From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Wed Jan 22 2003 - 10:54:28 MST
Mike Lorrey wrote:
> --- Samantha Atkins <samantha@objectent.com> wrote:
>
>>Do you believe there is anything like "international law" or
>>that there should be? Do you believe that might makes right
>>between nations or is there some set of standards, whether you
>>call it "international law" or not, on which the actions of
>>nations in regards to one another should be judged?
>
>
> I have found that pacifists who keep harping on the "international law"
> phrase know shockingly little about international law, including
> yourself, and those who I've encouraged to study up on the subject seem
> to have stubbornly chosen to retain their ignorance, including
> yourself.
>
>
How about answering the friggin question.
>>The best reasons for not going to war are:
>>1) It will not make America any "safer" and could make the
>>international situation much more dangerous;
>
>
> It will make America immensely safer, because with a stable and
> pluralistic, democratic Iraq, we will defuse the arguments of the
> anti-US muslim radicals who claim we are against democratic governments
> in muslim nations. With allies like Turkey, Afghanistan, and Iraq as
> examples, muslim despots will find themselves increasingly isolated
> even within their own countries.
>
Do you honestly believe that a pluralistic, democratic Iraq will
be the result? I don't see how. I don't see how the arguments
of the radicals are defused by showing that the country claiming
to be a prime example of pluralistic, democratic values also
claims the right to attack at will anywhere in the world and
even use nukes. I don't see how that positioning will
strengthen the case of democracy over their beliefs. It seems
rather more likely to me that the people will be more inclined
to turn away from whatever the nation that just blew hell out of
their nation or threatens to believes.
> Furthermore, with a democratic Iraq, Iraqi oil will be freely sold on
> the world markets, causing oil prices to plummet to $10/bbl ranges,
> triggering budget deficits in muslim despot nations, forcing them to
> cut their funding of terrorist groups.
>
I guess we shall see. I very much doubt there will be any such
outcome.
>
>>2) It will cost a large fortune when we are already economically
>>tanked;
>
>
> We are hardly economically tanked. Last year's economy grew at a 3.0
> percent rate, hardly anemic. One thing that would help immeasurably
> would be to rescind the TRA of 1998 so that telecom companies can make
> a profit running fiber into US households.
>
Tell it to the unemployed and the bankrupt businesses.
>
>>3) It will dirictly and indirectly result in the real deaths of
>>a guesstimated 100,000 - 1,000,000 people.
>
>
> Bullshit. Absolute hogwash. Deaths from the Gulf War were somewhere
> between 40,000-100,000 and those were almost all combatants. Precision
> guidance has improved immeasurably since then. We waged a much broader
> campaign in Afghanistan than we did in GW I, yet on 5,000 deaths
> occured.
>
The Gulf War was a much more delimited enterprise than this
promises to be. Wait and see. But I would point out that your
upper estimate for the Gulf War is my lower guesstimate. So
this hardly qualifies as "hogwash".
> With a quasi-independent Kurd government in the north acting as a
> northern base, much better than the Northern Alliance served in
> Afghanistan, and acting as liasons between US forces and Iraqi military
> units, I expect that we won't even need to destroy as much Iraqi
> equipment as we did the first time to achieve even higher surrender
> rates.
>
Unfortunately, we shall probably see.
>
>>4) Iraq, even if it had everything we cannot prove it has, would
>>not be a serious enough threat to justify the above nor would
>>simple "regime change" remove any such threat;
>
>
> A changed regime would be less likely to use any remaining WMD on their
> own people, not to mention on others. If we assure that there is a
> pluralistic government in place, and it looks like Khofi Annan is
> organizing plans for such an occurence, they will likely willfully
> dismantle their programs much as South Africa did.
>
>
>>5) The American people do not want this war and it will tear
>>hell out the already fragile respect for government and law (not
>>that they deserve much) if this war goes forward;
>
>
> I see a majority in polls saying that it needs doing. I am quite sure
> your chattering intelligentsia buddies don't like it, but their
> opinions have never reflected those of the people.
>
I will raise my "chattering intelligentsia" over your gibbering
war goons and ghouls any day. :-)
- samantha
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