Uechi-Ryu.com

http://www.ccmep.org/usbombingwatch/2003.htm

My favorite sign from a recent anti-war rally in D.C.

"How can our oil be under their sand?"

Can anyone speak to the concept that the Iraq war is an effort to prevent the establishment of a "Kurdistan" regime? This would threaten peace in Turkey, put most of the oil reserves under the control of a non-organized state and put Iraq in a difficult civil war.

Two questions:

-Is the current administration using the war to keep the Kurds from establishing a state because it endangers peace and will cost human lives or is the administration going to war to protect oil that will feed our energy needs.

-Are our energy needs an issue of national security to the point that we can kill people in other countries to protect our energy interests?

Thanks Dana...

I have wondered from the start... If we're preparing to go to war with Iraq because they might have weapons of mass destruction (to be used against us), then why haven't we already gone to war with North Korea who we know does have weapons of mass destruction (to be used against us)?

Just a little more fuel to throw on the match that Dana lit...

Regarding Korea, one small(?) word, CHINA.

Thanks Ted, Panther, & Dana, nicely put!

There is the oil, the need to detract from economic crises and the corporate scandals, the unfinished business. I dont think of it so much as a family grudge but in the "Everyone get Iraq, ver. 1 (TM)", while the pentagon, the miilitary and the media were hyping up the existence and the use of smart bombs, they were still relatively fewer in number compared to how many are available today.

Read my lips ladies and gentlemen, "One Term President".

For the last three months I have recieved an electric bill that said I did not have to pay anything. Why? Last year my electric bills were double nromal during the FAKE energy crisis. The one in which federal regulators blamed californians for using too much electricity and not building enough power plants because of evil dogooder environmentalists. Later we found out the whole thing was a manipulated market as our Democratic govenor Dufus had been claming all along. Fortunately, the proof of this fleecing came out so slowly that the American public was able to tune it out, after all he was our leader when we felt most vulnerable.

I have heard it said that to drive an SUV is supporting terrorists since buying all that extra gas would put extra money in Saddam's hands. I find this extreme rhetoric, distasteful, although very amusing. The manufacturers are dragging their feet on producing vehicles with greater efficiencies, employing political influence at the federal level to limit efficiency improvements while consumers are demanding larger vhicles. Let's not demonize any of these groups just yet.

The Feds under this administation have been very reluctant to raise their efficiency standards, although Californai may raise their standards (and face appeal by manufacturers crying foul).

American Car Manufacturers dragged their feet so long during the oil cirsis of the 70's that they lost massive market share to foreign manufacturers (which ended up benefitting the consumer?).

History has this little nasty habit of repeating itself, like Bush, ver. 2. If the American auto manufacturers let the foreign competition beat us again, producing hybrid SUV before we do, then American auto manufacturers lose more jobs (actaully the workers lose the jobs, the corporations just issue pink slips).

We are missing the following. Energy policy. R& D, wind, solar, geothermal, oceanic (currents, tides, etc), improved efficiencies (use less so you dont need as much in the ifrst place) all would help to minimize our dpendence on foreign oil. Transporation planning. The richest country on the planet, with the worst transportation infrastructure.

I have gotten far off topic, but I think it is right on target. How many people are buying bigger cars so they will safer on roads that they are spending more and more time driving on due to increased TRAFFFIC.

The amount of time we spend on the road takes away from producitve time at work, recreation, family time, etc. Traffic leads to greater inefficiencies and more polution.

I probably sound like a dogooder dreamer, idealist who thinks that with a little chi and some prayers, we can make everyone get along. I am a bit skeptical, somewhat pessimistic, but mostly hopeful, and as long as I am still alive, I have decided I would rather try to help, even if it, at times, it may seem futile (requires some faith I find).

I remember how bad the Boston Harbor used to be before they spent 4.5 billion dollars to clean it up. George Bush senior had come to Boston and declared it the worst in the country. Here in LA, the water is now as bad as it was in Boston; In three plus years, I refuse to go in the ocean above my ankles, cuz there are too few sewage treatments plants and most of them are old. In orange county, with the coastal tourists, the Disneyland tourists and about 2.8 million residents, they still are under special excemption of the clean water act allowing them to polute real bad.

Keep in mind, Boston spent 4.5 billion on their sewage plant and everybody complained, and everybody benefitted. In orange county, the projected sewage plant will cost about $330 million and everybody is complaining.


Peace,

ATH

Lest anyone is picturing Saddam as some poor innocent victim, I doubt that anyone would make that claim. Few would likely express any concern or admiration for him. The concern is for the Iraqi people.

Of all the major oil exporting countries, name those that have democratically elected governments.

The present day borders of Iraq probably present a more intractible challenge than the dictator himself.

Take a slice of Turkey, a slice of Iraq and a slice of Iran and give it to the Kurds. Considerable government repression of the Kurds takes place in all three countries, destabilizing the region. As one example, Kurds in Turkey are forbidden from learning or using their own language.

Go after Sadda, just create solutions that have econmic opportunites and more realistic borders that reflect better the ethnic borders that exist.

And be as willing to go after despots (dictators) even if oil is not in that country, not to prove that Iraq was not about oil, but because stopping injustice is the right thing to do.

Peace,

ATH

Akil Todd Harvey wrote: The present day borders of Iraq probably present a more intractible challenge than the dictator himself.

Take a slice of Turkey, a slice of Iraq and a slice of Iran and give it to the Kurds.

...and more realistic borders that reflect better the ethnic borders that exist.

Interesting...

So...

Who knows how the nation of Iraq came into existence?

It was created at the end of WWI by taking a bunch of different ethnic parts of the Ottoman Empire and putting them together as... Iraq!

Make a nation out of a bunch of disparate groups, How stupid an idea is that?

Only a dictator would be successful in such a situation. Was that the point?

ATH

The point is that for a long time the western european states had bought up all the oil rights in the middle east. Then, post WWII the middle eastern countries woke up and realized that they should be profiting from their natural resources. They nationalized the oil fields and started selling the oil on the open market.

Western Europe & the US were already dependent and becoming more dependent on middle eastern oil. So in order to "protect our interests" (hmmm does that rhetoric sound familiar to anyone) we put friends into power to control the disparate nation-states so that we would continue to have access to the oil. One of those people we placed in power was (you guessed it) Saddam Hussein.

Which explains why we'll take out Saddam before we'll allow the estabishment of a Kuristan. We know who will take the place of Saddam - we don't know who we'll have to deal with if civil war breaks out. If we control the "regime change" then we can continue to protect our interests.

...sigh...
It just makes me sick. I'll give up driving my car and watching TV and posting on the internet and a whole bunch of other things if we would stop killing people for energy.

But let us not forget that the Saddam meister was selected NOT only to secure access to "Our" oil, but also to fight a proxy war for us with Iran and its communist backers. When he used the "heinous" WMD (weapons of mas destruction) on his "Own Neighbors and his own people", we objected not an iota, because it furthered ends we supported.

War is not only about retribution, securing our interests, or making the world safe, it can also be about creating fear so people are distracted.

The US has never addressed the issue of its dictators left in place in response to the "Soviet Threat". The failure to plant seeds of democracy worldwide may be responsible for the undemocratic governmments and paramilitary groups that fill the void left by the shortage of viable world/regional/state governments.

Our President has supported some very destabilizing positions. The nuclear non-proliferation treaty was designed to limit the number of states getting the bomb. The underpinning of the treaty is a promise by those states with bombs not to target states that dont have the bomb. Now the US says they will strike first....... Who is te aggressor here?

ATH

Make a nation out of a bunch of disparate groups, How stupid an idea is that?

Are/Were these people the tired, te poor or huddled masses, yearning to breath free? If so, it sounds an aweful lot like US of A, circa 1900...

Gene

Let us not forget that Saddam bacame our enemy when he got p!ssed about our duplicity in the situation between Iraq and Iran. We ostensibly supported him against Iran, then the whole "weapons for hostages" deal with Iran went down and he went rogue.

The reality is that the US and alot of the West in general has always treated "brown people" as second class. We have many enemies, both real and potential, due to this type of attitude.

China was abused for centuries by outsiders and Westerners untill the "cultural revolution." They won't ever trust us and we will never be able to trust them.

Ho Chi Minh tried to appeal to us for freedom from the French, but NOOO! Look how that turned out.

The fact is that no matter how big and bad we are now, nothing is forever. Many peoples have been manipulated, intimidated, used and abused by US policies, or at least they feel that way. The more we strut the "last remaining superpower" crap, the more resentment we seem to generate. Obviously, nobody can stand up to us toe to toe right now, hence terrorism and waffling "allies." If we stumble, the jackals and hyenas will waste no time.

Of course we have provided more charity than anybody else. We are unbelievably generous with international aide, but many feel there have always been strings attached. One is that we expect complicity when we need it. Another, more insidious one, is the encroachment of our licentious, commercialized, rebellious culture at the expense of old traditions and ways.

Understand, I strongly believe in our system and the way of life it affords us. I also believe it is a system that would be to the benefit of the rest of the world. The problem is that our system would not look the same in a traditionally Arab culture. It would not look the same in a traditionally Chinese culture. The travesties of environmental, human rights, and militaristic abuses we decry in others are quite similar to what we did to get where we are. Our white, christian, northern european forefathers set up a system that reflected the sanctity of the individual while pursuing the common good. A set of arab, muslim, forefathers with a similar vision would not have yielded the same as what we have. It would be no less valid, however.

Meanwhile, we produce less and less of what we need in this country. We depend more and more on the labor and resources of other countries to maintain a self-absorbed, wastefully consumptive lifestyle. How much longer can the mighty, but increasingly old, soft, and diseased, king hold on to his power?

And so the opposition arugment rings in my head -

"You'll change your mind when they detonate a dirty bomb suitcase in DC"

-true, but I'll be changing my mind from Heaven or Hell - 'cause I live in DC and I'll be dead.

"You'll change your mind if they kill your family with anthrax"

-maybe, but should I base my principles on how I'll react? Aren't principles in place to guide our actions and temper our reactions? My principle is: you shouldn't kill people for energy.

"Saddam has made his country a rogue nation. They don't follow the will of the UN, they use their weapons for intimidation and must be stopped."

-The US under Bush is a rogue nation. We don't follow the UN. We use our weapons for intimidation and many countries feel we must be stopped.

An eye for an eye will only end with the world being blind.

Dana Sheets wrote:
An eye for an eye will only end with the world being blind.

AMEN

I dont get many chances to leave this country, but when I do, I take the opportunity to go check out places I have never been.

No matter how critical I may be toward my govt and its policies, I still find that this is the place that is my home. This is the place that I get homesick for in two or three weeks time.

Isnt it ironic that the nation with the most weapons of mass destrcution (biological, chemical, & nuclear) and most effective delivery systems, the largest navy, the best trained army, the most dangerous marines and most feared special forces has more enemies and potential enemies of any nation on the planet?

Does anyone think the vast majority of Americans will ever understand why they hate us.

Is it because they hate our freedoms or is it becuase we refuse to export those freedoms to the rest of the world?

Do they hate us because we are the largest rogue terrorist nation on the planet? (many would argue such a point, but if you disagree please name a nation that has supported more political coups in the last century than the US; please name a country that has intervened militarily in more nations than the US over the course of the last century.)

Ted, the irony of the Vietnam situation was so interesting specifically because the US would have never had a successful revolution without the support of the french against the English. And yet the French were perfectly willing to subjegate the Vietnamese and the US was not only unwilling to go against the French in their conquest, but we replaced the French when they couldnt finish the job.

Communism is not the enemy, never was. Extremism is the enemy and always has been and always will be. Stalin was not our enemy because he was communist, but because he was an extreme communist. Osama Bin Laden is not our enemy because he is Muslim, but because he is an extremist. The sooner we learn that Islam is not our enemy, but extreme Muslims are, the better off we will be.

Maybe then we can fight for what is right.

At present, the US acts like a spoiled, jealous little kid who thinks the entire world is his toy chest and we dont want anyone playing with our toys.

"NO, nuclear toys are our toys. No one can be trusted with nuclear weapons but white people." "You brown people cant be trusted with weapons of Mass destrcution like us white people can."

I used to get all upset at the policies of my govt because of our eagerness to go to war in situations where it is rarely necessary (among other misdeeds), until one day my wife and I were having a discussion about world politics and she made a very insightful observation. Nations and civilizations survive or not survive in fashions similar to what determines the survival of individuals. Darwin, whether or not you agree, said survival would be for the most fit. Societies, like individuals, will survive if they dominate competing societies or individuals.

China, for example, has not only a history of being dominated by the West in recent history, but also of dominating or attempting to dominate its neighbors.

Her argument did not all of a sudden make me jump for joy in supporting my countries policies, but it helped me to understand how and why such policies might be chosen.

Peace,

ATH

my $0.02 worth

The USA has every reason to put conditions on our financial handouts that are liberally spread around the rest of the world! We are the richest country, but we are also the most generous by every standard. While there are things that were done environmental, culturally, and militarily to get the USA where it is today, the fact is that We, the People of this nation did those things ourselves. Given that we have all become "enlightened" over the centuries, and don't believe those things are the right thing to do anymore... we, as a nation, give extremely generously to other less-well-to-do nations so that they can grow an prosper without taking those actions. So... We put the condition on those nations that if they take our money, they will follow certain rules and guidelines. If another nation doesn't like the rules, they don't have to agree to them... they simply don't take the money! Don't like the strings attached? Don't take the money!

Communism... Socialism... Facism... have all been and all are the enemies of a Free Republic. (The fact that we have been pushed down the slippery slope known as "democracy", which inevitably leads to Communism, should not be lost on any true student of history and the various forms that men undertake to govern men.)

Having said all that, I will now explain why we can be trusted with weapons of mass destruction and those other countries can not.

The fact is that those nations, such as Iraq, have already proven that they will use weapons of mass destruction. Even against their own people! Since the end of WWII, the USA has not resorted to the use of the weapons of mass destruction at her disposal.

On 9/11/01, we all watched in horror as thousands were viciously murdered before our eyes on national TV. No matter what one might think about the USA or its policies, we should all be able to agree that those people were truly innocent. Victims of a truly evil act.

But it seems that people are seeing that heinous attack more and more as the USA's "comeuppance". It actually amazes me that anti-American sentiments have increased since 9/11/01! Yes, the USA fought in lots of wars around the globe over the last 100 years... We went to the aid and saved the collective hides of nations all over the world. Most of the time, we were the only think that stopped those nations from ceasing to exist. And most of the time, our efforts were appreciated... until just after the victory party... Certainly, the USA has made mistakes. But we are, after all, a nation of men, run by men... not gods. And men make mistakes. So now we're all supposed to believe that people we watched murdered in the Twin Towers brought that heinous death on themselves? We watched them die! Fathers, Mothers, Sisters, Brothers, Sons, Daughters, Husbands, Wives... We listened to their frantic calls to loved ones telling them good-bye for the last time. We watched as some of them leaped to their deaths... and somehow now, the USA is to blame for this meticulous slaughter?

NO! The fact is that the reason the USA can be trusted with those weapons of mass destruction is that in the aftermath of 9/11/01, the USA showed the most amazing restraint! The fact is that the USA could have turned a large portion of the world into a vast parking lot! But didn't. We watched as Arabs and Moslems around the world... even in this very country... literally danced in the streets to "celebrate" this attack. How many Islamic leaders had the guts to say that the mass murder of 9/11 was an abomination? How many in the Islamic world stopped for just a minute's silence for the slaughtered innocents of 9/11? Very few...

The USA watched as Palestinians danced in the street... and we didn't push the button. The USA watched as Afghanis danced in the street... and we didn't push the button. The USA watched as Extremists and Fundamentalists around the world danced in the streets... and we didn't push the button.

You should all thank your lucky stars that the USA IS the most powerful nation on the face of the earth! It is absolutely amazing that 9/1/01 didn't provoke an all out war. Not some "war on terrorism"... a real war!

Now those Extremists and Fundamentalists are threatening that if we attack Iraq they will "open up the gates of hell". Well, after 9/11/01, the USA could have opened up the gates of hell like you can't imagine!

Sure... the USA has made mistakes around the world. Perhaps things weren't done the way they should have been done in Afghanistan... and perhaps the impending war with Iraq is misconceived...

But don't make the mistake of blaming the USA for the plight of those wretched nations. You ask about the regimes the USA has left behind?!? So, how many democracies are there in the Middle East, or in the Muslim world? Someone living there could count them on the fingers of one hand - assuming they haven't had any chopped off for minor shoplifting!

In the USA we don't live under any caste system or forced state religion. We are free, strong, open, and yes.... rich. We have given freely to every other god-forsaken place on earth... and in return we get referred to as the great Satan.

I'd rather be a dumpster rat in NYC than a king in the middle-east... The USA is a special place with every kind of the human race all living side-by-side. And we can argue politics or god... or how we're going to do the job... but that's just the American way.

So a few al-Qaeda tourists got locked up without a trial in Camp X-ray?

I'm cryin'...

Crying for the the nursing mothers whose husbands died on one of the hijacked planes, or were ripped apart in a collapsing skyscraper. I'm crying for the hundreds of young widows whose husbands worked for the New York Fire Department or at the Pentagon. I'm crying over the smiling face of that beautiful little girl who was on one of the planes with her mom.

Yes, the USA is the most powerful nation in the world and could have unleased the hounds of hell like never before imagined. The fact that we didn't shows our strength... and proves that we can be trusted with those weapons of mass destruction.