> I retired after 20+ years of military service. (1985) Do I believe >that Sadam's weapons of mass destruction have been destroyed? In a word, NO! > There are a whole lot of subterranean bunkers that are covered with >sand at this moment. The only people that know the coordinates of those >bunkers are Sadam and his elite Officer Corps. > When you were a child, did you ever play the shell game, hide the >peanut. Sadam learned that well. I think if we don't find the weapons before >a war occurs, the weapons will emerge and be used on UN troops as well as >his own people again. > To tie this into oil. His people remain in poverty while he builds >palaces instead of universities, instead of upgrading public utilities, >instead of irrigation and agriculture. To him as the all powerful dictator, >the oil money is his and he builds armies and tanks instead of tractors, >plows, road building equipment. He kills his own people if they disagree. > I would like to live in a perfect world, but I'm sorry to have to >tell you, I don't think I can make a perfect decision for even my family, >let alone the world. > I try to make things better, so let it begin with what I can >contribute. To you the scholars and educators, do things to improve what we >have to work with. Even small steps forward are better than dragging someone >else backwards. > >Sincerely, >Gordon Dempsey > >Bio diesel, one batch at a time
How does trying to make things better square with starting a tinderbox war that will kill innocents by the thousands, wreak little but destruction, that could set off a spreading conflagration that will backfire on your country, perhaps on you, and probably on everyone else too, with a rationale that most of the world questions or rejects, on the basis of "evidence" that is either far too flimsy or rigged or both? "I think"... "I believe"... That's all we ever hear from the pro-war faction, from the very top down. Don't you think or believe it needs a little more than opinions and blind faith? You're talking of ravishing a whole country and its people, and perhaps a whole region. How does that squarte with this: >Even small steps forward are better than dragging someone >else backwards. ??? What is the relevance of this? > I retired after 20+ years of military service. (1985) Do I believe Is it that therefore you know what you're talking about? Your erstwhile C-in-C certainly didn't, he's the laughing stock of the world right now - for those who aren't just too appalled to laugh. Here's another ex-US soldier who thinks he knows better, and he's at least got some credibility: > Scott Ritter, a former U.S. Marine and senior weapons inspector in >Iraq who has become a vocal critic of U.S. foreign policy, said a >speech by Secretary of State Colin Powell to the United Nations this >week lacked any real evidence. "It is smoke and mirrors. It has >nothing to do with reality. It was plain wrong," Ritter said in a >speech to ministers, diplomats and journalists in the United Arab >Emirates. Evidence presented by the United States to show Iraq is >concealing banned weapons is flawed and proves nothing... From "Former UN inspector attacks Iraq arms evidence" UAE: February 11, 2003 http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/19780/story.htm You say: >To him as the all powerful dictator, >the oil money is his and he builds armies and tanks instead of tractors, >plows, road building equipment. He kills his own people if they disagree. "He" (it's a whole country and its people, NOT just one guy!!!) has the weakest armed forces in the region. On what do you base your claim that "He kills his own people if they disagree"? (As if that's a major reason for bombing the whole country into a arking lot!) On the claim that he gassed the Kurds in 1988? For one thing, he was a US ally when he did that, if he did it, and the US didn't mind much then, but now Bush uses it as an excuse for war. The US intelligence services haven't exactly covered themselves in glory with the Iraq issue recently - eg, this: >* Following a CIA warning in October that commercial satellite photos >showed Iraq was "reconstituting" its clandestine nuclear weapons program >at Al Tuwaitha, a former nuclear weapons complex, George W. Bush told a >Cincinnati audience on October 7 (New York Times, 10/8/02): "Satellite >photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have >been part of his nuclear program in the past." > >When inspectors returned to Iraq, however, they visited the Al Tuwaitha >site and found no evidence to support Bush's claim. "Since December 4 >inspectors from [Mohamed] ElBaradei's International Atomic Energy Agency >(IAEA) have scrutinized that vast complex almost a dozen times, and >reported no violations," according to an Associated Press report >(1/18/03). > >* In September and October U.S. officials charged that conclusive evidence >existed that Iraq was preparing to resume manufacturing banned ballistic >missiles at several sites. In one such report the CIA said "the only >plausible explanation" for a new structure at the Al Rafah missile test >site was that Iraqis were developing banned long-range missiles >(Associated Press, 1/18/03). But CIA suggestions that facilities at Al >Rafah, in addition to sites at Al Mutasim and Al Mamoun, were being used >to build prohibited missile systems were found to be baseless when U.N. >inspectors repeatedly visited each site (Los Angeles Times, 1/26/03). > >* British and U.S. intelligence officials said new building at Al-Qaim, a >former uranium refinery in Iraq's western desert, suggested renewed Iraqi >development of nuclear weapons. But an extensive survey by U.N. >inspectors in December reported no violations (Associated Press, 1/18/03). > >* Last fall the CIA warned that "key aspects of Iraq's offensive >[biological weapons] program are active and most elements are more >advanced and larger" than they were pre-1990, citing as evidence renewed >building at several facilities such as the Al Dawrah Vaccine Facility, the >Amiriyah Serum and Vaccine Institute, and the Fallujah III Castor Oil >Production Plant. By mid-January, inspectors had visited all the sites >many times over. No evidence was found that the facilities were being used >to manufacture banned weapons (Los Angeles Times, 1/26/03). - From the FAIR report I posted earlier, here: http://archive.nnytech.net/index.php?view=20873&list=biofuel As for the "He kills his own people" claim, here's what a CIA man has to say about it: "... immediately after the battle the United States Defense Intelligence Agency investigated and produced a classified report, which it circulated within the intelligence community on a need-to-know basis. That study asserted that it was Iranian gas that killed the Kurds, not Iraqi gas." - Stephen C. Pelletiere, the Central Intelligence Agency's senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, and a professor at the Army War College from 1988 to 2000. The whole report is rather interesting, I'm posting it separately - see "Mixing Oil And Water". Anyway, Gordon, you're at least as unconvincing as the rest of the pro-war apologists - apart from this, that is: >Bio diesel, one batch at a time Yes! Keith Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
