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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
e-mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: here

This is noted by the fact that recently the US refused to sign into the accord that would allow US servicemen to be tried as War Criminals by other countries.

The US was founded on the basis that it is not beholden to any other goverment or ruling body. It is the reason the US exists. To say the the US or anyone making the statement is arrogant in its soveriegnity, is to say that freedom is an afterthought and not really important.

I myself agree that it is important to have world goverment approval for any action that is outside of your own borders. However I also see the need for a country of any origin be able to thumb thier nose and say "take this tea and shove it".

That isn't arrogance, just the silly foolish pride of 200 plus years of freedom obtained by blood and sacrifice.

Does Iraq have the right to thumb the nose? Yes it does. It has. The body that Iraq has thumbed its nose at is trying to bury its head in the sand so as to say "please sir may I have another". The US is usually the nation that takes the lead, and in this case again it is. The UN must act to stop Iraq from the continual thumb nosing. Wether it be inspections, or war, it has to happen. Otherwise the UN sends the continual message that it is ok to disobey.

So if Iraq gets to disobey, why is that ok? People are only paying attention to the possibly disobeyment of the US. Last I looked, it was Iraq that was under scrutiny.

Dave

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Imagine that someone just broke into your house while you were sleeping, and shot your family to death. You shoot them to death. Now you increase security to your house, and stay fully armed at all times. You meet a new woman, you marry, and both of you stay fully armed and ready in case of attack.

Now all of a sudden you remember that your next door neighbor used to come over and kick your dog and punch you in the face. You took him to court and he lost. You remember that he hasn't paid up like the judge told him too. You ask the sherrif to come over and take his stuff. He tells you that you should work it out. Now you remember that your neighbor used to say he was going to kill you if you told on him about kicking your dog and punching you in the face.

You are afraid he may do something. You can't prove to the judge that he IS going to do something, but you have a gut feeling that if you give him enough time, he will sneak up on you and blow your brains out.

So you can't wait for the judges and the cops to do something. You march over there, all guns blazing. You blow his brains out. Turns out, you were right, he is a nazi scumbag. He was planning to kill everyone on the planet somehow.

Or maybe you were wrong, and he was just raising kittens, and they were bieng eaten by your damn dog.

The analogy here, is that the US feels that Saddam will EVENTUALLY do something bad to us. It is at this time paranoia, but there is evidence of the past and some present that he MAY do something bad to us. We want the UN to back us up so we can go in and break some iraqi balls.

The danger, is if we go in without the approval of the UN and the US is wrong, we come off like complete dolts, and deserve whatever sanctions we get from it.

However, Iraq has failed on all of its promises that were given as a result of his surrender to allied forces in 1990. That is cause enough to re-engage his forces and topple his regime.

This whole thing may just be a smokescreen to get the issue off of other things. Republicans do very well historically in elections when we are at war, or talking about war.

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What do you mean by that? I thought they had WMDs to assure destruction? If you take them away, destruction won`t be mutual anymore.

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During the Cold War both the US and Soviet Union had enough nuclear missiles to destroy the world and kill everyone several times over. That didn't happen, because one side knew that if it started a nuclear war it too would be destroyed. As long as the two forces were balanced in terms of their overall firepower, no war would start.

With Islamic extremists that logic doesn't apply. They have a track record of perpetrating atrocities in the name of their religion. Their religious beliefs tell them to kill large numbers of innocent third parties. People argue about whether they are interpreting their religion correctly, but frankly I don't care about that. Very few people would argue that the Spanish Inquisition was just fine because its perpetrators misunderstood Christianity.

The US and most Western European nations (most notably the UK and France) have held chemical, biological and nuclear weapons for decades, and never used them in actual conflict. Iraq has been attempting to develop these weapons since around 1980, and in that time has used chemical weapons against the Kurds and has attempted to fire missiles with biological warheads against Israel. That, for me, is a good enough reason to work on the basis that if Saddam ever gets his hands on a nuke and/or the means to deploy his chemical weapons more effectively, he will use them, and use them against the West.

I'm with George W. on this one - kicking out Saddam is priority no. 1.

Very similar to Dave's extreme example is a "what if":
They say that Usama is still at large, and we don't know where he is. Now, is that the truth, or is that what they want us to think? There's a great possiblity that we have a SEAL with sights on Usama's head right now. But, we haven't pulled the trigger because intelligence says that Usama is supposed to have dinner with Saddam on New Year's eve, so they're waiting to kill two birds with one stone. Only kick is, that there's no reason for the general public of the United States to know all of that, because it would cause widespread panic, etc...

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However, if he is known to be dead, I'm not surprised that we're not being told. It would remove much of the political justification for launching a new war on Iraq. I wouldn't be surprised if he were miraculously caught and tried a short while after George W. has finished with (and hopefully finished off) Saddam.