ditto
----- Original Message -----
From: <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2004 6:31 AM
Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] OT: Rules for being a republican and other follies.
(Warning, long.)


  Well Said Denys!!

   James


-----Original Message-----
From: Denys Beauchemin [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2004 12:46 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [HP3000-L] OT: Rules for being a republican and other follies.
(Warning, long.)


I have subscribed to this list continuously since 1995.  During that
time, I have come to expect a modicum of education in the people who
post, especially when it comes to off-topic threads.  I have found many
of these threads entertaining and even, at times, educational especially
when the writer was accurate in his or her arguments.  Debating under
these conditions is fun and I think everyone gains, if not in agreement,
at least in understanding.

The more recent threads dealing with the liberation of Iraq and the WMDs
have been a departure from the norm.  Some people have lowered the usual
standards of debate by ad hominem attacks, stating easily-refutable
falsehoods and general mischief.  These last few days have seen a
recrudescence of these undesirable traits, to the point where the signal
to noise ratio is extremely low.

Whereas it was fun and challenging to debate with certain people, it is
now so easy as to not be interesting anymore.  The hatred infusing some
people has totally blinded them to the facts and to the lessons of
history.  In this message, my last on the subject, I will address some
of the more egregious errors and falsehoods that have been presented
recently.

Richard Barker ostensibly from the UK wrote a few days ago:

"But Brice you are missing the point completely.  America DID NOT save
Europe in WWII, the clue is in the first 'W'.  I guess I could easily
say Australia, New Zealand, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, France,
Russia, Belgium, India, Britain, Canada, Sweden, Norway, Denmark,
Finland, etc saved America from speaking German/Japanese.

It was a world wide effort it involved the co-operation of many
countries. Of course America's contribution was substantial and maybe
without them the war wouldn't have been won at all, but it is
ridiculously arrogant and insulting to infer that somehow America took
on this noble cause to save us poor Europeans.  They had to get involved
in a war that affected the whole world.

How about I start banging on about how Wellington saved the world from
speaking French."

The ignorance of recent history contained in the above message is
spectacular.  Where do I begin?  Well, Mr. Barker you could easily say
what you said, but you would be wrong.  In more ways than you know.

In fact, America DID save Europe (and the rest of the world) in WWII. At
first it saved England with something with which you might be passingly
familiar, called Lend-Lease.  This is the mechanism whereby America
poured millions of tons of weapon systems, vehicles, ships, aircraft,
munitions, supplies, medicine, food, fuel, and cash to England.  If it
had not been for Lend-Lease and America's phenomenal production and
generosity, England would have been invaded or at the very least,
rendered totally impotent.  One of the very first objects of Lend-Lease
was composed of fifty, that's 50, five-oh, US Destroyers sent to England
and other nations of the Commonwealth.  My uncle served as an officer on
one of the six that were allocated to Canada, HMCS Annapolis, escorting
convoys to England. My father was an engineer in a munitions plant in
Canada during the war.  Whilst Canada supplied a lot of munitions and
armament to England during the war, it was a mere drop in the bucket
compared to what America supplied.  And BTW, America forgave most of the
Lend-Lease debt after the war.

America liberated Europe with the assistance of the British, Canadian
and Anzac forces.   Which country did the heavy lifting on D-Day?  I
suggest you read some history, preferably not from the BBC.  If America
had not participated in the war, Nazism would be the law of the land in
Europe.

Australia and New Zealand contributed to the European war effort, but
this was minimal.  Do not forget they were otherwise distracted in their
own neighborhood, especially after 1941.  America saved Australia and
New Zealand from Japanese invasion by waging and convincingly winning
the battle of Midway.

Poland was overrun by the Germans and the Soviets in a matter of a few
weeks, with minimal losses to the invaders.  Czechoslovakia had already
been annexed before September 1939.  Hungary was an Axis sympathizer and
remained neutral until Germany invaded Russia in June 1941.  At that
point it declared war on the Soviet Union and became a full Axis partner
to Germany and Italy.  Hungary certainly did NOT save America from
speaking German/Japanese.

France was overrun in early 1940.  You might remember the disaster (or
miracle) of Dunkirk, this is where the British Army lost most of its
trucks, tanks, guns and cannons.  All replaced by the Americans.  The
Soviet Union was on the side of the Germans when the war started, they
invaded Poland along with the Germans.  The Soviets only changed their
mind after Hitler attacked them in June 1941.  Russia's participation in
the war was very important.  However one must remember that America
supplied even more arms, planes, munitions, trucks, supplies and
high-octane gasoline to Russia than they did to England.  I have
recently been reading stories and articles about women pilots who flew
factory-fresh fighter planes into Alaska, where Soviet pilots would take
delivery of these planes and fly them into Russia.  There were also
untold numbers of convoys doing the Murmansk run to bring supplies to
the Soviets.  If it had not been for America providing phenomenal
amounts of vital supplies to the Soviets, they would have folded also.

Belgium was invaded in just 3 days.  India participated in the Pacific
and only in small ways.  Canada did do a lot in the ETO, but it was
nowhere near what America did.  Sweden was neutral during the war.
Norway was invaded in just a few weeks in April 1940.  As a note, the
task of liberating Norway was mostly undertaken by Canadians.  Denmark
was also invaded very quickly at the same time Norway was run over.
Finland only looked out for Finland; they fought off the Soviets and the
Germans at first.  Then they attacked and fought off the Soviets again,
but on the side of the Germans (you might look again at the Finnish
aircrafts and their markings during WWII.) Finally, they fought against
the Germans towards the end of the war.

I would say that when it comes to history, Mr. Barker's comments are to
be taken with a large rock of salt from now on.
-----------------------------------

Mr. John Pitman ostensibly from Australia avers:

"In WW II, non-US allies had more troops IN CONTACT with the ENEMY until
AFTER D-DAY..."

This is one of those useless and irrelevant "factoids" that contribute
nothing to the discussion.  Even if it were true, big deal.  The war in
the Pacific, the island-hopping campaign was underway, involving the US
Army, Army Air Corps, Navy and Marines.  The US Army and Army Air Corps
were also heavily engaged in North Africa and then Sicily and Italy all
before D-Day.  The US Army Air Corps was busy waging a huge daylight
bombing offensive over Europe.  A multitude of convoys were plying the
terribly dangerous routes of the North Atlantic and elsewhere.  In fact,
after the initial lighting-fast invasion of most of Europe, the only
people fighting the Axis were the Americans, the Soviets and the British
"along with Empire Boys," and let's not forget the Chinese.  America was
supplying everyone through Lend-Lease.
-----------------------------------------

Then James Byrne works himself into a delusional frenzy and lashes out
at current-day America comparing its president and population to Hitler
and the Nazis, thereby simply ignoring much more recent history.

When Clinton attacked and bombed Kosovo without a UN mandate, nobody
said anything.  Well, I did speak out against it, but nobody listened.
"Why are we there?" I asked.  "What interest of the United States are we
defending?" I asked.  "What UN resolution are we enforcing?" I asked.
"What is out exit strategy?" I asked.  I never got a straight answer.  I
was told Milosovich was a bad guy who killed lots of people.  After
several years in jail and a lustrum of investigation, he has not been
brought to trial.  The mass graves that were supposed to be everywhere,
turned up mostly missing.  We bombed Kosovo back to the Stone Age and
nobody cared.  But that's ok, because Germany and France and Britain
agreed that was the thing to do.  And Clinton was a socialist president.
Also note that we are still in Kosovo, with no end in sight.

When in 1998, Clinton argued that Saddam Hussein had WMDs and was going
to use them sooner or later, nobody argued.  Everyone around the world
agreed with him and he launched a bombing campaign against Iraq.  There
was no goal, no UN mandate apart from broken agreements and certainly he
did not achieve his objective of getting weapons inspectors back into
Iraq.  But that's ok, because Germany and France and Britain agreed that
was the thing to do.  And Clinton was a socialist president.

Then one morning in 2001, we woke up to an attack.  19 Muslim terrorists
hijacked 4 airliners and in the space of 90 minutes, killed 3000+ people
on US soil.  The world had changed for America.  The squabbling, the
terrorist bombings the mass executions in faraway lands had come to our
soil, with a vengeance.  We saw it live on TV.  Over and over and over
again.  However, it seems many of us have quickly forgotten that day.

The president of the United States has one solemn duty above all others;
to protect the United States and its citizens.  Everything below that is
inconsequential if this goal is not met.  On September 12, 2001, I would
suspect there were many people who woke up that day thinking we would be
hit again and probably soon. The question was where and how.  In an open
and free society, no one can guarantee there will not be terrorist
attacks.  The only way to prevent such attacks is to root out the enemy
where he lives.  A lesser man than George W. Bush would have sent some
Tomahawks and tried to appease the terrorists.  History has demonstrated
time and again that appeasement DOES NOT WORK.  The Taliban, the
erstwhile government in Afghanistan, was put on notice to turn over
Osama bin Laden and his crew of merry terrorists.  The Taliban refused
and the rest, along with the Taliban, is history.  However, like a
cancer, terrorism hides in many places and feeds off many places.  One
of these places was Iraq.  Saddam Hussein paid cash money to the
families of suicide bombers attacking Israel at the rate of one or two
per day.

That's an Israeli problem you say, well not really.  It is a civilized
world problem.  Saddam Hussein had also used chemical weapons against
his own people and in the Iran-Iraq war.  He had also launched Scud
missiles into Israel and Kuwait during the Gulf War.  After he had been
expelled from Kuwait, a country he had brutally invaded, Saddam signed a
ceasefire agreement in which it was stipulated he would disarm,
divesting himself of his WMDs and shut these programs down.  There were
numerous UN resolutions to that effect.  Inspectors found huge
stockpiles of WMDs and started destroying them.  But as time went on,
the inspectors slowed down, were hampered by the Iraqis and cat and
mouse games were the order of the day.  In 1998, Saddam was fed up with
the inspectors and ordered them out.  In the meantime, since 1991,
coalition (read here mainly US) planes were patrolling the northern and
southern areas of Iraq, preventing any Iraqi planes from flying in those
areas.  These planes were getting shot at on an increasing basis and the
whole program was costing the US taxpayer 2 billion dollars a year.
That's 24 billion total.

After 911, the growing danger of Saddam's Iraq could no longer be
ignored.  Whilst the administration NEVER said the threat was imminent,
they did state that Iraq was a "grave and gathering threat" to the US
and to the region.  BTW, this phrase was used by Winston Churchill to
describe Nazi Germany back in the 1930s.  He was ignored by the
appeasers.  It was becoming evident that France and Germany, and Russia
were working feverishly to get the sanctions on Iraq lifted in order to
gain favor with Saddam.  It has now come to light that France and Russia
were being bribed by Saddam.  Germany was not, because Germany was and
is irrelevant; they have no veto power at the UN and they have no
military to speak of.  The French have no military either, but they do
have a veto, an accident of history in my opinion.  At any rate, Saddam
was getting close to getting the sanctions lifted and would then have
free rein to do whatever he wanted, such as restarting his WMD programs
and continuing to help terrorists with training and weapons.  Actually,
he was already doing that, because the sanctions only pertained to the
WMDs not the terrorist groups.  The training grounds were found in Iraq,
one of them with the fuselage of a Boeing 727, ostensibly to train
people in hostage rescue. Many well-known terrorists lived in Iraq or
went there for a time, before moving on.

Another mostly-ignored fact is that Saddam enjoyed killing people, the
more defenseless the better.  So far, mass graves containing about
400,000 people have been discovered in Iraq. (In 32 years in power,
that's 34 people a day.)  Estimates range to as high as 1 million people
buried in mass graves around Iraq.  This does not include the Iranians
killed during the war, or the Kuwaitis killed in the Iraqi invasion.
Compared to Saddam, Milosovich was a piker, yet he had to be removed,
without a UN or NATO mandate.  But not Saddam.

However, some of us remember 911.  W remembers 911.  One of the charges
levied against W was that he knew the attack was coming and he did
nothing to stop it.  Indeed many people believe 911 was a failure to
"connect the dots" provided by Intelligence.  I happen to believe that
Bush knew nothing about it and was just as surprised as everyone else
was on that horrific morning.  I would never believe that an American
president would knowingly let an attack take place on US soil, against
US citizens.  I do not care which president you are talking about; I
simply do not believe any of them would do this.  That goes for Clinton,
FDR or any other.

I do believe the terrorism threat was either being underreported or
underrepresented.  For this I do not blame Bush.  I do not even blame
Clinton, even though he passed on three chances to nab Osama during his
tenure.  I blame the system and the people who bring the information to
the president.  I believe it is impossible for a president to be aware
of everything all the time.  It is vital that the system bring to the
forefront the critical issues of which the president must be aware.
Also, do not forget that nine months earlier, a dramatic and
unprecedented election had taken place.  In a kind of last slap in the
face, the Clinton administration did NOT go through the required motions
for the transfer of power.  At the time, that was ignored, but not
forgotten by some.  I wonder if any remember the surveillance plane that
crashed-landed in China soon after W was sworn in.  During that time,
the US economy was in a recession, there was the California energy
crunch and Bush was fighting for tax cuts.  Terrorism was something that
happened elsewhere, America had other fish to fry.

After 911, terrorism threats shot right up on the radar screen.  In
fact, I would suspect that was virtually the only thing being discussed
at the White House.  All of a sudden, the Iraq issue became critical.
Here was a country, controlled by a madman who had used WMD before and
who was known to have huge stockpiles of various nasty stuff.  There
were several UN resolutions against him, heretofore unenforced.  The
country had last had inspectors 3 years prior and had kicked them out.
If Saddam were to arm the terrorist with some of his weapons, the danger
to the US was intolerable.  However, instead of rushing to war in Iraq,
W took the long way around through the UN Security Council.  The UNSC
voted unanimously on a resolution calling for Iraq to disarm, to provide
detailed documentation about its WMDs stockpiles and programs, to let
the inspectors in unfettered or face the consequences up to and
including military action.

I quote Democratic presidential hopeful General Wesley Clark:

"There's no requirement to have any doctrine here. I mean this is simply
a longstanding right of the United States and other nations to take the
actions they deem necessary in their self defense," Clark told Congress
on September 26, 2002.

"Every president has deployed forces as necessary to take action. He's
done so without multilateral support if necessary. He's done so in
advance of conflict if necessary. In my experience, I was the commander
of the European forces in NATO. When we took action in Kosovo, we did
not have United Nations approval to do this and we did so in a way that
was designed to preempt Serb ethnic cleansing and regional
destabilization there. There were some people who didn't agree with that
decision. The United Nations was not able to agree to support it with a
resolution."

Clark continued: "There's no question that Saddam Hussein is a threat...
Yes, he has chemical and biological weapons. He's had those for a long
time. But the United States right now is on a very much different
defensive posture than we were before September 11th of 2001... He is,
as far as we know, actively pursuing nuclear capabilities, though he
doesn't have nuclear warheads yet. If he were to acquire nuclear
weapons, I think our friends in the region would face greatly increased
risks as would we."

More Clark: "And, I want to underscore that I think the United States
should not categorize this action as preemptive. Preemptive and that
doctrine has nothing whatsoever to do with this problem. As Richard
Perle so eloquently pointed out, this is a problem that's longstanding.
It's been a decade in the making. It needs to be dealt with and the
clock is ticking on this."

Clark further explained: "I think there's no question that, even though
we may not have the evidence as Richard [Perle] says, that there have
been such contacts [between Iraq and al Qaeda]. It's normal. It's
natural. These are a lot of bad actors in the same region together. They
are going to bump into each other. They are going to exchange
information. They're going to feel each other out and see whether there
are opportunities to cooperate. That's inevitable in this region, and I
think it's clear that regardless of whether or not such evidence is
produced of these connections that Saddam Hussein is a threat."

What is troubling about the WMDs is very simple.  They existed and have
so far not been found.  Where are they?  Saddam sent his air force into
Iran in 1991.  He has a history of sending weapons abroad when directly
threatened.

Mr. Byrne writes: "...if the U.S. (and by inference any other country
with sufficient relative power with respect to the alleged 'threat')
currently feels unhappy about any state that the U.S. believes to
possess resources sufficient to potentially acquire means that the U.S.,
in its sole opinion, deems a weapon of mass destruction; then the U.S.
can invade it."

Well let's see.  A series of UN resolutions culminating in the
unanimously-approved 1441, a broken ceasefire accord, a track record of
WMD usage, mountains of evidence and intelligence (US and all other
countries that have such services,) about WMD stockpiles and programs, a
recent terrorist attack that killed 3000+ people and a regime that
supports and condones terrorism.  Guess what? With 60 countries behind
me, I will remove this threat.

I contend that if France, Germany and Russia had stood firm on 1441.  If
they had not backed down or been bought off by Saddam, the latter would
have backed down and would have thrown open his country for total
inspections.  When France, Germany and Russia blinked and tried to
weasel out, the jig was up, Saddam had won.  There was no further
choice.  It was either war, or Saddam would go free and unfettered in
the future.  Iraq had put out the welcome carpet for terrorists of all
ilks and many such crazies accepted their hospitality.

If in the future, America would have been attacked again and this time
with WMDs from Iraq, W would have failed in his most solemn duty.  A
sneak attack is one thing, doing nothing and allowing other attacks is
unpardonable.  There was no way W was going to back down.  Some contend
he manipulated the intelligence.  That is simply not true, the
intelligence reports have said the same thing for many years; rewind and
play back the rhetoric of 1998.  The only differences are 1- W (a
Republican) was president and 2- we had been attacked: 19 Muslim
terrorists had killed over 3000 people in 90 minutes.  The next time
could be a lot worse, thanks to Saddam's help.  That could not be
allowed to happen.  And it wasn't.

And BTW, you can't "force democracy" on people.

Denys

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