Theos-Talk Archives (March 2003 Message tt00130)

Theo Paijmans wrote:
> don't be so selective. If you take as criteria:
> a) the breaking of promises - then there is not a single country in the western world
> which has not done so in the last 25 years, America included. And if we include UN
> resolutions, Israel has broken what, how many of them?
Saddam Hussein lost a war, and surrendered. He has failed to live up to 
the conditions of his surrender. That is a bit stronger than a simple 
promise, especially promises broken only after the parties on the other 
side of an agreement have broken THEIR promises.

As far as breaking U.N. resolutions go, I have never said anything 
about that, except that the U.N. has failed to follow through on its own 
resolutions. ANYBODY can ignore a U.N. resolution, except the U.N.

> b) the weapons sales as inevitable basis for a future conflict - again let me remind
> you that America too, has sold its share of killing technology to Saddam Hussein, the
> Afghani rebels, The Iran-Contra-gate affair, to horrible tyrants in South and
> Middle-America etc. etc.
The difference is in selling weapons technology after agreeing not to 
do so. The Contras and Afghans were fighting against invaders from the 
Soviet Union. Saddam Hussein was fighting against a country that had 
committed what should have been considered an act of war against the 
United States (Iran). As far as "horrible tyrants", you will have to be 
more specific.

> c) Selectivity when it comes to weapons of mass destruction What about Isreal's
> nuclear stockpile, or America's immense amounts of chemical and bacteriological
> weapons which it has used and tested on its own civilians in the past? 
Neither Israel nor America surrendered the right to have weapons of 
mass destruction in a war. Please give me an instance where the United 
States has tested chemical or biological weapons on its own civilians?

> Which country
> by the way was it that was the only country till now used the atom bomb on civilian
> targets? 
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were centers of military support industry. In 
addition, it was Japan that attacked the United States, and was trying 
to take over United States territory. There IS a difference between 
aggression and defense.

> To end the war and save the lives of the G.I's, as consensus will it, 
or to
> test and flex a muscle against Russia? Who can tell? North Korea by the way is a far
> greater threat than Irak will ever be. 
North Korea is isolated. Iraq is centrally located in the world's major 
hotbed of terrorism. If the United States establishes military bases in 
Iraq, it gets into a much better position to take out the terrorists who 
have been fighting a war against the U.S. for years, a war that the 
United States has only recently recognized exists.

> Those Al Samud misslies, I don't see them
> flying to Washington. At best, immensely souped up, they would reach a European
> target. Yet we do not live in this constant, self induced trauma of War on terror.
> America, the most powerful nation on Earth is afraid of what? Irak? Saddam Husein? Do
> we really believe that?
The missiles can be used as blackmail on allies of the United States. 
And Saddam Hussein, who has killed a million and a half of Iraq's 
civilian population, attempted to conquer one of Iraq's neighbors, and 
lost. The price he agreed to pay for staying in power was to give up 
these weapons. He has reneged on his part of the bargain, so the U.S. is 
simply giving him the consequences he, himself, agreed to in his surrender.

> So what is America doing now? Buying poor countries, putting them on the payroll of
> Uncle Sam, which the average American doesn't even know where to put on the map, in
> order to raise enough votes in the UN. A sad step for such a great nation.
Some of the countries to which the United States gives the most funding 
consistently vote against the United States in the United Nations.

> Now I assume you will not admit to any of the above, let alone give it some room for
> thought - which I think is part of the European frustration. We see history in a
> different perspective, I suppose.
No, it is European refusal to look at the entire issue. It is European 
hatred of the United States. It is the European Jew-hating; they can't 
stand the fact that they can't go out every Easter and kill a bunch of 
Jews the way they used to.

Bart Lidofsky