From: bob1@cos.com (Bob Blackshaw)
Subject: Re: US Cruise missile's accuracy
Organization: Corporation for Open Systems
Distribution: world 
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 20:59:18 GMT

In <1993Jan21.143448.29210@das.harvard.edu> adam@endor.uucp (Adam Shostack) writes:

>In article <1993Jan20.213940.5270@noose.ecn.purdue.edu> watsonb@alcohol.ecn.purdue.edu (Bradley S Watson) writes:
>>>J10B <J10B@UNB.CA> writes:

>>:                                             And how dare one criticize
>>:the rest of the world for being savage and ignorant of human rights while
>>:one's own actions reek of such ignorance and blatant disregard for life??

>>During this conflict, the US has tried to keep the number of civilian
>>deaths to a minimum.  After the Iraqi army was smashed and Kuwait 
>>liberated, we could easily have rolled into Baghdad and taken over the
>>whole country.  Instead, we declared a cease-fire to avoid Iraqi
>>civilian deaths.

>	No, we declared a cease-fire to ensure that enough would be
>left of the Iraqi army that any rebellion that occurred could be
>crushed, to satisfy our ally, Turkey, and also to ensure that Iraq
>remained sufficiently strong to act as a balance to Iran.

How short memories are. How much of the coalition do you all suppose
would have supported continuing on to Baghdad? The US would have
suddenly out in front all alone, condemned by the whole world for
exceeding the UN mandate, which was simply to force Iraq to withdraw
from Kuwait.

>	Doubtlessly, a desire to avoid further American casualties
>contributed to the decision, as did George Bush's desire to end the
>war at a "round" hundred hours.  Reports at the time indicated that
>both Collin Powel and Norman Schwartzkof (sp?) opposed ending the war
>that soon, as they understood that the Iraqi army was not smashed.

Understandable from a military viewpoint, but again - the coalition
forces were there under UN mandate, which said nothing about smashing
Saddam's army.

>>After the war, when Saddam started killing his people,
>>we risked our own pilots and planes to protect the Kurds and Shiites
>>with the no-fly zones.

>	Actually, we did not risk our own pilots and planes until the
>American people indicated outrage at the fact that the supposedly
>crushed Iraqi army was managing to deal quite nicely with the Shiite
>and Kurdish rebellions.

>>Then after Sadam started bombing
>>UN convoys in the north, launching raids into Kuwait, defying the no-fly
>>zones, and interferring with UN inspections, we chose to retaliate
>>against targets that would put very few civilians at risk.

>	The only question is why did we wait so long?  He has been
>ignoring the no-fly zones since a few weeks after the cease-fire,
>blatantly taking documents from UN inspectors, refusing them entry to
>important buildings, refusing their advice on the destruction of the
>supergun, etc etc.

Why not wait. Surely reading this newsgroup supplies ample evidence
of why it is necessary to wait. Simply because that unless strong
provocation is shown, we will be roundly condemned by the rest of
the world. (Of course, even if we brought everyone home and built
an impenetrable wall around the country, we would still be
condemned :-/ ).

>	It seems to me that the three bombing runs were a goodbye
>present from George Bush to Saddam Hussien.  There have been more
>appropriate times to bomb, and we chose not to.  This strikes me as
>petty politics.

>Adam

Bob


>Adam Shostack 					adam@das.harvard.edu

>What a terrible thing to have lost one's .sig.  Or not to have a .sig
>at all.  How true that is.