Well, I guess we have to start a Politics Thread #2 then...

Unfortunately I saw the speech of "President" Bush. It was very disgusting that he explain and define "peace" with the term "war" and then got standing ovations.

Even though I don't like Schroeder and 'his' government very much, but his categoric meaning is in a frame of democray, because his 'no' means a (more or less) democratic vote in the security council, Bush's 'yes' means: "Who's the security council? Let's make war!". For Bush the council is only a chance to share the costs of this war and to legitimate it in a moral way.

Tuss: I don't know if you noticed, but Iraq actually invaded a country already, so the precedent has been set .

Mr Creosote: This is not fair, and you know it . I'm having the time of my life on another forum, taking the position of a hardliner, and you tell everybody here that I'm arguing only for the sake of an argument .

However, to be honest, I don't believe that the US administration is the one who's breaking Europe. True, they may be the catalyst, but it's the European governments who do the breaking.

Sorry, but it was just too obvious from your earlier statements on the same topic in this very thread

I even agree there. The whole question of war or peace in Iraq is overrated for the 'unity' of Europe if you ask me.

My opinion too. But the 'unite Europe' should not mean that whole Europe must have one opinion, it shall be a union in which every country could contribute their opinion... divide opinion, united democracy (how emotive...).

For what do we have such organizations like the EU or UN, if everyone is ought to have the same estimation?!

Edited by Abe at 14:45 on January, 31st 2003

The problem with the EU is in my opinion, that it is a young unity and it is still learning to cooperate. Just think back 60 years and you can see a continent in ruines. This wounds have not yet healed completly and haunt the EU. It takes time for everybody to get used to the fact that they can not do as they please but have to follow rules for example.

Sure, cooperation may be a good thing, but I think the countries in the EU should also keep their identities. In the early US the states had a lot of control over themselves and only listened to the national government if they wanted to. State laws were much more powerful back then, compared to the federal laws. Now states don't have much of an identity or a singular say.

It's been a while since I posted (I'm way to busy for my own good), so I thought I'd just post a nice long rant about this business with Iraq. Here we go.

Everybody's talking about a possible war on Iraq, but I wonder if anyone (including the Bush administration) is considering what will happen after the war. It looks like everyone is acting as if going to war against Iraq will be the end of a problem, when in fact -- even in the best of best-case scenarius -- it'll just be the beggining of a long and hard process.

Let's see: why are the Americans attacking Iraq in the first place? According to their own propaganda, there are two reasons: 1) Iraq has massive stockpiles of dangerous chemical and possibly nuclear weapons, plus the ability and the desire to use them effectively; and 2) The war against Iraq is a major step in the on-going war against terrorism.

Let's take a look at 1). The goal here is, of course disarmament. However, making war on Iraq (short of nuking the country out of the face of the planet) will do jack-shit to get rid of those hidden caches of weapons the Americans are so afraid of. If the weapons are hidden, they'll stay hidden, and unless America is willing to take over the country for itself (not a very good idea), the danger of them being used would remain. What would really help would be if we could have a team of specialized techinicians on the ground to run around the country searching for those weapons and supervising their destruction if they're found. You know, a bit like those ... er ... UN weapons inspectors they've got there already?...

As for 2), not only would a conventional attack on Iraq merely serve do drive the terrorists even deeper into their hiding places, but it would also almost certainly generate a huge wave of support for the terrorist organizations, not to mention possible new strikes. As the Sept. 11 attacks so poignantly demonstrated, war is not the solution to terrorism. Peace is. Until the US serious commits to a fair and balanced political solution to the Irael-Palestine conflict, the threat of terrorism cannot be seriously tackled.


Now let's take a look what could happen if there is a war. I am assuming, of course, that the US will have no major problems beating the Iraqi army. Like I said, that's not the issue here. The problem is: what will they do after they win.

SCENARIO 1: US troops happily stroll across Iraq, only to stop at the doors of Bagdag. They decide they've done enough, they don't want to risk loosing a few GI's on urban warfare (remember Somalia?), they don't want to bother with the political consequences of toppling Saddam, so they just pack up and go home, like they did in '91.

THE RESULT: Saddam's domestic power is reinforced, but the inspectors get to return to Iraq (no, wait!, they already did), the Arabs in general hate America even more, the world is generally a more dangerous place to live, and the US gets to do this all over again in 3 or 4 years if they feel like it.


SCENARIO 2: The Americans go all the way, defeat the Iraqis, and get rid of Saddam. Ok, so now what?

a) They could set up an American protectorate in Iraq (well, they wouldn't call it a colony, would they?). Set up one of their generals as vice-roy and rule the place for a while. This is actually being seriously discussed in Washington, and a list of potential candidates for the job has been compiled. Are they even thinking??? They would have every single Arab nation in the world against them, the middle-east would explode in anger and Al-Qaeda would suddenly gain a host of new members willing to give their lives to destroy the US.

b) They could walk away after a short while and leave the Iraqi people to fend of for themselves, pretty much as they did in Afghanistan. This is no Afghanistan, however. Leaving a broken country behind will wreak havoc in the geo-political equilibrium of the middle-east, probably proppeling new regional wars and, very like likely the emergence of a new dictator in Iraq, not necessarily any better than Saddam.

c) They could turn to the UN and say: "We've done the dirty work, now you come and clean up the mess." Surely, it didn't occour to them that working with the UN and, specificaly with the Arab nations, prior to the war to prepare a change of regime in Iraq (perhaps even a peaceful change of regime), would be a much better solution.

RESULT of Scenario 2: It's the mother of all cans of worms, and it's left wide open. Forget about peace in the middle-east for a very long time.

Interesting times indeed...

Well, you can have that, but that requires you actually tell us some arguments and do not simply quote allegations, usually propagated by Wolfowitz & Co, without the reasons for this/your opinion...



They definitely couldn't do that because there's no powerful opposition in Iraq that would form a new gouvernment. The major problem would be to find any new politicians who would be accepted by the people. In short that means the US, like so many times before, would have to massively interfere in foreign countries politics and implant a pro-western gouvernment which is not legitimated by any democratic means. People in Iraq won't welcome any new gouvernment very warmly, so the "post war"-conditions have to be protected by military and massive propaganda.

Moreover, in my opinion, points 3 and 4 would have to be added to the "reasons": 3) They want to overthrow the Hussein gouvernment. Don't know if they admit that this is a major aim, but I don't think they've ever really tried to hide it either. 4) Oil. Nothing more to say about this...

Kuwait were stealing Iraq's oil by drilling sideways instead of straight down. I'm not justifying attacking Kuwait but if America said someone was stealing their oil noone would jump down their backs over invading the stealers.
There is a double standard here. As has always been with the US.

Who is Wolfowitz?

He's the "Deputy Defense Secretary" of the US gouvernment, or rather: One of these countless right wing people who are regularly sent to give interviews and statements in order to circulate plain propaganda. You can imagine what "right wing" means if warmongers like Powell are called "moderate"... Think of Rumsfeld and add some more, and you've got Wolfowitz.

This arrived in the mail box today, again from Stratfor.com, thought you might find this interesting.

Never heard of that guy, but since I don't see any difference between Rumsfeld and Powell anyway for example, I could have seen him on TV and probably would have mistaken him for someone else

That could easily happen because he has the same face as the others. Look at him and you know his views...

Argh! Is it just me or is his head a few sizes too small?

I'd rather be interested what's going on inside of his head. Not very complex most likely...

Edited by Tapuak at 15:33 on February, 04th 2003

Now in the US there are two Democrats (That's the left mind you) that have a bill they want to pass that makes military service a requirement. More specifically it requires two years from everyone between 18 and 26. They say it's based off Israel's policy. I hate how we are in cahoots with Israel. It makes me angry, and now this. What a dumb idea...

Why do people always seem to think both 'left' and 'right' have to be represented in a parliament? Why not just say how it is: both big parties in the USA are right-winged. There. Now what? (no need to start talking about 'relatively left-winged in comparison bla bla bla' )

I just said that because they are SUPPOSE to be left but aren't. Sorry for any misunderstandings.