Sergio, perhaps I ought to just put into words my feelings about this war:
There are no just wars. EVER. There are only necessary wars and unnecessary wars. Vietnam is an
example of an unnecessary war but Iraq is plainly a necessary one.
It isn't easy to justify these sorts of wars to people who don't have any blood stake in the war
presently, but I'll try.
After the Iran/Iraq war the USA had tried to reach some political impass with Saddam Hussein.
Because stable governments in the area that contains more than half of the world's energy supply is
important we were willing to ignore the fact that Hussein was a certified butcher who tortures and
murders his people wholesale. It isn't as if it were something that was unknown - during a state
department interview Hussein pointedly admitted to it in a matter-of-fact tone as if torture and
murder were only normal means to power.
The USA would prefer to stay completely out of the internal workings of other countries but
sometimes it pays for us to stick out noses in. President Eisenhower had intended that we would
supply a graceful way for France to exit Indochina (Vietnam) from which we would then bow out in
short order. Unfortunately Eisenhower was replaced with Kennedy who firstly caused a near
catastrophe in Cuba and then tried to use Vietnam as an example to show that he really could wage a
successful military campaign. Johnson continued in that format and the terrible consequences of that
sort of thinking are history.
But Iraq is not the same case. For one thing, when we were trying to befriend Iraq in an effort to
have some moderating effect on their policies we sold Saddam some presses ostensibly so that he
could print high quality Iraqi currency. Saddam used these presses to counterfeit American money so
lavishly that at one point one out of every five $20 bills was an Iraqi counterfeit so good that it
couldn't be detected by anyone but the most skilled experts.
He used this money to build a staggering arsenal and to begin building seriously dangerous weapons
of mass destruction. Perhaps you remember Israel bombing the Iraqi nuclear site which we now all
understand was primarily for generating weapons grade radioactive material. We also know that he was
building a super cannon and perhaps what you don't know is that cannon could have been capable of
shooting a shell entirely around the world. The expert he was using had a 'normal' cannon in his
front yard on the border between Montreal and the USA. He was quoted as saying that he couldn't
reveal the range of that particular cannon but that he could easily hit Mexico City. That's roughly
4,000 miles and a super version of such a cannon would give him the power of an ICBM with a far
smaller chance for intercepting the weapon.
France and Germany, China and Russia have all been selling arms and materials to Saddam sub rosa,
illegally and despite the fact that all of them signed on to the UN limitations.
Saddam also used the money to fund terrorists and terrorist activities all over the world. This is
almost impossible to prove openly because intelligence sources for this kind of thing are
exceedingly dificult to trace and showing how the information is gotten would invalidate using those
sources in the future. So many of the real proofs of what Hussein has been doing must remain top
secret for many decades. Remember that it was 50 years before some really important intellgence
wources from WW II were revealed.
Most importantly Saddam has been trying to find an effective terrorist organization to deliver some
extremely dangerous weapons of mass destruction into the United States. We have already arrested an
American hispanic gang member who offered to set off a dirty (nuclear) bomb in the USA and received
$10,000 in cash to begin his operation. He was siezed at an airport with the money on him. Saddam
has been courting bin Laden for many years because he thought that Al Qaida was the best chance for
delivering a biological or chemical weapon into an American city. Fortunately for us, bin Laden
can't stand Hussein and always turned him down.
Nevertheless it has become clear that Hussein is trying to attack the USA and to do it on an
extremely dangerous level. It was no longer a question about if he could succeed, because 9/11
showed that eventually he would succeed.
All this has made it necessary to take this awful regime out now. We cannot wait for tens or
hundreds of thousands of casualties. We cannot wait in case he tries his hand at lesser targets like
Tel Aviv or Rome.
We are all preying for peace but it isn't Italian blood that would be spilled if we wait. And it is
less important to you that American lives are lost than it is to us. While you advise us to wait
from a position of almost absolute ignorance, we have been advised by out own government with tens
of thousands of information sources, thousands of analysts and hundreds of advisors that this man is
dangerous and growing more dangerous by the second. How is it that you could possibly be better
informed than these people and how is it possible that they are all in a conspiracy to make a profit
in this endevor?
Now that we are committed to the war we cannot turn back. Last time we turned back tens of thousands
of Iraqi civilians were tortured and murdered because they sought their own freedoms. We cannot turn
back a second time and allow the very hope for freedom to die in the hearts of these people.
For those who think that oil is an issue let me be the first to agree. Though not in the manner that
many may think. Oil runs the whole world. Iraqi oil could threaten Europe or it can run Europe. We
prefer the later. It isn't important who is making the profits from the oil as long a it's flowing
and Europeans are eating and sleeping in peace instead of warring on each other for valuable natural
resources. The fact of the matter is that the USA is in a better position to live without Iraqi oil
than virtually the rest of the world.
"Sergio SERVADIO" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:---------- Forwarded message ---------- Though off-topic with bicycles, I feel the need to put
into English
for
Quoted message said:you, people I have corresponded with for some time and whom I
pretend
Quoted message said:to be acquainted with, a message written a while ago for an Italian
friend
Quoted message said:of mine.
Ride into PEACE.
Sergio Pisa
______________________________________________________________________
_______
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:about the war ...
... we hold rather different opinions.
There is no need for us to hide behind somebody else' rationale, be
it
Quoted message said:honest or faudolent, to be in favor or against the war. So, your rebuttal of France's, Russia's
and China's stands and
reasonings
Quoted message said:does not diminish the urge for your own evaluation and judgment.
Never mind there are always people who are, almost genetically,
opposed
Quoted message said:to any initiative, ever unable to bear responsibility.
In practise it is impossible to justify war, any war. It is so because its outburst goes too far
beyond what has preceeded
it.
Quoted message said:War can never be morally acceptable, never a 'just' retaliation. All the more so, the more
outbalanced are the contendants.
Even worse, when the attacking party does so after such a long
propaganda
Quoted message said:campaign full of lies and alleged wrong reasons put forward with the intent, so badly missed, to
rally support from the international community.
Which so bad faults against the U.S. can one ascribe to Saddam
Hussein?
Quoted message said:How much do you think the U.S. really care about the Kurds,
slaughtered
Quoted message said:and persecuted both in Irak and in Turkey? How much do the U.S. really value civil rights, the
western style,
in
Quoted message said:other Countries? In which other Countries? Why there, and not
elsewhere?
Quoted message said:
Have you forgotten Allende? Have you forgotten Vietnam?, where the heroic resistence was
universal and
Quoted message said:Ho Chi Min's Communist Party was only a component, initially only a
minor
Quoted message said:component, of the liberation movement.
Aren't there still so many countries where democracy, our style of
course,
Quoted message said:is not established and which, nevertheless, are justly respected?
When war, whichever war, outbrakes the party that thrusts it is
always at
Quoted message said:fault: for having brought the clash to such a dramatic level. The nation that gets attacked with
such a fury has the right to
defend
Quoted message said:herself, with whatever means.
Any defence war is just and heroic. Perhaps any revenge, for so much undured horror, is just.
What follows then?
Sergio
