Hi Beth,

  No I would not want to be the one to decide to go to war. Having said that
my view is colored by the past - I was born and spend my first years in a
refugee home in Germany - I was raised on WW1 stories from my Oma
(grandmother), WWII stories from my OMA, great uncle, mother and OPA
(Grandfather) who was interred in a Dachau (concentration camp) for being a
communist. My Adpoted American father fought in Korea and Vietnam, Amber's
paternal Grandfather fought in WWII, Korea and Vietnam and Amber's Father
was in Desert Storm. I am tired of wars - I am tired hatred and I am afriad
for the very future. - Both my kids are scared spitless - I have been trying
to comfort them - but its like trying to put out a campfire with an
eyedropper. I just want it to be over - I hope over is not just a smoldering
planet.

                     Trisha

-----Original Message-----
From: Elizabeth H. Thiers
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: 2/19/03 7:46 AM
Subject: Impending War

Hitler had expansionist plans that called for uniting all Germans and
Germanic peoples under the Third Reich.  He wished to reclaim "German"
territories in Poland, reunited Germans who were relocated to Russia,
and
bring Germanic peoples such as the Franks and Norse back under one
banner.
He called upon old hatreds that still simmer in the Balkans against
anyone
one not like another, xenophobia at it's worse.  He ultimately died the
suicidal death of a Roman emperor.
Saddam has not been successful in his expanisionist plans.  He wasted
precious resources in a water war with Iran, used chemical warfare on
the
Kurds and possibly on our people.  His reasoning behind the Kuwait war
was
partically justified in that Kuwait was a part of the partitioning of
the
Middle East that was to become Iraq post Ottoman Empire.  Only recently
has
Saddam called upon the Pan-Arabist movements to justify his existence as
Iraq has traditional been a secular state.  The first gulf war was
basically
won because we did start bombing his palaces with big bunker busting
bombs.
I would not wish to be in a place of having to make the decision on
whether
to go to war or not.
Even our Founding Fathers acknowledged that the pacifist Quakers and
Moravian Christian sects picked up arms when confronted with the
massacres
of the French and Indian War and Revolutionary Wars.

Beth T the OT



Subject: Re: mag raine's report from the bay area


 hitler killed jews
saddam kills kurds and in many cases iraqies. not the same. i do not
concur
with you on that.