Cheers…

Main reason why most “scoff” at lame revisionist history is because we know where the conversation is going — an endless and pathetic roundabout against taking any kind of decisive action. Yes, we can learn from the past, but we also need to look around us with eyes wide open.

As SCSIwuzzy and others have maintained, enough of the fingerpointing about the past. We were attacked on our homeland with 3,000 souls snuffed put in a day, and that changed the equation for everyone, including known sponsors of terrorism. Until that day, we were “content” to regard Islamofacism pretty much as a pesky mosquito. All that plus, we are forever cleaning up after the mess the Euros have made of everything in general.

For what it was worth, Carter was also reaching out to Iraq after Saddam took over in ‘79, to draw him into our “sphere of influence”. It was under the Carter Administration that Saddam attacked Iran, in Sep ‘80. Reagan, Bush Sr & Rummy didn’t come along until well over 5 months thereafter. And don’t forget, we were in the midst of a Cold War with the Warsaw Pact.

WMD or not, Saddam had not only grand ambitions for Pan-Arabia, bar none, he also had the resources. And the dynamics of the SWA region makes him the logical focal point of our action to date. To wit;

1) It was just a matter of time before sanctions would be lifted by the UN. If it weren’t for 9/11, it would have been a slam dunk. France, Russia and Germany were most anxious to resume trading. In that sense, bin Laden spoiled that scenario for him.

2) Saddam had the know-how. It may have been dormant and all of the back & forth blustering was for his Arabic audience — little David standing up against Goliath. UN inspections notwithsatnding, Saddam had the lamp and it was just a matter of him giving the orders to uncap the genie.

3) Syria is a two-bit poseur. Resource-wise, they ain’t got much — their biggest role is playing the “middle-man” to Iraq, and funneling Pan-Arabian funds to Hezbollah and by extension antagonizing Isreal. Plus, Bashar al-Assad is just a green rookie recently ascended to the throne. While hope remains overly optimistic that the boy-king might mend his ways a la Qaddafi, eventually, we may have to do something serious about him. Nonetheless, we’re well aware of his recent attempt to funnel Iraqi WMD scientists and materials to Iran.

4) Iran is probably the next major problem to be faced militarily. For the time being we’re abiding by diplomatic means to reign in Iran for, but once again, it looks like the UN and IAEA is going to rollover. Unless the Mullahocracy is overthrown within the next year or so, we’re going to have to throw down the guantlet on them as well. In this case, it is very likely along the lines of a 24-hour ultimatum to clear the areas of concern before blasting them to smithereens and cranking up the simmering people’s neo-revolution to full boil, thereby negating the need for us to “liberate”.

5) Saudi Arabia is pretty much divided between secularists and radical wahabists — a low-intensity religio-political civil war has been running for quite a while. While we can argue about how true the Saudis are; the case can be made that the govt is not 100% antagonistic to us. So the way to deal with them for now, is to make it plain to them that the secularists better well clean out the rot from within.

6) likewise, Jordan has internal problems, but for all practical purposes, they’re allied with us. Especially since they know that they’re on AQ’s hit list.

7) Libya already cried “Uncle” and is providing plenty of shocking but useful intel regarding WMD black market.

North Korea can wait, better yet China might even do the dirty work of regime change for us.

9) Sudan’s number is coming up fast, and in fact, they have already put out the call for jihaiis to come help reinforce the regime, in case the UN decides to get tough. Again, because of the inadequacies of everyone else, we’ll have to step in like we did with Bosnia/Kosovo.

Finally, to believe that Saddam was incapble of reaching out to us is patently naive and ridiculous. Consider that a Dutch company found radioactive materials (dirty bomb grade) in the scrap that they imported from Iraq a couple of years ago. Now if a Dutch company, albeit innocently, received a shippment of radioactive waste under the nose of the Dutch authorities, imagine if Saddam had intended the final destination to be NY or CA? What if an Iraqi agent had received it, then forwarded the stuff to the US by breaking up the shipments among a number of secondary shippers, all in different containers coming from a number of EU countries. Back then, we only inspected approx 2% of all inbound shipments, with focus being on interdicting narco shipments. If just one, a couple of pounds will do, got thru customs without notice, think of the damage & panic if just that one shipment was mixed with a “conventional” chemical truck bomb (think of the truck bomb that the Jordanians intercepted last Spring) in downtown NY, or for that matter San Diego. Given the best to worst case scenario, what is the cost value of taking down Saddam sooner than later, along with bin Laden? Would it be worth 1,000 of our troops and $200 billion? How about 10,000 soldiers and $1 trillion to avert a disaster in just one metro area?

Given that cost-value proposition, is it any wonder that although we may not like the fact that we even have to go to war, it’s either there or it’s here. Even then there’s no guarantee that it still won’t happen here. Eliminating Saddam takes some of the pressure off, but there are plenty of free agents willing to fill the vacuum. For the simple majority of Americans, sticking our heads in the sand is not an option. All things considered, those insisting that we do nothing may well be considered reckless and “unpatriotic” by the rest. Just as letting a child endanger himself/others would be a sign of poor or negligent parenting.

I’m curious. What is your view on Isreal — oppressed or cabal-of-zionist-oppressors? Do you feel that perhaps by taking action in Iraq, we might be hastening Armageddon?

Stan

I believe I said in an earlier post that I probably cannot allow the “Indians” to take control of San Diego County. We have more tribes than any county in the U.S. and they are being very generous in helping us with charitable endeavors. I believe that the city of San Diego would be better off with a council and mayor who were representative of the tribes and I’m not joking. Fortunately, I live in Vista. Now about LA, I would like to cede all of it from south of Santa Barbara to south of Long Beach and east to San Bernadino back to the original tribes. It would be a breath of fresh air…literally!

Stan in San Diego

Stan in San Diego

Stan in San Diego

Richard,
You are exactly right on Sadaam. He was our creation for whatever reasons, mentored by VP Bush and Rumsfeld. Nearly all the atrocities Pres. Bush and others rightly accused him of were committed while he was our guy, including the gassing of the Kurds and the slaughter of the Kurds and Shiites after Pres. Bush encouraged them to revolt and then stood by. It is very important that we get a wide view of history by studying the actions of the Brits, French and Americans after the breakup of the Ottoman Empire and up until the present time. Getting involved in or carrying on those two countries’ colonial adventures has caused us nothing but trouble.

For the record, I believe that Pres. Clinton should have been removed from office.

Stan in San Diego