One week and we'll see. Diplomacy should, and now has, been given a chance in this matter.
It seems the ball is in Iraq's court.
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One week and we'll see. Diplomacy should, and now has, been given a chance in this matter.
It seems the ball is in Iraq's court.
Well we'll see about the one week thing.I was watching FNC last night,and it sounds like even if Saddam isn't cooperative,there's still going to be more red tape before the troops actually start rolling in mass numbers.I think he's going to give the UN the run around by being cooperative at first(as always),all the while stashing and selling more weapons,and causing support for the allied nations to go down.Then finally it'll all go through,but by that time,terrorists are going to be more well armed than ever.
gghornet, thanks , i never really though of it that way. I understand the government is only trying to "do the right thing". and you know what? no matter which path they chose, it still wouldnt have been right.. Can't please everyone i suppose. But thank you for your post.:-)
sorry, i just wanted to add, that i don't think saddam will go along with this willingly, he is going to play his games. He isn't about to let his "people" think he is a coward and he wants go down as a hero to them.
I have been watching Fox news for a couple days off and on, and they seem to bring out some excellant points. So, my statement is actually a quote from them i agreed with:-)
A little refresher course on how this resolution passed,
This would be called coercion, and therefore this resolution in my opinion has no validity. The UN is a farce. And in the coming months, after the "war" in Iraq is over, there will be someone just as brutal as Saddam in charge again. Except this time he will obey his paymasters. For a while anyways. And the oil-contracts will be handed to all the usual suspects. And life will go on. And then there will be the demonization of Iran, and then...well you get the picture.Quote:
But the 10 non-permanent members - Cameroon, Guinea, Mauritius, Bulgaria, Colombia, Mexico, Singapore, Norway, Ireland and Syria - voted under heavy diplomatic and economic pressure from the United States.
Nine votes and no vetoes were the minimum needed to adopt the resolution. Of the five big powers, Britain had co-sponsored the U.S. resolution. In a worst-case scenario, U.S. officials were expecting the other three permanent members - Russia, China and France - to abstain on the vote.
That meant the votes of the 10 non-permanent members took on added significance. Of the 10, the two Western nations, Ireland and Norway, were expected to vote with the United States.
Syria, a ''radical'' Arab nation listed as a ''terrorist state'' by the U.S. State Department, was expected to either vote against or abstain.
So the arm-twisting was confined mostly to the remaining seven countries, who depend on the United States either for economic or military aid - or both.
All these countries were seemingly aware of the fact that in 1990 the United States almost overnight cut about 70 million dollars in aid to Yemen immediately following its negative vote against a U.S. sponsored Security Council resolution to militarily oust Iraq from Kuwait.
Last week, Mauritius' U.N. ambassador, Jagdish Koonjul, was temporarily recalled by his government because he continued to convey the mistaken impression that his country had reservations about the U.S. resolution against Iraq.
''The Yemen precedent remains a vivid institutional memory at the United Nations,'' Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies, told IPS.
Bennis said that just after that 1990 vote, the U.S. envoy turned to the Yemeni ambassador and told him that his vote would be ''the most expensive 'no' vote you would ever cast''. The United States then promptly cut the entire 70 million dollar U.S. aid budget to Yemen.
The latest incarnation of that reality, Bennis said, came from the island nation of Mauritius, which joined the Security Council last year under U.S. sponsorship.
The U.S. aid package to the impoverished country, authorised by the U.S. African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), demands that the aid recipient ''does not engage in activities contrary to U.S. national security or foreign policy interests''.
Fear of being accused of acting contrary to U.S. foreign policy interests plays a role ''not only for Mauritius, but also for any country dependent on U.S. economic assistance'', added Bennis.
Colombia, one of the world's leading producer of cocaine and an important supplier of heroin to the U.S. market, received about 380 million dollars in U.S. grants under the International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE) programme this year. The proposed amount earmarked for 2003 is 439 million dollars.
Under the same programme, Mexico received about 10 million dollars last year and 12 million dollars this year. It also received 28.2 million dollars in U.S. Economic Support Funds (ESF).
Guinea, another of the non-permanent members in the Security Council, received three million dollars in outright U.S. military grants last year and is expected to get 20.7 million dollars in development assistance next year.
Cameroon is not only entitled to receive free surplus U.S. weapons but also receives about 2.5 million dollars in annual grants for military education and training.
After Colombia, the largest single beneficiary of U.S. aid is Bulgaria, which received 13.5 million dollars in outright military grants (mostly to buy U.S. weapons systems) last year and an additional 8.5 million dollars this year. The amount earmarked for 2003 is 9.5 million dollars.
Additionally, Bulgaria has received 69 million dollars in aid under a U.S. programme called Support for East European Democracy (SEED). Next year's proposed grant is 28 million dollars.
Besides Syria, Singapore is the only country in the Security Council that does not receive economic or military aid from the United States.
But the United States is the biggest single arms supplier to Singapore, selling the Southeast Asian nations weapons worth 656.3 million dollars last year and an estimated 370 million dollars this year.
EDIT: Source.
Also on a sidenote, the Iraqi Foreign Relations Committee, has recommended that the Res. 1441 be rejected.
2nd EDIT: Garrhhh. More interesting info...
SourceQuote:
The CIA said the probability of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein initiating an attack without provocation on the United States in the foreseeable future was "very low," according to a letter made public on Tuesday.
But if he was attacked, the likelihood that Saddam would respond with biological or chemical weapons was "pretty high."
The letter, dated Oct. 7, was signed by Deputy CIA Director John McLaughlin on behalf of CIA Director George Tenet and sent to Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham in response to the Florida Democrat requesting the CIA declassify parts of its secret assessment on Iraq
Seems like the Iraqi parliment has sent a recomedation that Saddam reject the new resolution from the UN... let us hope that he doesn't do that out of hand... I for one would like for inspectors to get back in and at least try to find the WMD he has stockpiled all over the place... unfortunatly I think that they are going to be met with the same BS as beofer and that we are ging to be at war with Iraq by early next year...
Another unfortunate turn of events is that the Army is geering up for the use of NBC weapons by Iraq... This morning a team of Mortuary Affairs Specialists left here headed for Kuwait to set up what is called a MADCAP... Mortuary Affairs Decontamination Collection Point... Depending on what the agent is that was used they decon the body or they encase it in plastic resin and ship it home for burial... there are supposed to be 3 of the MADCAP's set up before any war with Iraq...Quote:
The CIA said the probability of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein initiating an attack without provocation on the United States in the foreseeable future was "very low," according to a letter made public on Tuesday.
I hope that the American people have the stomach for this next phase of the war... IMO I don't care what you think of our reasons for being there and fighting as long as you support the soldiers doing the fighting... And that means that once that first shot is fired (again this is JMHO) no one should say a single nasty word about the war... The soldiers that are fighting aren't doing it because they want to they are doing it because their country has ASKED them to...
I guess we'll see in the next few days/weeks which way the wind is going to blow... It would sure be nice if Saddam would do the right thing and disarm.... Ok I'll stop deluding myself now:D
Dissent is an American right.
Edit:
"negging yo un-american ass is an american right"
LMAO! Exactly my friend, you're learning :p
A U.S. Attack on Iraq Unlawful, Warn Mideast Experts
by Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS - A U.S. military attack on Iraq without U.N. Security Council authorization would be tantamount to aggression, say Middle East experts and American academics.
just can't win with the guy, huh
I just saw whats happening above and i have to agree with Mahakaal, the right to decent is the american way. without it there's no reason to fight.
I also agree with the statement above. If members of my personal family end up there which they may The time to dissent is over at the first shot. It now becomes a matter of backing your own countrymen who are willing to sacrifice what they have to because their country has asked them to. Auntie
/me looks around to see if he's still in America, not a middle-eastern theocracyQuote:
Originally posted here by auntie
I also agree with the statement above. If members of my personal family end up there which they may The time to dissent is over at the first shot . It now becomes a matter of backing your own countrymen who are willing to sacrifice what they have to because their country has asked them to. Auntie
Yeah, I know alot of people who are worried of a draft for them or family members. It's certainly a thing to be worried about and I hope everything work's well for people. I think our Army is big enough, so I don't think they will need to draft, but you never know. I sure hope not.