Author Topic: Check this shit  out.........  (Read 501 times)

King Tech Quadafi

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Check this shit  out.........
« on: September 27, 2002, 07:54:11 PM »
In London on Tuesday, British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced his conviction that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons, is ready to use them against other nations, and soon will have nukes as well. In Washington, a reporter asked President Bush why Blair offered no new evidence. Bush answered, "To protect sources." That's a good joke on journalists, and not a bad point on the merits. Much of what our leaders know about Iraq's military capacities and intentions can't be revealed. So how is a citizen of a democracy supposed to decide the most important question any nation must decide: Should we go to war?

The official government answer is "Don't worry your pretty little heads about it." Last week the White House issued a formal statement of the Bush administration's national security policy, and it is full of rhetoric about democracy. Yet that policy itself is being imposed on the country entirely without benefit of democracy.

Add it up. You may not agree that the Bush family actually stole the presidency for George W., but you cannot deny that the other guy got more votes. Once installed as president, Bush asserted (as they all do) the right to start any war he wants, with or without congressional approval. You may not agree that this is flagrantly unconstitutional, but you cannot deny that it makes any discussion of the pros and cons outside of the White House largely pointless. Finally, it's already clear that Bush will copy his father's innovation of rigorously controlling what journalists covering the war can see and report. You may not agree that the purpose of this is to protect official propaganda and lies, but you cannot deny that such will be the effect.

The absence of democracy is especially disturbing in combination with Bush's doctrine of "preemption" -- attacking other countries that might attack us, rather than waiting for them to do so. If future wars are to be chosen a la carte, that's an especially ominous power to put in one person's hands. And if the timing is optional, then the argument that there isn't time in the nuclear age for 18th-century niceties like a congressional declaration of war seems especially lame.

But let's pretend we actually do have some role in deciding whether our nation goes to war. We aren't capable of answering the actual questions at hand: Is Saddam Hussein an imminent threat to our national and personal security, and is a war to remove him from power the only way to end that threat? So we must do with a surrogate question: Based on information we do have and issues we are capable of judging, should we trust the leaders who are urging war upon us?

The Bush administration campaign for war against Iraq has been an extravaganza of disingenuousness. The arguments come and go. Allegations are taken up, held until discredited, and then replaced. All the entrances and exits are chronicled by leaks to The Post. Two overarching concepts -- "terrorism" and "weapons of mass destruction" -- are drained of whatever intellectual validity they may have had and put to work bridging huge gaps in evidence and logic.

Knocking off Hussein became a top priority shortly after 9/11. It was part of the "war on terror," though the logical or factual connection between the events of 9/11 and Hussein's depredations was never explained. According to the State Department's own annual survey, the most enthusiastic state sponsor of terrorism is Iran -- an enemy of Iraq that we're now trying to patch things up with. The administration pounced on suggestions that 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta had met with Iraqi agents in Prague -- as if discovery of this one meeting retroactively justified the whole hoo-hah -- then dropped the allegation (though not the rhetorical connection) when it turned out to be made up.

Iraq's use of poison gas in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s is one example always offered to prove Iraq's ability and willingness to use "weapons of mass destruction." The other is the gassing of a Kurdish town called Halabja in 1988. The fact that these episodes happened years ago does not diminish their horror, and there is no reason to think that Hussein has become kinder or gentler over the years. But it does raise the question of why now, years later, they are suddenly a casus belli.

America's attitude was very different while these horrors were actually going on. There is controversy over whether the United States supplied ingredients for the gas, or merely supplied helicopters and other useful equipment, or did nothing more than smother the odd unfriendly U.N. resolution. But there is no question that we knew all about it and looked the other way. The administration of the time included some of the same people as the current administration, or their father. Any indignation on this subject that comes without a fairly abject apology is worthless.

To be sure, the fatuous hypocrisy of the Bush case for war is no reason to let Saddam Hussein drop a nuclear bomb on your head. Iraq may be an imminent menace to the United States even though George W. Bush says it is. You would think that if honest and persuasive arguments were available, the administration would offer them. But maybe not.


great article

« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 04:00:00 PM by 1034398800 »
"One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. "Which road do I take?" she asked. "Where do you want to go?" was his response. "I don't know," Alice answered. "Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter."

- Lewis Carroll
 

Kill

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Re: Check this shit  out.........
« Reply #1 on: September 28, 2002, 01:42:59 AM »
Damn, good read homie, shit was really on point
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 04:00:00 PM by 1034398800 »
 

Pillow

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Re: Check this shit  out.........
« Reply #2 on: September 28, 2002, 09:22:59 PM »
yea, we need to nuke tha shit outta iraq
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 04:00:00 PM by 1034398800 »
 

King Tech Quadafi

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Re: Check this shit  out.........
« Reply #3 on: September 30, 2002, 09:27:30 AM »
Quote
yea, we need to nuke tha shit outta iraq


u havent proved shit to me. keep yappin
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 04:00:00 PM by 1034398800 »
"One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. "Which road do I take?" she asked. "Where do you want to go?" was his response. "I don't know," Alice answered. "Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter."

- Lewis Carroll