if it comes down to it, i'd surport what worked in afghanastan, but, i do not claim to be a military stragitist. my question is would saddam be crazy enough to use a nuke if he knew we would make a mushroom garden out of iraq with him in it. could he be just contained until we finish the afghan campain and also what is going on in the philipines. we can get spread too thin. -----Original Message----- From: Cleveland, Kyle E. To: [log in to unmask] Sent: 9/12/2002 6:03 PM Subject: Re: 911 was Tomorrow Oddly enough, the Pentagon conundrum is not, as the media contends, between the Hawks and Doves. In reality, unilateral attack is probably moot. The issue is whether to go forward with an Afghanistan-style operation (promoted by the Air Force) which prefers an air assault directed by teams of Special Forces on the ground (200 soldiers, tops). The Army, however, prefers more of a "Desert Storm" approach of using the air forces to take out the infrastructure, followed by a mechanized ground assault on Baghdad. There's a lot of inter-nicene squabbling about the "how" of the attack. Critical to both approaches is how fast stability can be brought to the region without a Kurdish uprising, thus pissing off Turkey. Sadaam's point-of-view is that if the regime can survive the initial assault, the US will not have the stomach for a full-scale ground assault on Baghdad (which is what happened in 1991). Bush and Blair are quickly losing credibility by holding their cards close. They say, "We have the goods on Sadaam. We'll show you (U.N. Security Council)next month or November." Sorry, Tony and Dubya, you boys ain't got a month. The coalition can and probably will win the war, but waiting until the mid-term elections are over is too transparent even for a dumb redneck like me. -Kyle -----Original Message----- From: Salkin Kathleen [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2002 6:04 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: 911 was Tomorrow You know, that's a really good one - makes quite a few valid points. Like I said in an earlier post today, I used to be a "peacenik" until events convinced me otherwise. I still think Vietnam was a costly mistake - and even my hawk of a father agreed with me eventually - but I honestly don't see what else we could have done in the Persian Gulf in 1991 or last year in Afghanistan. The murder of over 3,000 innocent civilians in the name of jihad cannot go unresponded. The initiative against Iraq needs to be carefully thought out and presented to the UN and the world for it to work at all. If not, we'll be isolated as we were in Vietnam, which cost us so dearly in more than lives. Kat ----- Original Message ----- From: "Cleveland, Kyle E." <[log in to unmask]> Newsgroups: bit.listserv.c-palsy To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2002 5:41 PM Subject: Re: 911 was Tomorrow > If you want credible insite into US foreign policy, might I suggest > www.stratfor.com ? This is probably the most "balanced" analyses I've seen. > > -Kyle > > -----Original Message----- > From: Magenta Raine [mailto:[log in to unmask]] > Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2002 5:22 PM > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Re: 911 was Tomorrow > > > In a peace web site I saw an extract from an article that bin laden hates > Saddam -- and the extract alluded to the fact that perhaps our military is > actually helping bin laden once again. If I see it again I'll copy it or the > URL here. If his thesis is correct, we can look forward to more lies from > the us government regarding bin laden. > > mag > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > If you use Ebay to shop online, You can shop Ebay from my website! > We are also offering Long Distance at 3.9 cents a minute! > If you want to donate to a worthy cause, and you have at least 10 LD > customers, > iti will give $1.00 for every customer, to your cause every month! > so 70 people --> $70.00, 200 people --> $200 to your cause each month! > www.itilink.com/traine.iti