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 Now online (1)recycle ...and 302 guests Last 5 registered Oplandisks nothingstar N_loop yipe foxtrotromeo Browse members... |
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Exactly |
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Well if you think there won't be a 'war' then you really are out of touch. There will a massive aerial bombardment and the US will not send in large numbers of ground troops to actually engage in combat. After Vietnam, and more recently Somalia, the US has learnt it is more effective, both militarily and politically, to just bomb a country. Just look at Kosovo, the Sudan and Afghanistan in the last 5 years. |
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I'm sure that Saddam is fully aware of Bush's psychotic intentions to kill him and install a more 'moderate' leader. Which is why I am also confident that the weapons inspectors will find nothing, and will not be hindered. Therefore giving Bush no legitimate excuse for attacking. Iraq is a relatively wealthy country, especially considering the level of sanctions that have been leveled against them, and the population is fully aware that if the US... er sorry UN weapons inspectors find anything it will all be over. Saddam is a cruel man (by all the accounts I have heard), but does that give the US or anyone the right to kill him and/or his people? |
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The weapons inspectors only left Iraq when they did because the US had started launching airstrikes deeper into Iraq, and because the US were using the information that the UN inspectors were gathering to target those strikes. i.e. the inspectors were (possibly unknowingly) spying for the US. Which IMO would be grounds for asking them to leave. This is backed up by Scott Ritter... the former head of the inspection team... and an ex US marine. Who has since resigned, and is campaigning against an unjustified war. |
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Unfortunately members of the Bush administration have already said that even if the UN inspectors find nothing, they will not accept the UN inspector's findings. The US is just biding its time and war is, sadly, inevitable. |
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Yeah, the UN actually pulled the inspectors out, they weren't thrown out. some were spying for the CIA. |
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War is never inevitable. That is the most depressing thing I have ever heard. So the senseless killing of thousands by US and British forces is inevitable... there is nothing that can stop those people from dying. I will never believe that. Maybe I'm too optimistic, but to say that Bush has already decided that those people are gonna die and there is nothing anyone can do about it, is sick. |
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Well, I meant it within boundaries. Of course it can be stopped if people in this country and the US put enough pressure on the government. I was speaking in terms of US foreign policy; they are frimly committed to bombing Iraq. |
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I found this persuasive: Comment High stakes for US over Iraq Alex Callinicos on the forces driving Bush towards war IN THE aftermath of the United Nations Security Council resolution authorising the return of weapons inspectors to Iraq, many people have deluded themselves that this makes war less likely. Even Richard Perle, the ultra right wing adviser to the Pentagon, argued on BBC News 24 last Sunday that the aim of Bush's administration was no longer "regime change" in Iraq but the removal of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. This apparent shift in US objectives may only be a figleaf covering the administration's real intentions. Perle made it clear that he wouldn't believe an inspectors' report that declared Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. But say Saddam were somehow to survive? Last week Moises Naim, editor of Foreign Policy magazine (which is linked to the right wing Carnegie Endowment), wrote an article in the Financial Times. He said, "Senior US officials admit that not much thinking has gone into how to manage the aftermath of a process where Mr Hussein stays in power." Naim went on to list the negative consequences-from the point of view of Bush and his advisers-that such a scenario would involve. In the first place, if the claims so insistently made by both Washington and London are correct, Saddam would presumably remain "a permanent and undeterrable threat to regional stability and international security. Second, if Mr Hussein without much oil money was dangerous and undeterrable, what would he be like with a lot of oil money? Once it became clear that the Iraqi regime had complied with the UN demands, the pressure to lift the economic sanctions that have constrained Iraq's oil exports and international trade would be enormous. Other Arab countries, multinational corporations eager to do business with Iraq, and humanitarian groups that have long argued that the sanctions hurt innocent civilians would step up their demands for lifting or relax |
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relaxing them. On what grounds could the UN refuse to relax the sanctions if Iraq satisfied the conditions set by the Security Council? The US might choose to keep them in place, but other countries would surely liberalise their trade and investment with Iraq, thus boosting its economy. A year from now, a disarmed and closely watched Iraq might be a lesser security threat but, freed from sanctions, it would surely be on its way to becoming a significant economic factor in the region and in the global energy picture. Instead of counting Scud missiles Mr Hussein may end up spending his time counting the business deals coming his way." Such an outcome would be a very serious setback for the global strategy of the Bush administration. In this month's issue of Le Monde Diplomatique Michael Klare stresses the connections between Washington's energy and military policies. Soon after Bush's entry to the White House, vice-president Dick Cheney presided over an energy review that stressed the US's growing long term dependence on oil imported from politically unstable regions like the Middle East and Central Asia. As Klare puts it, "An energy policy aiming to allow the United States to gain access to oil reserves situated in chronically unstable regions is only realistic to the extent that the United States is capable of projecting its military power in these regions." If, after much huffing and puffing by Bush and Blair and the deployment of no less than four carrier battle groups, Saddam is left in control of the world's second largest oil reserves this will be a huge blow for US policy. Moreover, as Naim points out in the Financial Times, "The international prestige of the US as well as that of Mr Bush would suffer. "The symbolism of a Mr Hussein who emerged from a massive American effort to oust him weakened and disarmed but still in power would not go unnoticed among critics and enemies of the US, particularly among the more thuggish ones, who might be emboldened by this outcome." Finally |
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Finally, Naim notes, the uncertainty about war in Iraq that "has been a drag on the world economy for months" would continue "because consumers and investors will not quickly shed the belief that regime change is the only outcome acceptable to Mr Bush. "Markets will continue to wait for war and, in the process, further slow down an already frail economy." Naim may be over-egging the cake a bit here. Correctly anticipating the interactions between political events, oil prices and financial markets is very hard. But the basic picture he paints is surely correct. Saddam's survival would cause enormous damage to both the global strategy and the political standing of the Bush administration. For that reason alone, I would bet on an Anglo-American war on Iraq this winter. Sorry, longer than I thought. |
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I accept that it may damage US energy strategy, but this strategy is not something that the rest of the world, or even his own people are party to. So speculating what will happen assuming that Bush has this plan for the future of oil and assuming that no other agreement or change in circumstance occurs seems like 'going too far'. Spin is an amazing thing, and I think that it is still VERY possible that the inspectors find nothing, and Bush backs down in such a way that he looks like the hero. As far as I can see, the political standing of the Bush administration would be mortally damaged by attacking/invading, the world and his own people won't stand for it without the backing of the UN. |
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I wish I could agree with you. The West now cloaks its militaristic endeavours in a kind of Orwellian doublespeak. Bombings become 'humanitarian interventions'; deaths of civilians become 'collateral damage' and a lot of people are persuaded. Our media run a campaign of disinformation that is quite powerful. However, there is hope. Most people in the UK are against the war and the Vietnam war ended in part due to opposition in the West. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=1242 Here's an interesting piece in today's Mirror by John Pilger 2214&method=full&siteid=50143 |
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The link between the firemen's strike and the government's aggression towards iraq have an eery similarity. Both are using the World Trade Centre "tragedy" to try and benefit themselves. The firemen failed to use it to try and broker a quite ridiculous pay rise. The government are using it to try to brainwash the British public that they are constantly under threat from terrorists. If the public perceive there is a threat to their freedom or lives then they will more freely support the government in any action they wish to take - ie - bombing iraq. The fact that the only terrorists that have attacked britain in the past 30 years are now sitting in the houses of parliament seems to be somehow lost on the British public. |
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anyway...who cares? |
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Erm, if you are referring to Sinn Fein, they refuse to enter Parliament. But I see your point. |
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I don't want to embarass you again jonesy, but although sinn fein refuse to sit in the house of commons, they do have offices in the houses of parliament which if i remember rightly IS EXACTLY WHAT I SAID. No apology required though. I've become accustomed to your little faux pas. |
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You're just not very bright - ever thought about a job as a fireman? I hear they're quite well-paid. |
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And you're not very witty. Ever thought about warming up for Bob Monkhouse? |
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Catty... |
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I had considered it but I don't think there's much of a future in it. Not unless they find a cure for cancer. |
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