Ted,
Welcome to the board! You're certainly free to express your opinion, and we acknowledge that it's one held by many. I do believe you're wrong, though, in two respects; first, in respect to WMD, the Ba'athist regime in Iraq has had 12 years to either destroy, declare or hide what they openly acknowledged thay had way back then. No evidence has ever been offered as to destruction, ergo, I suspect the chem/bio materials have been either well-hidden or spirited out of the country. It's going to take time to trace it, but I'm confident this will happen.
Secondly, it's becoming more apparent every day that the Iraqi people, especially the Shia and the Kurds, have been waiting for this moment of liberation for a long time. Daily, we find more and more evidence of the abuses of Saddam's brutal Stalinist regime, and it seems the common people are by-and-large delighted to once again have their freedom.
While the simple excuse of "freeing" a captive populace may not necessarily justify war in these modern times (although I have had an errant thought or two asking 'why not?'), there can be no denying the power of their joy at finally being freed. How we - and they - deal with this freedom remains the far more important question, the answer to which only time will divulge. I would hope it sets an example for a lot of the rest of the world; certainly the images generated on real-time TV have a power all of their own.
I think this generation has been lulled into a sort of false sense of peace and security, for many reasons. Most of the world bears little semblance to the relative peace of western society. 9/11 took a big bite out of that illusion of security, and the world is truly never going to be the same again.
I believe Chretien was wrong in his appreciation of the multiplicity of issues here, and I have long believed that the U.N. has largely become irrelevent due to its make-up and the politics involved.
Certainly, regardless of one's perspective, these are rapidly becoming the most
interesting times of our lives, are they not?
Cheers,
Geoff
Quote:
Originally posted by Ted Gil
Prior to the invasion of Iraq, Pres. Bush had categorically stated that if Sadam Hussein did not disarm of his weapons of mass destruction, we the United States will disarm him, make no doubt of it. So far no weapons have been found (must have sneaked it out of the country). Now it's not a war of disarmament but twisted to reflect a war of liberation (or some other agenda). Oil? Could Saddam Hussein, heaven forbid, had been tellin the truth, that he had no such weapons. If no weapons are found Bush and the U.S. led coalition are responsible for the assassination of government officials (targets), deaths of thousands of Iraqi military personnel (who will be mourned and missed by their families), civilian casualties and destruction of property, plus casualties among coalition forces. Prime Minister Chretien was correct in acknowledging that U.N. Resolution 1441 was drawn up for disarming Sadam Hussein not changing the regime and he still stands behind his statement. Normally I don't agree with many aspects of his government but I'm 100% behind him on this issue. Its sad that in this day and age so much misery could have been averted with the continuation of weapons inspection. If this reads like a letter to the editor so be it.
Ted Gil
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