Why does the President and his staff, Congress, our foreign Allies, and the Media seem to think there are only two options in dealing with Saddam Hussein and his cache of weapons of mass destruction?

On one side, there's the argument that we need to invade Iraq and destroy Saddam, et al. - to "finish" what we started in 1991. The other says wait until after we go in to do inspections and have hard proof of the existence of the weapons.

It seems to me neither side has considered the most logical, "third" option. How about we bring all of our soldiers back home and secure our national borders to the ultimate in security? I have no problem spending money to be defensive. I have a real problem when we go on the offensive.

Why isn't the President more interested in protecting America inside America? Doesn't he realize the American people will never fully back an Iraq offensive like we did with Afghanistan? Americans are so complacent to the point that we will not get mad at any foreign nation unless we get attacked internally, like 9/11.

"Bring the boys back home..."

In theory I agree with what Jaime has posted. But in practice, I wonder if being on the defensive and being "the ultimate in security" is wise. We would be prisoners in our own country, and lose the freedom that we prize. . .and isn't that exactly what the terrorists want? Bringing our armed forces home and using them to defend us in our own country is not too far away from asking for martial law. Also, part of our freedom has to do with our ability to go to other countries and feeling safe there, without anybody outside of America to watch our backs we wouldn't be able to leave the country without being in danger. And I think it is equally important for other countries to realize that there are equal consequences for killing Americans in a foreign land as there are for killing Americans on our own soil.

-Kisov

The best defense is a good offense, Jaime. If we bring em' home, it will seem to be a full scale retreat. Just wait for the attacks if and when we evacuate.

I just see this "War on Iraq" as another 1984ish ploy of announcing who is our enemy this time. Can't find anymore Al-quada goons? OK, let's find someone else to go after. Saddam Hussein is on our evil list, let's go after him.

Will the US attack Iraq first? I doubt it. Unless Iraq does something stupid (which is not out of the question). But a preemptive strike against a country that hasn't done anything (except talk back to the US) is definitely not going to win any brownie points with our allies.

It would just look really bad in this WAT if we didn't have some enemy to consider attacking. So, Saddam just happens to be the one selected for now.

I agree with you completely, Jaime. If Iraq really is such a huge threat to the US then it is only the tip of the iceberg and by putting so much energy into tackling that um..."spoke?" of the "axis of evil", then as a country you are making yourself vulnerable to all of your other enemies.

Not to mention the fact that it's no coincidence Iraq suddenly becomes a huge threat again when a Bush is in the Presidency. It smacks of Junior being controlled by his father and he didn't do a bang up job of bringing down Hussein. And look at Junior's track record so far. Hell he couldn't even find Osama's one eyed sidekick.

Defence should be the primary concern of America at the moment. Then if at some point Iraq chose to take action, the rest of America's allies would have no reason not to help fight back knowing that it had done everything possible to handle the conflict in a non-gung ho way.

Otseng & James,

Your absolutely right!

Jaime.

Its called.........'Empire Building'.
Easy enough to understand.

There are 2 apples and 2 kids want them.
One apple is better than the other.
The bigger kid beats the hell out of the smaller kid and gets the good apple.

It gets better!!

The smaller kid gets his mates and they gang up on the big kid and kick the #### out of him.
The big kid gets his mates and some baseball bats and kicks the #### out of the other gang.

Now the trick here is to eventually own the orchard so NOBODY gets any apples untill you say so.

Edited by Admin for profanity.

Alan, we Conservatives have our work cut out for us with Liberals like you. First off, Saddam does pose a threat. For geopolitical reasons, we are allowed to hit Iraq in the post 9/11 world. If you think that our only reason for freeing Iraq is oil, land, and cash, you are sadly mistaken.

Not that I don't want to suck every last dollar and barrel of oil from those sand farmers, but that isn't the objective of the USA.

BTW, where are any facts in your post about the apple orchard? That was nothing more than political drivel. You see my drivel? Drivel WITH facts. Try that and I won't think so unkindly about you.

*cough* well unfortunately there are nation who hate us regarding wether or not we would attack them. hell there are whole religeous sects who hate us if we pull our inquisitive noses out of those sorts of situations you think they are going to simply forgive and forget? No, if we stopped keeping tabs on them they would be that much more effective/quicker at building weapons of mass destruction.
And btw, ultimate defence? like what? building a "great wall" and shooting down all incoming aircraft? Sinking all incoming vessels? how would we do business? How would we expand? Think before you put words down.


"peace through superior firepower"

JohnP and Collegeguy.

Lets get one thing REALLY clear in our minds here.

I AM NOT ANTI AMERICAN.
I AM ALLOWED TO SAY THINGS YOU DONT LIKE.
I AM PRMITTED TO ASK QUESTIONS.

If all you want is for me to agree with everything you say.......get knotted.

Talk to me...........give me reasons why you would do it any better.
REMEMBER.........In the past they all thought they were doing it the best they thought..........and look whats happened.

Regards.AlanW

Mike
Apologies for the profanity.

That particular word is common use down here,

Regards..AlanW

Alan, I must be slow. I just got around to reading your orchard analogy. I found it quite humorous. I think Alan reminds us all how important it is to be able to laugh at ourselves.

Collegeguy, let's refrain from the conclusion jumping. I ALWAYS think before I post. I recognize the "ultimate" in defenses would not be perfect. No system will ever be. It would be niave to think otherwise. I think you got a little hung up on semantics.

If you like semantics, you should get this one easily. Our defense budget should be used for just that, defense, not offense. Let's hit them where it hurts the most, in their bank accounts. Terrorists are getting the money somewhere and using it to buy weapons to fight their primitive holy war against us. Perhaps it is asking to much of law enforcement to understand the intricacies of our financial system than to blow up suspicious knapsacks.

Jaime.
A couple of things worth reading.

The Atlantic Charter between America and England and signed by
Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill.

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/wwii/atlantic.htm

The cost of war in lives is secondary to cost in financial terms.

England finally paid it's monetory debt to America for 'lend-lease' a short time ago after 60yrs.
It is still owes America for the first world war but is owed far more than that by it's own allies.

There are plenty of websites you can look at to confirm this.

The loss of lives on all sides is of little importance when it comes down to financial debts.

America is the most militarily powerful nation on the earth, but is also the biggest debtor.

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/ARTICLE2/doodoo.html

This particular site is a bit overboard but there are plenty of others more credible.
Because of the HUGE expenditure on your military it HAS to be used to fix your financial problems.

The world embraced American culture because it was new and vibrant.
It is now domineering and self interested.
The world has seen it all before.

Just my opinion.........Regards..Alan