Internet News

On Wed, 05 Nov 2003 01:05:20 GMT, "Duine" <> wrote:

>"cg" <cgrams007@{removethis}yahoo.com> wrote in message
>news: .
>> On Mon, 03 Nov 2003 15:31:56 GMT, "Duine" <> wrote:
>>
>> >I am amused by those who one hand castigate Bush senior for not invading
>> >Iraq (thereby allowing SH to remain in power) and now tout him as some
>sort
>> >of wise seer for not invading Iraq. Right, wrong, or indifferent, the
>"game
>> >rules" for the Desert Storm coalition included not invading Iraq and Bush
>> >senior had to play by those rules regardless of personal desires.
>>
>> I continue to believe Schwarzkopf played a significant role in causing
>> the failure of the rebellions that took place in Iraq after the Gulf
>> War ended.
>>
>
>I don't know how the rebellions had a chance without direct intervention of
>the U.S., something not possible with the Desert Storm coalition agreement.

Perhaps. Perhaps not. We'll never know for sure.

>
>The two times I recall Bush senior being really stupid were with the "No new
>taxes" promise followed by caving into the Democrats on taxes and signing up
>to the Desert Storm coalition game plan. I also have no doubt that GWB's
>current approach to dealing with our enemies is rooted in seeing what
>happened to Bush senior and the region.

That history certainly could have influenced him.

>
>> I understand that no one reason fully explains the failures but I also
>> understand that Hussein's ability to use his helicopters against those
>> in revolt was a significant reason for their defeat.
>
>SH was given a free pass to do anything he wanted after Desert Storm, as
>long as he did it within his own country.

Well, sort of. There were two "no fly" zones.

--
cg

Duine wrote:

> "cg" <cgrams007@{removethis}yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:
> > On Mon, 03 Nov 2003 15:31:56 GMT, "Duine" <> wrote:
> >
> > >I am amused by those who one hand castigate Bush senior for not invading
> > >Iraq (thereby allowing SH to remain in power) and now tout him as some
> sort
> > >of wise seer for not invading Iraq. Right, wrong, or indifferent, the
> "game
> > >rules" for the Desert Storm coalition included not invading Iraq and Bush
> > >senior had to play by those rules regardless of personal desires.
> >
> > I continue to believe Schwarzkopf played a significant role in causing
> > the failure of the rebellions that took place in Iraq after the Gulf
> > War ended.
> >
>
> I don't know how the rebellions had a chance without direct intervention of
> the U.S., something not possible with the Desert Storm coalition agreement.
>
> The two times I recall Bush senior being really stupid were with the "No new
> taxes" promise followed by caving into the Democrats on taxes and signing up
> to the Desert Storm coalition game plan. I also have no doubt that GWB's
> current approach to dealing with our enemies is rooted in seeing what
> happened to Bush senior and the region.
>
> > I understand that no one reason fully explains the failures but I also
> > understand that Hussein's ability to use his helicopters against those
> > in revolt was a significant reason for their defeat.
> > --
> > cg
>
> SH was given a free pass to do anything he wanted after Desert Storm, as
> long as he did it within his own country.

Then there were no U.N. mandates then ?

>
>
> Duine

On Wed, 05 Nov 2003 03:05:37 GMT, cg <cgrams007@{removethis}yahoo.com>
wrote:

>Knowing what I know, I would have made the exact same decision.

You would have willingly sacrificed all those innocent Iraqi
civilians to Saddam's thugs just to appease 'world opinion' and/or the
Useless Nations?

I don't believe it......
--
"I am alone: all drowns in the Pharisees' hypocrisy". - Boris Pasternak

My "From" address is munged - c**** "Reply To" to respond via email.

On Tue, 4 Nov 2003 08:28:53 -0500, "Allan Smith" <>
wrote:

>> We didn't help liberate the people of Germany and Japan from
>> dictators?
>
>All declared wars...

The Congressional authorization Bush got was about as close to a
declared war as anyone is likely to ever see again. AFAIK there was
no formal declaration of war before Gulf I either.

>...with global participation.

Indeed. Some of the participants were even our enemies....

>> How about Panama?
>
>It went on and on and ended only after the Dictator was actually taken into
>custody alive.

Actually, the fighting was over by then.

>Last I heard, we dion't have bin Laden or Hussein.

So what? IMO bin Laden is already worm food, and Saddam isn't
going to return to power.

>> Yugoslavia? The former members of the
>> Warsaw Pact?
>
>That happened more on its own than with any external intervention. Normal
>process of cultural evolution.

Funny, I could have sworn that Clinton waged (an undeclared) war
against Yugoslavia. And I also could have sworn that the Cold War had
something to do with the collapse of the Warsaw Pact.

>You left out Bosnia. After the majority of the States of the world, thru the
>UN, made its views clear, acted jointly only to put a stop to obvious
>crimes, and applied ecomonic sanctions to the State, the "elected dictator"
>was replaced by the electorate.

You're kidding, right? The *UN* ended the Bosnian war?? How
about US and NATO pressure that lead to the Dayton Accords?

This article nicely summarizes the UN's record in Bosnia:



>Same with the first Gulf War with regard to addressing the problem of an
>unprovoked invasion of one State by another.

Yeah, that was a great success too. It was especially helpful to
the Kurds in the north and the Shi'ites in the south....

>> We have not always been successful but neither have we always
>> failed.
>
><chuckle> depends on the cir***stances. We have about the same chance as
>others throughout history in similar cir***stance.

Given our unprecedented military and economic power combined with
our liberal democratic ideals I'd say our chances are better than
others' were. Call me an optimist.

>Most recently, Russia in Afganistan. Acted alone against Nomadic culture,
>brought to bear massive military might, installed puppet government, had
>good support among the majority of the populus of the cities, spent more
>than a decade, lost untold thousands of soldiers, then finally gave up,
>largely due to the severe drain of the Afganistan operations on the economy,
>and political pressure from within the Party.

I can't believe that you're equating the Soviet (not Russian,
BTW) invasion of Afghanistan with our action in Iraq. The USSR had
*no* allies and very dissimilar goals. And putting a severe strain on
the Soviet 'economy' didn't take a whole lot of effort.

>Those who do not learn from history usually repeat it.

Indeed. One could hope that we learned something from the
outcome of Gulf War I.

>I see few reasons to argue that our adventure among the Nomads will follow a course much
>different from Russia's adventure.

And I see many reasons to argue the opposite..

>Two things are necessary to change that - the capture alive of _both_ bin
>Laden and Hussein...

Capturing bin Laden might be kind of difficult. Perhaps we could
hope to recover his remains. As for Saddam, if he's still breathing
we'll find him eventually.

>...and global support of and participation in our efforts in Iraq.

That's a pipe dream. There are too many nations whose aim is to
restrict American influence above any other consideration.

>I'd suspect the overall probablity of both of those happening is rather low.

Why do you think we won't get Saddam? We got his two sons. I
agree that we'll never get global support for our mission in Iraq but
when have we ever had 'global support' for anything? If by 'global
support' you mean France and Germany, no thanks. I don't want them
setting US foreign policy.

--
"I am alone: all drowns in the Pharisees' hypocrisy". - Boris Pasternak

My "From" address is munged - c**** "Reply To" to respond via email.

Al Superczynski wrote:

>
>
> Why do you think we won't get Saddam? We got his two sons. I
> agree that we'll never get global support for our mission in Iraq but
> when have we ever had 'global support' for anything? If by 'global
> support' you mean France and Germany, no thanks. I don't want them
> setting US foreign policy.

As much as I would like to see us get Saddam, I'm also hopeful we can build a strong enough
infrastructure that the Iraqis themselves will capture him. I get a strange feeling that
there are Iraqis who would gladly nail his ***, but not for us.

>
>
> --
> "I am alone: all drowns in the Pharisees' hypocrisy". - Boris Pasternak
>
> My "From" address is munged - c**** "Reply To" to respond via email.

On Wed, 05 Nov 2003 03:00:32 -0600, Al Superczynski
<> wrote:

>On Wed, 05 Nov 2003 03:05:37 GMT, cg <cgrams007@{removethis}yahoo.com>
>wrote:
>
>>Knowing what I know, I would have made the exact same decision.
>
> You would have willingly sacrificed all those innocent Iraqi
>civilians to Saddam's thugs just to appease 'world opinion' and/or the
>Useless Nations?
>
> I don't believe it......

Well you should. Without the agreement with the Arab states I don't
believe the Gulf War would have been possible. Hussein's forces were
far larger and more lethal than we faced 10 years later and the need
to build a coalition was much more apparent.

That agreement resulted in re-taking Kuwait ending the rape, torture
and killing that was in progress there.

I was deeply saddened by the results in Iraq itself. If you had said
I would have been torn with such a decision you would have been
correct. But there were other ways of approaching that problem.

Iraq's neighbors didn't feel comfortable with Hussein's proven
willingness to aggress. I'm sure there were things that could have
been done while they looked the other way. Maybe special forces
deployed in support of the subsequent rebellions and more public
pressure on Hussein's ways of torture and dealing out death.

Certainly we should have also done more than just quietly support the
U.N. sanctions against Iraq. The plight of the Iraqi people should
have been on the U.N.'s agenda at every opportunity and President Bush
should have seen to it that Hussein's barbarism was well publicized.

At some point far sooner than 10 years later the world would have been
ready to take him out.

--
cg

On Wed, 05 Nov 2003 05:01:53 -0600, Tom Aldrich
<> wrote:

>As much as I would like to see us get Saddam, I'm also hopeful we can build a strong enough
>infrastructure that the Iraqis themselves will capture him.

Works for me. In fact, I agree - that would be even better.
--
"I am alone: all drowns in the Pharisees' hypocrisy". - Boris Pasternak

My "From" address is munged - c**** "Reply To" to respond via email.

On Wed, 05 Nov 2003 11:22:16 GMT, cg <cgrams007@{removethis}yahoo.com>
wrote:

:> Well you should. Without the agreement with the Arab states I don't
:> believe the Gulf War would have been possible. Hussein's forces were
:> far larger and more lethal than we faced 10 years later and the need
:> to build a coalition was much more apparent.

How do we know that his forces were larger and more lethal? From our
intelligence reports? They've consistantly over estimated the strength of
the opposition for decades. It certainly appears they did it again this
time. Their air support was gone. They were surrendering by the thousands.
We didn't need a coalition this time and we probably didn't need one then if
the truth be known.

"Duine" <> wrote in message news:<c1Ypb.27429$>...
> "joey_schabadoo" <> wrote in message
> news: om...
>
> >
> > Who did that?
>
> Did what?
>
> Duine

"I am amused by those..."

Who are those? Do they actually exist?

"Duine" <> wrote in message news:<k1Ypb.27435$>...
> "cg" <cgrams007@{removethis}yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:
> > On Mon, 03 Nov 2003 15:31:56 GMT, "Duine" <> wrote:
> >
> > >I am amused by those who one hand castigate Bush senior for not invading
> > >Iraq (thereby allowing SH to remain in power) and now tout him as some
> sort
> > >of wise seer for not invading Iraq. Right, wrong, or indifferent, the
> "game
> > >rules" for the Desert Storm coalition included not invading Iraq and Bush
> > >senior had to play by those rules regardless of personal desires.
> >
> > I continue to believe Schwarzkopf played a significant role in causing
> > the failure of the rebellions that took place in Iraq after the Gulf
> > War ended.
> >
>
> I don't know how the rebellions had a chance without direct intervention of
> the U.S., something not possible with the Desert Storm coalition agreement.
>
> The two times I recall Bush senior being really stupid were with the "No new
> taxes" promise followed by caving into the Democrats on taxes and signing up
> to the Desert Storm coalition game plan. I also have no doubt that GWB's
> current approach to dealing with our enemies is rooted in seeing what
> happened to Bush senior and the region.
>
> > I understand that no one reason fully explains the failures but I also
> > understand that Hussein's ability to use his helicopters against those
> > in revolt was a significant reason for their defeat.
> > --
> > cg
>
> SH was given a free pass to do anything he wanted after Desert Storm, as
> long as he did it within his own country.

Sanctions? No-fly zones? UN inspectors?

>
> Duine