Bush's Ultimatum: War Begins on 3/19/03?

BTA, you sum it up very well. So many of the arguments here seem to come from an anti-American view point that is all to forgiving of Saddam and his past deeds. I have been bringing up the violation of the cease fire for months on these boards, but some people just don't want to hear it.

 

Not only do they not want to hear it, the don't have a credible response to it!

 

The "Shock and Awe" tactic will drop 3,000 bombs on Bagdad in 48 hours. They will use Uranium 238 tipped missiles whose vapor will leach in the soil and contaminate plant life for 4.5 billion years. They estimate roughly 500,000 civilian deaths in Bagdad before the first Allied soldier sets one foot in.

*500,000*!
42% of the Iraqi population is children under 8.
Therefore *210,000* children will die in the first 48 hours of this conflict. No chance to surrender. Puppets of governments.

Hospitals, schools, sewage treatment plants... all leveled. Farms left radioactive.

I believe American and British soldiers had good and honorable intentions to protect their countries. I doubt somehow that slaughtering children was what they signed on for.

May they come home with their bodies and their souls intact.

We had better alternatives, and I grieve for what we are becoming.

 

I hope some of this sentiment isn't directed at me, because I happen to agree that Saddam has to go for all of the reasons stated above. My reservations are about the military approach that's being used and are based solely upon the idea of relative risk.

 

Just 5 more minutes now, and we'll have our answer.

 

Tayja....

You really need to get your facts straight. There is NO WAY that 500,000 Iraqi civilians are going to die in this conflict. I don't know where you get your information, but that figure is rediculous. Granted, people WILL be killed. But 500,000 is a GROSS overestimate. Do you realise that that is more than FIVE times the amount of people that were killed during the atomic bombing of HIROSHIMA? Damn...it's estimated that 40,000 to 80,000 Iraqi soldiers died during the frist gulf war, and we were trying to kill them.

Granted civilians will be killed, probably numbering in the thousands, and that is regretable...but lets not lose our heads here.

 

Well, for better or for worse, here we go.

 

Sorry Llandon, I wish to God I were exaggerating. I got my statistics from the World Health Organization. Here's how CBS news reported it on Jan 27,2003...

(you can pull up about 1200 links on your own with "shock and awe" and "world health organization")


(CBS) They're calling it "A-Day," A as in airstrikes so devastating they would leave Saddam's soldiers unable or unwilling to fight.

If the Pentagon sticks to its current war plan, one day in March the Air Force and Navy will launch between 300 and 400 cruise missiles at targets in Iraq. As CBS News Correspondent David Martin reports, this is more than number that were launched during the entire 40 days of the first Gulf War.

On the second day, the plan calls for launching another 300 to 400 cruise missiles.

"There will not be a safe place in Baghdad," said one Pentagon official who has been briefed on the plan.

"The sheer size of this has never been seen before, never been contemplated before," the official said.

The World Health Organization has estimated that as many as 500,000 Iraqi casualties will result from the initial stages of a U.S. invasion of Iraq. The current plan of attack calls for a total of over 3000 bombs-- more than the entire amount used in the first Gulf War-- to be dropped on Baghdad during the first 48 hours of a war. Military officials are openly comparing this strategy, known as "shock and awe," to the U.S. nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The battle plan is based on a concept developed at the National Defense University. It's called "Shock and Awe" because it focuses on the psychological destruction of the enemy's will to fight rather than the physical destruction of his military forces.

"We want them to quit. We want them not to fight," says Harlan Ullman, one of the authors of the Shock and Awe concept which relies on large numbers of precision guided weapons.

"So that you have this simultaneous effect, rather like the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima, not taking days or weeks but in minutes," says Ullman.

In the first Gulf War, 10 percent of the weapons were precision guided. In this war 80 percent will be precision guided.

The Air Force has stockpiled 6,000 of these guidance kits in the Persian Gulf to convert ordinary dumb bombs into satellite-guided bombs, a weapon that didn't exist in the first war.

"You're sitting in Baghdad and all of a sudden you're the general and 30 of your division headquarters have been wiped out. You also take the city down. By that I mean you get rid of their power, water. In 2,3,4,5 days they are physically, emotionally and psychologically exhausted," Ullman tells Martin.

Last time, an armored armada swept into Kuwait and destroyed Saddam's elite republican guard divisions in the largest tank battle since the World War II. This time, the target is not the Iraqi army but the Iraqi leadership, and the battle plan is designed to bypass Iraqi divisions whenever possible.

If Shock and Awe works, there won't be a ground war.

Not everybody in the Bush Administration thinks Shock and Awe will work. One senior official called it a bunch of bull, but confirmed it is the concept on which the war plan is based.

Last year, in Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan, the U.S. was badly surprised by the willingness of al Qaeda to fight to the death. If the Iraqis fight, the U.S. would have to throw in reinforcements and win the old fashioned way by crushing the republican guards, and that would mean more American casualties.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

I have heard the reasons for this war that we are starting. There have been a lot of accusations. I will ask just a few questions of those who are in favor of this war of conquest: EXACTLY What threat to America does this guy pose? Be EXACT in your reply (no meaningless platitudes please): Please state what he did, when he did it and WHAT THREAT his ACTONS are to the American people. Good Luck.

Also to all those who think that this Bush is competent: We used to have peace and prosperity in America; now we have neither. Way to go shrub!

 

Actually, I need a link to your story. Here is a link to the CBS news story:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/01/24/eveningnews/main537928.shtml

It does not mention the casuality statistics.

Here is a link to the WHO web page. I have searched and searched, but I cannot find info on casualties there either

WWW.WHO.INT

I was, however, able to find an article that directly matches yours...on THE World Socialist Web Site www.wsws.org

I would be very interested in reading about this from a "credible" news source.

 

Blackthrone,

That was the war in 1991 as you rightly point out. I was speaking of the present war. Your logic - relying on a past conflict as it does - would also lead us to war with past enemies, such as Germany, since thousands of Americans were killed by them when we invaded Normandy. Do you really mean to say that 1991 was the last time he was a threat to us?

 

Blackthone,

So far the Gulf war is your only example. I have made no comment on Saddam himself. I am only asking for evidence that he is the threat that he is supposed to be. So far I have heard very little real evidence from our government. Perhaps they don't feel the need to share it with us.

 

It has begun. Bombs/missiles have been launched at the Iraq leadership.

Maybe it will be over in days or weeks.

Edit:
How fitting.
I get a Bloodstone on the eve of war.

 

Thank you for making my point! And you are right -- How can he be a threat with the way in which we have contained him over the last 12 years! Now we are invading Iraq. Let me ask you this, Blackthrone, once Saddam is gone, do you think that we will leave the country? Remember, Saddam is the reason we are going there. Once he is gone, what reason do we have to stay there? Keep in mind that 300,000 soldiers is a bit much to get rid of one guy, espeacially one who is very unpopular with his own people. But it's not a lot if your intention is to conquer and occupy a country the size of California.

 

Well, this is off the topic partly, but not all... I have now nam,ed my sword. I named hin Surija, Mourner, for all the blood that will be spilled in Iraq.

Bush the Bloody.

(No frolicing in the woods for us....)