By Victor Davis Hanson

[b]1990-Iraq[/b]

Iraq has never attacked the United States. Countries in Africa are invaded all the time — so what could be so special about a border dispute with Kuwait? Should we have intervened when China crossed into Vietnam? This war will not be a cakewalk. Saddam Hussein has a two-million-man veteran army that fought nearly a decade in Iran. Another Vietnam will tear the country apart here at home. Our campuses will erupt. No blood for oil. He has weapons of mass destruction.

He has some justification — weren't the Kuwaitis stealing oil from his Rumailia field? And didn't he protect the Gulf states? Didn't we back him in his war with Iran? If we go in, oil will climb to $60 a barrel; he might torch the Kuwaiti oil fields, and shut down production for decades. Nerve gas will blanket Tel Aviv. The Israelis will drop the bomb on Baghdad. Nearly half of our senators oppose intervention. Colin Powell is aghast at the idea.

The Arab street is in an uproar and will turn on Westernized regimes. The Palestinians and the Jordanians are already actively pro-Iraqi. Who will pay for the war in a time of deficits? Saddam has hostages as human shields, and has threatened to send missiles into Saudi Arabia and Israel. The Soviets won't like our intervention. We know he has biological weapons — and maybe nuclear bombs.

Our most esteemed military analysts have forecast thousands of U.S. casualties. How are we going to explain to the mothers of the dead that their children perished for Exxon? If Saddam falls, the power vacuum could destabilize our friends, and would only empower the Iranians. Do we want an independent Kurdistan on the border of Turkey or a Shiite state taking orders from Teheran? We could get a lot worse than the present dictator. The Iranian revolution might sweep the Gulf…

[b]2001 Afghanistan[/b]

Afghanistan was the graveyard of the British and Russian armies. Some of those peaks are over 11,000 feet high. Winter is coming on. Our bombs could drive millions of innocent civilians into the mountains — and to certain death, from starvation and sub-zero temperatures.

Our warlord allies are worse than the Taliban. They won't fight; the Taliban is far more spirited. Didn't the Taliban stop the opium for a while? Couldn't we form some sort of coalition government backed by an all-Islamic peace force? Is there any proof that al Qaeda or the Taliban was behind 9/11?

The Saudis won't let us use bases to conduct operations. Our pilots will have to fly thousands of miles each week. We will ignite the Palestinian problem. Hundreds of stinger missiles are hidden away by al Qaeda and just waiting for our planes. We may destabilize Pakistan and get something worse than Musharraf.

We can't fight during Ramadan — unless we expect a worldwide jihad. The very idea that Americans are overturning an Islamic government will ignite the Arab street. Colin Powell is aghast at the idea. Bin Laden's caves are impenetrable to air attack; who is going to go in there and expel the terrorists one by one? If we hit them, they will hit us back — do we want another 9/11? Has the Taliban ever really attacked the United States?

What are the oil deals behind this war talk? Didn't Bush and Cheney run oil companies? Didn't we cause the problem in the first place by backing the Mujahadeen? Shouldn't we have stayed engaged in Afghanistan for at least a decade after 1980? If we go in, won't we get bogged down in Afghanistan for ten years? What comes after the Taliban will be worse. Are we prepared to take 10,000 casualties? Don't we need congressional approval? Aren't we already stretched too thin around…

You are right, we are stretched to thin.  That is why diplomacy must be our first option, with war as our last option.

Bill C. [smoke]

TOOOOO thin.

We don't even have sufficient precision munitions available at present much less sufficient manpower.

This is exactly my point.  American soldiers will be sacrificed in a fight we can not win, for a goal we can not achieve.  We can not make these terrorists like us or stop attacking us by fighting with them, that is what they want.  Instead we should use diplomacy on host countries to arrest and bring to justice these terrorists.  We win with our allies, and maybe make a few new ones.  We also win because the terror effort around the world would be weakened almost to death.

Bill C. [smoke]

Run up a couple of those cruze missiles.

Cruise missles is on of the things we are running desperately low on right now.

Bill C. [smoke]

There should be a good supply of precision weapons. JDAMs were being built at a rate of 1,000 per month at the time of the Afghan war, and they recently upped production to 2,000 per month. And they've still got thousands of older, laser-guided bomb kits.

Cruise missiles are running a bit short, but I doubt there will be a great need for long distance standoff weapons. We're already flying over most of the country on a daily basis.

Guess who's responsible for stretching our millitary too thin? Hint: It wasn't Regan, Bush 41 or Bush 43...

It is cruise missles that would be desperately needed if we attacke Iraq.  They do have weapons that can take out our planes trying to deliver JDAMs.  This Iraq situation is something that we might be able to exploit.  We need first to apply presure to let in weapons inspectors, and then and only then if he refuses, declare war upon Iraq.

Bill C. [smoke]

Excuse my ignorance here...but, how the hell do you how ready we are? Do you work for the military readiness department?

We have been ordering bombs and companies have been building missiles double overtime since last October. How do I know...I asked someone who does that for the Air Force.

I can tell you this much...we will be ready for Iraq D-day II. I trust our leaders.

No offense Slick,
[b][blue]NAKED[/blue][/b]

What has possibly happened to make the American public think that Iraq is [u]less[/u] of a threat now, than it was back in November?

[img]http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/nm/20020823/bush_iraq_graphic.gif[/img]

What's changed?

Eric The(Exasperated)Hun[>]:)]

Public opinion is no substitute for reality.  I am only saying use all other options before going to war and killing more innocent people.

Bill C. [smoke]

The only thing that's changed is that the opponents to the war have been getting a free ride. They've been the only ones out presenting their argument. The administration has for the most part been silent, and ceded the field.

I expect and hope this will change in the next month or two.

The opponents to the war are mostly just a bunch of newspaper columnists. The war is going, no matter what the editorial page of the New York Times thinks. We already have all the reason and authorization we need.

Sadaam has been refusing weapons inspectors for years. Even if they get in, the inspectors will never find anything as long as Sadaam is in power. Our first notice that Sadaam has an atomic bomb will be when it is detonated in Times Square, or mabye the White House Lawn. That is why we must go in.

Hmm, I see a lot of trite pro-war arguments rehashed again and again in this thread. Case in point:


The reason can be debated, but we DON'T have the authorization. That must come from Congress- they must declare war.

I of course will oppose the war on Iraq, for one simple reason: it does not threaten the US.

Yep