[Rhodes22-list] More Politics

[Lou Rosenberg]

By Dr. Robert Bowman, USAF Ret.,
http://baltimorechronicle.com/041704retreason.shtml
Baltimore Chronicle

I am a member of Veterans For Peace, an organization of thousands of  combat
veterans. All of us have put our life on the line for this country.  Most of
us opposed the recent invasion of Iraq. We also opposed the first Gulf War,
and the sanctions that followed. We opposed the slaughter of fleeing Iraqis
on the Road to Basra. We opposed the use of Depleted Uranium munitions. And
we opposed the lies upon which the first Gulf War was based.  But there was
one good thing about that first Gulf War. It ended. And
without a wholesale invasion of Iraq. Why?

Here's what the first President Bush wrote about that in his memoirs "Trying
to eliminate Saddam would have incurred incalculable human and political
costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We would have been forced
to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. There was no viable exit
strategy we could see, violating another of our principles.  Furthermore, we
had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in
the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally
exceeding the United Nations mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of
international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone
the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an
occupying power in a bitterly hostile
land.

My brothers and sisters, it is just too darn bad his son can't read!