From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Thu Aug 01 2002 - 13:03:41 MDT
On 1 Aug 2002 at 4:58, Hermit wrote:
>
> [Joe Dees 1] Members of that organization have already vaporized thousands of our citizens in a skyscraper.
> [Joe Dees 1] The rest of them have pledged to kill as many of us as possible as long as they shall live.
> [Joe Dees 1] We know where some of them are, and that they are planning to launch further attacks against us. The land in which they are preparing is unwilling, or unable, to stop them.
> [Joe Dees 1] WE STOP THEM. It is what is NECESSARY to protect our citizens.
>
> [Hermit 2] I'm think I'm confused. Which "land" are you talking about?None of the terrorists came from Aghanistan - or Iraq. They came from Saudi Arabia and other US sponsored totalitarian regimes, via a number of European countries - and Canada to the US. I don't recall the US bombing any of
those countries - although we did bomb a number of Canadians. But I'm not sure which part of law you are arguing about here?
>
> [Joe Dees 3] Fifteen of the nineteen were indeed Saudi, but the major funders and planners were holed up in Afghanistan, which refused to relinquish them, and had been for years. It is also from there that they sent word that they planned to launch future attacks.
>
> [Hermit 4] So killing Afghans, despite the fact that this was a breach of
International law, was justified?
>
We have killed very few non-Taliban Afghans, in fact, so few that this is
one of the first wars in history where such casualties can be determined
individually. Collateral damage is an unfortunate fact of war, and we
work diligently to minimize ours; for our adversaries, however, there is
no such thing as collateral damage, as all US citizens, civilian and
military, man, woman and child, have been declared legitimate terror
targets.
>
> [Joe Dees 3] Iraq's claims to infamy are:
> [Joe Dees 3] 1) the production of chemical and biological weapons, some of which they used against a neighbor (Iran) and some of which they used against an oppressed minority, the Kurds, within their own borders.
>
> [Hermit 4] You forget that the US (and Germany) supplied if not the
weapons, then the precursors and technology to produce them for use
against Iran. This is proven by a court case in Germany and the fact
that
analysis of samples taken at the scene proved to have come from a lab
located in the Midwest. In addition, the US has just scuppered the treaty
which this would have been illegal under, and had the director of the
UN
investigation unit fired for saying so... A case of the pot calling the kettle
names.
>
We did not combine those chemicals for them, nor did we drop them on
those people. You, in the past, on this very list, have criticized the US
for attempting to block chemicals usable as precursors from entering
Iraq since then; make up your mind which side of the argument you're
on.
>
> [Joe Dees 3] 2) their invasion and occupation of (and attempt to annex) Kuwait, a sovereign nation.
>
> [Hermit 4] Do you recall how the US ended up with a number of
possessions and territory? Perhaps not. But as you have previously
acknowledged, that sovereign nation was doing them vast harm (slant
drilling).
>
Slant drilling was doing them little harm, as it can only reach a couple of
miles underground; that claim was a pretense to justify the annexation
of Kuwait in order to own their port and sea access.
>
>Surely they merely engaged in preemptive defense, just as you
have advocated the US do?
>
Since slant drilling was not killing masses of people, such a claim
should have been pressed in the World court. But the claim was meant
to justify aggression, not seek redress.
>
>In addition, Kuwait was created from a single
nation by the British without a referendum or discussion and with no
historic precedent. They were simply reintegrating Kuwait into their
historic territory - and you have suggested that this is legitimate in the
case of Israel.
>
By this argument, the US should be reintegrated into the various native
american tribes, and Greater Persia should rule Iraq, which itself is a
created entity having no centuries-long territorial legitimacy within its
present borders.
>
I have not stated that Israel has the right to the West Bank or Gaza;
they DO have a right to pre-emptively defend themselves from suicide
attacks originating from there.
>
> Besides, Kuwait is a non-democratic country applying
Sharia law.
>
They are not aggressively trying to apply it elsewhere by terror, at the
same time I look forward to the time when the country does indeed
achieve democratic, and secular, rule.
>
> And Iraq, no matter how offensive you find it, is a democratic
state applying secular law. You seem to be confused. Again. Or still.
>
I find Saddam Hussein's Tikrit-based ruling family clique offensive
because of what they have done and are willing to do. I think the
country and its citizens would be well rid of them, and would say so
publicly if it would not earn them a cranial bullet.
>
> [Joe Dees 3] 3) their plot to assassinate former president Bush during a visit he made to Saudi Arabia, for which seventeen, I think, were beheaded.
>
> [Hermit 4] I'm not sure what the number beheaded has to do with it?
In any case, the US has attempted to assassinate many world leaders.
Indeed, President Bush rescinded the orders which made this ilegal
under
US law, despite the fact that it remains a grave breach of International
Law. Are you suggesting that President Bush should be a legitimate
target
for, say, Fidel Castro, who survived many (inept) attempts on his life by
the
US Government?
>
I am stating that that might have had something to do with the Kennedy
assassinations, when you open a door, your adversary might walk
through it. In this case, Saddam opened the door.
>
> [Joe Dees 3]4) Iraq's flauting of UN inspections and their expulsion of the inspectors.
>
> [Hermit 4] But did they? Several heads of missions have stated this was
not the case, although the US blocked attempts by the UN to get to the
bottom of the story. Yes, Iraq did force one mission to withdraw,
asserting
(subsequently confirmed) that the mission was engaging in espionage
and
reporting information directly to the US. Were they justified? Certainly
the
US has refused entry to UN inspections.
>
Other heads of UN missions, notably Scott Ritter, have lambasted Iraq
for its 50-palace arsenals, its spy-informed shell-game movement of
materiel and munitions, and its using of public facilities such as
hospitals and schools to shelter bioweapons research.
The information would go to the US anyway, as a permanent member of
the UN security Council, so this is a distinction lacking a difference.
Iraq's idea of espionage here seems to be the UN inspectors doing their
jobs and uncovering covert WMD programs and caches.
>
> [Joe Dees 3]5) their willingness to provide safe have to terrorists of all stripes, providing their targets include Israel and the US.
>
> [Hermit 4] Al Qu'aeda is as much of a threat to Iraq as to the US.
>
In the near term, bullus shittus. Each finds an ally in the other against
those whom they consider a common enemy.
>
>And
the US not only provides a safe haven for, but has also trained, more
terrorists than any other nation.
>
I consider the School of the Americas to be a shame and a disgrace,
and we have indeed provided training to many subsequent right-wing
human rights abusers and death squad members in central and south
america. Domestic and international pressure against this training is
mounting. Go to:
http://www.soaw.org/new/
for more info. on this travesty.
>
>Indeed, the US stands condemned by the
UN for engaging in terrorism, Iraq does not.
>
Iraq was just ordered repelled from another country by the UN, while
the US was not.
>
> [Joe Dees 3]The reason that Israel bombed iraq's nuclear facility is that Saddam hussein had made clear his intention to use nukes built with the aid of that facility on Israel, which would have provoked a response from the Israeli Dimona nuclear arsenal, and likely, in those
> cold-war times, precipitating a wider war.
>
> [Hermit 4] I'm not sure what this has to do with the case, but as I recall,
the US was one of the first countries to condemn Israel (at least
publically)
for her "precipitate and illegal" action. The US even suspended arms
sales
and deliveries to Israel because of it. So how does what was
"precipitate
and illegal" when Israel did it in the 70s become "considered and
legitimate" when you advocate this course of action only a quarted
century
later?
>
The US privately approved of the action, but took the public position it
did in an attempt to avoid inflaming Islamic nationalist opinion (a futile
gesture, in my judgment).. Israel understood this.
>
> [Hermit 4] If Everything is equal, it appears to me that you are asserting
that the US claims to infamy are at least as good as those of Iraq. So
why
are you attempting to justify war against Iraq?
>
I am expressly not doing so, in fact, far from it, and only you and
possibly scatflinger could draw such egregious conclusions.
>
> [Hermit 2] What happens if a member of a Canadian English "Free Quebec from the French" group, which had declared themselves prepared to sacrifice their lives against the French (for dumping Frenchmen in Canada), happened to train with the "patriots" on the West Coast, and then were to blow up
the Eiffel Tower, killing thousands of Parisians. Would such an action entitle the French to bomb the US, or Canada, or both, if the Americans or Canadians couldn't track down other members of the group?
>
> [Joe Dees 3] If the Canadians didn't try, or were outgunned (neither likely), and refused to allow the French to help pursue the perpetrators, yes, the french would have the right to bomb pinpointed locations of the "FQFTF" bases, and even send in troops to apprehend them, but of course, the
likelihood of 1) such a group committing such an act and 2) the canadian government refusing to either apprehend them themselves or allow the french to help them do so, is slightly less likely than the odds that there are dwarves fellating unicorns beneath the mountains of the moon.
>
> [Hermit 4] So you are asserting that e.g. Cuba would have a legitimate
reason to attack the US to arrest those involved in highjacking and
other
acts of terrorism who are beng sheltered in the US, many of them in
Florida?
>
We have been going after those organizations recently, and the
movement is mounting to further lessen tensions and normalize
relations, from both sides.
>
> [Hermit 4] How about other erstwhile South American allies wanted for
crimes against humanity which the US refuses to arrest and deport? Are
those states also entitled to attack the US?
>
We have been modifying those regrettable positions, and in fact, we
deposed and imprisoned Manuel Noriega, a School of the Americas
graduate, for human rights abuses and cocaine trafficking. Most of the
former graduates who had engaged in such atrocities in central and
south america are no longer in a position to do so, alrgely due to US
pressure.
>
> What about those who fled the
fall of the peacock throne and are still sought by Iran for torture and
murder on a brutal scale?
>
I would like to see them sent back to Iran.
>
> [Hermit 4] Or is America different for some reason? If so, what is that
reason?
>
America sometimes fails, but does try, to do the right thing in the
world,from her perspective, and often at the world's request, and has
engaged in much laudable and life-saving action in the world (unlike Al
Quaeda and Iraq). That is an undeniable difference.
> ----
> This message was posted by Hermit to the Virus 2002 board on Church of Virus BBS.
> <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;threadid=25909>
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