Actually, Godload, Canadians DO say that the CN Tower is the tallest structure on Earth, although to be fair, I don't hear that claim too much anymore. I used to hear that claim ad nauseum before.
We did not go to war to eliminate WMD, but to prevent Saddam from retaining the ability to produce WMD and provide them to his terrorist allies: Abu Nidal, Abu Abas, Abu al-Zarqawi, Yasser Arafat. The joint congressional resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq and passed by majorities in both political parties, Democrats as well as Republicans and John Kerry and John Edwards in particular, has 23 "whereas" clauses articulating the rationale for the use of force. Only one of the 23 focuses on WMD – that is on actual stockpiles of WMDs rather than the programs to develop them (once the UN inspectors were gone).
However, 12 of the clauses refer to Saddam's violation of 16 UN resolutions – resolutions which constituted the terms of the truce in the 1991 Gulf War, and which most commentators on the war seem to have "forgotten." For those who have "forgotten", these are the facts:
We have been continuously at war with Saddam Hussein since 1990. The conflict in 1990 was caused by Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait and was ended by a ceasefire, not a peace treaty. The terms of the truce were embodied in UN resolutions 687 and 689. Fourteen subsequent UN resolutions were designed to compel Saddam to adhere to the terms of this truce which he continually violated but which the UN and the Clinton administration failed to enforce.
Thus, it was Saddam Hussein's violation of these 16 resolutions and a 17th – Resolution 1441, a final ultimatum – that caused us to go to war. The presentation to the UN by Colin Powell about laboratories for producing WMD took place after the decision to go to war was made. The presentation was made to satisfy Tony Blair, who was under attack from his own anti-American appeasers. The equivalent of 4 million American leftists – most from his own party – had recently poured into the streets of London in an attempt to save the Iraqi dictatorship. Powell's presentation to the UN was not the justification for the war. It was a misguided attempt to sway the UN Security Council, which couldn’t be swayed because France and Russia, two Saddam allies, had vetos on the Council. The justification for the war is contained in the 23 clauses in the congressional authorization and even more specifically in UN resolution 1441.
UN Resolution 1441 called on Saddam Hussein to disarm and to provide an accounting for the disposition of all WMD that the UN inspectors had already identified. A deadline of December 7 was given for Iraq to comply with resolution or face "serious consequences." In his book Disarming Iraq, chief UN inspector Hans Blix declares that this resolution was diplomatic language for a war ultimatum and that Saddam failed to meet the terms of the ultimatum. That was why we went to war.
We went to war because we could not afford to keep 200,000 troops in the desert indefinitely while Saddam played games with the UN inspectors. We went to war because 17 defied UN resolutions had made the word of the UN and the US meaningless – an extremely dangerous situation in itself. Here is how Bill Clinton justified the use of force to remove Saddam in 1998, when he expelled the UN inspectors:
“If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow by the knowledge that they can act with impunity, even in the face of a clear message from the United Nations Security Council, and clear evidence of a weapons of mass destruction program.” Unfortunately in 1998 Bill Clinton was pre-occupied with an intern named Monica Lewinsky and was unable to respond to this threat except by firing 450 futile missiles into Iraq, more than the first President Bush had used in the entire Gulf War.
We went to war against Saddam Hussein in the spring of 2003, because to withdraw the 200,000 troops without a war and without Saddam’s capitulation to the UN demands would be a catastrophic defeat for the forces of freedom and peace. It would mean with absolute certainty that Saddam would reactivate the weapons programs he had launched and spent more than 40 billion dollars to implement before the US obstructed them. Saddam was in the process of negotiating an off-the-shelf purchase of nuclear weapons from North Korea, in fact, when the US entered Iraq to remove him.
I am suspicious that there is global warming, or even how much of it is caused by man. I understand that Canada had one of its coldest summers in history this year. My parents roll their eyes when they hear about global warming; they tell me that back in the 1970's that the enviromental activists were screaming about an upcoming Ice Age back then. I suspect that there is changes in global climate for other reasons, i.e, it is cyclical in nature. Here is one article about this. Yes, it comes from the evil Fox News (oops, I forgot to preface it with "the rightwing" Fox News), the news channel that is banned in Canada under threat of a $10,000 fine or 6 months in jail, but the article is from a scholar at the Cato Institute. I'm not sure why you denigrate my articles as "twisted". I haven't linked to "alternative news sites" like commondreams or informationclearinghouse. Like it or not, even the left admits (grudgingly) that the Fraser Insitute and the Wall Street Journal are excellent credible sources. Btw, Happy 30th Birthday, Fraser Institute!
For every source that you can cite claiming that there global arming due to man, I can match it by finding sources that say there is no real proof of this.
If you think oil is expensive now, just think how expensive it would be if Kyoto Accord would have been signed. Btw, why is oil so expensive? I thought that the basis for the war was to "steal the oil". Where is all this oil we were supposed to steal?
I'm sure you will blame it on "the extreme religious right" that has "hijacked" the White House, but your kind of secularism frightens me. I have seen what has happened to other secular countries, especially Nazi Germany and the USSR. Although I am not religious, (I can't stand that Jerry Falwell idiot) I am well aware that our country was developed on Judeo-Christian views, and that 60% of Americans attend church at least once a month. That is why Democrats have to pretend that they like religion, even though their actions show this to be a sham.
That is simply untrue. I urge you to watch President Bush's SOTU addresses, instead of listening to the spin that people like the CBC put on it. In the current campaign to undermine the War on Terror, this is the really Big Lie. It is never backed up with statements from the president because there were no such statements. One can read in vein the SOTU address given one month before our troops entered Iraq for example:
This is why we went to war in the spring of 2003.
We did not go to war to eliminate WMD, but to prevent Saddam from retaining the ability to produce WMD and provide them to his terrorist allies: Abu Nidal, Abu Abas, Abu al-Zarqawi, Yasser Arafat. The joint congressional resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq and passed by majorities in both political parties, Democrats as well as Republicans and John Kerry and John Edwards in particular, has 23 "whereas" clauses articulating the rationale for the use of force. Only one of the 23 focuses on WMD – that is on actual stockpiles of WMDs rather than the programs to develop them (once the UN inspectors were gone).
However, 12 of the clauses refer to Saddam's violation of 16 UN resolutions – resolutions which constituted the terms of the truce in the 1991 Gulf War, and which most commentators on the war seem to have "forgotten." For those who have "forgotten", these are the facts:
We have been continuously at war with Saddam Hussein since 1990. The conflict in 1990 was caused by Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait and was ended by a ceasefire, not a peace treaty. The terms of the truce were embodied in UN resolutions 687 and 689. Fourteen subsequent UN resolutions were designed to compel Saddam to adhere to the terms of this truce which he continually violated but which the UN and the Clinton administration failed to enforce.
Thus, it was Saddam Hussein's violation of these 16 resolutions and a 17th – Resolution 1441, a final ultimatum – that caused us to go to war. The presentation to the UN by Colin Powell about laboratories for producing WMD took place after the decision to go to war was made. The presentation was made to satisfy Tony Blair, who was under attack from his own anti-American appeasers. The equivalent of 4 million American leftists – most from his own party – had recently poured into the streets of London in an attempt to save the Iraqi dictatorship. Powell's presentation to the UN was not the justification for the war. It was a misguided attempt to sway the UN Security Council, which couldn’t be swayed because France and Russia, two Saddam allies, had vetos on the Council. The justification for the war is contained in the 23 clauses in the congressional authorization and even more specifically in UN resolution 1441.
UN Resolution 1441 called on Saddam Hussein to disarm and to provide an accounting for the disposition of all WMD that the UN inspectors had already identified. A deadline of December 7 was given for Iraq to comply with resolution or face "serious consequences." In his book Disarming Iraq, chief UN inspector Hans Blix declares that this resolution was diplomatic language for a war ultimatum and that Saddam failed to meet the terms of the ultimatum. That was why we went to war.
We went to war because we could not afford to keep 200,000 troops in the desert indefinitely while Saddam played games with the UN inspectors. We went to war because 17 defied UN resolutions had made the word of the UN and the US meaningless – an extremely dangerous situation in itself. Here is how Bill Clinton justified the use of force to remove Saddam in 1998, when he expelled the UN inspectors:
“If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow by the knowledge that they can act with impunity, even in the face of a clear message from the United Nations Security Council, and clear evidence of a weapons of mass destruction program.” Unfortunately in 1998 Bill Clinton was pre-occupied with an intern named Monica Lewinsky and was unable to respond to this threat except by firing 450 futile missiles into Iraq, more than the first President Bush had used in the entire Gulf War.
We went to war against Saddam Hussein in the spring of 2003, because to withdraw the 200,000 troops without a war and without Saddam’s capitulation to the UN demands would be a catastrophic defeat for the forces of freedom and peace. It would mean with absolute certainty that Saddam would reactivate the weapons programs he had launched and spent more than 40 billion dollars to implement before the US obstructed them. Saddam was in the process of negotiating an off-the-shelf purchase of nuclear weapons from North Korea, in fact, when the US entered Iraq to remove him.
I am suspicious that there is global warming, or even how much of it is caused by man. I understand that Canada had one of its coldest summers in history this year. My parents roll their eyes when they hear about global warming; they tell me that back in the 1970's that the enviromental activists were screaming about an upcoming Ice Age back then. I suspect that there is changes in global climate for other reasons, i.e, it is cyclical in nature. Here is one article about this. Yes, it comes from the evil Fox News (oops, I forgot to preface it with "the rightwing" Fox News), the news channel that is banned in Canada under threat of a $10,000 fine or 6 months in jail, but the article is from a scholar at the Cato Institute. I'm not sure why you denigrate my articles as "twisted". I haven't linked to "alternative news sites" like commondreams or informationclearinghouse. Like it or not, even the left admits (grudgingly) that the Fraser Insitute and the Wall Street Journal are excellent credible sources. Btw, Happy 30th Birthday, Fraser Institute!
For every source that you can cite claiming that there global arming due to man, I can match it by finding sources that say there is no real proof of this.
If you think oil is expensive now, just think how expensive it would be if Kyoto Accord would have been signed. Btw, why is oil so expensive? I thought that the basis for the war was to "steal the oil". Where is all this oil we were supposed to steal?
I'm sure you will blame it on "the extreme religious right" that has "hijacked" the White House, but your kind of secularism frightens me. I have seen what has happened to other secular countries, especially Nazi Germany and the USSR. Although I am not religious, (I can't stand that Jerry Falwell idiot) I am well aware that our country was developed on Judeo-Christian views, and that 60% of Americans attend church at least once a month. That is why Democrats have to pretend that they like religion, even though their actions show this to be a sham.
