Originally posted by Incidents Happen
Rask-
One thing that I don't understand about your opinion is when you mentioned sadamm hussein's plans..."They were not peaceful". How do you know? Maybe he's like another Fidel Castro.

The Ba'athist doctrine is one Arab nation and it's no secret that Saddam saw himself as the man who would bring it about, and if he couldn't, his sons would be the ones who did it for him. Now we all know that this would never happen peacefully.

Next, while no active WMD plants nor WMDs have been found as of yet, much of that infrastructure was still very much intact and very much unknown and unreported to the UN Insectors. So basicly, if the UN had stumbled across some of those camoflaged plants, Iraq could say "sorry, we forgot about this one, but look, we're not producing anything" but in reality Saddam was hoping to keep as much of his programs secret so they'd be more difficult to monitor after inspectors left Iraq. The problem with biological and chemical weapons is that they're very easy to produce once you know how to, and the equipment can be used for benine chemical and biological production and research. In other words, the second the UN is not looking any more, production can begin anew and stock piles can be quickly rebuilt.

Now how do I know these aren't regular old chemical plants? Regular chemical plants are not highly camoflaged and maintained by a garrison of soldiers commanded by a General. For a government that claimed to have nothing to hide, it was hiding A LOT.

And what is never mentioned is the fact that the "Iraq Invading Kuwait" thing, is the fact that Kuwait was drilling oil on Iraqi land, and Iraq kept threatening Kuwait to leave. They asked the United States about this, who said "We have no interest in border disputes". This kept happening for like 3 months, until Iraq started the invasion. Now, I'm not defending Iraq, but it seems to me that the full story is never told in our media.

A). I've never seen proof that Kuwait was drilling for oil in Iraq (and the accusation was not that the wells were on Iraqi land, but that they were angling the pipes so as to reach into Iraqi oil reserves - a very shakey accusation). I do know that Saddam made the accusation that Kuwait was drilling only days before he invaded and that immediately the US government told him NOT to invade under any circumstance.

B). It is a fact however that Iraq's monetary reserves were depleted from the Iran/Iraq War and that Kuwait not only represented more oil revenu, but also some much needed deep water ports. Remember, Iraq only has one deep water port which greatly imeads its economic growth.

C). Criticising the US for taking action in this situation but making excuses for Iraq's invaison of Kuwait is a bit hypocritical, don't you think? Especially when you compare the way Saddam conducted wars in comparison with the US and other coalition partners conduct war, especially in regards to Civilian populations.

I don't want to express my political agenda and make this a big shout fest, I just want an understanding, proper reasoning for war, if you will.

I look at it, and say

"They didn't declare war on us...They didn't bomb us...They didn't attack us in any way...They didn't attack another nation (for 12 years), they don't have nuclear weapons..."

Note that the 'probation terms' were given by the United Nations, and not the United States. If Iraq breaks United Nations' terms, shouldn't the United Nations deal with it?

Getting the UN to take action of that magnitude would be nearly impossible. Two nations with veto power had very keen interest in keeping Saddam in power. Saddam was smart enough not to do anything too drastic, but had no intention of behaving any longer than it took to get the UN off his back.

I see where, yes, Sadamm's regime was an eyesore to the Arab world, but it seemed like a pointless war to me.

An eyesore? Saddam is responsible for 1.5 - 2 million deaths, displacing around 6 million Iraqis and allowed sanctions to kill thousands of Iraqis every year. I have to look up the numbers again, but to allow sanctions to continue to their conclusion would have cost another few hundred thousand Iraqi civillians their lives and would have probably only delayed the war Saddam was planning, costing even more lives 10-20 years down the road.

At the war's peak, the Iraqi Information Minister was claming less casualties than UN sanctions were already killing in one month. And we know 1). his interest in excadurating civillian deaths, and 2). just how reliable his information was.

We can be certain if of nothing else that the war saved more innocent lives than it cost, even before you include the possibility of future Iraqi attacks on other nations. That's what I care about. I truely beleive that Saddam would have been content to leave the US alone so long as we didn't interfere with his plans, but I personally hold your life in no more regard than I do of an Iraqi, a Kuwaiti, a Saudi, a Canadian, or an Austrailian, or anybody else. We're all human, we're all equal.

I don't beleive that it's morally OK to allow innocent people to die by the hundreds of thousands and to be subjugative by the millions by an oppressive regime just because those people aren't my fellow citizens of my paticular nation or because they don't look like me or talk the same language. Taking the "diplomatic" route asked us to do just that. We're all human and we all have a responsibility to look out for and if neccessary defend our fellow man.

What I am concerned with today is making sure that Iraq is rebuilt and that we leave the country with a viable Democratic government in power.