LOOKS LIKE WAR IS A REAL POSSIBLITY

[thesurveyor]

Well the cards are being laid on the table. Looks like war with IRAQ is all but declared.

Anyone have any comments?

Thesurveyor

[This message has been edited by thesurveyor (edited March 17, 2003).]

[Michael Bush]

I think what I think is irelevant. I have a better chance of affecting the outcome of the winner of Teen Idol than the policy of the US. They let me vote between two or three morons that I don't want for the primary and two or three morons that I don't want for president and the same for most other offices. You get to start with 50 candidates for Miss America.

[BWrangler]

Hello Everyone,

Michael you get to choose between a couple of morons? If you lived and voted in Wyoming it doesn't make any difference if you vote for or agin them or not. With our 3 electorial and the elections decided before voting is finished here our votes for president are irrevelant.

I like the idea of a non vote being counted as a no vote like some countries do in Europe. Leaders must get a positive majority of votes not just a majority of the votes.

I think I will be voting agin those running things now even if my vote doesn't really matter this next go around.

It's a curious statement by one of the airmen over Iraq that the greatest danger is not one of enemy fire but the possibility of a mid-air collision with friendly aircraft.

Dennis
Bet you guys know where I stand on this issue.

[Michael Bush]

Don't get me wrong. I always vote, I just find it frustrating. I agree there should be a category for "none of the above" and if no one gets a clear majority there should be another election. Also, if there are more than two candidates and one gets less than 50% there should be some kind of run off between the top two. No one should be able to get elected when more than half the people don't even want them.

Another of my pet peeves is that here in Nebraska we have petitioned and gotten on the ballot the madatory seat belt law and the motorcycle helmet law and the people have repealed it more times than I can remember only to have the legislature pass the law again the next session. If the people have repealed a law by petition and referendum then any law that in any way resembles that one that the legislature wants to pass should be put it back on the ballot again. It should only get passed if the people who repealed it have changed their minds.



[This message has been edited by Michael Bush (edited March 17, 2003).]

[BjornBee]

Its very hard not to get long winded on a subject like this. Simply put: I support our troops, president, and country. I'm convinced that if were not proactive in todays world/enviroment, sooner or later we'll wake up, turn on the news, and a nuc will have been detonated somewhere. Still may happen one day anyhow, but lets at least delay it as long as we can by taking out fruitcakes when we can.

[Karl]

Amen to Michael's post on helmet laws. Read recently that someone, in New Mexico I believe, was proposing legislation that would automatically make anyone killed on a motorcycle without a helmet an organ donor regardless of family wishes. So much for individual freedoms if it passes.

[Michael Bush]

>Read recently that someone, in New Mexico I believe, was proposing legislation that would automatically make anyone killed on a motorcycle without a helmet an organ donor regardless of family wishes. So much for individual freedoms if it passes.

I don't think that law will stand up in the Supreme Court.

My thinking on Helmet laws is this:

First, it is not the job of the government to protect me from myself.

Second, even if it was the job of the gevernment to protect me from myself, making automobile drivers wear helmets would save 100 times as many lives, but it won't pass because the automobile drivers are too large a group. Motocyclists are picked on, simply because they are a minority and can't outvote the majority. 40,000 people die every year in AUTOMOBILE accidents. What if all of those motorists were wearing crash helmets and full cross saftey harnesses? You could prbably cut the number in half. If motorcyclists are required to wear them then it's only fair that everyone be required to wear them.

But then, we US people are under some silly illusion that this is a free country when all the evidence should convince us otherwise.

But this is off the subject. I do think taking out tyrants is justified. I do know that I don't know all of the facts in this case. I also know the right amount of violence in the right place at the right time can accomplish much. The wrong amount or the wrong place or the wrong time can be devasting. I hope the President picks the right circumstances.

I know of people from Iraq living here and all of them I know of are rooting for a war to oust Saddam.

[hoosierhiver]

i believe we should have referendums on important decisions,both locally,state wide and nationally.we should have a say about our military being used to invade another country.and by the way,how does he get away with mobilising over 1/4 million troops,plan to invade a country and not have to ask congress for a declaration of war.

[Michael Bush]

The president can do everthing but declare war because it is within his powers as defined in the Constitution.

[Jorge]

>The president can do everthing but declare war because it is within his powers as defined in the Constitution.

Including waging an undeclared war?

I find it tragic that one country (plus a couple of willing followers) will go to war when 2/3 of its own population has manifested that they would support it IF there was backing from the UN ... which there is not!
I also find it tragic that one country will go to war against the wish of the great majority of the countries in the world (and especially their citizens).
I find it even more tragic that it is this country, the greatest power in the world right now. It smells to much of bullying the weaker ones. It is also interesting that the US is the country that has the largest outstanding debt with the UN from unpayed fees. This just sujests to me that the US doesn not now and has never really taken the UN or its security council very seriously.

My main problem with this pro-war position is one of its fundamental arguments: Iraq is a great menace to the world. The evidence of a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq used by C. Powell in his statement in feb to the UN has been shown to be based on a made up document (I would call that poor evidence at best); the inspectors have shown NO evidence of nuclear build up (while the admin to this day keeps arguing that there is a great nuclear danger); finally, in 12 years of embargo Iraq has not performed a single move outside its borders (or inside for all I know) that suggests mass murder or terrorist activity. So, I wonder how much it has cost the US to maintain a patrol over Iraq every year. I would propose that it costs FAR less that the current war preparation and even much less that what the imminent war will cost. I think we could think of the patrolling forces over Iraq as training exercises. Think about it: you have moving targets to shoot at periodically thus your troops exercised continuously, you get to station troops abroad thus exercising your logistic skills, you get a military presence in the most volatile region in the world, and you keep the bad guy under control for ever. I bet the military exercises carried out in different regions of the world periodically cost about the same.
I fear that this unilateral move will: 1) give a powerful argument to other countries to blow their contenders or rebels off the face of the earth with impunity (examples: Russia and the Chechens, Israel and the Palestinians, etc), 2) threaten to breake up western alliances (NATO, even the UN), 3) make the UN Security Council all but irrelevant (it looks to me like the UN will follow the same path as the League of Nations, which was formed after WWI and disolved by the start of WWII), 4) piss off the entire Arab community because of the aggression and the double standards applied to Iraq, 5) force us all to pay the whole thing out of our taxes because nobody will be very happy to come in after the US to clean up the mess.

I see nothing good out of this one. Bush might be lucky and win this one fast. Then all will say he is a heroe and a visionary. But the damage to internacional relations won't be repaired as fast.

[MountainCamp]

I would have to say that the UN is obsolete and irrelevant. When Libya heads up the human rights commission and Iraq heads up the disarmament commission, I would have to say something is screwed up. Yes, this is the same Iraq that pledged to disarm as part of the agreement to end the Persian Gulf War. This is the same Iraq that the last UN Resolution that was signed by all 14 Security Counsel members that stated that Iraq must immediately disarm and fully cooperate with the UN inspectors. The inspectors were supposed to be verifiers, not detectives. Iraq was to prove they had disarmed or face serious consequences.
The UN Nuclear inspectors never found that North Korea was following their current nuclear weapons program. The UN Security Counsel has taken what action against North Korean since they throw the inspectors out?
As for the UN Security Counsel they have only acted twice in their entire history, the Korean War and the first Persian Gulf War. With all of the millions of people that have died from the UN Security Counsel’s inaction, they do not seem to have much creditability.
I personally do not want Mexico, Camaron, France, Germany, Russia, China or any other member of the UN in charge of our defence or security. Yes, after September 11th things have changed here at home, but terrorists have been targeting American interest outside our borders for years.
France, Germany, Russia, and China all have their own motives to block any action in Iraq. France has been selling military equipment to Iraq in violation of the UN sanctions. France built one of the nuclear reactors that Iraq planned to use for their weapons program and the Russians built them a smaller R & D reactor. The Germans are involved with selling the chemical and biological production equipment to Iraq. China has sold missile technology to Iraq. Russia and France both have large interests in Iraq’s oil industry.
Last note, we can have this discussion because we are here in the US. If we were in many of the countries in the UN, this conversation would not be allowed or very wise.

[Michael Bush]

>Including waging an undeclared war?

Yes. It used to be the president could do it indefinitely, but he can only do it for a certain period of time before congress has to approve it. But in this case they already approved it several months ago.

>It is also interesting that the US is the country that has the largest outstanding debt with the UN from unpayed fees.

For decades we paid the majority of the cost of the UN. Far more than our share. That recently they have decided to stop paying it is a political move.

>This just sujests to me that the US doesn not now and has never really taken the UN or its security council very seriously.

I think we took it very seriously at first, it's why they invested so much money and time in the UN. However, I'd have to agree we no longer take it that seriously

>My main problem with this pro-war position is one of its fundamental arguments: Iraq is a great menace to the world. The evidence of a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq used by C. Powell in his statement in feb to the UN has been shown to be based on a made up document (I would call that poor evidence at best); the inspectors have shown NO evidence of nuclear build up (while the admin to this day keeps arguing that there is a great nuclear danger);

One of the reasons that there has not been a direct accusation of them having nuclear weapons is there is no proof of that, although there is evidence they do. On the other hand there is proof of their chemical and biological weopons and that is enough to accuse them of having "weopons of mass destruction".

>finally, in 12 years of embargo Iraq has not performed a single move outside its borders (or inside for all I know) that suggests mass murder or terrorist activity.

Saddam has been commiting mass murder on the Kurds for some time and on any group that opposes him. I have talked to Iraqui people here and it's clear that Saddam does these things OPENLY. He tortures and executes people in public. It's not secret that is difficult to prove.

>I fear that this unilateral move will: 1) give a powerful argument to other countries to blow their contenders or rebels off the face of the earth with impunity (examples: Russia and the Chechens, Israel and the Palestinians, etc), 2) threaten to breake up western alliances (NATO, even the UN), 3) make the UN Security Council all but irrelevant (it looks to me like the UN will follow the same path as the League of Nations, which was formed after WWI and disolved by the start of WWII), 4) piss off the entire Arab community because of the aggression and the double standards applied to Iraq, 5) force us all to pay the whole thing out of our taxes because nobody will be very happy to come in after the US to clean up the mess.

I share your fears and I had these fears when the declaration of war against terrorism was declared. Because any small insurgent group in any country could be called terrorists even if they are not. Certainly the PLO has always been a terrorist group. The Indian and Pakistan issues over Cashmere is a prime example. The Indians have only to accuse the Pakistani's of being terrorists (and a few of them are) and they are in a war that has been justified by a few terrorists. Most any country could use this as justification to take on whoever they want.

>I see nothing good out of this one. Bush might be lucky and win this one fast. Then all will say he is a heroe and a visionary. But the damage to internacional relations won't be repaired as fast.

Only time will tell.