Should we go to WAR with IRAQ ??????

[RV4]

Terrorist Goal = FEAR

Pronunciation: (fEr), [key]
—n.
1. a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid.
2. a specific instance of or propensity for such a feeling: an abnormal fear of heights.
3. concern or anxiety; solicitude: a fear for someone's safety.
4. reverential awe, esp. toward God.
5. that which causes a feeling of being afraid; that of which a person is afraid: Cancer is a common fear.

—v.t.
1. to regard with fear; be afraid of.
2. to have reverential awe of.
3. Archaic.to experience fear in (oneself).

—v.i.
to have fear; be afraid.

QUESTION:

Are you contributing to the success of the mission of all terrorist?

Be not afraid, Be bold and proud!

The company of just and righteous men is better than wealth and a rich estate.
- Euripides (485 BC - 406 BC), Aegeus

 

[Hopeful]

KCFlyer: I hate the fact that even if we put our tails between our legs and leave, we will still see acts of terrorism against the US because of the hate towards us. Don't forget we are hated for our freedoms and our friendship with the state of Israel.

 

[RV4]

KCFlyer,

Strengthen your faith in GOD and you will not have to face such fears alone and afriad.

 

[kirkpatrick]

[blockquote]
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On 3/12/2003 7:33:44 AM Hopeful wrote:

Oh, I forgot! The 444 days of the Iranian Hostage Crisis BUT NO SHOTS FIRED AND NO CASUALTIES! Talk about deeming the United States helpless!
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[/blockquote]

Don't forget the botched helicopter rescue attempt.

MK

 

[KCFlyer]

[blockquote]
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On 3/12/2003 6:43:40 AM RV4 wrote:

[blockquote]
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On 3/12/2003 608 AM KCFlyer wrote:

No, we should not go to war in Iraq. It will kill the economy, and this war will in all likelihood be the start of WW3. Only this time, the US will be it's only "ally", given their fantastic job of alienating their European allies.
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[/blockquote]

Does the "Grace of God" you make reference to all the time direct you to focus on yourself and monetary earhtly possesions with such passion?
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[/blockquote]

Not at all RV4 - my signature, which hasn't changed in a while, was put there for the benefit of busdriver, and refers to the role of "fate" in airplane piloting.

I resent that you feel that my opposition to this war has anything to do with my love of money or my earthly possessions.

First off, the war is going to basically rid you and several other airline employees from the threat of concessions - I do believe that a war will allow many airlines to just bypass chapter 11 and proceed directly to chapter 7 since a "recovery plan" cannot take place if people are too afraid to fly.

Second, Saddam Hussein really couldn't give a rats ass about the United States. He wants to see instability in the Middle East. Oddly enough, the United States will give that to him. Sadly for him, he won't be alive to see it.

Third - an invasion by the US with ever dwindling world support may well push many in the Islamic world off of the fence and side them directly with the terrorists against the United States. They don't need "weapons of mass destruction", just look at what a few Saudi backed terrorists did with ordinary jetliners. Imagine the impact on the USA when a few suicide bombers with plain old dynamite strapped to his belly walks into the local mall, or school, or church, and takes out a few housewives and kids. Didn't even need one anthrax spore for that.

And our illustrious Congressmen are enjoying their "freedom fries" while alienating each and every one of our allies. Did they not stop to think that perhaps one reason for the French, German and Russian resistance to bombing the daylights out of Iraq is because they are several thousand miles closer to the "front lines" than we are and would most likely feel the brunt of terrorist activites long before the good old USA?

And the "humanitarian" aspect of the attack - Saddam has used chemical weapons on his own people. Back in 1941, Hitler gassed a lot of Jews and we stepped in to stop it. Of course, this was pretty much AFTER Hitler invaded Poland and France among others, and our help was ASKED FOR. And I don't remember reading in any of my history books about Jews in other parts of the world holding "death to America" rallies and burning the American flag. Perhaps it's just that "revisionist history" that left that part out. Today I seem to see more "death to America" rallies than I do "free our brothers from the cruelty of Saddam" rallies. In fact, I have seen lots of coverage (and lots of ridicule) of the French resistance to this war, but I haven't seen even so much as a sound bite from the leaders of the Arab world where they encourage the attacks. IMHO, it's far more important for stability in the middle east to get the leaders of the other Arab nations to speak out loud and clear that they WANT the US intervention.

Finally, this war will not be another "Play Station" reanactment of the two week wonder war back in 1991. IIRC, we went in primarily because Saddam attacked another country. He hasn't this time, and IMHO, when we drop the first bomb, then I believe that my daughters world will be changed forever. Because I think this "war" is going to last about as long as the conflicts between the Jews and the Arabs have been going on. All I've got is my faith in God that she will be safe in that world.

I don't hate my country. I don't hate the soldiers who are following orders from our questionable commander in chief. But I do hate the war that we are being dragged into.

 

[WXGuesser]

[blockquote]
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On 3/12/2003 8:35:58 AM KCFlyer wrote:

Did they not stop to think that perhaps one reason for the French, German and Russian resistance to bombing the daylights out of Iraq is because they are several thousand miles closer to the "front lines" than we are and would most likely feel the brunt of terrorist activites long before the good old USA?

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[/blockquote]

KCFlyer:

I have to disagree with you on that one. The reason the French, the Germans and the Russians are waffling/complaining/obstructing on this issue is because it is their companies and their countries which have the contracts and do the trading with Iraq, especially France. They don't want to lose the economic revenue to the U.S.

This whole thing is about money and/or oil. Period.

TANSTAAFL!

 

[TWAnr]

[blockquote]
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On 3/12/2003 6:41:33 AM RV4 wrote:

Guns don't kill people, people kill people.

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[/blockquote]

Correction:

Guns don't kill people, people armed with guns kill people.

 

[FrugalFlyer]

[blockquote]
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On 3/12/2003 8:35:58 AM KCFlyer wrote:
And our illustrious Congressmen are enjoying their "freedom fries" while alienating each and every one of our allies. Did they not stop to think that perhaps one reason for the French, German and Russian resistance to bombing the daylights out of Iraq is because they are several thousand miles closer to the "front lines" than we are and would most likely feel the brunt of terrorist activites long before the good old USA?
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[/blockquote]

I myself sleep easier at night knowing that there are moral and humanitarian countries such as Russia, Germany and France out there.

I think Russia is very worried that once a new regime is in place, all those oil contracts will become void, hence their opposition, threat of a veto at the UN. It will be more difficult for Russian oil companies to compete for contracts in a post-Saddam Iraq.

Germany is naturally against any war, and this stems from something the Germans did ~1939-1945.

As a non-American, I generally support the USA. Saddam is no saint, anybody should be able to see that. Although he is not a threat to the USA, he does add to the instability of the region. Hopefully, his removal will change/improve stability there. Two things about this conflict irritate me though:
1) the need for new UN resolutions. I'm pretty sure that resolutions from 1991/1992 have not been fullfilled, so what's the point?
2) the slow response from the USA to change oppressive regimes in countries that have fewer oil fields than Iraq.

Actually, its too bad the USA will not have the support of France in the war against Iraq. Afterall, who is going to show the Iraqis how to surrender?[img src='http://www.usaviation.com/idealbb/images/smilies/9.gif']

 

[RV4]

[blockquote]
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On 3/12/2003 4:52:12 PM TWAnr wrote:

Correction:

Guns don't kill people, people armed with guns kill people.
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[/blockquote]

Or hi-jacked aircraft? And dirty bombs? And Bio-Weapons?

 

[KCFlyer]

Naturally, the common people don't want war ... but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.

- Hermann Goering, In War

Golly - how accurate.

 

[RV4]

[blockquote]
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On 3/12/2003 6:32:55 PM KCFlyer wrote:

Naturally, the common people don't want war ... but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.

- Hermann Goering, In War

Golly - how accurate.
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[/blockquote]


Doesn't apply when you witnessed the attacks over and over on the television and are still suffering economically because the attack was directed at the heart of your economic system. Telling someone they are being attacked compared to acutally being a witness to the fact have to be considered differently.

 

[will fix for food]

The attacks you were watching over and over on the television were conducted primarily by Saudi/s. As far as I can tell from news reports we aren/t attacking Saudi Arabia.

 

[RV4]

A Terrorist Group that included Saudi nationals and an American Taliban does not constitute as an attack by a country.

 

[airlineorphan]

In short, no, we should not go to war.

Amongst the many questions one has to ask is the following:

Will the next guy we install in power in Iraq be any better than the last guy we propped up there? Oops! That was Saddam Hussein!

This war just doesn't make any sense. Before we go off and bomb the heck out of some other country, sending our soldiers into harms way, inevitably killing lots of civilians, and recruiting new members of al-Qaeda, perhaps we should take a long hard look at:

1) The bipartisan (or is that buy-partisans?) foreign policy of both the Democrats and the Republicans that got us into the mess we're in today. Why did we buddybuddy with a monster like Saddam Hussein for years and years? Why did we spend billions to train bin-Laden and his gang of terrorist thugs in Afghanistan... back then we called them "Freedom Fighters" but the U.S. government knew they were terrorists then and cannot possibly have been surprised that they continued to be terrorists!

2) Who the people are who want to send our loved ones off to war... They're a bunch of chickenhawks! Bush, himself, went AWOL for 18 months when he was in the military (I'm not making this up! The guy should be in the brig, not the Oval Office: http://www.awolbush.com/) They send our loved ones into harms way, but when Bush, Cheney, Wolfewitz and the rest of the gang had the opportunity to serve their country they found other things to do.

Now, rest assured that the executive suite at all of our airlines will be busy maneuvering to use the war as an excuse to lay off airline workers by the thousands and terrorize employees into yet deeper concessions. Whether they make a profit off of it now, or it is a deferred benefit of current wage and benefit cuts, this is called war-profiteering.

And next time you hear Bush or Blair intoning about the immorality of the UN sitting by and allowing genocide in Rwanda to justify their actions, remember the U.S. used it's weight in the U.N. to prevent any action. Republicans and Democrats were both complicit in this inaction. The hypocrisy of this war would be laughable if it weren't for the staggering carnage it will cause, both in direct human loss of life and in economic devastation!

My brother was called up a couple weeks ago, and I do not want to see him sent off on a fools errand that will only benefit a tiny elite of oilmen.

For those who want to dig a little deeper into this stuff than you can get from CNN, check out www.commondreams.org

Good luck to all of us!
-Airlineorphan

P.S. You are right that the government has more information than they are telling us. But unfortunately this is because our government is lying to us. They've done it before and they'll do it again. And the costs of those lies are always paid by regular people like us.

 

[RV4]

[blockquote]
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On 3/12/2003 8:12:57 PM KCFlyer wrote:

Why aren't we attacking the Saudi's...it was mostly their money who backed the terrorists. Iraq didn't carry out the attacks on America. If you're not willing to bomb the Saudis, why are you so anxious to bomb Iraq? Iraq didn't attack us any more or less than the Saudi's did.
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[/blockquote]

Good question. You want the e-mail to the White House?

This was my posting "I have conflicting views on the IRAQ issue but mainly because I must accept that our Government has more information than what has been reported."