I suppose no one can state clearly 100% that this war is for <fill in
reason>, as essentially all politicians are liars and manipulators.  Of
course we can only speculate, but there doesn't seem to be any evidence that
Saddam would attack America even if he was capable and he certainly isn't
even capable, Rumsfeld has even admitted as much.

If it's about liberation of the people from oppression then surely there
would be other countries on the list, ahead of Iraq, added to that, is the
fact that Western countries still support a number of horrible regimes in
the world without it affecting their conscience.

So why then, I guess we will never really know, but there seems to be some
evidence that the main motivation is the control of Oil.  It is a fact that
world wide Oil production outside of the Middle-East is diminishing.
American is extremely reliant on Oil, in fact, you could almost go so far as
to say it is the most important commodity it imports.  Added to that recent
problems in South America, where it was importing Oil.  We also have the
excuse of 9/11 to start throwing it's military might around.  We have the
country government who's entire background is Oil.  I guess it doesn't take
too much of a leap of faith to say that Oil control might be the main
motivator.

I haven't seen any other reason for the war.

Jim wrote:

"This is a war against terrorism and the regimes that promote it and pay for
it.  al qaeda was first, then iraq.  We will have to see who is next.  Some
are going to continue to claim that saddam has no connection to bin laden."

I don't know where you get your information from Jim, but I felt it was
fairly clear that bin Laden and Saddam had absolutely no common ground at
all and were in fact enemies.  There seems to be this kind of smoke and
mirror's attempt to try and persuade people that somehow Saddam is connected
to 9/11.  I've even heard Americans, blaming him for it.  I am not sure that
even now with a common enemy for both Bin Laden and Saddam that their
differences could be forgotten, but I suppose it is possible.  Other than
that I have not seen any evidence or even real claims that Iraq has any
connections with terrorist actions against the US.

Jim wrote:

" Although oil is the primary reason the
french are opposed to the war.  They want the oil and think they won't get
it after we win.  They may get some but it won't be as cheap as they have
been paying.
The russians didn't want us in there because they were trying to hide the
fact that they have been selling saddam weapons."

I am not sure about the weapons side, but I know that the French and the
Russian, quite rightly are pissed off.  They have worked very hard over the
last 10 years to ensure that have agreements with Iraq for the supply of
Oil.  The US/UK now move in and don't intended to honour those agreements.
In fact that want to profit themselves from the situation.  What would the
US reaction be if the boot was on the foot.







-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Mc Coy [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 28 March 2003 06:15
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] [Offline] OT: A sobering answer


These protestors are protesting the troops!  Thay also destyoyed a memorial
to 9/11 victims.
These protests are organized and paid for primarily by 2 groups - the World
Workers party (a self-proclaimed marxist group) and the iraqi government.
These are not "anti-war protestors" they are traitors to this country.

What really gets me going is how these people are calling Bush and Blair
"war criminals" but saddam (who killed about 2 million people) is not a
criminal to them.  This kind of thinking should give an idea of what kind of
people we are dealing with here.

This is also not a "war for oil".  Although oil is the primary reason the
french are opposed to the war.  They want the oil and think they won't get
it after we win.  They may get some but it won't be as cheap as they have
been paying.
The russians didn't want us in there because they were trying to hide the
fact that they have been selling saddam weapons.
I don't think we have uncovered the real reason why china is against it.
But I am sure something will be uncovered soon.

This is a war against terrorism and the regimes that promote it and pay for
it.  al qaeda was first, then iraq.  We will have to see who is next.  Some
are going to continue to claim that saddam has no connection to bin laden.
This is what they have tried to say all along.  But we knew they were wrong
all along - and that has been proven by the presence of al qaeda fighting
side by side with saddam's troops.

To protest President Bush's stance against terrorism is not just a protest
against a man these people hate.  It is a demonstration in favor of
continued terrorist attacks against the U.S.  There is not more than 2 sides
to the "debate" on terrorism.  You are either for it or against it.
I for one would like to see more people in this country take a stance
against it.

jm
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Wonsil" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, March 27, 2003 11:57 PM
Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] [Offline] OT: A sobering answer


> Fred wrote:
> > The protesters are not protesting against the troops. Their protests
> > are against the administration. If there hadn't been protesters during
> > the Vietnam war, it might have pointlessly continued with the loss of
> > another 58K troop lives (not administration lives).
>
> I recently reread in the famous Hanoi Jane incident in Snopes:
> http://www.snopes.com/military/fonda.htm (worthwhile BTW), which in part
> says:
>
> "The right to freedom of speech is one of our most cherished rights. It is
> also a double-edged sword: the same right that allows us to
> criticize our government's policies without fear of reprisal also protects
> those who endorse and promote racism, anti-semitism, ethnic hatred and
other
> socially divisive positions.
>
> Rarely is this dichotomy so evident as when a democratic nation engages in
> war, and the protection of civil liberties clashes head-on with the
> exigencies of a war effort. Protesting a government's involvement in a war
> without also interfering in the prosecution of that war is a difficult (if
> not impossible) feat, a situation that has sometimes led the government to
> curtail the freedom of speech, such as when the U.S. Sedition Act (passed
> during World War I) made criminals of those who would "willfully utter,
> print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive
> language about the form of government of the United States." Under this
law,
> peacefully urging citizens to resist the draft or simply drawing an
> editorial cartoon critical of the government became illegal. (The Sedition
> Act was later overturned.)
>
> The most prominent example of a clash between private citizen protest and
> governmental military policy in recent history occurred in July 1972, when
> actress Jane Fonda arrived in Hanoi, North Vietnam, and began a two-week
> tour of the country conducted by uniformed military hosts. ..."
>
> A more current example:
>
> A 'Human Shield' Returns From Iraq, Work Undone
>
> By ROBERT TOMSHO
> Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
>
> MILWAUKEE -- After getting arrested at a local antiwar protest on
Wednesday,
> Ryan Clancy went home and turned on CNN, dreading what he would see. "The
> government is going to bomb some of the people I just met, and I am
> powerless to do anything about it," thought the lanky 26-year-old, who
> recently spent several weeks in Iraq serving as a so-called human shield .
>
> The human-shield campaign was founded in London late this past year on the
> premise that Westerners' presence at key sites in Iraq might deter U.S.
> bombing and save civilian lives. Its primary organizer, Ken Nichols
O'Keefe,
> is a disgruntled Gulf War veteran who settled in the Netherlands after
> renouncing his U.S. citizenship. With little advance planning but much
> publicity, Mr. O'Keefe assembled about 75 would-be shields -- including
> retirees, photographers and computer technicians, mostly from Europe and
the
> U.S. -- and headed for Baghdad in late January in a bus.
>
> In the 1991 Gulf War, the Iraqi government forced foreign hostages to
serve
> as human shields . This time, Iraqi officials had no direct role in
planning
> the shields' volunteer campaign. It did, however, welcome them, along with
> other peace activists, supplying entry visas, hotel rooms and food.
>
> In Iraq, Mr. Clancy, a substitute teacher and owner of a small
music-supply
> business, would learn how seemingly humanitarian causes can become
> casualties of war. Soon after arriving in Baghdad, he and some other
shields
> were invited to what was described as a peace conference. Mr. Clancy left
> the gathering as soon as he determined it was a pro-government rally.
Still,
> he was stunned to see himself on Iraqi government television that night.
"It
> was portrayed that these human shields were supporting Saddam," he says.
>
> > I fought in Korea too. I also give all of my support to our troops.
> > So what??
>
> So if you protest in public here and your face ends up on Iraqi TV and it
> gives the people fighting our troops a lift, are you really giving the
> troops ALL of your support?  Are there other ways that one can keep their
> moral positions and not (unwittingly-unintentionally) give support to just
a
> different violent solution?
>
> Constraints are often the breeding ground for creativity.  Now I must be
off
> to think of how I can continue to support our troops and the Iraqi people.
>
> Mark W.
>
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