WhoDat

I couldn\'t agree more with you Saintfan. That was by far the best discussion I\'ve seen on this topic.

As for nocloning\'s dislike for the WWII comparison, I understand where you\'re coming from, but looks again man. Hitler started out as little more than a threat to his neighbors. Is the Iraqi army going to start a blitzkrieg that swarms over all of the middle east and parts of Africa, Asia, and Europe. Not a chance.

However, Saintfan is exactly right in assessing the Iraqi threat. During Desert Storm they produced enough of a certain type of biological weapon to kill every person in the world 6 times. You know where that stuff is now? No, and neither does anyone else. It\'s in a cave somewhere just waiting for the wrong person to find it. That is the Iraqi threat.

Also, like Hitler, Saddam has ignored military sanctions placed on his country after their loss in the least war and is continuing to amass weapons, grow his standing army, and use it.

Can weapons inspectors shut down nuclear facilities, for all intensive purposes? Yes, but some chemical and biological weapons can be made in the bathroom of an average US house. The Iraqis use trucks to haul around these mobile facilities, making weapons in small batches and then hiding the product. That\'s bad, and the inspectors can\'t stop that.

Look, let\'s be realistic. Does Bush need a war to survive as President? Yes, absolutely. The last thing that George Bush wants is peace. If there is no one else to point a finger at then America focuses on America, and Bush\'s domestic policies are terrible.

Are there 20 other dictators in the world who are as bad as Saddam? Sure. Most of the middle east and africa is made up of countries that were \"magically\" created by the British after WWII. Their people have little or no social or political ties to the other people in their political boundaries. These people have been fighting for three or four thousand years, we\'re stupid to think we can stop that.

However, when a man who is as \"evil\", for lack of a better term, as Saddam builds weapons with such terrible potential, in a place as chaotic and unlawful as Iraq, you have to be seriously concerned. Nothing else is important to me. The fact that we can overthrow a dictator who has been oppressing his people for years is a bonus. Will Iraq install a democracy? No. Another group will take control and oppress the people who oppressed them for the last 50 years. And in 15 years we\'ll have to worry about that group for one reason or another. Bottom line to me: its all about the weapons.

\"Excuses, excuses, excuses. That’s all anyone ever makes for the New Orleans Saints’ organization.\" - Eric Narcisse


\"Being a Saints fan is almost like being addicted to crack,\" he said.[i]\"You know you should stop, but you just can\'t.\"

nocloning

I personally feel that allowing American oilfirms to drill more oil in Alaska will be more of an environmental desaster than Saddam laying the flame to the oil fields. What other environmental hazard is there? Economically ... Iraq can\'t invade another country, the world is not dependant on their oil supply. I don\'t see an economic hazard other than maybe a war that gets out of hand and lasts for more than 10 days.

Yay, and killing their dads and uncles is gonna show them! They\'ll LOVE the US. it\'s quite a popular opinion among experts that a war will not really help the image of the US in Arab States.
Right. Sure, if you\'re not for us, you\'re against us. Is it an excuse the girl was 3 years old? I don\'t think so! She had it coming. Shoot \'em all. Remember the story of the Iraqi army going into hospitals in Kuwait, getting babies out of their beds and letting them die on the cold floor? The media in the US probably doesn\'t cover this, but the story (tearfully delivered by a female eyewitness to the UN) was 100% fabricated.
Remember those stories about American soldiers mass-raping Vietnamese women and annihilating whole villages, including children and babies? They turn out to be 100% accurate.
That\'s war, you say. I agree. That\'s why I don\'t want a war.
How many dead Arabs would you tolerate for one saved American? 10? 1.000? 1.000.000?
Can\'t you just send Jack Bauer and off that idiot with the mustache?

\"What is Wal-Mart? Is it like they sell wall stuff?\"

WhoDat

NoCloning, you arguement is flawed - here\'s why:

I work in homeland security. I have heard a lot of scary things about the vulnerability of this country and its citizens. For example, there are chemicals with which an entire city\'s water supply (i.e. the size of chicago) can be contaminated using only a few gallons of chemical. How do you stop that? How do you deal with an entire city not having water? Or, if you prefer, certain airborne biological weapons released in the subway of a city like New York could infect half of its citizens before anyone realized something was wrong.

So you\'re not talking about an American soldier gunning down innocent men and women in the streets to ensure that Americans can keep driving SUVs (which is what the people who don\'t understand the significance of these types of weapons always talk about when they say they oppose war). You\'re talking about eliminating a threat that consists of one person or a small group of people performing an attack that takes less organization than the 9/11 attacks required and being able to kill millions or even a billion people. How can I use such insane numbers?

Five terrorists get biological weapons engineered from the small pox virus one way or another from the Iraqi stockpile of such weapons. These five men then fly to the five largest international airports in the world, or ship the viral weapons to their buddies in the countries where these airports are via freighter (ports like New Orleans has may be the must vulnerable places of all). Their buddies can then walk into the airports with the weapons and release them. These are viruses. You can\'t see them. You can\'t smell them. People go on without knowing. Airports like O\'Hare pass literally millions of people a day. But those people go to hundreds of other airports. Eventually, pretty much every area of the world is infected. In America we\'re industrious. We might be able to pump out enough vaccine to only lose a few million people, though I doubt it. But in Russia, in China, in Africa, the Middle East. Those people will die by the millions a day, b/c they couldn\'t even come close to stopping the spread of infection.

Now, how may completely innocent Iraqis died durnig the first Gulf War? I don\'t know but I bet it was far fewer than you think. More importantly, if Iraq did have the standing army to invade and conquer most of Europe for example, would you then support action against them? B/c the threat that these types of weapons pose now is worse than anything any army could ever do using contemporary weapons, including nuclear bombs. More importantly, it only take one person to use these biological and chemical weapons, and unlike a nuclear bomb, you could put them in a suitcase in some instances, or fill a couple of milk jugs, and easily and conspicuously transport them just about anywhere you wanted.

\"Excuses, excuses, excuses. That’s all anyone ever makes for the New Orleans Saints’ organization.\" - Eric Narcisse


\"Being a Saints fan is almost like being addicted to crack,\" he said.[i]\"You know you should stop, but you just can\'t.\"

billyh1026

\'Everybody wants the dirty work done. But nobody wants to get their hands dirty\' -- Jack Bauer -- first hour of 24 this year.

We\'re the one\'s willing to get our hands dirty...

WhoDat

The thing that never ceases to amaze me is when countries like North Korea try to flex their muscles at the US. You\'re talking about the largest market economy in the world. You\'re talking about the strongest military in the world. You\'re talking about more money, food, good, and industry than some entire continents. Why, why would you ever try to \"bow up\" to the US? Did you know that one I believe its Essex class aircraft carrier (but don\'t quote me on that class) has a larger airforce than 60% of the countries in the world. One.

I\'ve never understood this, we don\'t back down tactic that these small countries use. I mean, there are only two ways to win. One, the US doesn\'t fully get involved (a la Vietnam) and so you can fend off the US attacks. Two, you actually get enough countries to form an alliance so that you have giant against giant. That\'s not very likely to happen.

\"Excuses, excuses, excuses. That’s all anyone ever makes for the New Orleans Saints’ organization.\" - Eric Narcisse


\"Being a Saints fan is almost like being addicted to crack,\" he said.[i]\"You know you should stop, but you just can\'t.\"

JOESAM2002

This is kinda FYI. Back in 1986 I was running a charter fishing boat out of Honolulu. I was about 8 miles offshore and looked to the south of me, I saw this hugh ship coming toward me. I could see the top of it\'s tower long before it got to me. It was the carrier Enterprise. I was told by some navy guys I knew that the Carrier alone had 5500 men on board. The whole battle group had something around 25,000 men in it. To say the least it\'s an impressive sight.

jm

I have a personal interest in this upcomig war with Iraq. I have a son in the military , he works and flies on C-17s and I do have a concern when he flies lands and takes off from places like Bosnia, Afghanistan and other hostile environments. My brother also has a son in the Military both he and his wife are activated and going who knows where. I can\'t help but be concerned and wish we wern\'t going to war. But the future price that we would have to pay because of lack of force would be great.
As the 1st Persian Gulf war unfolded on our TVs I went without sleep as I was glued to the news , not because I had any relatives involved back then, but that during those rocket attacks it brought back memories of another time when I was overseas and we would get rocket attacks, I remembered the fear of something falling out of the skies and blowing up the barracks, then on July 4 th, 1971 five minutes after midnight a rocket hit a barracks across the road and 8 GIs were killed with many injured. I say this to bring out that any kind of war has a cost in human lives but we must stand ready to eliminate threats that if gone unchecked will bring more fear and chaos to our way of life.
I feel like this war is unavoidable yet necessary, we need to pray for our President and leaders that God will grant them the wisdom and knowledge of how and what to do and say to prosecute this war and certainly keep our troops in our prayers and thoughts
I realize that we as a country have made our share of mistakes but, we must prevail in this endevor.

JOESAM2002

Amen jm and thank you. I remember that one all to well also.

billyh1026

Just another thought.....the U.N. pisses me off. We have no use for them. They\'re irrelavent and impotent...not to mention sitting on prime real estate.

WhoDat

The UN may seem useless and unimportant now, but over time it is likely to become the most important organization in the world. Just as the original States in this country did not want to cede power to a union, so too do the nations of today look to guard their freedom and individuality. However, over time, the value of a unified confederacy of nations will become apparent. Eventually the UN will be to the nations of the world as the Federal government is to the American states. That\'s globalization baby.