from:larrybsp@aol.com (Larry Stark)
Ahn,
We all have our opinions and you have expressed yours. You are
clearly opposed to the war. When I was your age I was opposed to the Vietnam
war but for entirely different reasons. We were fighting to protect a corrupt
autocratic regime only because they were anti communist. Times have changed.
The world has changed since 9/11. We have to change the way we look at
things. The United States is now in a war with terrorists that has already
cost us 3000+ American lives, has the airline industry on the brink of
collapse, has severly depressed the economy with the loss of hundreds of
thousands of jobs but most importantly, Americans don't feel safe in their
own country or homes anymore. Your too young to remember Neville Chamberlin
and I'm sure California's sorry schools don't teach it but Chamberlin, Prime
Minister of England signed a peace accord with Hitler allowing him to take
over what was Chekoslovakia. It was the classic case of appeasement. It was
the treaty to bring peace to Europe. The result was a war that killed more
than 20 million people. Appeasement doesn't work.
When war with Iraq became a real possibility I was opposed to it
because of the effect it would have on the rest of the Arab/Muslim world and
their opinion toward America. I then realized the Arab/Muslim world hates
America already. I realized what President Bush was doing. He was going to
put the security of America ahead of all other considerations. Saddam Hussein
had showed his cards by paying the family of every Palestinian suicide bomber
$10,000. He swore he had no weapons of mass destruction including SCUD
missles yet SCUD missles are falling on Kuwait. He said he had no chemical
weapons yet he killed 5000 Kurds in a chemical attack in Iraq and used
chemical weapons in the Iran/Iraq war. Saddam presents a threat to America by
possessing weapons of mass destruction and would without blinking an eye pass
them on to Al Quida and other terrorist groups for use against America.
President Bush has changed the ground rules. Your either with us or against
us in the war on terrorism. Attacking Iraq is a preemptive strike to prevent
Iraq from providing weapons of mass destructions to terorists. It sends a
message that if you support terrorism your going to have to suffer the
consequences. President Bush would rather have Iraqi's die than American
civilians. You have no concept of how many thousands of Americans could die
from Anthrax, Ricin, Small Pox or other chemical attacks. I for one wan't to
save American lives at any cost. Frankly I don't care how many Iraqi's are
killed. The world has changed. Idealism died on 9/11. Its us against the
world and whatever the President has to do to save American lives I'm behind
him.
Larry
P.S. When we're done wiping up Iraq we can go after our other major enemy,
the ungrateful back stabbing arrogant French! Nothing would delight me more
than seeing columns of American Abrams tanks rolling down the Champs d' elyse
with every tank commander giving the finger to the French. Won't happen
though. The French would surrender when the first American lands.
Larry,
>
>
> Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I will
> definitely not give Pep Boys any more of my
> business, because of your tip.
>
> Having said that, I am not sure what you mean by
> "support[ing] our soldiers in the field," and I disagree
> with your statement about "orders to defend America."
>
> First, I support our soldiers. I want them brought
> home, now. I want them home alive and not in body
> bags. I want them home before they use any more
> of my tax dollars to wreak collateral damage. I want
> them home before they antagonize any more people
> in the world. And I want them to be able to go back
> to their old jobs at Pep Boys or wherever.
>
> As for "orders to defend America," our troops are
> not over there to defend America, because Iraq is
> not a threat to America. That's not my say-so --
> it's George Tenet, director of the CIA.
>
> If you really want to "defend America," you should
> be bombing Saudi Arabia. That's where most of the
> 9/11 hijackers came from. Or Michigan, because
> that's where Timothy McVeigh came from. We
> didn't bomb the upper peninsula for Oklahoma City,
> and we shouldn't bomb anybody else for the
> World Trade Center either.
>
> What our troops are doing over there is spending
> your tax dollars to make our President's very rich
> friends even richer, and shredding what's left of
> the goodwill and sympathy that the world had for
> you and I right after 9/11.
>
> This is how it works: the government take money
> away from schools and seniors and Medicare, and
> give it to the weapons industry for a bunch of
> hardware (dollar sign number 1.) With this hardware
> they go and bomb the bejesus out of little Ibrahim
> in Iraq. After taking over the country, they use
> Iraq's oil to pay Halliburton (VP Cheney's company)
> to "rebuild" Iraq (dollar sign number 2.) Meanwhile
> the rest of the world is getting really pissed off at all
> this bullying. Some of them will be pissed off enough
> to sign up for terrorist boot camp. And so the 9/11
> sequel is on its way.
>
> Thanks for listening, and see you at Kragen's.
>
> Au
>
> PS. Autocross content: $200 billion (the expected
> cost of Gulf War II) will buy every autocrosser in
> America a Z06, a 911 GT2, and have enough left
> over for a life-time supply of Hoosiers.
>
>
> At 10:32 PM 3/20/2003 -0500, Larrybsp@aol.com wrote:
> >from:larrybsp@aol.com (Larry Stark)
> >
> > I picked up the enclosed story from The Tuscon Citizen on the
> >Vettnet. Regardless of what you think of King George or the war, as an
> >American you have an obligation to support our soldiers in the field. They
> >don'y make policy. They take orders to defend America. Read the referenced
> >article about Pep Boys and think twice about doing business with them.
> >
> >http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/business/3_15_03reservist.html
> >
> >FWIW.
> > Larry
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