The reader argues that senior US officials have acknowledged that Iraq had no WMD’s:,“Actually,” he says, “it is a huge story, just not in the US.”

I doubt it. “Senior official” can mean anything: it could be Dick Cheney or some hack working in the State Department.

The New York Times has criticized every aspect of the Iraqi conflict, from the diplomatic “bullying” at UN to the (virtually non-existent) looting at the Baghdad museum. This paper is the home of Maureen Dowd And Paul Krugman, two people who never miss an opportunity to rip the Bush administration.

I find it hard to believe the NYT would miss this story, or consider it unworthy of publication. Besides, every reporter dreams of being the next Woodward or Bernstein. Big stories make big reporters.

World opinion should have stopped us (in Iraq), but it didn't. The fallout from that decision is coming home to roost as EU countries are considering abandoning NATO and forming a new defense pact that excludes the US.

I’m certainly not scared of the France-Germany defense pact. Both countries are in serious financial trouble (so their military spending is very constricted), and both countries are democratic – so they are unlikely to go to wars against the US. In addition, both countries are likely to adopt the same passive military strategy that Europe has practiced recently (to Milosevic’s benefit).

Threatened economic "punishment" of France and Germany by the U.S. is resulting in similar sanctions against US companies. This will not help the US economy, already in a serious slump.

Europe is in much worse economic shape than the US is, and that situation is unlikely to improve as its pension crisis takes hold.

Besides, Germany now appears to be cooperating.

Actually, Arabs are rising up.

If this is "rising up," it's pretty lame. The Saudi’s are shaken, and they are questioning the BS their government hands them.

Iraqis are starving, cholera is breaking out, looting is rampant, and so far attempts to restore order have not be very successful…So far the number of civilian dead is closing on 5,000, but the dying is still going on.

The UN was saying that 4000-5000 children were dying every month in Iraq under Hussein.

The 5000 civilians killed figure is probably high. The deaths among the Iraqis soldiers and the people who fought alongside them (a ragtag collection of militants from Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Ansar Islami and Al Qaeda - all terrorist organizations that weren’t supposed to have anything to do with Saddam) was certainly much higher, and the fact that many of these people were fighting out of uniform should have made the situation even worse than it was.

Every innocent civilian death is a tragedy, but let's put things in perspective. The Russians killed 100,000 civilians taking Grozny. 100,000. There were few protests, human rights groups did little, rock stars were silent, and the Pope kept his mouth shut.

In World War II, the US and Britain killed nearly two million innocent civilians, many of them in friendly countries. Was that war wrong?

This war removed a terrible dictator. The Iraqis know this. My question is : why does the American left not know this?

- posted by total @ 5/16/2003 12:00:00 PM .