posted December 31, 2002 11:10 AM              

Yes, I think money and materialism are definate leaders in today's world.

posted January 04, 2003 07:11 PM              

In order for people to murder as part of an army, it is necessary to identify the people of an entire country as 'The Enemy'. The enemy- the other- then becomes depersonalized- subhuman- a lesser human being. I can see no logic in identifying another person as 'the enemy', surely they are just another person. I think every life is precious. And I think people are people the world over. A life in Iraq is equal to a life in America. All life is equal. I think that all war is connected with greed (often for money) & abuse of power. War causes devastation to people, to places, to animals, to the earth.
I wish & pray for peace each & everyday. I wish & pray that finally the human race may come to learn from the terrible mistakes of the wars of the past. I hope that the children of now & the future may inherit a world of love, beauty & peace- not a world of war fear & despair.

"All we are saying is give peace a chance."
John Lennon & Yoko Ono.

"You may say I'm a dreamer but I'm not the only one, I hope someday you'll join us & the world will live as one."
John Lennon

posted January 29, 2003 05:05 PM              

Randall... ... at the start of the thread!

Karma is a neverfailing force which works in wars as well as personal lives. Peoples have karma. Americans, Britons, everyone...

Everything Bush or Blair decide to do will hit their peoples back... instantly and automatically. Karma is unavoidable.

posted February 03, 2003 05:36 PM              

'All we are saying is give peace a chance'
John Lennon & Yoko Ono

"If some people think Love & Peace is a cliche that should have been left behind in the 60s, that's their problem. Love and Peace are eternal."

posted February 04, 2003 05:04 PM            

I am a small and precious child,my dads been sent
to fight.. The only place I'll see his face,is in
my dreams at night. He will be gone too many days
for my young mind to keep track. I may be sad,but
I am proud. My daddys got your back..

I am a caring mother. My son has gone to war.. My
mind is filled with worries that I have never
known before. Everyday I try to keep my thoughts
from turning black. I may be scared,but I am
proud..My son has got your back..

I am a strong and loving wife,with a husband soon
to go. There are times I'm terrified in a way
most never know. I bite my lip,and force a smile
as I watch my husband pack.. My heart may
break,but I am proud..My husbands got your back..

I am a Marine..Serving Proudly,standing tall. I
fight for freedom,yours and mine by answering
this call. I do my job while knowing,the thanks
it sometimes lacks. Say a prayer that I'll come
home. It's me whose got your back
-autumn parker

posted February 05, 2003 07:06 AM              

I am wondering why is it that the USA is the only world democracy insisting on attack on Iraq? (If we disregard Tony "Mr-I-can't-be-persuaded" Blair who is discarding anti-war sentiment of 90% of his own British people)

Bush and Blair have cited Saddam Hussein's desire to acquire weapons of mass destruction as justification for an invasion. However, pre-emptive military strikes against states possessing or suspected of possessing chemical, biological or nuclear weapons do not provide a stable basis for controlling them.

I believe the solution to weapons of mass destruction is collective international arms control and disarmament. The framework already exists, in the form of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the Biological Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention.

But rather than being strengthened, these global treaties are being undermined, especially by the US.

The war is also clearly motivated by oil. The same forces that are backing the war are also supporting the US's refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol, which would begin to combat climate change. The same US companies that maintain America's oil addiction and oppose the Kyoto Protocol are also backing the war against Iraq. The British government has recently announced that one of the top five priorities for foreign policy is securing access to energy supplies. Yet Blair still denies that an attack on Iraq has anything to do with oil.

It is so obvious: never has there been a better time to be an oil baron. The car-owning masses of the world pay whatever it takes to fill their tanks. The money flows so freely it can buy and sell even the most destructive environmental policy. And if interests are threatened, just ask your old friend George to rally the troops and march into war. I'd just like to ask: after US$200 billion and unknown military and civilian casualties, will the world be a safer place? Or just an even better place to be an oil baron?

Ever since former oil-man George W. Bush came to the White House, well before September 11th, his administration was announcing that the US faced an energy-supply crisis. Although there is little evidence to support this, Bush made it a cornerstone of his policies.

Coincidentally, Iraq has the SECOND LARGEST proven reserves of oil in the world, but its production has been severely reduced since the Gulf War, due to effects of economic sanctions and the destruction of infrastructure. Rebuilding that infrastructure and increasing production will take years. Oil executives hungrily eyeing those reserves are enthusiastic to take on that work.

And they've never had such close ties to the White House. For Vice President Dick Cheney, this may well be round two for his post-war dealings with Iraq. Cheney is a former head of Halliburton, the world's largest oil service contractor. In August 2000 Cheney publicly stated that, as the head of Halliburton, "I had a firm policy that I wouldn't do anything in Iraq, even arrangements that were supposedly legal." And yet, as the Financial Times eventually proved, Cheney oversaw $23.8 million in sales to Iraq in 1998 and 1999.

President George W. Bush's oil company ties go back to his grandfather. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice sat on the board of Chevron, and recently had a tanker named after her.

Though it's no secret that the White House cozies up to oil executives, declaring war on Iraq required a bit of a cover story. The "War on Terror" launched in the wake of September 11th was the perfect vehicle. With the world reeling from the threat of more chaos and destruction, Iraq was quietly slipped into key speeches. Bush quickly diverted attention from Osama Bin Laden to Saddam Hussein and now the hunt is on for his weapons of mass destruction.

The US is prepared to negotiate with North Korea, which has a known capacity to develop nuclear weapons, domestic sources of enriched uranium and production capability for plutonium. But the US is preparing to invade Iraq -- despite the absence of evidence of any nuclear weapons program.

How hypocritical!

Bush calls them both "evildoer" states, so why the double standard?

A quick look at the US's own policies on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) quickly dispels their argument for using WMD as a determining factor for a war with Iraq.

As a signer of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the US has a legal obligation to reduce it's nuclear arsenal, stop nuclear testing, and negotiate a binding a treaty on nuclear disarmament under strict international control. However, the current US administration is increasing its budget to build nuclear weapons, scrapping existing disarmament treaties, and restarting nuclear tests.

One of the first acts of the Bush administration was to slash funding for programs safeguarding and destroying nuclear weapons and materials in the countries of the former Soviet Union almost 21 percent while increasing nuclear weapons funding by almost 5 percent.

The Bush administration's prevalent tendency to ignore, abandon, or destroy international treaties is especially evident with regard to arms-limitation agreements:

- In December 2001, President Bush torpedoed talks to give the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) real force. A last minute refusal after five years of negotiations infuriated negotiating countries.

- At the NPT review conference in 2000, the US and the other signatories agreed to end nuclear weapons testing by bringing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty into force as the first of 13 specific disarmament commitments. Shortly thereafter, the US Senate announced disapproval of the treaty. Last year the US said it no longer agreed with the additional commitments, putting the Non-Proliferation Treaty's future in jeopardy.

- The Bush administration has also reneged on an additional commitment to strengthen the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty by pursuing its Star Wars missile defence programme. The programme is one of the primary reasons that international talks to rid the world of weapons of mass destruction have not progressed for the last three years. It also provides an excuse for other nations to improve and increase their nuclear arsenals.

Overall, Bush's weapons of mass destruction policy is arbitrary, hypocritical, and inconsistent. The world desperately needs a multinational and fair approach to the elimination of weapons of mass destruction. A war with Iraq will only serve to strengthen the existing hypocrisy.

That is why I will protest on the 15th and in future.

Somewhere in my heart I know that Linda is marching right by my side.

posted February 05, 2003 11:25 AM              

I posted this in another topic at Free for All and I'm posting here :

quote:

---

Do we really believe that this attack has as objective defends children and Iraquian women?
Do we really believe that this attack that will cost billions of dollars has this purpose?
I'm sorry... but we cannot be so naive !

This war is not just for oil, no war is for oil. Wars are made to obtain power, or to divert the attention of the true problems since they bring to the surface the nationalism of a country.

The true criminal of 9/11 is not Saddam, but Bin Laden....yet, where is Bin Laden ? Nobody knows...
The failure in the attempt of capturing Bin Laden, took president Bush to seek an easier and less dangerous target...Saddam Hussein !
Yet, for sure, oil will be one of the rewards...
Donald Rumsfeld, that today defends an attack to Iraq, it is the same Donald Rumsfeld that in 1983, traveled to Iraq to support Saddam Hussein in the war against Iran, that gave weapons to him, like this he could kill his own people...
Who armed Saddam was the United States of America ...I'm sorry to say that, but i'ts the truth !

Iraq is not the only dictatorship in this world, we have China, Iran, Korea, Saudi Arabia ,etc, etc, etc... why this concern just with Iraq ?
In what moment Saddam threatened the United States ?...I really don't remember...

Governments don't defend populations of other countries, governments defend their own interests in other countries.
This is a fact and against facts there are no arguments...

---

posted February 05, 2003 11:29 AM              

quote:

---

The problem with this attack is that when the public opinion is confronted with the possible justification of a war, it waits for reasons that at least one of the parts in the conflict can claim real reasons as being of national interest and as being sufficiently strong for us to overcome the costs in human and material destruction that the war implicates.

I won't accept as reasons the purposes of small groups that, having acquired enough power to proclaim the war, they make it to continue their private interests.
The discomfort, perplexity or the riots of the world public opinion in the face of the next war against Iraq, elapses that up to now, have not been presented convincing reasons for an attack.

Let's see the possible reasons for an attack :
*First: Iraq was partly responsible for the September 11 and it deserves to be punished.
Along the last year, were made several attempts in the sense of tying Sadam Hussein to Bin Laden. For instance, one of the suicides of the attack to the WTC would have had encounters with the Iraquian secret services, but, what we know is that Bin Laden hates Saddam as much as he hates the USA.

*Second possible reason: Iraq is a threat to the USA.
Also in this case several attempts have being made and all have been failing. First, it was the anthrax that could have come from an Iraquian laboratory , yet, it was verified that it had been produced in the USA...

Now it is the possibility that Iraq it's producing weapons of mass destruction and could use against USA.
Also in this case the argument is not convincing.
In the eighties – when Hussein was a friend of the USA , and, with that support , he used chemical weapons against the Kurd ( his own people ) and Iran – Iraq was in fact developing nuclear capacity, a project that would have the support of Saudi Arabia, with the objective of neutralizing the 200 nuclear ogives of Israel.
Surprisingly, Iraq bought the technology of enrichment of uranium, in exchange for petroleum, from South Africa, that, for her time, had obtained it from Israel. But, everybody knows that The war of the Golf and the sanctions destroyed that project...

Indeed, Iraq was ignoring the resolutions of UN, just as Israel ( that refuses to accept inspection of their nuclear weapons ), India ( in relation to Kashmir ), Pakistan, and North Korea.
So, why this war is just against one dictator with a nuclear weapon ? Let's kill them all and clean the world !!!!!!

Before the inexistence of “reasonable” reasons, it only remain the reasons of the group that today dominates the government of USA. The oil reserves of Iraq are the second largest of the world and it is crucial that those reservations are in a friend's hands of USA , preferably under military occupation...

Since the middle of the 90s, Iraq, it's signing agreements with oil companies from German, French, Russian, Chinese and Japanese.
These agreements are for the exploration of petroleum, immediately after the end of the seizure of UN. But, American and English companies were left out...

Also, it doesn't interest to maintain as the enemy nº 1 an difficult target to abate. Unlike Bin Laden, Hussein has an address and the success of the war against Iraq can have the power to forget the failure of the war against the terrorism.

The Iraquian army is the only one that can threaten Israel.
The conservative right that dominates the White House – we remember that Dick Cheney was one of the few members of the Congress that was against Nelson Mandela liberation– intends to show unequivocally that they are on the side of Israel, like this, the powerful Jewish lobby, stop supporting the Democratic Party.

This same right intends to reduce the power of the moderate line of the republican party, humiliating his more outstanding representative, Collin Powell... and we know that his appeals has failed.

These are the reasons that the world public opinion refuses to accept…

Scott Ritter, former-inspector of weapons of UN, rejected the accusations that Iraq would be developing destruction weapons in mass: “The attack would be a historical mistake ”. But the “historical mistake” continues deceiving...

“The military confrontation will open the gates of the hell in Middle East”, said Amir Moussa, general secretary of the Arab League .

---

Love

Jakie