US Troops are not prepared for chemical or biological attacks - Say *NO* to War -

[Frackal]

According to numerous sources of information (I'll find some articles if anyone feels it necessary), our troops, the Army in particular, are very unprepared for a chem weapon or biological attack, if that were to happen during the Iraqi invasion.

Now according to what we are told, there is a fair (? good ?) possibility of Saddam resorting to such a measure.

According to a gentleman quoting Colonel Hackenworth on C-span, the army would be far more prepared given a year of prep time...

To summarize, I find this just one more reason to wait on the war with Iraq...or why we SHOULD HAVE WAITED IN THE FIRST PLACE.

The reasons of course, are numerous:

- Help restore diplomatic relations fractured by Bush's cowboyish foreign policy.*

Remember, WE are acting unilaterally... basically "alone," which means we have to fund this alone....from estimations I have seen, it will cost in excess of 200 billion for the war itself, and possibly hundreds of billions for the OCCUPATION after the war, which no one seems to mention.

- Allow us to focus on actual threats, such as the terrorists hiding in Pakistan and Afghanistan... and of course as we all know Pakistan ALREADY has nuclear weapons....I dont know about you guys, but I'm far more concerned with a country that harbours al-qaeda and HAS nuclear weapons, than one who 'may' harbour al-qaeda 'sometime' in the future and 'may' be 'closer' to 'possibly' devoloping a nuclear device.

- Allow us to focus better on North Korea... thank you Bush for lopping them into the axis of evil...a ridiculous and intellectually-insulting phrase in and of itself.

- Allow our economy to get rolling again, being held up as it is by this uncertainty.

- Allow time for us to gather better evidence (if such evidence exists) that supports the invasion, so that we will not be setting a precedent of illegal, pre-emptive action.

- We missed the deadline for war in the early, cooler months...a war during April, May, June, may cause more casualties of US troops...

- Terrorism is partially due to animosity about our foreign policy, such as our support of the repeated UN violating state of Israel. A pre-emptive strike on Iraq, and the other countries that Bush wants to follow up with, will only breed what is likely to be significantly more hatred for us around the world...including in the Muslim/Islamic populations.

- And finally, despite what (and I have to say this with contempt), some of you cowardly yet bloodthirsty, worthless, redneck pesudo-republicans think, there are better alternatives to immediate conflict, and greater threats to attend to in the world, than Iraq; which has had over 12 years to slip a nuclear device into our country, and has not done it...and under drastically increased scrutiny, most likely will not be able to.



* Today, I was watching Bush speak extemporaneously, and I was amazed to hear him use the word "ain't"... Given the current situation, it troubles me that our president cannot even avoid using gutter slang like 'ain't', when speaking without script....

 

[Frackal]

 

[ExtermiN8r]

 

[Frackal]

Agreed.

 

[danielson]

pakistan sucks. sort out a proper government.

 

[CanadianCripple]

Wish I had the patience (or cared enough) to point out how simple minded & hypocritical that dribble is.

Like you or your kind would ever support a war while Bush is President. I imagine you'll all be ready to jump on the bandwagon if a Democrat is in the White House after 2004. Too bad people are using their distaste for Bush as a way of dertermining what should be done. "Bush is for it, so I must be against".

I'm starting to think you'll all get your wish & there won't be war in the next few months. I'm sure Blix will be able to keep things under control until then.

 

[danielson]

Wish I had the patience (or cared enough) to point out how simple minded & hypocritical that dribble is.

Like you or your kind would ever support a war while Bush is President. I imagine you'll all be ready to jump on the bandwagon if a Democrat is in the White House after 2004. Too bad people are using their distaste for Bush as a way of dertermining what should be done. "Bush is for it, so I must be against".

I'm starting to think you'll all get your wish & there won't be war in the next few months. I'm sure Blix will be able to keep things under control until then.

last time i checked the war in afghanistan was under bush's term. as far as i remember the support was high, myself included

 

[CanadianCripple]

last time i checked the war in afghanistan was under bush's term. as far as i remember the support was high, myself included

Good for you, but there are plenty of people out there who moaned & groaned "too many civilians will be killed", "it's all about oil (pipeline)", "it'll cause more terrorist acts to be committed", "freeing the people of Afghanistan has nothing to do with going in", "the war will spill over into other countries" etc...

Sound familiar? If you don't recall the peaceniks saying this crap, even after 9-11, go back & take a look.

 

[BigRedCat]

Time for some Bill O'Reilly:
-----

February 22, 2003
by Bill O'Reilly

A peace of the action

Because I was a college student from 1967-71, I am a primary source as far as peace demonstrations are concerned. I vividly remember the Vietnam protests and the rhetoric that was used back then: "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" It is eerily similar to what's going on today vis-a-vis Iraq.

Back then, many of the antiwar protestors considered America an evil place, full of warmongering politicians and a military intent on persecuting the people of Southeast Asia. The historical truth, however, turned out to be quite different.

I remember reading a book called The Killing Fields documenting the mass murder of up to 2 million Cambodians. Then I saw the movie [buy it] starring Sam Waterston. What the Khmer Rouge did was exactly what the Nazis did. Yet the peace demonstrators in America said little about it, perhaps because they knew that if the United States had prevailed in Vietnam, the "killing fields" of neighboring Cambodia would not have happened.

In the early 90s, I decided to go to Vietnam myself to have a look around. The communist system there allows little freedom and much poverty. In Saigon, I was besieged by Vietnamese who wanted to send messages to relatives and friends in America. I could not offer any assistance, as my "minder" would not even allow me to take their letters.

The point is that for every action, there is a reaction. The Vietnam War was begun to prevent communism in Southeast Asia. The United States was not successful because our allies were corrupt and we fought on the defensive. But what happened after we left Vietnam was far worse in humanitarian terms than anything that happened during that war. Again, I wonder if the Vietnam peace crowd ever thinks about that.

Now we have a similar but far more threatening situation. Many people simply don't want to remove Saddam Hussein by force. But if force is not used, Saddam stays. That means more Iraqis will be tortured and killed, and whatever weapons Saddam has accumulated stay in play. And despite the rhetoric, it is simply impossible to find vials of hidden anthrax in a country the size of California.

And what if someday some of that anthrax finds its way to your house? An elderly Connecticut woman named Ottilie Lundgren experienced that. She's dead. I don't think many of the protestors remember her very well. Perhaps I'm wrong.

If the unthinkable happens and anthrax does show up in America again, chances are the FBI will not be able to trace it. The bureau could not trace the first batch. The arrival of anthrax means Americans will die, institutions will be shut down, and panic will ensue.

The peace protestors do not want to address that possibility the same way they do not want to address "the killing fields." No, the demonstrators are confident that the U.N. weapons inspectors can "contain" a murderous dictator who acknowledged to the United Nations after the Gulf War that he possessed plenty of anthrax and other stuff even worse. And Saddam remains defiant -- he will not account for those hideous weapons.

So the next time you see an antiwar demonstration or hear appeasers like Jacques Chirac and Gerhardt Schroeder, think about Ottilie Lundgren and millions of faceless Cambodians. They died horribly, and no power was in place that could protect them.

Most of us know in our hearts that honest dissent is a strength of America and that war is a bad thing. But there are worse things, and every American should think about that.

 

[Longhorn85]

According to numerous sources of information (I'll find some articles if anyone feels it necessary), our troops, the Army in particular, are very unprepared for a chem weapon or biological attack, if that were to happen during the Iraqi invasion.

Now according to what we are told, there is a fair (? good ?) possibility of Saddam resorting to such a measure.

According to a gentleman quoting Colonel Hackenworth on C-span, the army would be far more prepared given a year of prep time...

The military has trained for NBC (nuclear-biological-chemical) warfare since the Cold War when the USSR presented a threat which makes the Iraqi one pale in comparison. NBC defense measures have continuously improved over the years. The military was prepared for the threat back during the '91 Gulf War and now 12 years later is even more prepared. Does this mean there will be no NBC casualties? Of course not, but this does not affect US resolve.

In short, the NBC threat is no news flash.