- An Israeli general strongly disagrees with the Bush administration
about the dangers posed by Saddam Hussein. For those of you who love Israel,
I thought you might be interested in this viewpoint.
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- "The Bush administration has no solid grounds for
waging war on Saddam Hussein, and the arguments about the variety of risks
Saddam poses are exaggerated," wrote Brig. Gen. (res.) Aharon Levran
in Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper well worth reading. It's on the Internet
in English.
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- The general points out in his commentary that the United
States is attributing to Saddam the same motives today that he had before
the Gulf War. This is a mistake, the general says, because "His ambitions
since the war (the first Gulf War) are curtailed. His limited aims are
to protect Iraq and deter others from harming it and - of course - survive
... a brutal and crafty despot, Saddam has proved to be careful and sane
in his moves."
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- The general says Saddam has no nuclear weapons, and even
though he might have some chemical or biological weapons, he has shown
restraint in the past in using them. He did not use them, for example,
when he was defeated and driven out of Kuwait; and even during the Iran-Iraq
war, he restricted their use.
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- I should add here that during the Iran-Iraq war, both
Iran and Iraq used chemical weapons, just as the United States, Great Britain,
France and Germany used them in World War I. The only time Saddam used
them on the Kurds was when the Kurds decided to fight with Iran. Furthermore,
at that time, the United States was actively assisting Saddam and did not
- I repeat, did not - raise a stink over the use of chemical weapons.
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- As for British Prime Minister Tony Blair's so-called
dossier, it did not impress anybody. Pat Buchanan had the most telling
comment about it: "It proves the fax lines between Washington and
London are working." In other words, it was a propaganda product concocted
by Bush and Blair.
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- Why Blair and Bush persist in exaggerating the threat
of Saddam to the point of trying to justify an invasion, I believe, boils
down to oil. Iraq has the second-largest known oil reserves in the world,
next to Saudi Arabia. At the present time, British and American oil companies
are out in the cold. Saddam has deals with French and Russian companies.
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- Once the United States and Britain install a stooge government,
then, of course, they, as the power behind the throne, will decide which
companies get kicked out of Iraq and which ones get to profit from Iraq's
oil. They will also decide which companies get the lucrative construction
contracts for rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure.
-
- What I'm saying, quite frankly, is that that Bush and
Blair are lying through their teeth. That's harsh, but one ought to be
harsh when the evidence is clear that politicians are deceiving their constituents
and are willing to sacrifice thousands of young lives to further their
schemes for power and profits.
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- No American killed or maimed in this war Bush is so eager
to start will profit by one penny from the billions of dollars made after
the war. The pain and suffering and death and destruction of a war are
too great to fight one for monetary gain. The only justification for fighting
a war is to protect the American people, and even though Bush claims that
is his motive, it is obvious from the deceptions that it is not his true
motive.
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- Some Americans are childish in their belief in the goodness
of politicians. It is time to grow up. Evil in this world is not confined
to any one country or only to those who speak a different language than
we do. I define "evil" as a willingness to take innocent life.
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- © 2002 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.
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- http://reese.king-online.com/Reese_20021002/index.php
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