I remain tense, paying lots of attention to Fox News on the TV, praying for the quickest possible military conclusion. Despite a few misgivings about some of our motives, and our possible lack of maximum exercise of diplomatic options, as a retired Air Force contractor/advisor with more than 35 years of experience, I have to respect the integrity and courage of our armed forces.

Many thanks to our moderator for allowing us to go off topic for a while, in recognition of the extreme importance of these recent events.

However, since this is an automotive forum, I wish to state for the record my negative feelings about those arrogant French. I hereby declare [and wish for the concurrence of other contributors to this forum]: "Never again shall I buy a Renault, Peugeot or Citroen!"

 

That I agree.

 

Time to head home from work. Thanks for the intersting political discussion !

Jonas

 

Sadam himself is a weapon of mass destruction! It doesn't matter if he has the hardware or not he is still killing his own people. A so called leader like that must be removed.

 

OK, so then you are willing to abolish the death penalty in the US ? Lead by example? Another intersting topic of discussion, for sure.

Gotta go now. Thanks for the discussion.

Jonas

 

The French, Germans, and Russians need the US more than the US needs them. Remember the US is in a unique position in terms of natural resources that many other countries don't have.

Regardless different areas of the world will always have different viewpoints. News is 'spun' different ways by the organizations in said countries. I know when I used to go to Ireland a lot, their news and the British news would tell stories in different ways.

One unique thing the Europeans dont necessarily understand, or maybe I should say most YOUNGER Europeans understand, is what its like to be attached on your own soil. Whatever you think, 9/11 was an attack on the US, on innocent people, for no reason. This group was backed, supported, harboured, etc. by governments like Sadaams. If said government attained weapons of mass destruction, they would just as easily put them in the hands of terrorists to get them to the mainland US.

I think the fund the war effort the US should tell the French they owe us a few TRILLION dollars in current funds for bailing their asses out of two wars, and rebuilding their country.

 

Come on stay on topic here. Death Penalty has nothing to do with this. Thats a whole other thread.

 

a lot of you bleeding heart liberals need to jump in a time machine and go back to the 1960's....get over it, this is the world you live in and all your hippie love rhetoric will get you no where....Support your country, support your troops.....support freedom!!!

 

I've been away from the post watching CNN these past few hours. A couple of thoughts on this new bit of history in the making. Any one who has studied history of this nation and the world understands the neccessity for what our NATION is doing. If you look at history, Adolf Hitler was building weapons that were prohibited under the Versailles Treaty. Tanks were called tractors, bombers were labeled airliners and oh check out the "racing planes" of 1930's Germany. If the League of Nations (per curser to the UN) had done its job and forced the issued, would World War II have happened. Yes, but it wouldn't have resulted int he deaths of millions of civilians world wide. Another point of history. The United States tried to stay out of World War II, choosing to impose trade sanctions on Japan in response to its brutal attack on China. It didn't work. Japan needed raw materials for its expansionist plans. The embargo was a threat, so the they "dealt" with us. The result was Pearl Harbor, and a nation of people that wanted peace got a rude awakening. To put it simply trade sanctions and peace initiatives have not worked. They didn't then, and they will not work now.

As for the major reason for this war, it is not oil. It is the price of oil. And the price is not in dollars, its in our support of Israel. We could have peace, end terrorism, and get all the gas we want to run our Honda's. All we have to do is sell out a friend. But then that would make us just like France.

so, when you see a group of Marines whooping it up in a bar - by them all a round. They make it possible for us to live together in this country and be true to our values. Remember, they are not fighting for George Bush, the republican party, or even just those of us who support them. They fight for our nation - all of us.

 

Many have been bringing up oil as the starter to all this, and as I can't disagree that oil control in the region will not only help our country it is definitely not the determining factor. Here are my points.

1) During Iraq's removal of UN inspectors in 98 the US wanted to end all oil shipments out of Iraq; France on the other hand wanted no control over the outflow of oil

2) The US still has an embargo on Iranian oil

3) The US supports Israel in an area that is not very favorable to that the country and only inflames the situation between the US and other Arab nations.

I believe these 3 points detail how the US is not only going after Iraq for oil, although it is a side stance to conflict. Obviously, the US would be a beneficial partner to a new government in Iraq.

Also, the US was not the only one to benefit. Many feel that France/Russia was doing all they could to avert war and allow inspections to continue, why you may ask.... I submit these news findings :

FRANCE
I believe the figure comes in at 8 billion in oil exploration contracts and shipments. These contracts would be null and void in the event that Saddam was disposed as leader.

They are also a lead seller in commercial and military hardware to Iraq. Many of which is military aircraft parts and commercial hardware that could possibly be used for military means. Some of which is pesticides (possible pre-step to making chemical/bio weapons) and tractor-trailer refrigeration trucks -- which have been blacklisted by the UN.

They were also the country that constructed 2 nuclear reactors for Iraq back in the 70/80's, which was later destroyed by Israel.

This week in the New York Times an article was written in regards to France's actions on the supplemental resolution to 1441. France's stance was to veto it no matter what condition was added. This in turn made Sec of State Powell and the rest of the administration look foolish and many deemed a failure of diplomacy. This was not the case. Powell spoke directly to the French ambassador and stated that they shouldn't vote on 1441 if they don't intend to back this resolution with force. The French ambassador agreed. We all know what happened now. Essentially, the French flat-out lied and strabbed Sec of State Powell in the back. He was the one man who pushed Bush to go to the UN and get the 1441 resolution.


RUSSIA:
Easily the biggest military trading partner to Iraq in the world, many of it's hardware is Soviet design. Iraq owes billions in backed funds to Russia. Iraq obliviously has no way to pay it back, therefore they fall back on the next best thing to gold...oil. Iraq sells oil to Russia at a substantially lower price than the market value. Russia then in turn sells this oil at market value for a lucrative profit. Anyone can see that this deal would be sour if Saddam is not there.

These countries and many others are only enabling Saddam to hold his power. Does anyone think for a second that if France/Russia/China/Germany were on our side that this man would not have been removed already. These countries see only benefits to the situation the US is in now. Be it, monetary or just plain US troubles and failures. And personally I see it as envy also. The US being the last superpower and many just want to see the US fail.

I to have misgivings about this whole situation and feel there are many unknowns and it's very difficult to say with utmost certainty which side is right. But, I would tend to argue that the US and it's allies (eg Britian/Aus/Spain...etc) are following through with the UN's own resolutions, which the UN obliviously has no stomach to follow. I personally cannot sit by hoping and taking the chance that Saddam will turn over a new leaf, lay out in the sands all his weapons, allow all his scientists to be interviewed outside the country(which never happened), and believe that we could contain a country the size of California so that a group of fanatics might never be handed off some chem/bio toxins.

All in all, I think we should all support our troops until the conflict comes to an end.


--John