Are you scared? I am

So I was chatting it up with a friend of mine, and he mentioned something about someone being arrested for wearing a peace shirt. So after a little digging, I came upon this little tidbit.

Lieberman (executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union) said another sign of the times was the arrest earlier this week of a lawyer at a public mall near Albany, New York. The lawyer was charged with trespassing after refusing to take off a "Give Peace A Chance" T-shirt he had just bought at the mall.

Personally, I am all for attacking our enemies, when they present a clear and present danger.  However, I don’t feel Iraq does that, unless you count them not exporting any oil to us as attacking us.  Aren’t we still after whats his name?  You know, that guy... that one responsible for 9/11?  What was his name again?  I haven’t heard it mentioned in forever....................

Posted by steev on 3 replies

Comments:

01. Mar 8, 2003 at 5:45am by Anthony:

First of all, the news media has a nasty liberal slant, so of course very few outlets are reporting the facts of this "peace t-shirt" issue. The truth is that he was accosting other shoppers, and that the mall is in fact private property, and they have a policy of asking people wearing anti-war propaganda to leave.  So 1) the mall had every right to ask him to leave, and 2) it wasn’t "big brother" as many people are reporting/insinuating, but the privately-owned mall enforcing its own policies, something it is absolutely entitled to do.

So no, I’m not scared.

And I wouldn’t refer to Iraq "not exporting any oil to us" as attacking us.  I’d refer to it as anti-war propaganda, since the truth is that we aren’t buying any oil from them because we are honoring sanctions against them.  Technically it’s true that they aren’t exporting any oil to us, but it’s by our choice, not theirs.

And come on, you must live in a hole if you haven’t heard mention of Osama or al-Qaeda lately.  It’s not in the forefront as much as Iraq, of course, but I still hear news of them at least every other day or so.  But this is irrelevant, because al-Qaeda isn’t the reason we want to remove Saddam from power.

To say that Saddam’s regime does not present an imminent threat is either comical (because it’s a joke) or sad (because it’s ignorant of the facts).  The threat is unquestionable.  Before Saddam kicked out the inspectors in 1998, they reported on massive chemical and biological weapons stores.  Saddam has clearly demonstrated his lack of regard for human life by using these weapons on thousands of his own people.  Iraqi defectors report that he has mobile weapons labs designed to evade UN monkeys weapons inspectors.  An Iraqi scientist recently reported that Saddam’s weapons operations are deep underground, beyond where inspectors can find them.  There are reports that some of the weapons have been transported to Lebanon to avoid detection.

Between mobile labs, underground labs, and stores in other countries, Saddam can keep UN inspectors looking forever.  Which is exactly what France, Russia, and the rest of the Axis of Weasel want -- because it keeps their filthy lucre flowing, because Jacques Chirac and Saddam Hussein are longtime friends, and because Iraq already owes Russia multiple billions of dollars for arms sales in the past.

We know for certain that Saddam at least was developing nuclear weapons in the past.  We also know that he currently denies any existing nuclear weapons programs.  And we know that he has provided no evidence that he’s destroyed/dismantled these programs or their products.  Therefore one of two things must be true: either he’s destroyed them but is hiding the evidence of that from us (which is insane because it gives us a reason to attack), or he hasn’t destroyed them and he’s hiding the programs and weapons.  The fact that Saddam continues to seek materials that could be used to produce nuclear weapons, combined with Saddam’s history, strongly favor the latter explanation.

We know that Saddam recently "found" banned ballistic missles and chemical warheads in his country -- the same weapons that he swore did not exist just a few months ago.

Saddam openly supports the terrorism against Jews in Isreal.  And our intelligence indicates that he also supports groups such as al-Qaeda.

It is an undeniable fact that Saddam Hussen is a threat.  He is a threat to the people that he kills every day in his own country.  And he is a threat to the rest of the world because of the weapons he posesses, and because of his willingness to use them combined with his track record .

The only thing that is even remotely questionable about this situation is whether Saddam is an imminent threat.  That, by its very nature, is a question that cannot be answered until an act of war exposes it.  There are two ways to handle the situation.  We can wait for him to attack us, probably suffering massive civilian casualties, before taking care of the threat.  Or we can take care of the threat now, before our people are killed by it.  Personally I think it rather ridiculous to wait for him to shed our blood before we take care of him.  A person like Saddam, with Saddam’s history of murder, attempted genocide, brutal torture, and systematic lies, does not deserve the benefit of the doubt.  And especially in the post-9/11 world, the US has a duty to protect its citizens in a more proactive way.

02. Apr 23, 2003 at 4:34am by Adam:

Violence, Hatred, and War only bring more of the same.  Love, Compassion, and Peace bring more of the same.  Let go of your Hatred.  Start by analyzing Hatred itself.  Where does it come from?  Is it contagious?  No more than Peace, Love, and Compassion are.  Peace is the way.

03. Apr 23, 2003 at 8:48am by Anthony:

The fact that you can state such things at all is proof that you need more help than I alone can offer.  Nonetheless I feel compelled to explain the massive fallacies in your comment.

Every war in history has at least one thing in common -- it’s in history.  It’s over.  Every war in the past has ended.  So it’s a fallacy to say that war only brings more war.

Calling it "violence" and "hatred" is nothing more than a blatant appeal to people’s emotions.  Address the issues, don’t be emotional, be logical.  We removed Saddam from power because we felt he was a threat to us and the rest of the world and his own people, and because he openly violated all the resolutions that the UN passed against him, and because the only reason we stopped fighting in 1991 was because he promised to end the programs that threatened us.  Not because we "hate him" or enjoy violence or enjoy losing our own people.

If someone has the means and the intent to attack you, then being peaceful to them will not "bring more of the same" peace.  If you want to argue that Saddam is somehow not a threat, then say that.  But don’t speak this nonsense that being peaceful towards him will cause reciprocation of that sentiment.

This idealist rhetoric is so tired and played; it’s the same thing every time.  They lump anyone who’s not anti-war into one big group, completely fail to address any of the issues, and then say "give peace a chance."

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