Re: *** Most Americans favor bombing Iraq - poll

CobraBoy! (tbyars@earthlink.net)
Wed, 19 Nov 1997 16:30:31 -0800


At 2:50 PM -0800 11/19/97, Robert S. Thau wrote:

yeah, and we Adam for what? :-)

(nice response btw)

> tbyars@earthlink.net writes:
> >
> > Well one thing Reagan gave us was these really neato spiffy military bases
> > scattered all over the world. There are 4 known U.S. Bases in Saudi Arabia
> > and one unknown. The four are basically on the four corners and the
> > "hidden" one is in the middle. Most of the Saudi people don't even know it
> > exists. It was built as a total command and control center for the middle
> > east, tied into the other four.
>
> Well, let's just hope that the people from whom the existence of this
> base is being kept secret are people who don't read FoRK.
>
> > Let 'em posture and bitch. We can basically do what we want.
>
> Then why is Madeleine Albright negotiating with Tariq Aziz right now
> over a Russian-brokered compromise proposal, after having sworn up and
> down last week that there would never, ever be negotiations? If the
> administration can launch bombs at a whim without consequences, you'd
> certainly never know it by the way they're behaving.

Well I don't think Clinton wants to launch anything. I personally feel
Clinton is a pacifist and is not one to pop a couple of cruise missiles
into Sadam's lap.

> Actually, if it really were that easy, then I expect Clinton *would*
> have bombed Iraq last weekend, as you predicted, and he wouldn't have
> to bring in two (not one, but two) aircraft carrier battle groups to
> use for staging the air power in any possible attacks, as he has done,
> since he could just use the airbases.

Posturing. "Yeah, were really getting serious here Sadam." It's like the
bullshit U2 flyovers. You don't think we have birds pointed directly at
that area, and have had for years? You don't think we can't fly a Aurora
out of Mannheim? It's just for show.

> However, those airbases are there to protect *our* access to the Saudi
> oil reserves, and they are there on sufferance from the Saudi
> government, which is not completely comfortable with the notion of
> U.S. forces on its soil. Witness, among other things, the unusual
> regulations for U.S. personnel operating from those bases (no booze,
> restrictions on the dress of female personnel), and the Saudi reaction
> to the bombing on one of those bases, where the U.S. government was
> denied access to the suspected terrorists.

My information is the main CC base can shut down *everything* in Saudi.
That's right everything. Some we got permission and other things we just
went ahead and did it. Again all in the name of protecting our friends.

> In fact, the Saudis' own local militants are one of the reasons that
> the Saudi government isn't thrilled with the American bases. Not much
> is known about them in the West, but the rumors are nasty, and the
> airbases make them nastier --- the militants and their sympathizers
> see it as a provocation simply to have infidel armies on the ground
> near the holy soil of Mecca. (Yes, that is how they think). In fact,
> the Saudi reaction to the bombing case has suggested to many people
> that the Saudi government thinks it has more to lose by pissing off
> the Islamic Jihad, than it has to lose by pissing off the
> U.S. government.

Yeah. Well why do you think the Iraq's went running to Russia? There are a
lot of Muslims in that area and the last thing the bankrupt ex-commie's
need is a major uprising.

>
> So, provoking the terrorists is the cost of having the bases on Saudi
> soil, from the Saudi point of view. If the U.S. were to attack other
> Arabs, even Iraqis, without some sort of provocation which the Saudis
> could sell to their own population, that cost would rise sharply. The
> benefit, on the other hand, is defense of Saudi territorial integrity,
> and that is something the Saudis don't seem to think they need much
> right now. Iraq, in particular, isn't currently threatening anybody;
> the weapons surveillance regime would have to go away for quite some
> time for Iraq to be able to pose a threat, and as I've mentioned
> before, no one is talking about removing the inspectors, just about
> easing the sanctions.

The simple fact is we could launch a massively destructive strike and no
one would know where it came from. 1, just 1 B1b holds something like 24
cruise (air launch cruise missiles or "lick-ems"). That is just one. 5 B1b
with a few F-117 and a few F-19's (the don't exist btw) and Sadam would
wake up with not a whole lot left.

However the U.S. has always had this sort of Star Trek prime directive not
to interfere policy. We always follow the same pattern. Negotiation, Show
of Force, more negotiation, huff and puff, more negotiation, warning, huff
and puff, one last negotiation and if all that fails, we act.

>
> (And I haven't even mentioned all the *other* reasons that the Arabs
> --- radicals and governments alike --- feel they have for not
> cooperating with the U.S. government; once again, see Broder).
>
> So, if the U.S. launched an attack without at least tacit Saudi
> approval, and *particularly* if we did something provocative like
> launching it from Saudi soil, the Saudis could wind up telling us to
> take at least some of our planes and go home. The U.S. doesn't want
> this, and neither, of course, do the Saudis, but they probably want a
> bombing spree targeted at the royal family even less, and if we force
> them to choose, they will.

Well clearly things were better before whats his name got elected in Israel
and stirred things up. And yes your right, it's sort of a sticky mess. But
we could have acted and had it all over with by now. Because one thing your
forgetting is the muslems do respect might.

Tim

--

the me that you know used to have feelings but the blood has stopped pumping and he's left to decay the me that you used to know doesn't come around much that part of me isn't here anymore. NIN

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