Re: Just a little debate with a war supporter (some corrections)

[William]

Sorry folks, when I sent this to you, some of Mr. Mertz's points turned into bold print so his points and my answers to him are both in bold. I'll put some (  ) around his points to make it easier to read. 

 William <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

I was cleaning out my e-mail box today and came across this e-mail exchange between me and a man that had wrote a letter to the editor in my local paper "War protesters just don't get it". I e-mailed him and asked him to give a point by point reasoning for attacking Iraq. Here is his reply to me and my answers to him in bold. I thought maybe some of you might find it interesting.. By the way he did write back and gracefully bowed out of the debate.

William

I'd like to answer each allegation. First things first. I am not a Saddam lover, I think he is garbage. I believe there is a time to fight, I am not a pacifist. But with this said, I don't like being lied to by our own government time after time to further their agendas. Whether it is Bush or Clinton, if they are lying, they need to be exposed.

(Dear William:

Without repeating my article in the Forum, this is a representative, non-exhaustive, list of reasons I support the President's drive to attack Iraq (Saddam and his minions): )

White House 'exaggerating Iraqi threat' President Bush's case against Saddam Hussein, outlined in a televised address to the nation on Monday night, relied on a slanted and sometimes entirely false reading of the available US intelligence, government officials and analysts claimed yesterday. "Basically, cooked information is working its way into high-level pronouncements and there's a lot of unhappiness about it in intelligence, especially among analysts at the CIA," said Vincent Cannistraro, the CIA's former head of counter-intelligence. http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,807286,00.html

(1. The U.S. failed during the Clinton administration to keep the pressure on and did not press the issue when the weapons inspectors were expelled from Iraq.) 

You better check your facts here....the inspectors were withdrawn by the U.N., they were not expelled. 

(2.  The intelligence community all but abandoned human, on the ground agents, operatives, and informants,  in favor of high-tech surveillance (read satellites), which enabled Saddam to hide what he was doing, with no way to verify anything on the ground. )

Since you brought up surveillance, do you remember the first gulf war?...Collin Powel said that he had top secret satellite photos that showed that Iraq had amassed 265,000 troops along the boarder with Saudi Arabia. Well a journalist paid  a private satellite company $3000.00 to take pictures of the boarder and guess what? Collin  was caught in a lie again.....no troops!!

http://www.rense.com/general34/liar.htm

(3.  He had some really bad stuff that we know about and claims he got rid of it, and has no proof that he did, whatsoever.)

Where did he get this bad stuff? We sold/gave him this bad stuff. A 1994 Senate Banking Committee (Senate Report 103-900, “United States Dual-Use Exports To Iraq And Their Impact On the Health of The Persian Gulf War Veterans,” chaired by Sen. Donald Riegle (D-MI)) hearing revealed some 74 shipments of deadly chemical and biological agents from the U.S. to Iraq. The CDC, also sent shipments of germs to the Iraq. Some of the same cabinet members that are in this administration where the ones behind the sales of bio/chems to Saddam. Shouldn't they be held accountable too?

(4.  Saddam is dishonest and a murderer.)

 If you lined up all the leaders of the world, Saddam can't even hold a candle to them. China, N. Korea, Pakistan to name just a few. These leaders make Saddam look like a boyscout.

(5.  We have no way of knowing, without going in, when he will have the capability to use his weapons against us or our allies. )

But we do know that N. Korea, China definitely do have WMD pointed at us right now, but what do we do, we reward them, in China's case, an 80 billion dollar trade deficit .

(6.  We intervened and waged war in Bosnia and got rid of Milosovich (sp?), and I do not see a lot of difference.   Where were the protestors then(?) )

This is a whole other topic. Like to chase this rabbit but will resist.

(7.  Saddam is a loose cannon, a rouge elephant, a mad dog, whatever cliche' you want to use. I am not a lover or! defender of Israel. Sometimes I think people are in denial about 9-11.  I recognize reality. The reality is that Saddam and bin Laden want us dead. These people are evil. They do not respect human life, or freedom. They hate us for all we stand for, which includes our excesses and wastefulness. )

The CIA and the U.N have both released intelligence stating that there is NO link between Saddam and 9-11 or between Saddam and bin Laden. Powell in his speach before the U.N. showd a camp in northern Iraq that supposedly "proves" the bin Laden tie with Saddam....there's only one problem with that....Saddam doesn't control Norther Iraq, the kurds do with the help of us.

(8.  I believe in the intrinsic value of every human life, and in the right of every person to pursue life, liberty and happiness. Saddam does not.)

 Do you also believe that the people of China should have these rights? This country  openly forces abortions and also sells organs of disidents? When do we bomb China, Pakistan, N.Korea, India.... 

 (I dropped off his first name here)  Mertz

Mr. Mertz this administration has been lying to us from the start...check out this confirmed report "A SECRET blueprint for US global domination reveals that President Bush and his cabinet were planning a premeditated attack on Iraq to secure 'regime change' even before he took power in January 2001" http://www.sundayherald.com/27735

The most conservative member of Congress has some questions, Mr. Mertz why don't you give them a try?

Questions That Won't Be Asked About Iraq by Rep. Ron Paul, MD >window.onfiltered=function(){clickURL=document.location.href;return true;} if(!self.clickURL) clickURL=parent.location.href; >         Here are some questions I would like answered by those who are urging us to start this war. 1. Is it not true that the reason we did not bomb the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War was because we knew they could retaliate? 2. Is it not also true that we are willing to bomb Iraq now because we know it cannot retaliate – which just confirms that there is no real threat? 3. Is it not true that those who argue that even with inspections we cannot be sure that Hussein might be hiding weapons, at the same time imply that we can be more sure that weapons exist in the absence of inspections? 4. Is it not true that the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency was able to complete its yearly verification mission to Iraq just this year with Iraqi cooperation? 5. Is it not true that the intelligence community has been unable to develop a case tying Iraq to global terrorism at all, much less the attacks on the United States last year? Does anyone remember that 15 of the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia and that none came from Iraq? 6. Was former CIA counter-terrorism chief Vincent Cannistraro wrong when he recently said there is no confirmed evidence of Iraq’s links to terrorism? 7. Is it not true that the CIA has concluded there is no evidence that a Prague meeting between 9/11 hijacker Atta and Iraqi intelligence took place? 8. Is it not true that northern Iraq, where the administration claimed al-Qaeda were hiding out, is in the control of our "allies," the Kurds? 9. Is it not true that the vast majority of al-Qaeda leaders who escaped appear to have safely made their way to Pakistan, another of our so-called allies? 10. Has anyone noticed that Afghanistan is rapidly sinking into total chaos, with bombings and assassinations becoming daily occurrences; and that according to a recent UN report the al-Qaeda "is, by all accounts, alive and well and poised to strike again, how, when, and where it chooses"? 11. Why are we taking precious military and intelligence resources away from tracking down those who did attack the United States – and who may again attack the United States – and using them to invade countries that have not attacked the United States? 12. Would an attack on Iraq not just confirm the Arab world's worst suspicions about the US – and isn't this what bin Laden wanted? 13. How can Hussein be compared to Hitler when he has no navy or air force, and now has an army 1/5 the size of twelve years ago, which even then proved totally inept at defending the country? 14. Is it not true that the constitutional power to declare war is exclusively that of the Congress? Should presidents, contrary to the Constitution, allow Congress to concur only when pressured by public opinion? Are presidents permitted to rely on the UN for permission to go to war? 15. Are you aware of a Pentagon report studying charges that thousands of Kurds in one village were gassed by the Iraqis, which found no conclusive evidence that Iraq was responsible, that Iran occupied the very city involved, and that evidence indicated the type of gas used was more likely controlled by Iran not Iraq? 16. Is it not true that anywhere between 100,000 and 300,000 US soldiers have suffered from Persian Gulf War syndrome from the first Gulf War, and that thousands may have died? 17. Are we prepared for possibly thousands of American casualties in a war against a country that does not have the capacity to attack the United States? 18. Are we willing to bear the economic burden of a $100 billion war against Iraq, with oil prices expected to skyrocket and further rattle an already shaky American economy? How about an estimated 30 years occupation of Iraq that some have deemed necessary to "build democracy" there? 19. Iraq’s alleged violations of UN resolutions are given as reason to initiate an attack, yet is it not true that hundreds of UN Resolutions have been ignored by various countries without penalty? 20. Did former President Bush not cite the UN Resolution of 1990 as the reason he could not march into Baghdad, while supporters of a new attack assert that it is the very reason we can march into Baghdad? 21. Is it not true that, contrary to current claims, the no-fly zones were set up by Britain and the United States without specific approval from the United Nations? 22. If we claim membership in the international community and conform to its rules only when it pleases us, does this not serve to undermine our position, directing animosity toward us by both friend and foe? 23. How can our declared goal of bringing democracy to Iraq be believable when we prop up dictators throughout the Middle East and support military tyrants like Musharraf in Pakistan, who overthrew a democratically-elected president? 24. Are you familiar with the 1994 Senate Hearings that revealed the U.S. knowingly supplied chemical and biological materials to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war and as late as 1992 – including after the alleged Iraqi gas attack on a Kurdish village? 25. Did we not assist Saddam Hussein’s rise to power by supporting and encouraging his invasion of Iran? Is it honest to criticize Saddam now for his invasion of Iran, which at the time we actively supported? 26. Is it not true that preventive war is synonymous with an act of aggression, and has never been considered a moral or legitimate US policy? 27. Why do the oil company executives strongly support this war if oil is not the real reason we plan to take over Iraq? 28. Why is it that those who never wore a uniform and are confident that they won’t have to personally fight this war are more anxious for this war than our generals? 29. What is the moral argument for attacking a nation that has not initiated aggression against us, and could not if it wanted? 30. Where does the Constitution grant us permission to wage war for any reason other than self-defense? 31. Is it not true that a war against Iraq rejects the sentiments of the time-honored Treaty of Westphalia, nearly 400 years ago, that countries should never go into another for the purpose of regime change? 32. Is it not true that the more civilized a society is, the less likely disagreements will be settled by war? 33. Is it not true that since World War II Congress has not declared war and – not coincidentally – we have not since then had a clear-cut victory? 34. Is it not true that Pakistan, especially through its intelligence services, was an active supporter and key organizer of the Taliban? 35. Why don't those who want war bring a formal declaration of war resolution to the floor of Congress? Dr. Ron Paul is a Republican member of Congress from Texas.

William

---

Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, and more

---

Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, and more