Saddam's Sons Confirmed Dead

[Bond]

I find myself agreeing with Xantar?!

Originally Posted by Xantar

*pops out of his trash can*

Well, in all the debates about whether or not Iraq has any weapons of mass destruction, nobody has ever answered me this:

If Saddam Hussein didn't have any WMDs, why didn't he just comply with the weapons inspectors? Everybody agreed back then that Iraq was holding up investigations, being slow to comply with requests and generally acting like it had something to hide.

Why?

Well, it could be for any number of reasons. Saddam is a very smart person, but he is also insane, which makes it very hard to know what he was trying to do. He must have anticipated that we would invade his country if he held up the investigations and did not produce the anthrax, chemical agents, etc. He also most likely knows that we would have lost a war with our alliance, and he did. But he's still insane, so who knows. He probably wanted to buy time to transport his chemical agents and/or non/conventional weapons to other countries and terrorist groups. What may have also happened is that during the time between the U.N. inspectors leaving and the US coming in he may have destroyed all of his weapons to look innocent.

Right now it appears he is trying to wage guerilla warfare on us, something he knows that will be moderately successful. But only until we capture or kill him...

It's very sad, but the U.S. doesn't tend to stick out its neck like that.

What other country does more than the US in that regard? None.

Oh, and it's well known if you do a little research that the vast majority of oil Americans consume comes from either within the States or from Venezuela. That's right. We don't get much from the Middle East. Iraqi oil can affect worldwide prices, but not enough to make an unpopular war worthwhile. Bush had to know he'd be getting criticism every day that the war is going on. There are better ways to jump-start the economy if that's what you really want to do.

That is very true. I viewed a graph recently showing an extremely small fraction of our oil comes from the Middle East, I may try to find it sometime. Also, if you think we invaded Iraq only for oil (you're very misinformed) but it was to stabilize the oil prices. That was only part of the reason.

[Xantar]

Originally Posted by Bond

I find myself agreeing with Xantar?!

Well, at least you're not Justin.

What other country does more than the US in that regard? None.

Agreed, but you have to admit that we don't stick our noses into every single human rights abuse that's committed the world over. Case in point: China.

The U.S. is one of history's most benign superpowers if not the most benign, but it's still not philanthropic. There's always a certain amount of self-interest when we interfere. It might be to help our economy or it might be for some political gain. The fact is sending troops around is expensive. The government had better believe it's going to be worthwhile.

The rampant human rights abuses going on in Iraq might have been a good enough reason for you to send troops (or in same cases send yourself) over, but it's not a good enough reason for the public in general. When the public hears the word "war" nowadays, they think about all the sons and daughters who are going to die rather than the good it might do. And the American people will always choose their own kids over Iraqi kids.