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Marlon, Recomendation by an Iraqi friend, who has family in Iraq and who read your email with great sadness: "Tell your friend to PLEASE go to www.voicesofiraq.com and maybe he can learn about what is happening in 90% of Iraq, not just the 10% he is referring to." Specific point by point responses to your email appear in sequence below. Marlon Menezes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Mario and Chris, > > It is good to hear from you all. Unfortunately, your arguments have a lot of > holes and in many cases is quite irrelevant. RESPONSE: The problem with your analysis is that you don't even have the basic facts straight, and so it is understandable that your conclusions are similarly skewed. I showed you comments to some Kuwaiti and Iraqi friends who are students here and who had lost family members to Saddam' brutality, and they just sadly shook their heads. One asked how anyone who claims to have knowledge of the invasion of Kuwait would not know that Saddam deserved to be taken out regardless of all the sophistry about WMDs, UN resolutions and other BS. Just the number of deaths he cause by his pre-emptive invasions of Iran and Kuwait, his brutal repression of the Kurds and Marsh Shia, who had to be protected from aerial massacre by the US and Britain and the no-fly zones, the rape rooms and mass graves, his development of WMDs and threat to provide these to the terrorists. One Iraqi said, "Doesn't this fool, who sits safely in America and claims to know about the middle east, know about all this?" I'm sorry, but that's what an actual Iraqi said. > First of all, being tagged as left wing is a revelation to me. I guess I am > the first left wing liberal who supports the abolishment of welfare, > medicare, social security, and supports Bush's tax cuts and his free trade > policies! Presumably, I am also the first liberal who does not approve of > the Bush administration's big government policies and its fiscal > irresponsibility. RESPONSE: So, you are a fiscal conservative. What does this have to do with your faulty knowledge of what is going on in the middle-east? > Next, I dont need to be lectured by anyone about Iraq. My family lived in > Kuwait and experienced the acts of the Iraqi regime in the first war. I am > the last person who would expect to have any sympathy of the Saddam regime. RESPONSE: Obviously your connections with Kuwait have not led you to know as much about the middle-east as you think you do. I have confirmed this by showing your comments to actual Kuwaitis and Iraqis, whose families have experienced Saddam's brutality. > Regardless of my personal dislike for the Iraqi regime, the fact remains > that Saddam was fully contained and made irrelevant after the first war. > There was a legitimate unknown about his WMD, which required action and > which was ignored by the Clinton administration. However, we also know that > after the US congress (backed by Kerry et al) passed the war resolution > authorizing the use of force *if necessary*, the Iraqi regime in effect > completely capitulated to the inspectors because it realized it had no > choice. This was a fantasic achievement by the Bush administration. RESPONSE: If the Iraqis "capitulated to the inspectors" it was because they had already hidden their WMDs or moved them to Syria. After all they had 12 years to do this. The scheme was, with the collusion of France, Russia and China, and co-conspirators like Hans Blix, to declare that the WMDs were "not in Iraq", get the UN sanctions lifted on this basis, which would leave Saddam free to re-constitute all his programs un-supervised. > The problem is that the current administration then rushed to war inspite of > having free reign in Iraq and with no support from its real allies that > matter. RESPONSE: You give your bias away with such ridiculous comments. "Real allies that matter"? Who the heck might these be? Are you talking about France, Russia and China who were colluding with Saddam in looting the oil-for-food program and conspiring to protect him with vetoes in the UNSC? Do we have any better allies than the ones we have in Iraq? > Furthermore, it lied to the American people by implying an alliance between > Saddam and Al Qaieda. > > Anyone who knows anything about the middle east knows that these two > entities were diametrically opposed to each other. Yet even today, thanks to > mass deception by the US administration, a large chunk of the US population > thinks there was a link between the two. RESPONSE: Unfortunately, anyone who knows anything about the middle east know that there were numerous and close ties between Iraq and al Qaeda. If you are interested in the facts go to www.senate.gov and read the 9/11 Commission report you will find numerous linkages and connections between Saddam and al Qaeda. The only thing they did not find was a direct involvement by Saddam in 9/11. Isn't it strange that al Qaeda is active around the world, including having cells here in the USA, but the only country thay were not active in, according to you critics, was Iraq, which had actively given sanctuary to terrorists like Abu Nidal, Abu Musab al Zarkawi and Ansar al Sunna, and was paying bounties to the families of suicide bombers in Israel? The issue that you critics fail to grasp is that, after the preemptive attack against America on 9/11, a "target" country cannot take the same risk with WMDs being used against it as with an attack with conventional weapons, and it was only a matter of time before Iraq would provide WMDs to al Qaeda or a similar organization. > You talk about the US coalition like as if you really believe in it. I'm > sorry, but allies like Uzbekistan, Georgia, Albania, El Salvador, Nicaragua > and Colombia etc dont count for much. With the exception of the UK, the > contributions by all the other so called coalition parties is not worth > mentioning. The US and the US alone is bearing the brunt of the fighting > and the brunt of the costs. To add insult to injury, most of the banana > republic mercenary brigade is being funded by the US. Furthermore, many of > them have worse human and woman's rights records than the former Iraq. RESPONSE: Again, you display your bias, ignorance and condescension about our allies. In addition to Britain, you seem unaware of Australia, Italy and Poland. In addition, we have over 25 other countries that are participating in one form or another. So what if the US bears the brunt. We have done this throughout our history. > Ok, fine, so the US went to war without any real allies etc and under highly > questionable pretenses. RESPONSE: That is your unsubstantiated assumption, so it's not fine. > What I cannot accept is the incompetent and amaturish manner in which the > occupation has been conducted. They went in without a plan, and have let > things fall apart. Besides the daily news reports we can all read and see, I > have had first hand reports from many friends and family who have been to > Iraq after the war. Just to give you a sampling: my brother in law whose > body guard was killed as a result of a gun shot wound to his head and an ex- > US nuclear submarine navy collegue of mine hired by a private contracting > company, whose convoy was attacked and who suffered serious injuries as a > result. The current mess in Iraq is totally and completly the result of the > policy decisions made by the present US adminstration. RESPONSE: Again, like John Kerry and the Democrats, you focus on 10% of what is going on in Iraq and ignore the 90% that does not suit your agenda. Except for the Sunni Triangle, most of Iraq has now been pacified. My Iraqi friend, whose family lives in Iraq, confirmed that there is conflict going on, but only in limited areas, not nationwide. He said that your comments show a complete ignorance of all the infrastructure development that has taken place since Saddam was deposed. He mentioned road building, water treatment and power plants, hospitals and schools rebuilt and reopened. His brother is a doctor in Iraq and has told him how his hospital was completely rebuilt and re- equipped by the Americans, and how grateful most Iraqis are for being liberated. The only ones who apparently believe as you do are the remaining Baathist Sunnis. My friend said that the only people who are opposing the American coalition are those who oppose Iraq becoming a democracy. > The issue of the real war on terrorism that needs to be fought is an all > together different subject that is not connected with the irrelevant war > being fought in Iraq. Suffice to say, when one goes to war, one needs to at > a minimum know and understand who your real enemies are! It seems that the > present adminstration does not know who its real enemies are. Come to think > of it, it does not seem to know who its friends are either. RESPONSE: This fits right in with the rest of your other biased and uninformed opinions, which are based on the 100% of media reports on 10% of what is going on in Iraq. My Iraqi friend recommended that people like you check out www.voicesofiraq.com which tells the story that is not being reported by the mainstream media. This war is against the Islamo-fascists and those that harbor them. Afghanistan and Iraq were simply higher priorities where 9/11 and the violation of UN resolution 1441 gave us the grounds to take action. Iran and N. Korea are being handled by others for now. Libya, which was at one time considered as bad as Iraq, has changed it's tune completely. They have seen the light. Why haven't you?
