From: bzs@ussr.std.com (Barry Shein)
Subject: Re: Foreign policy musings
Organization: The World
	<Bt6Dw1.9CF@world.std.com> <2796988236@dwetzel.mis.stratus.com>
	<BZS.92Aug18195036@ussr.std.com>
	<JTURNER.92Aug21202104@splinter.coe.northeastern.edu>
	<BZS.92Aug21234633@ussr.std.c
	<JTURNER.92Aug29125011@splinter.coe.northeastern.edu>
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 01:07:29 GMT


From: jturner@splinter.coe.northeastern.edu (Jeffrey Turner)
>	I never intended to justify Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
>I castigated the US invasion of Iraq.

To my knowledge the US has not invaded Iraq. Do you know something
different? Or do you mean you consider Kuwait to be part of Iraq?

>You may feel that Iraq's
>opening negotiating position was inadequate, that is the whole
>point of negotiation.

Oh do tell us the ways of the world...

>The US steadfastly refused to enter into
>any sort of negotiation which lead, not unpredictably, to not
>only the "justifiable" killing of combat troops but also the
>killing of Iraqi civilians.

Gee, I guess being headstrong is only allowed by Iraqis in your
geopolitical calculus.

Or, put differently, guess Saddam Hussein blew it, huh?!

Even after hundreds of opportunities to make things right and avoid
the slaughter.

>Now any true moral position would

uh-oh...

>hold the lives of Iraqi civilians just as dear as those of the
>Kuwaitis, that is the whole crux of the issue.  If you are
>going to justify going to war on behalf of the citizens of Kuwait
>then every effort should be made NOT to merely displace the
>grief and suffering onto the citizens of Iraq.  This was never
>done nor, imho, contemplated.

Then why did the Allies limit themselves, within reason, to strategic
targets? How much was destroyed in Baghdad? (a lot) How many people
were killed in Baghdad? (not many) Why? Because much of the bombing
was confined to verifiably strategic targets, bridges, power stations,
communications hubs.

Obviously in many cases we even warned them to evacuate or bombed when
a facility was emptied (remember that footage of ``the luckiest man in
baghdad'' when they took another fly around to let a guy drive off the
bridge before hitting it? I know, you think it's hogwash, you don't
know why however other than you want to believe otherwise.)

I am not saying that no one was killed or even that no target which
was bombed might have been spared had some consideration been
different.

But why in the hell do you think Iraq's propaganda machine started
focusing on ``collateral damage''?

Because they didn't have any significant civilian damage so had no
where else to turn to try to pump up some outrage.

Even much of that was calculated crap, the same Iraqi woman (who just
happens to speak English quite well) appears on videotapes at several
completely unrelated sites chastising the press and the US. That has
been independently reported here on the net by people who home-taped
CNN broadcasts.

So all they could do was try to claim that some of the precision
bombing occasionally missed and someone was hurt (unlike Iraq's
"precisely placed" SCUDs they just tossed into downtown Tel Aviv and
Riyadh randomly.)

>I've argued from the start that
>the war was simply realpolitik

Unconvincingly.

>though I don't think Hussein
>was dangerous to the Saudis or the rest of the world in the
>way you posit.

Easy to say from your comfortable chair.

>IMO, the reasons began and ended with the
>political position of Bush and his backers and any other
>justification perpetuates their self-serving hogwash and
>emboldens them to do it again.

Nice to see you're so open to new ideas.

You know, to be honest, you ought to read the sort of stuff Nazis in
America wrote during WWII to defend Nazi Germany's actions. It's
almost like you just substitute the protagonists from that stuff,
never talk about what the other side has done, only keep questioning
the "legality" or "morality" of everything the other side does, "How
dare the US/France/Britain interfere with Mr Hitler's internal
policies". Etc.

No, you need to say something for your pal Saddam, or else who really
cares if every i was dotted and t crossed in what happened when the
outcome was morally justified and it's hard to see what the problem
was from your circumlocutious reasoning, or more importantly, that it
was anyone's fault other than Saddam Hussein's.

Maybe Bush ain't no angel, I don't love the guy, but this Saddam
feller is one evil, brutal bastard with more blood on his hands than
you are apparently capable of imagining. Including 1 million deaths in
his war with Iran, gasssing of Kurdish civilians against all
international standards, the brutal and unrelenting slaughter of his
own people because they happen to be Shiite, random bombing of
uninvolved (militarily) civilian nations, the invasion and rape of
Kuwait, and the callous and reckless disregard for his own soldiers'
lives leaving them to literally rot in bunkers in Southern Iraq and
Kuwait for apparently no purpose other than to assuage his own ego.

No thank you, it's unfortunate SH is still alive.

--
        -Barry Shein

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