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Bush's Ultimatum: War Begins on 3/19/03?

Discussion in 'Alley of Dangerous Angles' started by Mathetais, Mar 18, 2003.

  1. Blackthorne TA

    Blackthorne TA Master in his Own Mind Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Rallymama - I guess that's where I differ from a lot of people. I hear all the time: "why the urgency now?". Well, to me, waiting 12 years is not a show of urgency. Do you believe Saddam has lain idle for those 12 years? Do you believe he does not have ambitions outside his country and is not doing all he can (including weapons development)to further those ambitions? Do you believe waiting until a known threat becomes a danger is the right thing to do? If your answer to those questions is yes, then I can understand your point of view. For me, the answers are no, and the fact that there is a good reason to do something about it (his defiance of the UN resolutions regarding Iraq since 687) makes me think it is foolish to let him slip out of the noose once again.

    aegron - Unfortunately, at that time, a cease fire had been declared via resolution 687, and only Saddam failed to live up to it. The US could not send military aid to the rebels, but no-fly zones were set up to protect them from Saddam.

    In general, my answer to "why Iraq and not these others" is that "these others" didn't invade a neighbor country, get thrown back through military force, agree to disarm as a condition of a cease fire, and then not live up to that agreement...
     
  2. Jack Funk Gems: 24/31
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    BTA, you sum it up very well. So many of the arguments here seem to come from an anti-American view point that is all to forgiving of Saddam and his past deeds. I have been bringing up the violation of the cease fire for months on these boards, but some people just don't want to hear it.
     
  3. Llandon Gems: 13/31
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    Not only do they not want to hear it, the don't have a credible response to it!
     
  4. dmc

    dmc Speak softly and carry a big briefcase Staff Member Distinguished Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!)

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    But that would mean holding Saddam Hussein to his word and expecting him to honor his agreements! My goodness, we couldn't have that, now could we? It's only the democracies that have to abide by their words in the international community. It is rather a double standard. Gee, cease fire and disarm -- hmmm, did I really mean that? Well, nah, not really, nope, no way, not me, never said it, not responsible for it, what missiles are you talking about? What weapons, there are no weapons. Oh, those? Well, we're destroying them. Why are you invading me?! This is an act of outright aggression that should not be countenanced.
     
  5. Tayja Gems: 6/31
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    The "Shock and Awe" tactic will drop 3,000 bombs on Bagdad in 48 hours. They will use Uranium 238 tipped missiles whose vapor will leach in the soil and contaminate plant life for 4.5 billion years. They estimate roughly 500,000 civilian deaths in Bagdad before the first Allied soldier sets one foot in.

    *500,000*!
    42% of the Iraqi population is children under 8.
    Therefore *210,000* children will die in the first 48 hours of this conflict. No chance to surrender. Puppets of governments.

    Hospitals, schools, sewage treatment plants... all leveled. Farms left radioactive.

    I believe American and British soldiers had good and honorable intentions to protect their countries. I doubt somehow that slaughtering children was what they signed on for.

    May they come home with their bodies and their souls intact.

    We had better alternatives, and I grieve for what we are becoming.
     
  6. Rallymama Gems: 31/31
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    I hope some of this sentiment isn't directed at me, because I happen to agree that Saddam has to go for all of the reasons stated above. My reservations are about the military approach that's being used and are based solely upon the idea of relative risk.
     
  7. Hephaestus Gems: 5/31
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    Just 5 more minutes now, and we'll have our answer.
     
  8. Llandon Gems: 13/31
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    Tayja....

    You really need to get your facts straight. There is NO WAY that 500,000 Iraqi civilians are going to die in this conflict. I don't know where you get your information, but that figure is rediculous. Granted, people WILL be killed. But 500,000 is a GROSS overestimate. Do you realise that that is more than FIVE times the amount of people that were killed during the atomic bombing of HIROSHIMA? Damn...it's estimated that 40,000 to 80,000 Iraqi soldiers died during the frist gulf war, and we were trying to kill them.

    Granted civilians will be killed, probably numbering in the thousands, and that is regretable...but lets not lose our heads here.
     
  9. Hephaestus Gems: 5/31
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    Well, for better or for worse, here we go.
     
  10. Tayja Gems: 6/31
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    Sorry Llandon, I wish to God I were exaggerating. I got my statistics from the World Health Organization. Here's how CBS news reported it on Jan 27,2003...

    (you can pull up about 1200 links on your own with "shock and awe" and "world health organization")


    (CBS) They're calling it "A-Day," A as in airstrikes so devastating they would leave Saddam's soldiers unable or unwilling to fight.

    If the Pentagon sticks to its current war plan, one day in March the Air Force and Navy will launch between 300 and 400 cruise missiles at targets in Iraq. As CBS News Correspondent David Martin reports, this is more than number that were launched during the entire 40 days of the first Gulf War.

    On the second day, the plan calls for launching another 300 to 400 cruise missiles.

    "There will not be a safe place in Baghdad," said one Pentagon official who has been briefed on the plan.

    "The sheer size of this has never been seen before, never been contemplated before," the official said.

    The World Health Organization has estimated that as many as 500,000 Iraqi casualties will result from the initial stages of a U.S. invasion of Iraq. The current plan of attack calls for a total of over 3000 bombs-- more than the entire amount used in the first Gulf War-- to be dropped on Baghdad during the first 48 hours of a war. Military officials are openly comparing this strategy, known as "shock and awe," to the U.S. nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    The battle plan is based on a concept developed at the National Defense University. It's called "Shock and Awe" because it focuses on the psychological destruction of the enemy's will to fight rather than the physical destruction of his military forces.

    "We want them to quit. We want them not to fight," says Harlan Ullman, one of the authors of the Shock and Awe concept which relies on large numbers of precision guided weapons.

    "So that you have this simultaneous effect, rather like the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima, not taking days or weeks but in minutes," says Ullman.

    In the first Gulf War, 10 percent of the weapons were precision guided. In this war 80 percent will be precision guided.

    The Air Force has stockpiled 6,000 of these guidance kits in the Persian Gulf to convert ordinary dumb bombs into satellite-guided bombs, a weapon that didn't exist in the first war.

    "You're sitting in Baghdad and all of a sudden you're the general and 30 of your division headquarters have been wiped out. You also take the city down. By that I mean you get rid of their power, water. In 2,3,4,5 days they are physically, emotionally and psychologically exhausted," Ullman tells Martin.

    Last time, an armored armada swept into Kuwait and destroyed Saddam's elite republican guard divisions in the largest tank battle since the World War II. This time, the target is not the Iraqi army but the Iraqi leadership, and the battle plan is designed to bypass Iraqi divisions whenever possible.

    If Shock and Awe works, there won't be a ground war.

    Not everybody in the Bush Administration thinks Shock and Awe will work. One senior official called it a bunch of bull, but confirmed it is the concept on which the war plan is based.

    Last year, in Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan, the U.S. was badly surprised by the willingness of al Qaeda to fight to the death. If the Iraqis fight, the U.S. would have to throw in reinforcements and win the old fashioned way by crushing the republican guards, and that would mean more American casualties.

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     
  11. Chandos the Red

    Chandos the Red This Wheel's on Fire

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    I have heard the reasons for this war that we are starting. There have been a lot of accusations. I will ask just a few questions of those who are in favor of this war of conquest: EXACTLY What threat to America does this guy pose? Be EXACT in your reply (no meaningless platitudes please): Please state what he did, when he did it and WHAT THREAT his ACTONS are to the American people. Good Luck.

    Also to all those who think that this Bush is competent: We used to have peace and prosperity in America; now we have neither. Way to go shrub!
     
  12. Blackthorne TA

    Blackthorne TA Master in his Own Mind Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Tayja - You are confusing the word "casualty" with "death". The real quote from the WHO is 500,000 people could "require medical treatment to a greater or lesser degree as a result of direct or indirect injuries". The estimate is that there could be 100,000 civilians wounded in some way and maybe another 400,000 struck by disease because of disruptions in food supplies and damage to water and sewage facilities. According to the UN (same source essentially), 700,000 Iraqi children have died since 1991 because of the sanctions imposed.

    Oh, I forgot about the Uranium tipped missiles you mentioned. The evidence points to only one missile in the US arsenal that contains depleted Uranium, and that's a nuclear missile, so it hardly matters. Most of the depleted Uranium the US has for war is in ammunition for tanks and guns, not missiles.

    Chandos - That's an easy one. August 2nd, 1990 Iraq invades Kuwait which required American soldiers (in other words, American people) in February 1991 to go over and throw him back. A couple hundred died, many more were wounded.

    [ March 20, 2003, 05:48: Message edited by: Blackthorne TA ]
     
  13. Llandon Gems: 13/31
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    Actually, I need a link to your story. Here is a link to the CBS news story:

    http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/01/24/eveningnews/main537928.shtml

    It does not mention the casuality statistics.

    Here is a link to the WHO web page. I have searched and searched, but I cannot find info on casualties there either

    WWW.WHO.INT

    I was, however, able to find an article that directly matches yours...on THE World Socialist Web Site www.wsws.org

    I would be very interested in reading about this from a "credible" news source.
     
  14. Chandos the Red

    Chandos the Red This Wheel's on Fire

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    Blackthrone,

    That was the war in 1991 as you rightly point out. I was speaking of the present war. Your logic - relying on a past conflict as it does - would also lead us to war with past enemies, such as Germany, since thousands of Americans were killed by them when we invaded Normandy. Do you really mean to say that 1991 was the last time he was a threat to us?
     
  15. Blackthorne TA

    Blackthorne TA Master in his Own Mind Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Chandos - So you're saying Saddam has changed in the last 12 years and will make nice if we leave him alone?

    What I am saying is that he was then and is now a known threat to the region, and his ambitions are at the very least an indirect threat to the US and its allies, and at worst a direct threat.

    1990 is just an example to prove the point.
     
  16. Chandos the Red

    Chandos the Red This Wheel's on Fire

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    Blackthone,

    So far the Gulf war is your only example. I have made no comment on Saddam himself. I am only asking for evidence that he is the threat that he is supposed to be. So far I have heard very little real evidence from our government. Perhaps they don't feel the need to share it with us.
     
  17. Blackthorne TA

    Blackthorne TA Master in his Own Mind Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    I don't understand why you need more examples. What has changed to make you believe he is no longer a threat? That he hasn't invaded anyone since the Gulf War? How could he while forces are sitting on his doorstep and patrolling no-fly zones?

    It has been 12 years waiting for Saddam to change and make good on his agreements to disarm. 12 years of sanctions under which the Iraqi people have suffered because of his noncompliance. Apparently 12 years is long enough for the US government.
     
  18. Aces Gems: 19/31
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    It has begun. Bombs/missiles have been launched at the Iraq leadership.

    Maybe it will be over in days or weeks.

    Edit:
    How fitting.
    I get a Bloodstone on the eve of war. ;)
     
  19. Chandos the Red

    Chandos the Red This Wheel's on Fire

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    Thank you for making my point! And you are right -- How can he be a threat with the way in which we have contained him over the last 12 years! Now we are invading Iraq. Let me ask you this, Blackthrone, once Saddam is gone, do you think that we will leave the country? Remember, Saddam is the reason we are going there. Once he is gone, what reason do we have to stay there? Keep in mind that 300,000 soldiers is a bit much to get rid of one guy, espeacially one who is very unpopular with his own people. But it's not a lot if your intention is to conquer and occupy a country the size of California.
     
  20. Arabwel

    Arabwel Screaming towards Apotheosis Veteran

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    Well, this is off the topic partly, but not all... I have now nam,ed my sword. I named hin Surija, Mourner, for all the blood that will be spilled in Iraq.

    Bush the Bloody.

    (No frolicing in the woods for us....)
     
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