----- Original Message -----
From: "DJ" <djlee@WT.NET>
To: <CYBERMIND@LISTSERV.AOL.COM>
Sent: Sunday, September 15, 2002 7:09 PM
Subject: Is It Not True
> 1. Is it not true that the reason we did not bomb the Soviet Union at
> the height of the Cold War was because we knew they could retaliate?
>
> 2. Is it not also true that we are willing to bomb Iraq now because we
> know it cannot retaliate - which just confirms that there is no real
> threat?
>
> 3. Is it not true that those who argue that even with inspections we
> cannot be sure that Hussein might be hiding weapons, at the same time
> imply that we can be more sure that weapons exist in the absence of
> inspections?
>
> 4. Is it not true that the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency was
> able to complete its yearly verification mission to Iraq just this
> year
> with Iraqi cooperation?
>
> 5. Is it not true that the intelligence community has been unable to
> develop a case tying Iraq to global terrorism at all, much less the
> attacks on the United States last year? Does anyone remember that 15
> of
> the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia and that none came from Iraq?.
> .
> .
>
> 8. Is it not true that northern Iraq, where the administration claimed
> al-Qaeda were hiding out, is in the control of our "allies," the
> Kurds?
>
> 9. Is it not true that the vast majority of al-Qaeda leaders who
> escaped
> appear to have safely made their way to Pakistan, another of our
> so-called allies?
>
> 10. Has anyone noticed that Afghanistan is rapidly sinking into total
> chaos, with bombings and assassinations becoming daily occurrences;
> and
> that according to a recent UN report the al-Qaeda "is, by all
> accounts,
> alive and well and poised to strike again, how, when, and where it
> chooses.". . .
>
> 13. How can Hussein be compared to Hitler when he has no navy or air
> force, and now has an army 1/5 the size of twelve years ago, which
> even
> then proved totally inept at defending the country?
>
> 14. Is it not true that the constitutional power to declare war is
> exclusively that of the Congress? Should presidents, contrary to the
> Constitution, allow Congress to concur only when pressured by public
> opinion? Are presidents permitted to rely on the UN for permission to
> go
> to war?. . .
>
> 16. Is it not true that anywhere between 100,000 and 300,000 US
> soldiers
> have suffered from Persian Gulf War syndrome from the first Gulf War,
> and that thousands may have died?
>
> 18. Are we willing to bear the economic burden of a 100 billion dollar
> war against Iraq, with oil prices expected to skyrocket and further
> rattle an already shaky American economy? How about an estimated 30
> years occupation of Iraq that some have deemed necessary to "build
> democracy" there?
>
> 19. Iraq's alleged violations of UN resolutions are given as reason to
> initiate an attack, yet is it not true that hundreds of UN Resolutions
> have been ignored by various countries without penalty?
>
> 20. Did former President Bush not cite the UN Resolution of 1990 as
> the
> reason he could not march into Baghdad, while supporters of a new
> attack
> assert that it is the very reason we can march into Baghdad?
>
> 21. Is it not true that, contrary to current claims, the no-fly zones
> were set up by Britain and the United States without specific approval
> from the United Nations?. . .
>
> 25. Did we not assist Saddam Hussein's rise to power by supporting and
> encouraging his invasion of Iran? Is it honest to criticize Saddam now
> for his invasion of Iran, which at the time we actively supported?. .
> .
>
> 30. Where does the Constitution grant us permission to wage war for
> any
> reason other than self-defense?
>
> 31. Is it not true that a war against Iraq rejects the sentiments of
> the
> time-honored Treaty of Westphalia, nearly 400 years ago, that
> countries
> should never go into another for the purpose of regime change?. . .
>
> 33. Is it not true that since World War II Congress has not declared
> war
> and - not coincidentally - we have not since then had a clear-cut
> victory?. . .
>
> 35. Why don't those who want war bring a formal declaration of war
> resolution to the floor of Congress?
>
> Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX)
> Soon we hope to have hearings on the pending war with Iraq. I am
> concerned there are some questions that won't be asked - and maybe
> will
> not even be allowed to be asked. Here are some questions I would like
> answered by those who are urging us to start this war.
>
> FYI
>
> ...Approximately 5,000 children under five have been dying each month
> as a
> direct consequence of our embargo. In one of the rare media references
> to this, Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes in May 1996, asked Madeleine
> Albright, "We have heard that a half-million children have died
> [because
> of sanctions against Iraq]. I mean that's more children than died in
> Hiroshima. And -- and you know -- is the price worth it?"
>
> Madeleine Albright's stunning reply was: "I think this is a very hard
> choice, but the price -- we think the price is worth it." This was the
> same woman who lectured us on the evils of Slobodan Milosevic."
>
> ...There were nearly two million killed during the Vietnam war, most
> by
> air attacks that dropped twice as many bombs as we did in all of World
> War II -- nearly one 500-pound bomb per person. One million civilians
> were killed by our strategic bombing in Japan even before we got to
> Hiroshima and Nagasaki. More than two million civilians were killed in
> our bombing runs over North Korea. And one million Iraqi have died as
> a
> result of our sanctions...
> ...By the count of author Bill Blum, since 1945 we have bombed China,
> Korea, Guatemala, Indonesia, Cuba, Congo, Peru, Laos, Vietnam,
> Cambodia,
> Grenada, Libya, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, Iraq, Sudan,
> Afghanistan, and Yugoslavia...-Sam Smith
>
> ...contrary to the Geneva Convention, the U.S. government
> intentionally used sanctions against Iraq to degrade the country's
> water
> supply after the Gulf War. The United States knew the cost that
> civilian
> Iraqis, mostly children, would pay, and it went ahead anyway. The
> primary document, "Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerabilities," is dated
> January 22, 1991. It spells out how sanctions will prevent Iraq from
> supplying clean water to its citizens.
> ...In cold language, the document spells out what is in store: "Iraq
> will
> suffer
> increasing shortages of purified water because of the lack of required
> chemicals and desalination membranes. Incidences of disease, including
> possible epidemics, will become probable unless the population were
> careful to boil water." The document gives a timetable for the
> destruction of Iraq's water supplies. "Iraq's overall water treatment
> capability will suffer a slow decline, rather than a precipitous
> halt,"
> -THOMAS J. NAGY, PROGRESSIVE
>
> Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never
> will.
> - Frederick Douglass
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