@Yanny:

Saddam is not worth attacking. There are far worse places to be afraid of. North Korea, some Canadians, China.

Yes, actually I do think Saddam is worth attacking. Granted, there may be worse situations out there. Saddam, however, is the easiest of these targets to begin with.

@Yanni:

And there WILL be a very large number of casualties this time. We’re not going to see open tank clashes in the desert. Saddam has dug in outside and inside of Bagdad. Its going to be a war of Street fighting. Imagine the battle of Stalingrad. He’s going to use civilians as shields, and make a damn good show of doing it. And when the time is ripe, he’ll unleash those weapons. He’s gonna do every damn thing he can do to survive.

This is true.

@Yanni:

However, if he provokes us, he has less time to prepare. Less ammunition to stockpile, less time to build trenches. Less time to train his troops in streetfighting. However, that time may never come, if we’re smart.

He won’t provoke us…that’s the worse thing he can do.

@Yanni:

How about letting those weapons inspectors in, completely free to explore where they want. Saddam could embarress the US by not letting US inspectors in, but letting the UN ones in. Hell, he could not even consult the US in the deal, and gain national support in doing it.

Weapons inspectors can’t do SHIT against Iraq now. It’s too late. Saddam has completely mobilized his weapons platforms and weapons labs. I small container of chemical weapons can wipe out millions…good luck trying to find something like that in a country the size of Iraq.

@Yanni:

71% of the British population is against their involvement in our attack of Iraq. Only 12% are for it, the rest undecided. There goes our biggest Ally.

Saudi Arabia will only let us use their Air Bases for enforcing the current No Fly Zones, and nothing else. Russia will lend us no help here, mainly their help would be in information gathering and diplomacy. No help is coming from Germany or France obviously. Kuwait won’t let us use their air bases, and only use their territory for defensive action. Turkey is gone until being admitted to the EU, they want their German and French support.

The only country with us today, all out like in 1991, is Bahrain. I don’t think we’re gonna get much done out of there.

Not that they’re much of a strategic advantage, but Israel has pledged it’s full support in a campaign against Iraq. Furthermore, this is the same situation that Bush Sr. faced during his Desert Storm campaign. When the time came, however, and he laid out the facts and started mobilizing troops, our usual allies stood behind us. I’m confident they’ll do so again.

He won’t provoke us…that’s the worse thing he can do.

Sorry, but I don’t know what you mean by this either.

Sadam’s military is less powerful than when we fought him during the gulf war.

Besides, we can drop bombs much more accurately and thus do more damage with fewer tons.

Then why the hell are we attacking him?

It’s called a “pre-emptive” strike. :-?

We did it before, we can do it again. You can’t just make Mustard gas on the back of a truck. Nuclear weapons plants will be easy to detect.

Of course we can do it again. That’s a given. I would argue, however, that the UN weapons inspectors didn’t do much to dissuade Saddam. It’ll be harder to find the factories, becuase they’re build underneath schools and churches. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it’s a lot more than some weapons inspectors can handle. We need to use brute force if we want to really find out what Saddam’s hiding. Besides, even if Saddam does let inspectors in (very unlikely), he’d be the one to dictate where they could and couldn’t go. It’s not as if they have free reign to explore. :-?

Sorry, but I don’t know what you mean by this either.

What I mean is, that if Saddam provoked us in some direct way (eg. launching missiles at Israel) then it would make our case all the much stronger.

IMHO Saddam should have been taken out 10 years ago. All those bleeding heart liberals put a stop to that, know look at the affairs today.

America is righty sensitive since 9/11 and they don’t want an encore.

I read this in the paper today:
Quote
" Saddam Hussein poses a grave threat to the world and must be stopped"
British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

It seems that Amercia does have backing.
Canada will follow soon, to spite what our twisted lip Prime Minister says.

I read this in the paper today:
Quote
" Saddam Hussein poses a grave threat to the world and must be stopped"
British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

It seems that Amercia does have backing.
Canada will follow soon, to spite what our twisted lip Prime Minister says.

It’ll take time. I don’t think Bush needs military support (a lesson learned: coordinating foreign troops isn’t very easy), so much as the approval (from the UN and close “Allies”). The future of Iraq lies in Bush’s address, time will tell.

C-I-T-Y-F-I-G-H-T-I-N-G, Saddam will use Civilian shields, and generally there will be casualties from bombing mistakes. If we kill tens of thousands of Iraqis again, we’re gonna have a damn hard time occupying the country when we’re done.

We’ll see.

@Mr:

IMHO Saddam should have been taken out 10 years ago. All those bleeding heart liberals put a stop to that, know look at the affairs today.

America is righty sensitive since 9/11 and they don’t want an encore.

I read this in the paper today:
Quote
" Saddam Hussein poses a grave threat to the world and must be stopped"
British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

It seems that Amercia does have backing.
Canada will follow soon, to spite what our twisted lip Prime Minister says.

well, Cretien appears to be waiting for a definitive statement one way or the other from Bush regarding war with Iraq before he commits to a position. What a freak.

Is it just me or does anyone else have a sinking feeling that Saddam won’t even be in Baghdad when we attack! I have a feeling we’ll be going on a man-hunt remiscent of Osama Bin Laden.

D:S,
Yup! He’ll take HIS $ and move to some secure compound in remote Africa. I think the jungle would give his Elite elite guard better cover, but they are used to fighting in the desert.

Well, now I here on the news that Italy, Spain, Brunei(we are already building airfields here) and a few other countries are supporting a joint effort. Britain has been on board since day one. France and Germany are going slow since they have a large Muslim minority and want to avoid backlash as long as possible. The US accepts the responsibility to lead this time, as we did in Persian Gulf War I. I wish to thank Great Britain for leading patiently during WWI. The US was isolationist until July 8. 1941, but we had great teachers(GB, Winnie and Monty).
THANX - Xi

“Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer
which we use to crush the enemy.” - Mao Zedong :)

Well, now I here on the news that Italy, Spain, Brunei(we are already building airfields here) and a few other countries are supporting a joint effort. Britain has been on board since day one. France and Germany are going slow since they have a large Muslim minority and want to avoid backlash as long as possible.

We’ll see… much of the senate is still divided. Once Bush gives his speech to the UN, then we’ll see if the wheels will turn.

“Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer
which we use to crush the enemy.” - Mao Zedong

Mao was never a communist! :o Mao may haved allied himself with the peasantry, but never with the workers. When Mao’s peasant armies arrived at the cities, and the workers spontaneously occupied the factories and greeted Mao’s armies with red flags, Mao gave the order that these demonstrations should be suppressed and the workers were shot.

Initially, Mao did not intend to expropriate the Chinese capitalists. His perspectives for the Chinese revolution were outlined in a pamphlet called “New democracy” in which he wrote that the socialist revolution was not on the order of the day in China, and that the only development that could take place was a mixed economy, i.e. capitalism. This was the classical “two stage” Menshevik theory which had been adopted by the Stalinist bureaucracy and had led to the defeat of the Chinese revolution in 1925-27.

I’m just quoting him. My lil Red Book is not very worn. :)

"Communism has never come to power in a country
that was not disrupted by war or corruption, or both.

• John F. Kennedy, Speech, July 3, 1963, to NATO.

According to the news (CBSorNBC) Saddam is offering $5000 for any Palestinian who has their house demolished by Israel. I think Israel should take him up on it . . . And TEAR THEM ALL DOWN! Then clear the rubble so that the Palestinians have a great start on a nice new home. :lol:
Beat Saddie at his own game and spend his $ in the process. :P
He’ll never pay it, but he’ll get lotsa credit for the offer. - Xi

“The clock of communism has stopped striking. But its
concrete building has not yet come crashing down. For
that reason, instead of freeing ourselves, we must try
to save ourselves from being crushed by its rubble.”

• Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Russian novelist.
  “How We Must Rebuild Russia,” opening sentence of essay,
  published in Soviet Union’s biggest-selling daily newspaper,
  Komosomolskaya Pravda (Sept. 18, 1990).

I’m just quoting him. My lil Red Book is not very worn

If you can’t even back up those quotes, then don’t. I only assume that in using quotes, you share the same value based assumptions.

"Communism has never come to power in a country
that was not disrupted by war or corruption, or both.

• John F. Kennedy, Speech, July 3, 1963, to NATO.

False! Please, get your facts straight!

President Bush is getting very desperate. Not only did he have nothing to say during his speech to the UN except citing a few old points, but he is now deliberately lieing to us, the American people.

How so?

During his meeting with Tony Blair last Saterday, he quoted a report saying “This report says Iraq is 6 months away from obtaining Nuclear Weapons”. However, he didn’t mention the details. First off, the report said 6 to 24 months away from getting Nuclear Weapons. However, the real problem with the report is it is dated before 1981. Before the Israeli’s did their thing on his reactor.

Khidir Hamza, a former member of Iraq’s weapons-building program, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Saddam is actively developing weapons of mass destruction and will have accumulated enough enriched uranium to have three nuclear bombs by 2005.

TG Moses VI, Bush doesn’t need to get Congress’s approval if he wishes to attack Iraq. Therefore, it doesn’t really make a difference if Congress is devided.

Yanni, how is President Bush lying to you? I don’t think he’s desperate at all, what makes you say that? He’s taking out Saddam whether the UN is with him or not. They didn’t get attacked on 9/11…we did. Does anyone truly want Saddam to stay in power? This is the same useless (and frivilous) liberal backlash that we heard before Desert Storm.

D:S, once again i am disagreeing with you. The “liberal backlash” 11-odd years ago was quite limited compared to what was expected, i think (given that they are, afterall, liberals). What i’m finding happens too much in American (and increasingly in the media and Canadian) politics is that statements are strewn about in a manner similar to two parties at a negotiating table - both come out with extreme statements hoping that the other side will temper their arguments. Does anyone (even Bush) expect that they and their rhetoric will be believed? No, not if they have an iota of common sense. They hope that something less than their rhetoric will be believed - something close to what they themselves believe.
So anyway, one might not say that Bush is lying so much as emphasizing his point about the Iraqi’s needing to be attacked (again).
As for the UN - while it’s true that Americans lost the majority of the lives and and security sacrificed on 9/11, many Canadian (and German, English, etc.) nationals perished as well - in the planes and in the towers. It too might be useful for Bush to get some backing in the international arena before an attack - as America continues to unilaterally attack and bomb other countries, the rest of the world loses sympathy for America - both her issues and her people. This happens regardless of whether America is “right” or not. With UN backing, then Bush will have a larger cheque to cash when the need arises.

T_6,
Even JFK made mistakes. Please, tell us how he’s wrong.

In reality THERE ARE NO TRUE COMMUNIST COUNTRIES/GOVERNMENTS TODAY. If I remember correctly, in another string, some of us discussed the fact that the communist system cannot exist in the world as we know it. Capitalism/money, and maybe a few other things, would leak into the system screw it up.

Anybody remember that conversation? - Xi

I don’t recall anyone ever giving a thorough defense/defence :P of their quotes on this site. Mostly just mild or complete agreement. There are many great quotes with which I disagree.
Don’t assume. Keep me out of it. :D I will continue to post as I see fit. - Xi

“It is bad luck for world history that of
all people the Russians adopted Communism,
because they are totally unfit for it.”

• Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Swiss essayist.
  “The Marriage of Mr. Mississippi”, pt. I (1952).
  –-----------------------------
  Now, he’s got a point! :wink: - Xi