[PLUG-TALK] Chirac's shocker... Iraq.

[none]

On Sat, 2003-12-20 at 00:19, Jeme A Brelin wrote:
> 
> On Fri, 19 Dec 2003, none wrote:
> > Since when does seperating church and state translate to the state
> > banning religious expressions that are simply choices in dress?
> 
> I hate to ask this, but what the fuck are you talking about?

Read the Oregonian, there's an article on Chirac and France.  
And keep that language to yourself for once.  If 
you hate to ask, why did you ask?

> Are you talking about keeping people from wearing miniature depictions of
> inhuman torture and death at work in public agencies?
> 
> > This business about trying to force people to see women doctors is quite
> > astounding too I might add.  He's asking to get every frenchman against
> > him ;-) What is he hoping to do, spread some love around or something?
> 
> Ever heard of context?  Who is "he"?
> 
> > To think that there are some who want the French and German government
> > involved with Iraq now is scary.
> 
> Right, you have to be a rogue terrorist state in order to profiteer in
> your imperial domain.  If you don't do the killin', you can't do the
> exploitin'.  

Saddham was trying to buy missiles from North Korea.  What reason
does this country have to try and profit in a region where our allies
are already very short with us?  Unlike Clinton who passed up an
opportunity to get Bin Laden handed over to us launching missiles
at him instead, Bush is much smarter.  Saddham wasn't harmless
towards this country, or does threatening to kill the President's
father not amount to anything?  He killed and gassed his own 
people showing no remorse for it,something an Iraqi has said.  

Some plundering your talking about, a number of civilians have 
been killed.  Saddham could have prevented an attack a long time 
ago by letting the U.N. weapons inspectors stay in his country.  
He chose not to do this, did he hope to be caught without WMD 
to discredit us so that he can pursue weapons programs 
uninhibited?  He is a despot accountable to noone and apologies
for none of the atrocities he has ordered over the years against 
Iraqis and even foreign visitors.  Believe it or not, the
restoration of infrastructure is important for the Iraqi people 
where our troops are so outnumbered by the Iraqi population that 
we are guests in that country.  Most of the opposition is probably
coming from Iran or Pakistan.

> 
> We wouldn't want to get anyone in there that has a reasonable idea of how
> workers should be treated or anything.

At least Saddham can't order executions anymore.  Have you ever
considered the policy that you only hear the bad and that wages
in foreign countries are going to be different than what you
earn here because money is worth a different amount there?
I should also mention that the pay for Iraqis is being raised
and it could be argued that underpaying people produces
incentive for them to build their economy up to a point where 
they can demand better pay, a situation that can get us out of 
Iraq.  We did pay for a war where the International community
isn't pulling it's weight and we are in recession, consider 
what you're saying when you knock the pay.
 
> > I don't care much for the whole International court concept either that
> > was pushed on Bill Moyers.  It's curious that a court selected through
> > some unclear procedure is purported to be International.
> 
> The procedure is quite clear.  They have a well-defined process.

Whatever.  Then tell the audience what a war crime is in their
definition?  France and Germany didn't want Saddham gone because
they had extensive trade with him, I very much doubt that German
and French prosecutors could ever be trusted to convict Saddham
of war crimes.

> And if you don't have an international court of justice, you have war.
> There must be a civil place to resolve grievances outside a particular
> nation's bias.

War will always be.  Bureaucracy and multilateralism neither obsolete
war nor do they provide an affective means to wage war.  The Kosovo
fiasco is ample evidence for this.  If you wage war you fight to win,
or you don't fight at all.

 
> The State Department's legal analysis of the ICJ (International Court of
> Justice) included a statement of the following (not verbatim... can't find
> the original report right now -- this was during the Reagan administration
> when the Court admonished the U.S. for war crimes against the people of
> Nicaragua):  "[W]e cannot count on members of the United Nation to follow
> our opinion.... The United States will make its own determination on how
> to deal with issues that effect its interests."
> 
> You, Michael, in particular, should be interested to note that the Pope
> cited the United States bombing Iraq and the Sudan as criminal aggression.

The pope isn't for peace at any price despite what the Catholic Sentinel
publishes these days.  He is concerned about preemptive strikes where
I must say the president offered that as a reason for going into
Iraq, but it really isn't.  This invasion is in reality
the end of the Persian Gulf War.  The pope is not a fan of Saddham
having said that Saddham needed to admit the weapons inspectors.
The church does teach that there is such a thing as a just war.

If Bush believes in what he is doing, truly believes, not backing 
down takes real courage.  In an election year he could please
the public by ignoring the situation in Iraq and bringing all the
troops home.  Instead, he believes they need to stay for now and
has said if he isn't reelected that he'll simply return to his
Crawford Ranch to let the next guy take over.  We are a democracy 
( representative republic ).  

In all your angst over Bush have you ever given him the 
benefit of the doubt considering that he's the only president 
chosen by the court because of a tie?

He came in with a recession against him, a late start in 
office, and then shortly after he had the September 11th 
crisis to contend with.  Need I remind you that there are
democrats, namely Lieberman, who are for the war in Iraq?  

 
> > What scares me about Iraq is that a similar government to what was
> > removed could establish after the International presence is gone.
> 
> It's called democracy.  It's not your business to tell other people how to
> run their country.

And Saddham Hussein wasn't killing people who disagreed with him?  In
a true Islamic state their are religious police who control attire and
enforce certain rituals, or am I mistaken?  The hallmarks of
representative government include freedom of religion, tolerance,
and a government focused on improving social welfare.

> In fact, you're only assuring a government even MORE hostile to the United
> States will take control after this brutal occupation ends.

Is it because we removed a government that has anyone who disagrees with
it put to death or tortured?  A more brutal Iraq is a possibility,
though I tend to think the future is far brighter.

 
> > The concept of mercy essential to human rights must be alien in a nation
> > where most do not see O come O come Emmanuel as a valid description of
> > God.  As much as a trial of Saddham is needed, a de Baathing of Iraq
> > probably needs to take place too.  I think our nation's distrust of the
> > U.N. is understandable, but can we help in the establishment of an Iraq
> > that will usher in a safer U.S. relationship with the Middle East?  It
> > seems that human rights are more of a Christian idea than a secular one.
> > Don't tell Chirac that though, he might try to secularize you!
 
> The best way to assure a Middle East that with a "safer U.S. relationship"
> would be to end aggression, help (along with the United Nations) run a
> fair, safe, election for a council of leaders to shape the new nation in
> whatever image they choose, leave whatever's left of the US$87 Billion
> appropriated by Congress for the task and walk away with the assurance
> that our government will continue to recognize the sovereignty of their
> nation and legitimacy of their government regardless of whether or not
> their national policies complement ours.

The president went in on grounds that Saddham is harmful to his own
people and bent on acquiring weapons of mass destruction.  He has
acquired and used them in the past.  He repeatedly violated U.N.
resolutions intended to assure the world that he isn't after
weapons.  He abused the oil for food program.  Any nation that
does not seek to improve the social welfare of it's own people
does not deserve to be recognized.  France and Germany wouldn't
go in because they were trading with Iraq and probably don't
want a free Iraq for fear it will negatively impact their trade
arrangements.  France and Germany were incapabling of 
questioning Saddham and arguably still are.

 
> No more occupation, no more bombing, no more blockades.
> 
> Show them respect instead of the barrel of a 50mm gun.

We caught Saddham alive and the Iraqi people want to try him.
We killed two of his sons who were known as torturers.  
Our troops are pulling back from the cities and there
is work being done to build a new Iraqi military to take over
from them.  There is an Iraqi governing council.  We are not 
targeting civilians, but there have been many clashes where 
terrorists want civilian casualties in order to create 
outrage against American troops.
 
> And by all means, keep foreign transnational corporations OUT of the
> rebuilding process.  That is only going to turn Iraq into a slave state
> for the United States and Britain.

You're paranoid and delusional.  Sometimes you need a big 
corporation to get the job done.  Do you really think Iran, 
Saudia Arabia, Pakistan, and Syria will idly stand by if we 
make Iraq our colony?  We've brought food to a nation that 
was starving and our troops have put down their weapons many 
times to give food to children, people they can trust.  Not 
only that, our troops have switched to more of a policing 
role attempting to build comraderie when they can by engaging 
civilians in outdoor games.  We have brought modern medicine 
to many Iraqis who had nothing and we are working on the 
infrastructure, we are even rerepairing electrical, water, 
and sever when necessary.  Saddham sympathizers don't want 
Iraqi civilians to have running water, sewer, and electricity.

The press has done a good job of making our business in Iraq look
like the worst occupation ever failing to show the good we are 
doing.  Conquerors would have put a 45 to the back of Saddham's 
head the moment they found him, they wouldn't care about 
civilians at all, and they wouldn't want the United Nations 
to know they're going into a nation to plunder it.  We did go
to the UN.
 
> > Giving Saddham a fair trial is a big challenge for Iraq.
> 
> ...especially considering they have no legal system of their own anymore
> and anything they do put together will be built by the United States
> (under the guise of the "coalition") to serve its own interests.

Saddham had people he didn't like executed. He even executed
some of his closest friends to show bravado.  Under him what 
kind of legal system do you think Iraq has had for the last
thirty years?
 
> > Hopefully this trial will help Iraqis move forward.  Hopefully things
> > aren't moving too fast, perhaps pressure form the not so anti bush not
> > so anti Iraq War media is softening the administration's will to stay in
> > Iraq till the nation is stabilized.

> Well, they wouldn't have to wait for it to stabilize if they hadn't
> destabilized it in the first place.

People were starving before we invaded and the oil infrastructure it
turns out has been neglected hurting Iraq's economy.
 
> Do not forget that Reagan's people (many of them even more prominent in
> Bush's administration -- criminals like John Poindexter) were responsible
> for helping Saddam overthrow the government of Iraq in order to stoke the
> fires of war with Iran.  This is all just one long continuation of the
> Iran-Contra affair.  That criminal system is still in operation and
> today's occupation of Iraq is just one more step in that plan.

Bush has said that past policies with Iraq that saw Saddham as the
answer to dealing with Iran were wrong even though that implicates
decisions made by his own father.  The Iran contra scandal was in
part caused by a political stunt by democrats to challenge 
Reagan's presidential powers where he chose to go around 
Congress instead of taking them head on.  It surprises me 
that removing Saddham who hates Iran doesn't please Iranians.  
Bush has stated that supporting dictators is a mistake and 
that we shouldn't do it again.  Politically, Bush needs to 
leave Iraq.  Strategically, the mission is not done until 
Iraq has a new constitution and can take care of it's own 
security needs without U.S. and British support.  Feelers 
have been sent out to France and Germany to try to multi 
nationalize the coalition, but these nations so concerned 
about someone else shaping the middle east without them 
haven't responded.  Are you blind to the fact that not 
having enough troops there is a way to put pressure 
on France and Germany to come and help?  France and Germany
aren't coming because they don't care about the Iraqi people,
they were only interested in trade deals guranteed to them
by Saddham.  He bought them so they wouldn't join us,
a political stunt to buy time.  Saddham knew he couldn't
defeat our military with his own, so he tried to manipulate
the politics.