once it gets started, this weekend or next week....

[10Bears]

Oh you can have your little win there Toad,

I'll be dancing around a maypole butt nakid if it means we don't have to go to war..

Whatever spin you decide to use is fine by me

The reality of course is that the entire rest of the world had to think of something really fast to thwart an even bigger fool.

Conversly, if you vote Democratic, try not to elect a lecherous liar.


Oh.. if your talking about Clinton, I'd take that lecherous lier any day even tho he's the best Republican president we've ever had..

[Toad]

There's no win for anyone here.

At present, I'm not in favor of the US invading Iraq.

However, I'm not blind enough to overlook them as a threat to the US mainland either.

The reality, of course, is that it's the mainland US that will most likely suffer eventually. Isn't it? No wonder you're dancing 'round the maypole.

There isn't any spin there either. I doubt there's any sentient poster on this BBS that doesn't realize that without the looming threat of US military force the Inspectors would never have gotten back into Iraq. Further, Blix would not have gotten the incremental and minimal cooperation he's getting now without the US military build up in the region.

I personally hope we do leave the entire region if the Security Council doesn't authorize the use of force.

And I hope we never go back. I hope we never HAVE to go back. But I think that's a forlorn hope.

[Hangtime]

10B has a son going in there.. I'd be toejamtin my pants if my kid was OTW.

[Yeager]

I remember seeing video footage of an iraqi execution of military officers involved in an assassination plot to kill saddam.

They lined about 10 of em up and gunned them down with AKs then a rabbid officer charged the crumpled mass firing a pistol into them.  I imagine he was creaming long live Saddam.

Truth is the Irqai people have tried many times to kill saddam.

Surely thosuands have died trying.

[10Bears]

Hang, that's my friend Bill's son Torry.. He's there now.. Age 19.. I've known him since he was two. They trained him to be a truck driver so he may not be in super harms way if the shooting starts.

My daughter is 18 and was thinking of joining up but she changed her mind. I might take some credit or blame for influencing her dicision.

[Dowding]

Truth is the Irqai people have tried many times to kill saddam.

Surely thosuands have died trying.

This is true. There have been many Western sponsored coups and uprisings. Both in the military and among ethnic groups.

[Holden McGroin]

My point on quoting JFK's inagural address was to point out that we have a history of shouldering burdens, and 6 billion is a small burden to pay.  

6 billion divided by appx 100 million taxpayers = 60 bucks to each of us:  Not worth losing too much sleep over.  If that is the cost of keeping WMD from proliferating into the hands of those who would use them without much hesitation, here's my 60 bucks.

The true cost of freedom is shown by names etched on a black granite wall, or names on crosses in quiet green fields.

[AKIron]

Originally posted by 10Bears
Oh.. if your talking about Clinton, I'd take that lecherous lier any day even tho he's the best Republican president we've ever had..

That attitude is exactly what is creating such a rift between conservatives and liberals.

[Cookie]

Originally posted by Holden McGroin
The true cost of freedom is shown by names etched on a black granite wall, or names on crosses in quiet green fields.

Exactly...

[Hortlund]

Originally posted by Toad
Hang, the primary lesson I took from VietNam was that no nation can make another nation "free". They have to want it for themselves.

Look how long this despot has ruled and ruined the lives of the Iraqi population. Yet apparently none, or at least not enough, of them want to be free badly enough to water the tree of Liberty.
 

Toad...as you probably know, Im not Iraqi. I dont have any Iraqi relatives, nor do I know any Iraqis.

I do know however that the Sunni (or is it Shia?) moslem minority in Southern Iraq, as well as the Kurdish minority in northern Iraq has fought and died for a free nation. For along time, and alot. They are being horribly opressed by the Iraqi security forces...torture, murder, chemical warfare.  

I find your words deeply insulting, and as I said, I'm not even remotely related to anything Iraqi. Who have been the targets of Iraqi Chemical attacks and why? Why were the no fly zones created? What happened to the Iraqis rising against Saddam in 91?

[Toad]

Obviously there were/are some. But not enough. Not nearly enough. Because if there WERE enough, they'd all rise up and bring the country to a decision point.

Patrick Henry

....There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free--if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending--if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained--we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight!

An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us! They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength but irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us.

Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable--and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come.

It is in vain, sir, to extentuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace--but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

Disguised as a Dutch schoolmaster, Nathan Hale set out on his mission on September 12. For a week he gathered information on the position of British troops, but was captured while returning to the American side. Because of incriminating papers Hale possessed, the British knew he was a spy. It is said that his cousin, a British sympathizer under Howe's command, betrayed him. Howe ordered young Hale to be hanged the following day. That's when Hale, who gave his life for his country, said those famous words.

"I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."

Of those 56 who signed the Declaration of Independence, nine died of wounds or hardships during the war. Five were captured and imprisoned, in each case with brutal treatment. Several lost wives, sons or entire families. One lost his 13 children. Two wives were brutally treated. All were at one time or another the victims of manhunts and driven from their homes.

Twelve signers had their homes completely burned.

Seventeen lost everything they owned. Yet not one defected or went back on his pledged word. Their honor, and the nation they sacrificed so much to create is still intact.

And, finally, there is the New Jersey Signer, Abraham Clark.

He gave two sons to the officer corps in the Revolutionary Army. They were captured and sent to that infamous British prison hulk afloat in New York Harbor known as the hell ship "Jersey," where 11,000 American captives were to die. The younger Clarks were treated with a special brutality because of their father.

One was put in solitary and given no food. With the end almost in sight with the war almost won, no one could have blamed Abraham Clark for acceding to the British request when they offered him his sons' lives if he would recant and come out for the King and Parliament. The utter despair in this man's heart, the anguish in his very soul, must reach out to each and one of us down through 200 years with the answer: "No."

The 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence proved by their every deed that they made no idle boast when they composed the most magnificent curtain line in history. "And for the support of this Declaration with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

(Yeah, I don't think much of Limbaugh but this is one of the few things worthy of repeating.)


That's what it takes.

And you can't GIVE that to a nation or a people. They have to want it THAT badly.

That's what I'm saying. If you disagree, so be it.

[Toad]

For the counterpoint, look at Nicolae Ceausescu's end in Romania.

I can hear the "But that's DIFFERENT!" shouts already.

But it illustrates the point. When the people, as a whole, decide to be free...... it happens.

When the enlsaved answer Henry's question "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" with a resounding "NO!".... the doorway to the path of freedom is opened.

Not an easy path, to be sure. It never is. It never has been.

[Hangtime]

The American Revolution could not have succeded in the 21st century.

Think about it.

What constitues a succesful revolution against an entrenched and oppressive regime in Iraq?

The Iraq body count to date for dissenters numbers in the millions.

If I was a moderate Iraqi, I'd be praying for help and keeping my head down till a liberating army showed up.

[Toad]

The Romanians were successful in Romania's bloody revolution

For his 24 years as communist party leader - 21 of them as Romania's president - Nicolae Ceausescu kept up a reign of fear, suppressing all opposition with the help of the brutal secret police, the Securitate, with the largest network of spies and informers in Eastern Europe.

At home he encouraged an extreme kind of personality cult among the population...

Any of this sound familar?

On 22 December 1989, Romania's communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu was overthrown in a violent revolution and fled from the capital, Bucharest. Three days later, he and his wife Elena were executed by firing squad.

It can be done.

But they'll have to want it badly enough to do what the Romanians did.

IMO.

[Staga]

What I'd like to know is which one they hate more: Their regime and its leader or U.S and its allies?

IMHO it looks like western world has played its cards wrong with the sanctions and bombings and by doing so helped Hussein's propagandists to do their job.