- The estimates of the cost of a war against Iraq and its
aftermath are $30 billion to $50 billion, according to the folks in Washington.
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- Since that amount will be added to the tax burdens of
the American people, we ought to ask ourselves just what this $30 billion
to $50 billion will buy us, and if it is worth it.
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- In short, it will buy us a dictator. Talk about establishing
democracy in Iraq is like talking about establishing peace in the West
Bank. The conditions necessary for American-style democratic government
do not exist in Iraq. It is a country of factions - Kurds, Sunni and Shiites
- and of factions within factions, and all with a tradition of tribalism,
not nationalism. Every government in Baghdad has necessarily been forced
to rule with a strong hand. And our chosen dictator, after we have disposed
of Saddam Hussein, will have to do the same.
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- Furthermore, all the problems with these factions and
factions within factions that now confound Saddam will become our problems
and confound us. The huge task of rebuilding the infrastructure of a country
we have destroyed will become our task. The difficulty of maintaining an
intact and stable Iraq surrounded by enemies will become our difficulty.
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- I say it's not worth it. We will have less security after
defeating Iraq than we have now, not more. We will have more enemies, and
more of our resources will be squandered and spread thin trying to cope
with them. I honestly cannot think of a single benefit that will accrue
to us from this war.
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- I've always taken the position that Saddam Hussein, as
long as he stays within the borders of his own country, is a problem for
the Iraqi people, not for us. I frankly don't care what kind or how many
weapons he has, or what kind of government he has. All of that is none
of our business. After all, my generation has lived most of our lives with
enemies far more powerful than Iraq could ever be and with more weapons
of mass destruction than Iraq could ever dream of accumulating. We dealt
with those enemies by means of deterrence, not by pre-emptive strikes,
and people who tell you deterrence won't deter Saddam are liars.
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- He has been in power for 12 years since the Gulf War,
and except for trying to knock off the first Bush, who had tried to assassinate
Saddam, he has done nothing to us. I figure that turnabout is fair play,
that one assassination attempt deserves another. He was not involved in
Sept. 11. His is a secular government that despises Muslim fundamentalists
and has no connection with al-Qaida.
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- Will he give so-called weapons of mass destruction to
terrorists? Why should he? He hasn't for more than 10 years. He knows he
would get the blame, and nothing this man has done in his entire life has
ever indicated that he is either suicidal or crazy.
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- You should take note that the generals, the men who know
war, are opposed to this, while the pushers for war are neoconservative
civilians, most of whom conveniently evaded ever wearing the uniform of
the American armed forces.
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- I stand with the generals - before we allow politicians
to sacrifice the lives of our youth, we must demand that they show us absolute
proof of a threat that will justify the deaths of so many young people.
There is one thing people of my generation - the Vietnam generation, if
you will - learned, and that is that politicians will squander the lives
of America's youth as easily as they squander the earnings of America's
taxpayers.
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- © 2002 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.
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- http://reese.king-online.com/Reese_20020911/index.php
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