Reactions in your country?

Is your concept of “enough experience of world events” really a valid point? Many of the men and women now involved in the actions in the Gulf will be between the ages of 18 and 25. I trust you believe that those troops have the experience and emotional maturity to cope with the momentous events they are involved in. Strange then that you should think the average eighteen year old who is against the war does not.

As to historical perspective, Belgium has been occupied twice in the last 100 years and the land fought over fiercely. I would imagine ‘historical perspective’ is ingrained into Geforce and his fellow Belgians.

Regards,

kev35

Well I did not want to degenerate into a slanging match, but on this forum and others you can generally guess the age group of participants by there responses. The individual in question has not contributed anything but rhetoric and swearing. Pro war individuals of this age group also do the same (yes they do exist) trotting out slogans about kicking butt etc. Like I said they certainly have a right to an opinion, but when they just trot out tired old slogans or catch phrases (pro or against) because that is all they know then why would anyone take them seriously.
I would have thought that given the reason Belgium was overun the second time was because a maniac was continually appeased and in the end thought everyone was too scared to stop him at the start, would be good enough reason to understand that sometimes diplomacy does not work.

I have seen the old “why now” argument floated today as well. I would ask the same question, but from another angle. Why has it taken so long for someone to mobilise against Saddam the thug. Surely his behaviour over just the past 10 years alone has been enough to warrant efforts to remove him from the world stage. Unforunately the moral cowards and profiteers are running the UN so all kinds of abominations are allowed to take place. In Australia the opposition leader has claimed the decision to commit Australian forces was wrong as it makes us more of a target. That is exactly the kind of cowardness that allows people like Saddam to prosper. He would the kind of person who would walk past someone being mugged and not do anything because of fear of the consequences.

Ink,

Yeah… ParaReg does have its own esprit de corps you might say. Then again though, given the job the have to do, recruiting from the boy scouts isnt much in their interest. I know what youre talking about though but I’d say you could find an equal mix of “personalities” in the crowd at Stamford Bridge or Highbury on a Saturday afternoon. Essentially that you can get that distasteful element in any large group although in a large group of men trained to be confident and aggressive its obviously an issue that needs close monitoring.

On balance though I think that the Army isn’t much different to either of the other services in this regard. The pep talk given by Col Tim Collins to the Royal Irish Regiment, below, is indicative from what I know of Army character (comment Snapper?):

—————————————————————–

A BRITISH commander last night warned his troops to show respect to the enemy.

Lt Col Tim Collins told the infantrymen: “We go to liberate not to conquer. We will not fly our flags in their country.

“We are entering Iraq to free a people. The only flag which will be flown in that ancient land is their own. Show respect for them.

“There are some who are alive at this moment who will not be alive shortly. Those who do not wish to go on that journey, we will not send.

“As for the others, I expect you to rock their world. Wipe them out if that is what they choose. But if you are ferocious in battle, be magnanimous in victory.”

Lt Col Collins, who leads the battlegroup of the 1st Battalion of the Royal Irish, told his men not to confuse Muslim terrorism with Iraqi culture.

He said:”Iraq is steeped in history. It is the site of the Garden of Eden, of the Great Flood and the birthplace of Abraham. Tread lightly there. You will see things that no man could pay to see and you will have to go a long way to find a more decent, generous and upright people than the Iraqis. You will be embarrassed by their hospitality, even though they have nothing.

“Don’t treat them as refugees for they are in their own country. In years to come they will know that the light of liberation in their lives was brought by you.

“If there are casualties of war, remember, when they woke up and got dressed in the morning they did not plan to die this day. Allow them dignity in death. Bury them properly and mark their graves.”

In an emotional address which reduced many troops to tears, Lt Col Collins warned the 800 men of 16 Air Assault Brigade that not all of them would survive.

He said: “It is my foremost intention to bring every single one of you out alive.

“But there may be people among us who will not see the end of this campaign. We will put them in their sleeping bags and send them back. There will be no time for sorrow.”

The CO added: “The enemy should be in no doubt that we are his Nemesis and we are bringing about his rightful destruction.

“There are many regional commanders who have stains on their souls and they are stoking the fires of hell for Saddam. He and his forces will be destroyed by this coalition for what they have done. As they die they will know their deeds have brought them to this place. Show them no pity.”

The men listened in silence as their CO addressed them at Fort Blair Mayne desert camp, 20 miles from the Iraqi border.

He said: “It is a big step to take another human life. It is not to be done lightly. I know of men who have taken life needlessly in other conflicts. I can assure you they live with the mark of Cain upon them.

“If someone surrenders to you, remember they have that right in international law. The ones who wish to fight, well, we aim to please. If you harm the regiment or its history by over enthusiasm in killing or in cowardice, know it is your family who will suffer. — (note: family in this context means regiment)

“You will be shunned unless your conduct is of the highest for your deeds will follow you down through history. We will bring shame on neither our uniform or our nation.”

Warning they would face chemical and biological weapons, he said: “It is not a question of if, it’s a question of when. If we survive the first strike, we will survive the attack.”

His closing words were resolute: “As for ourselves, let’s bring everyone home and leave Iraq a better place for us having been there. Our business now is north.”

————————————————————-

Might sound a bit flowery and OTT to some of you. If it does I’d ask you to read it again after suspending your cynicism for a few minutes and try and empathise with the situation that the RIR lads would have been in.

There surely are some devils in the UK forces Ivan, but, whilst I’d stop short of calling them “angels” there are also a number of damn fine men.

TTP,

“just remember when the chips are down you won’t find a better ally than the US”

Yea, tell that to the Kurds and Marsh Arabs. The Kurds in particular were treated badly when the US allowed Saddam to slaughter them and then allowed its NATO ally (Turkey) to enter northern Iraq to slaughter them too.

Jonsey,

I appreciate your point that most chaps in the services are normal blokes who have families, morals, etc but in my experience there are also some “slaughter merchants” who’re just violent thugs who have no qualms with public displays of racism and worse. mostly in the parachute regiment as far as I can tell.

You are correct (i guess i should have been more clear, sorry), but it doesn’t alter the point i was trying to make. The only time when a deadline was put on Iraqi WMD disarmament was in March 1991.Ever since, no deadline on Iraqi disarmament has been made. As i have stated above, you can explain this both as a reason to invade or as a reason to let the inspectors do their work.

As I’ve always maintained the SOLE reason for the patchy Iraqi compliance with UNMOVIC was the tangible presence of US/UK combat power in the immediate vicinty. So I couldnt subscribe to the view that the simple setting of deadlines, in isolation, would have had any success whatsoever and as we all know here you cant keep a military force, in significant state-level quantity, deployed forever. So, as soon as the US/UK troops started deploying the Hussein regime was under the stopwatch and it had to be that way. Basically without the troops Saddam prevaricates and does nothing substantive until troops arrive. With the troops, but with a 6 month extending deadline, the troops become increasingly combat ineffective and weather hampered as time passes, the credible threat of force diminishes and Saddam goes back to prevaricating and doing nothing. Either way he “wins”.

Steve, you will probably understand that i think you are one of the more convincing branches of the pro-war (well, in this particulair case at least ) tree. However, your IMHO most plausible reason for this war is indeed the oil (not the actual posession of it, but in providing a consistant and unthreatened supply), which is then again denied by others of the pro-war branch.

Its a truism that compliments are only really something to feel happy about when they come from people you respect. Thank you for the compliment.

My belief is still that the oil IS an issue we are right to be fighting for and I’m pleased that I’ve been clear in the distinction between direct ownership and protected supply. I have little doubt that the oil is foremost in the minds of the political authorities of various contries, however, from what I’ve seen and heard the reasons why the troops are actually motivated to fight is the more humanitarian concern of getting a real tw@t out of power which I think is a significant distinction and one that needs to be highlighted.

I was actually highly amused earlier this morning watching Sky News reporters interview Iraqi lads in the “liberated” zone south of Basra. This one Iraqi lad, must have been about Benjamins age, turned around and (paraphrasing) said that he hated Saddam and was happy to be beyond his reach but that he still thought Bush was a tosser!. I remember thinking that these guys will take to western democracy like ducks to water!!!

As to others on “my side” chopping and changing reasons and views I can’t speak for them and wouldnt be so presumptious as to try. I’ve said, months back, that I thought we were going about this the wrong way and, eventually, the point was officially made that we were technically authorised under 687 like I said all that time ago. Unfortunately by that stage it was seen as a clutching of straws, to those prejudiced against anyway, instead of the direct legal justification that it is. I’d say thats the failure of the Blair/Bush tag team and is exactly what Kev was talking about in his piece above.

In that sence, you will agree with me that the reasons why people choose a position in this matter are not the same for everybody.

I agree absolutely mate. I do think though that the overly emotive responses displayed by many people that I’d describe as wringing-hands social-justice types is inconsequential to the political decisions that must be taken.

Not that I’d deny them anything for the moral correctness of their opinions, in fact I’m very cheered by the fact that so many people around the world do still sincerely care about the suffering of absolute strangers hundreds or thousands of miles away. I was concerned that that side of human nature was dying of abject neglect in todays cynical world (and thats me speaking as a cynic!).

The problem I have is that a political decision of the magnitude such as this, should not and cannot be negatively influenced by base emotive concerns. We need to be conscious that what we are doing has emotional and moral dimensions, of course, but that pure morality needs to tempered with practicality. In this case the enlightened self-interest that has been created by the oil does fit hand-in-glove with the task of removing a dictator that, apparently, his people really don’t “love” but have been unable to deal with themselves. The one does not negate the value of the other in my view. The morality of freeing the Iraqi people on the back of securing those oil supplies is questionable but the net result is that some people, who don’t care about the oil, have the leverage to go in and do some real good for a people who’ve had a very bad time of it.

The same goes for the other side of the coin – so i don’t think your anti-war = pro-chirac and pro-saddam remarks are fair, except maybe as a (rather simple, i might add) way for you to put an anti-war stance into perspective.

No Arthur mostly its just frustration and annoyance with the situation getting the better of the more reasonable bits of me I’m afraid – see I am still human despite the callousness. Those remarks arent fair and I appreciate, naturally, that just as I dont swallow everything Blair and Bush say you, and others, don’t accept all the motivations of Chirac and, obviously, don’t directly support Hussein.

Just as Bush and Blair have failed in presenting consistent and clear directions and justifications in support of their actions I think that the anti-war movement is just as guilty for allowing themselves to be manipulated by powers with more interest in chipping bits off US hegemony than any real humanitarian concern for what might happen in Iraq in the short term. Also the repeated depatures from the issue at hand towards bringing in the Arab-Israeli conflict, Afghanistan, Kosovo and even frigging Vietnam have shown equal fragmentation of purpose but, more insidiously to me, a support for the general theory that whatever the US does is wrong and is to be opposed even to the point of absolutely ignoring the potential benefits that would come to the Iraqi people postwar.

I know you are smarter than that, and since i know you have balanced the pros and cons of this conflict against each other to come to your personal opinion, i think you should well be able to understand that someone comes to another conclusion. To put it shortly: you do understand why some of the reasons why people are against this war are legitimate, right?

I CAN understand, like Garry says, people who utterly abhor violence and conflict for whatever reason being automatically opposed. I can also understand people viewing our strikes causing civillian casualties would be disgusted by what they see and if they hadnt done sufficient background reading, or had simply become sick of all the spin and bombast like Kev mentions, just oppose the issue on those most basic emotional reasons. Please accept that seeing little 5 year old girls in hospitals in Baghdad is something that effects me as deeply as it does you….I have a 7 year old daughter myself ’nuff said?:(

My view is that simply at some point we have to act in the belief that, given an existing situation that is intolerable, what follows will be better in the long term, for all involved, and that I expect our political leaderships to be the best placed to see that long term view.

TTP,don’t go dude.

Remember the criticism during op enduring freedom?But is’nt afghanistan a much better place today than talibanistan? 🙂

Hi, Mik.

Originally posted by Mik
Interesting the hammering GEFORCE was given due to his age and the equally strident response in his defence. Surely though nobody suggested he has no right to an opinion, what was debated was his ability to have experienced enough of world events to allow him to formulate an opinion based on current knowledge and historical perspective. That is a valid point. The gentleman in question may indeed be able to do just that, but then again most 18y/o do not.

Is your concept of “enough experience of world events” really a valid point? Many of the men and women now involved in the actions in the Gulf will be between the ages of 18 and 25. I trust you believe that those troops have the experience and emotional maturity to cope with the momentous events they are involved in. Strange then that you should think the average eighteen year old who is against the war does not.

As to historical perspective, Belgium has been occupied twice in the last 100 years and the land fought over fiercely. I would imagine ‘historical perspective’ is ingrained into Geforce and his fellow Belgians.

Regards,

kev35

Back to Oz…

Saw a protest march in Brisbane today and a HUGE one too. But the polls suggest closer to 50:50 now on the public’s war opinion, its closing up.

Steve,

Originally posted by Jonesy

….
Sorry pal thats just not the case. Below is article 8 from UN Resolution 687:

8. Decides that Iraq shall unconditionally accept the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless, under international supervision, of: (a) All chemical and biological weapons and all stocks of agents and all related subsystems and components and all research, development, support and manufacturing facilities; (b) All ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometres and related major parts, and repair and production facilities;

Thats fairly specific and was the initator for the original UNSCOM teams to verify that compliance. Those teams, and UNMOVIC, demanded documentry evidence for compliance with the above article. Hussein refused to provide that evidence and thusly was specifically in material breach of 687.

You are correct (i guess i should have been more clear, sorry), but it doesn’t alter the point i was trying to make. The only time when a deadline was put on Iraqi WMD disarmament was in March 1991. Which IMHO means that an attack on Iraq to end Saddam’s regime would have been totally legitimate a bit later that spring – but no, at that time the Coalition forces preferred to watch as the Kurds and Shi’i were being killed after they were asked to rise up.

Ever since, no deadline on Iraqi disarmament has been made. As i have stated above, you can explain this both as a reason to invade or as a reason to let the inspectors do their work.

Steve, you will probably understand that i think you are one of the more convincing branches of the pro-war (well, in this particulair case at least 😉 ) tree. However, your IMHO most plausible reason for this war is indeed the oil (not the actual posession of it, but in providing a consistant and unthreatened supply), which is then again denied by others of the pro-war branch.

In that sence, you will agree with me that the reasons why people choose a position in this matter are not the same for everybody. The same goes for the other side of the coin – so i don’t think your anti-war = pro-chirac and pro-saddam remarks are fair, except maybe as a (rather simple, i might add) way for you to put an anti-war stance into perspective. I know you are smarter than that, and since i know you have balanced the pros and cons of this conflict against each other to come to your personal opinion, i think you should well be able to understand that someone comes to another conclusion.

To put it shortly: you do understand why some of the reasons why people are against this war are legitimate, right?

Interesting thread.

Here in NZ our PM has stated that she doesn’t support an invasion of Iraq if it doesn’t have UN approval.

It doesn’t.

She has commited NZ to help in the rebuilding of Iraq but not to support the invasion.
(Rather consistant… our forces are more and more geared to peacekeeping and we have tried to avoid the peacemaking role… though we do still have SAS troops in Afghanistan.)

Regarding the issues those who support the war to free Iraq are full of it. Why free them now… they have been suppressed for more than 20 years. There are many other oppressed people why save the Iraqis first?
Those who support the war and could care less about the plight of the iraqi people seem to be basing their reasons on the potential for Saddam to cause harm sometime in the future. Such reasoning is flawed in that many other dictators could do the same yet only Saddam is being targetted.

“I honestly have a hard time understanding, therefore, how people who are as, if not more, intelligent, considered and pragmatic than me can come to such a diametrically opposed viewpoint given largely the same information. “

Perhaps the division of ends justifies the means and those who think that some methods are not justifyable no matter what the results.

If God appeared to me and said that my next door neighbour was going to give birth to a child that would grow up and kill billions by developing a virus and that I should kill my neighbour now to make sure it never happened I wouldn’t do it. I am ot prepared to sacrifice an innocent (ie mother) for the “greater good” even with unfalible information (ie from god… which is rather strange considering I am an Athiest).
In this situation there is no infalible information.

Your own blood was too precious to spill helping his enemies rise up against saddam in 91, and now you are all hoping for a short war to reduce losses.
I’d suggest the only losses that would be reduced by a short war are US/UK loses and considering they are the agressors in this case I must say I don’t care much either way.

Perhaps it is a case of me prefering the old days with wars by proxy, where you gave money and arms to one side till your side won… harder back then because there was always another superpower that could do the same and although the support of a superpower never guaranteed success you could always guarantee your side didn’t lose completely.
Unfortunately in Iraq the US doesn’t want the Kurds to win anything and a large majority of the Iraqi people have religious ties with iran, which the US would like even less.
If it were about saving the Iraqi people from a dictator it would have been done in 91.
It is about oil prices and standard of living in the west.
Because of that I don’t think the lives of innocent Iraqis should be risked by the US bombing Iraq going after Saddam just so the price of oil stays down for US so they can keep driving SUVs.

I also disagree in principle in this new right of the US to change regimes as it pleases.

Interesting the hammering GEFORCE was given due to his age and the equally strident response in his defence. Surely though nobody suggested he has no right to an opinion, what was debated was his ability to have experienced enough of world events to allow him to formulate an opinion based on current knowledge and historical perspective. That is a valid point. The gentleman in question may indeed be able to do just that, but then again most 18y/o do not.
In regards to the world wide peace protests, I find it interesting that they have the almost evangelical belief that there opinions are 100% correct and any who disagree are nothing but blundering neanderthals drooling for the chance to taste blood. Somewhat ironic considering this extreme polarisation in belief is one of the main accusations they hurl at supporters of the war. They have that horrible “holier than thou” sanctimony about them that leaves little room for rational debate.
Here in Australia the population is more or less evenly split on the issue. Interestingly when you delve into the figures, in the under 25 age group anti war sentiment is astoundingly high. Above that age group support begins to increase. Surprisingly the biggest support seems (I say seems as getting data is difficult) to come from the middle socioeconomic group. The person most likely to support the war effort is:
Male
30 to 50 y/o
Married
Earning Au$40k to Au$75k.

Personally I would be interested to see how long the majority of people who vehemently oppose the war would be able to live under a regime such as Saddam has ruled over before they were begging another power to come to there aid. Although I suspect these would be the ones who would sell there soul to a people smuggler to leave the country and claim refuge status rather than put any effort into achieving a change.

As keltic has said before, a very strong reaction, lead by university students. Here in Madrid the police is working hard against the protests.
It´s really weird to find 4 police vans in the front of your college.

Regards

Jorge

Kev,

Good remarks well phrased.

But they must understand that the rest of us show our naivete because we are fed only what Governments want us to hear.

There are many people on this forum who could say that and I’d believe that that was about the best they could do just listen to propoganda and spit it or swallow it. You are not one of them though Kev. I’ve always been interested in reading your posts because you present yourself as a lad with no shortage of grey matter keeping his ears apart. I dont believe you are unable to assemble the litany of “spun” information provided by whichever authority into something getting closer to the truth.

I appreciate that your job, you’ve spoken about being a nurse/carer a few times?, makes you more sensitive to human suffering on a personal level than me. I base much of my world view on precisely the same information sources you do though and, while admittedly I do have friends who still wear the uniforms of all three services theyre not gung-ho slaughter merchants who want to kill, kill, kill. In fact they are just normal-ish people who, at times, have their fingers further away from the pulse than we do on these boards and I dont consider myself a slavering monster who wants to see the Euphrates running red with Iraqi blood either.

I honestly have a hard time understanding, therefore, how people who are as, if not more, intelligent, considered and pragmatic than me can come to such a diametrically opposed viewpoint given largely the same information. I dont mean any disrespect to you by that its just that I know my own opinion is one I’ve arrived at following a careful and honest analysis of all the information I’ve had to hand. No disrespect to Benjamin here but teenage kids have the luxury of believing in pure ideology and, in many cases, see the world as they’d like it to be and want it to be – in a way thats their perogative. Us more…..erm….seasoned individuals dont have that luxury as abrasive experience has taught us the way the world really works.

Rightly or wrongly, many members of this forum consider the current American administration to be fundamentally flawed and therefore are unwilling to blindly believe their propaganda and rhetoric.

The problem there though is that once you apply a total and automatic prejudice to any entity you, equally automatically, deny yourself any possibilty of real objectivity. Without objectivity, IMO, you cannot arrive at a valid conclusion. In this instance that objectivity is essential to balance out the various and rapidly shifting stream of justifications for war coming from the Bush Whitehouse against the shallow, unconstructive pseudo-emotive rantings coming from Chirac and his mob.

Many of us would have given our support to this war if the situation was clearer, if evidence of WMD had been found.

Which backs up your assertion that there was never real clarity in the messages coming from UNMOVIC and Hans Blix’s lot. The UNMOVIC mission wasnt one of search-and-eliminate – simply put they never had the manpower or authority to do that. Their mission was one of inspection and verification of the destruction of weapons that Saddam was to present them and to be on-site to investigate tipoffs from within the regime or from various intel sources. So without full compliance from Hussein the evidence that you would have wished to see was NEVER going to be forthcoming. Hussein gave nowhere near full compliance and, cynically, the compliance he seemed willing to offer was closely timed to UNSC presentations by Hans Blix. It’s fairly good supposition that without the forces being arrayed on his border by the US and UK UNMOVIC wouldnt have even got that far.

Simply put Kev it was absolutely in Saddams’ interest to have UNMOVIC in his country running busily round like headless chickens chasing ghost reports as, while they were doing that, no-one would have been in a “justified” position to attack him. Disarming Saddam diplomatically suffered a huge flaw from the start – he was never willing to deal with the UN with sincerity and you can’t reach binding agreements with someone who doesn’t care whether he honours his obligations or not.

However, we have a war and I sincerely hope it is concluded with the minimum loss of life on all sides.

Which is the one thing we surely all agree on.

Arthur,

Also, you are wrong about the 1991 ceasefire agreements. There was never a clausule for Saddam to fully disarm, there was a clause for Saddam to get rid of all his special weapons programs within 30 days.

Sorry pal thats just not the case. Below is article 8 from UN Resolution 687:

8. Decides that Iraq shall unconditionally accept the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless, under international supervision, of: (a) All chemical and biological weapons and all stocks of agents and all related subsystems and components and all research, development, support and manufacturing facilities; (b) All ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometres and related major parts, and repair and production facilities;

Thats fairly specific and was the initator for the original UNSCOM teams to verify that compliance. Those teams, and UNMOVIC, demanded documentry evidence for compliance with the above article. Hussein refused to provide that evidence and thusly was specifically in material breach of 687.

“Can I just remind you whose troops are on the ground with Americans in Iraq and whose air force and navy are actively involved in operations in the Gulf.”

As they usually are when someone else starts a war. From the beginning, too.

I too wish you good luck, and good hunting. Right or wrong, win the war quickly and get home in one peace.

“Kev, arthur, I may well be at the “Stein” and probably would enjoy a beer or two with you, even if we don’t share the same politics, just remember when the chips are down you won’t find a better ally than the US”

Can I just remind you whose troops are on the ground with Americans in Iraq and whose air force and navy are actively involved in operations in the Gulf.

We will probably never agree politically but I wish you luck in whatever it is you have to do.

Regards,

kev35

To All,

I will still read the other forums, especially the Warbird, flypast, sections. Not afraid of a good debate, but really have to fly a mission soon, Kev, arthur, I may well be at the “Stein” and probably would enjoy a beer or two with you, even if we don’t share the same politics, just remember when the chips are down you won’t find a better ally than the US

Would you be so kind as to pay attention in AFV recognition before you go operational TTP please.

Courage of conviction?

TTP,

Leaving so soon? It is to be admired that your colleagues now fighting in Iraq hold and display the courage of their Government’s convictions, and do not choose to leave in the face of argument or discord.

Regards,

kev35

Originally posted by TTP
Arthur,

You are right about the Sukkoi! I’m tired of arguing with you guys. Obviously the United States is a force of evil in the world right now, especially troublesome is the constant rhetoric about Bush….Alot of the same arguments were made about Ronald Reagan, yet his policies went a long way towards helping alot of countries attain freedom from communist rule. Soon Iraq will be under the iron fist of American colonialism, just like Japan, South Korea, and Western Europe!!!! We have plundered their economies for 50 years!!!!
Steve is right, the US is scared that Europe will rise again, we will all be flying Airbus’s, eating quiche, and drinking lowenbraus!!! You all have found us out!!!!
Good-Bye to this forum, Unfortunately I will be on your continent next week, If I run into any of you, I’ll be proudly wearing my USAF uniform, please don’t throw any stones at me or my jet.
The world will be a much better place when countries like Russia, China, and France are in control!!!
Good-bye and Good riddance!

Spoken like a true debater and a fine protagonist of Freedom of Speech.

Are you flying in to Ramstein perhaps? In that case, we might indeed run in to each other. Don’t worry, the first Löwenbrau will be on me…

Arthur,

You are right about the Sukkoi! I’m tired of arguing with you guys. Obviously the United States is a force of evil in the world right now, especially troublesome is the constant rhetoric about Bush….Alot of the same arguments were made about Ronald Reagan, yet his policies went a long way towards helping alot of countries attain freedom from communist rule. Soon Iraq will be under the iron fist of American colonialism, just like Japan, South Korea, and Western Europe!!!! We have plundered their economies for 50 years!!!!
Steve is right, the US is scared that Europe will rise again, we will all be flying Airbus’s, eating quiche, and drinking lowenbraus!!! You all have found us out!!!!
Good-Bye to this forum, Unfortunately I will be on your continent next week, If I run into any of you, I’ll be proudly wearing my USAF uniform, please don’t throw any stones at me or my jet.
The world will be a much better place when countries like Russia, China, and France are in control!!!
Good-bye and Good riddance!

Judging by the awful grammar, and piss-poor spelling, I’m not convinced some contributors to this thread will comprehend this article.

It says something about a nation’s collective standard of intellect and education when a lot of the most articulate arguments contributed to this forum are by those for whom English isn’t their first language.

Anyway, I digress.

I thought some of you may find this of interest, there were a couple of points brought up that I’d certainly not been aware of until now.

The real reasons America is invading Iraq

America is seeking to ward off any threat to its economic domination of the world, writes Kenneth Davidson.

George Bush planned “regime change” in Iraq before becoming United States President in January 2001. The events of September 11, 2001, were the pretext for invasion of Iraq, not the reason.

The blueprint for the creation of a “global Pax America”, to which Bush subscribes and which is driving the invasion of Iraq, was drawn up in September 2000 for D1ck Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush (George’s younger brother) and Lewis Libby (Cheney’s chief of staff).

The document, called Rebuilding America’s Defences: strategies, forces and resources for a new century, was written in September 2000 by the neo-conservative think tank Project for the New American Century.

According to the document, written three months before Bush became president, “the US for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.”

The document outlines the global ambitions of the Bush Administration. It sets out a “blueprint for maintaining global US pre-eminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests”.

The question for John Howard must be: to what extent does his Government subscribe to the Bush strategy outlined in the think tank’s document?

Howard says Australia’s participation in this war is in Australia’s national interests. How?

To answer that question we must know why the war is being fought in the first place. For all I know, Bush, Howard and Tony Blair may be absolutely sincere when they claim that getting rid of Saddam is a humanitarian act that will make the Iraqis better off, or that Saddam has the will, the motive and the weapons of mass destruction capable of threatening other countries. But these are not the real reasons for the invasion.

The real reasons can be summed up as deciding who controls Middle East oil and gets access to the water from the Tigris and Euphrates, and what currency will be used to pay for the development of the oil and water resources.

According to the think tank document, the US would have to increase its defence spending to 3.8 per cent of GDP (which it has just achieved) to finance an American military capability “to fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars” and to “perform constabulary duties associated with shaping the security environment in critical regions”.

This is a massive task that can only be achieved if the US can continue to draw on the resources of the whole world, which in turn is only possible if the US can continue to run massive trading deficits with Western Europe, China and Japan. In other words, these regions must remain willing to exchange the product of their industries for American dollars.

It would be fatal to America’s global strategic ambitions if countries in Europe began to ask for euros instead of US dollars for their exports, or if China demanded settlement of their accounts with the US in yuan instead of US dollars. The US would have to redirect domestic demand for imported goods paid for in dollar-denominated IOUs into exports to earn yuan and euros to pay for US imports.

It is difficult to see how the US could develop new, internationally competitive industries and run a military machine on the scale envisaged by the think tank without a massive increase in taxation and redistribution of wealth to the productive elements in the economy without precipitating a global recession.

In 2000, Saddam’s regime had the temerity to demand payment in euros for the trickle of Iraqi oil the US has allowed onto the international market. Iran and Venezuela are following Iraq’s example. This is the real threat to US hegemony.

If the US can control Middle East oil production, it can control the industrial development of Europe, China and Japan (and Australia), to prevent a rival to its hegemony emerging. But to do this it must retain the greenback as the world currency.

It is possible to make a weak case based on realpolitik why Blair is along for the ride with Bush in Iraq (BP and Shell), but it is impossible to see what Australia will get out of this adventure even if it “succeeds”.

Bush personifies the American quest for absolute security. Americans don’t yet understand or care that this status can only be achieved by making everybody else absolutely insecure.

This is why the most lasting thing to come out of the war with Iraq is likely to be the faster development of a unified Western Europe and an economically powerful China to challenge US hegemony.
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Sleep tight, y’all 😎

Steve ~ Touchdown-News