Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

BPL Misunderstood

Our friend Blind Party Loyalty has been misunderstood. BPL's concerns are with the current war in Irag, not with World War II. BPL, I believe, is proposing that this country pursue a more intelligent and humane foreign policy, not isolationism. BPL does not question the heroism of our soldiers fighting in Iraq, only the wisdom of sending them there. Put simply, BPL questions whether the Bush Administration had any good reason to invade Iraq. So do I.

We were told that the invasion was required to save the world from Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. But no WMB's have surfaced and it now appears that this was more a pretext, than the real reason, for the invasion. The intelligence on which the Bush Administration's claims in this quarter were based, in any case, now appears to have been anything but.

So now we are told that we are bringing democracy to Iraq. But that makes even less sense. Are we going to invade every country that does not have a democratically elected government? How are we going to do that at $200 billion a pop? There are scores of such countries.

And how does that square with our current support of undemocratic regimes in such countries as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Pakistan, to name just a few, or with our historic support of undemocratic, and often repressive and corrupt, regimes in Chile, the Philipines, Indonesia, South Korea, Taiwan, Iran and Spain? We actually installed some of these regimes.

It is difficult to build, or rebuild, a nation at gunpoint. Our leaders talk blithely about nation building, but they haven't the slightest idea how to make Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites live peacefully, let alone democratically, together. It is going to take more than a military occupation to accomplish what they, themselve, have been unable to accomplish for centuries.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell learned from Vietname that there are limits to what military force can accomplish, and devised three simple rules of thumb for applying it: First, have a clear objective; Second, apply overwhelming force; Third, have an exit strategy. To do otherwise is to risk being drawn into a protracted war of attrition -- into another Vietnam. The Bush Administration's invasion of Iraq ignored all three of these rules, with the predictable result.

I am beginning to suspect that the real reason for this invasion is spelled, not WMD, but OIL. I don't know about the rest of you, but that does not work for me. And, judging from current gasoline prices, it does not seem to have worked for the Bush Administration either.

The Decmocary model in Iraq

With all do respect to Mr. Rigelman I do believe he is very wrong in his assessment of the U.S. involvement in Iraq.

To say we that the support of military action against our enemies is a misunderstanding have of Blind Party Loyalty?’s point of view is nothing more that the usual tactic used by those that can not form a logical response.

Clearly by the snide remarks about gays and WMD made in the BPL posting he clearly views this Bush policy through a set of tunnel vision glasses. Then for Mr. Rigelman to discount WWII as a true comparison shows more than anything else the direction of our American Liberalism.

So Mr. Rigelman doesn?’t want to talk about WWII so let?’s talk about Bosnia and Kosovo during the Clinton years. It seems our Military went into this region to do what? They risk American lives in a foreign country and there were no WMD there either. Did we nation build there or what? Where there mass murders by those Dictators? Was there a civil war brewing?

Now lets talk about going it alone. The fact is that America is the strongest military in the world. They should never ever depend on foreign troops to guard their backs. If in the future we ever commit to an offensive military operation we should always be the support and backup for our troops. We should be acutely aware of that from the Black Hawk down incident in Mogadishu in 1993. There we were waiting on the Turkey government's tank support and they never came.

Now with regard to Iraq and France and Germany not supporting us and has there been any news lately to show why these two countries didn?’t help with the over throw of Saddam? Could it be that their top government officials were being corrupted by Saddam?’s oil for food program?

It is interesting that Mr. Rigelman points out all of the dictatorships that this country is still friendly with and he doesn?’t include which of these dictatorships are committing genocide on their own people.

I should remind everyone of the mass graves our military and the Iraqi government have found within the borders of Iraq since this two year anniversary. We should also remember that during the Iraq Iran war that Saddam sent young teenagers into the mine fields to clear the fields for battle. Saddam also gassed the Kurds in his own country. Using a different weapon than the Japanese but very similar to the Nazis. Isn?’t this gas considered one of the WMD?


To NOT see the parallels between the invasions of Germany, Japan, Bosnia and Kosovo and then for the pacifists to only see the Iraq invasion as another Viet Nam is beyond me. I truly do not understand that logic.

Yes there is a lot of other nations that are NON-DEMOCRATIC. Do we support as NEO-CONs the invasions of say Egypt. How can these pacifists connect the two?

As one last desperate grasp for the argument Mr. Rigelman reaches for the WAR for OIL argument. Come on Bruce that is a real stretch just like the Viet Nam connection to the current situation in Iraq.

As we see from yesterday?’s news the Iraqi civilians came out with their own arms and killed 85 insurgents. They have formed their own elected government. They will write their own constitution and they be a free nation one day.

KEEP THE FAITH BABY!

By Strong belielf in Freedom

More Misunderstandings

With due regard to my friends BDF and SBF, one need not be an isolationist, a pacifist or even A Democrat, one need not oppose World War II, one need not support the Clinton Administration's efforts in the Balkans, and one need not lack due respect for the valor of our military, in order to question the Bush Administration's motives for invading Iraq.

To the contrary, nothing in recent years has done more to isolate this country from the rest of the world than the war in Iraq. And throwing our brave men and women in uniform into harms way with no compelling reason -- to waste their valor -- is no way to show them respect.

In all honesty, I see no such compelling reason here. But, sadly, this has become a life and death matter for thousands, indeed millions, of our fellow human beings.