keeps the KKK around. You don’t want to be put in that kind of category, do you?

And Foto, you took Jim's post about the GI's completely out of context. He was replying to Bill's comment about an air strike being all that would be necessary. Unfortunately, an air force can only go so far. Like he said, any attack would only end with the use of ground forces.
-Michael Murphy

Well, our air force did a damned good job against the Iraqi military in the Gulf War. American helicopters sent the Iraqi tanks reeling, and the Warthogs destroyed quite a bit. Lockheed/Martin also developed a missile during the Gulf War which penetrates 100 feet of sand, and an additional 20 feet of concrete to knock out underground bases. Who knows what they’ve developed since then? I think you underestimate our air power, and you over estimate the need for American ground troops. Besides, there are other rebel factions inside Iraq like there were in Afghanistan. They’d jump at the opportunity to overthrow Saddam.

You're free to leave. Isn't freedom great?
-Joel Glidden

How dare you. Slinging mud for no good reason. You have just lost yourself any respect I previously had for you. Instead of trying to come up with a decent argument to add to this conversation, you hide behind insulting one liners; as if to prove to the rest of us that you really have no thoughts of your own other than the ones you birthed in Kindergarten. Please come up with something sustentative, or stay out of this conversation entirely. You’re just hurting your cause.

What type of world do you want to live in? Do you like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Do you enjoy freedom? Do you enjoy your inalienable rights? Americans have enjoyed these things for many years... and there are those around us who would like nothing more take them from us... to destroy us and our way of life.
-Mike Rush

Yes, I love my life. I love our liberties that we once had (and may never see again if the Patriot Act isn’t repealed or heavily revised), and the pursuit of happiness. Yes, there are people in this world who are either jealous of our liberties, or are just hell bent on taking them from us. In the world as we know it (2002), it’s a bad policy for any country to directly attack us in an attempt to take what’s left of our liberties. As of this moment, we are still the strongest country on the face of the Earth. We have the most modern military, some of the best trained soldiers in the world, and some of the most strategically sound commanders in the world. Any country that would attack us would be made short work of. What threatens us isn’t a visible country, or a group of people that we know where they live. What threatens us is terrorism, not a country with borders, but people without affiliations. People with money who act alone, or in relatively small groups.

to be continued again...