The US, The UN and Iraq

The major benefits of a war are reckoned to be disarming Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction and removing a leadership that is unrelentingly hostile to the United States. But what of the costs? Even asking such a question may be thought a sign of insufficient resolve at best and appeasement at worst. However, while cost estimates are often ignored when war is debated, most people recognize that the costs in dollars, and especially in blood, are acceptable only as long as they are low. If the casualty estimates mount to the thousands, if oil prices skyrocket, if a war pushes the economy into recession or requires a large tax increase, and if the United States becomes a pariah in the world because of callous attacks on civilian populations, then decision makers in the White House and the Congress might not post so expeditiously to battle.

Quote:

A CNN online poll shows that 82 percent think going to war with Iraq will provoke another attack on the U.S., as opposed to 13 percent who think it will prevent one.

from today's Dowd column in NYT.

This surprised me, Blatham. I understood from your earlier comments you put no value in polls.

I believe Secretary Rumsfeld's comments have been deliberate and pointed. They are acts of diplomacy, intended (at least by him) to focus attention on the on the self-serving obstructionism of France & Germany. Those of you who entertain each other wth expressions of your hope for his early demise may find yourselves both disappointed and proven wrong by unfoldng events.

United States sales of military hardware and related manufacturing equipment are utterly dwarfed by those of France and Germany. Blatham's metaphor about eight and two chocolate bars grossly distorts the facts, and I suspect he knows it. . France has sold Iraq combat aircraft (did you note the Iraqi Mirage dispensing aerosolized chemical weapons in the films Secretary Powell displayed at the UN?), air to air missiles, air to surface missiles, radars and crew served weapons. Both countries have sold large quantities of industrial materials useful in weapons development. There are no U.S. weapons in Iraq's military.

My strong impression is that virtually all the use of the term "anti Americanism" on this thread has come from Blatham, a Canadian. Perhaps this is a convenient dead horse, however, it remains dead.

The actions of France & Germany are far more likely to prompt unilateral U.S. action on this and subsequent world issues than prevent it. That is evident to any rational observer, including the officials of those governments.

Walter, The plan to increase inspectors and troops in Iraq makes the best sense - to me. I hope Germany and France retains the fortitude to delay war for the eventual goal of peace. c.i.

French and German officials played down a weekend report in the German magazine Der Spiegel that there was a detailed Franco-German plan to try to delay a war by boosting the number of arms inspectors in Iraq and backing them with U.N. troops.

"The reports about a possible sizeable peacekeeping mission in Iraq do not correspond with reality," German Defense Minister Peter Struck told Germany's Deutschlandfunk radio Monday.

"The United States goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is a well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. If the United States took up all foreign affairs, it would become entangled in all the wars of interest and intrigue, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own soul."

---John Quincy Adams

Now them's some pretty words...

The purpose of all war is ultimately peace.
--Saint Augustine

... Saddam Hussein bought more than 70 percent of his chemical warfare arsenal or the makings from the so-called G-7 nations (major European industrial nations) Japan, France, United States, Italy, Britain and Germany; only Canada apparently sold nothing; experts say that's because Canada had no chemical weapons to sell. A report commissioned by the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles details how Germany sold more poison gases (and) chemicals to make them and testing facilities than any other country in the world.

Sales by 134 different German companies have been documented and the number is climbing. So far, German authorities have indicated just three German businesses and are investigating 15 or more others.

According to Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center: "The very same agents invented by German technologies in the 1940s and put at the disposal of a dictator were again recreated in the 1990s and put at the disposal of another dictator." Saddam's chemical warfare connection in the United States include some curiosities; the Center for Disease Control sold West Nile Fever Virus (that can be converted into chemical warfare agents).

Saddam's chemical warfare suppliers include companies from Belgium (8); Switzerland (13); and Australia (27). In all, 24 countries sold chemical warfare materials to Iraq amounting to 366 companies."

To buttress this accusation, military expert Michael Leeden, points out that "German involvement with Iraq chemical weapons program started in 1977" and that "for over a decade German businessmen and scientists had played key roles in Iraq's $50 billion program to produce weapons of mass destruction ..all the while claiming they didn't know Iraq was using their exports for military purposes.

The best American estimates suggest that a majority of Iraq's nuclear, biological and chemical capacity was provided by Germans. What's more, the German government knew about all this in detail ... "

Tyranny is the enemy, no matter who is doing it.

Tres

You start quoting Augustine and I'm likely to go nutty on you...he's just about my least favorite human of all time. And boy, is that quote you picked ever wrong. All Adolf wanted was just a bit of peace and quiet to do his architectual sketches with a picnic basket and a fraulien beside him there in the park.