How long?

Submitted by Jblazso (United States), Mar 29, 2003 at 16:37

I too am a student of history. I don't understand what you mean by the "lack of diplomacy"? How long should we try diplomacy? How long should we let Saddam build his army and his arsenal? How long should we try to get the rest of the world to agree with us? This has been going on with Saddam since the end of the Gulf War--12 years. Everyone--the UN, Clinton, the mid-East, the world-- has known what he was doing but ignored it. Enough is enough. We--Bush & group--could have talked for the next 12 years & not gotten people to agree. We could be like the world was before WWII. Remember your history to prevent repeating past mistakes.

At the end of WWI Germany signed a peace treaty that said it would not build a large standing army nor build up a large arsenal of weapons. Hitler started doing just that. Also at that time, Germany had a treaty with Russia that they would not attack Russia. BEFORE WWII ever began, Churchill warned the world what was happening. He could see what Hitler was doing--building a huge armed force with superior weapons & convincing the Germans that they were the best & only people suited to rule. There were even rumors that Hitler was working on a weapon like no one had ever seen--a weapon of mass destruction--now known as the atom bomb. No one felt that there could be anything as awful as that & that it was an impossible thing. Even tho Churchill warned the world of what was happening everyone felt it was someone else's' problem & didn't want to get involved. Hitler was taking over smaller countries by force & already starting on a small scale to get rid of anyone he felt was not his equal--(ie. SH gassing the Kurds a few years ago.) Hitler had his SS who struck terror in everyone--SH has his Republican Guard. They both rule/ruled by force & terror as well as admiration from those who wanted more power & glory for themselves & their country. Until Hitler started bombing England & attacking France, the rest of the world sat by idly & allowed the Germans to build up their arsenal, conquer countries, & generally get a good foothold in Europe. We did not come to the aid of any of these countries in any meaningful way until it was almost too late.When we did get involved we had a huge full scale war on our hands covering almost an entire continent & then some (Africa). A war that took over 4 years to win, decimated many countries, cost many thousands of lives--soldiers, civilians, Jews, gypsies, & anyone else Hitler didn't like.

Does any of this sound like Saddam to you? It does to me--the one main difference is, when he tried to take over Kuwait he was stopped & that has slowed him down. If he hadn't been stopped then who knows what else he would have tried to conquer. At that time he agreed to stop developing weapons of mass destruction, get rid of all his weaponry--biological & other, & reduce the size of his army. He has done none of that. He has spent the last 12 years building up his army, hiding his weapons, building more weapons, & generally becoming more terrible. He tried to say he hasn't been doing that but then why is he making fuel--proven--for missiles he says he doesn't have? He is unable to account for tons of nerve gas, mustard-filled artillery shells, and 400 biological weapons-capable aerial bombs that is known he had. Can we allow this to continue? Can we wait to get EVERYONE in agreement? Heck, at our house we have trouble getting everyone to agree on where to go for dinner! when no agreement is forthcoming then someone has to take command and lead. That is what Bush has done--he is leading!

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