[russotto]

Originally posted by Muse
Rusutto, to begin with, I'm not quite sure where you live but i'm taking it that it is in the U.S.

Yep. Trappe, PA, USA.

This is due to the fact that if you live somewhere where the media has not yet been completely manipulated by the U.S. Governent you would realise that there would be an international outcry to the retaliation which is taking place.

This fact is not unknown in the US. There's also much internation support for this retaliation. No surprise there either.

Numerous accounts have been recently released dealing with certain facts such as that it is impossible to mobilise the military might of the U.S. in 2 months. The operations planned for Dessert Storm alone took over 4.

Dessert Storm? Yum.

In any case, Iraq was a country with a real (if puny compared to the US) army and military structure. The Taliban was a band of warlords barely able to beat down another band of warlords they were in conflict with -- it didn't take much to tip the balance.

There's also the fact that the supposed account of Bin Laden on Video released would never be admissable in a court. This is becasue it can easily be forged, students in Britain recently made one of Bush.

Certainly it could be faked. Is there any credible reason to believe it was? There are good reasons to believe it was not, such as parts embarrassing to Saudi Arabia (a US ally). Its admissibility in court would depend on a number of factors simply not applicable here -- chain of evidence, for instance.

Also, although there is no oil in Afghanistan, the U.S. prior to Sept 11th was trying to get the Taliban to put a pipe line through their country. The US had brought Taliban leaders into the U.S. to negotiate this. However they declined.

Oh yeah, we knocked off the Taliban for a lousy pipeline. What's next, we invade France over poor turnout at Euro-Disney? If the pipeline was an issue the US has many much more subtle ways of getting its way than outright war.

By the way the report was written by Ramsey Clark who once served as the Attorney General

And a certifiable kook.

One of the 19 crimes the U.S. was convicted of was "The United States engaged in a pattern of conduct beginning in or before 1989 intended to lead Iraq into provocations justifying U.S. military action against Iraq and permanent U.S. military domination of the Gulf. "

Quite Machievellian, but even if so, it was still up to Iraq to take the bait.

Another one being "2. President Bush from August 2, 1990, intended and acted to prevent any interference with his plan to destroy Iraq economically and militarily."

That's basically what war IS.