A R C H I V E S
Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board
| Scott Ritter event |
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| jannah |
| 02/20/03 at 23:52:46 |
| [slm] I went to the Scott Ritter event tonight. Scott Ritter for those who don't know him is an ex UN weapons inspector who had been in Iraq for a number of years and resigned. The place was pretty packed and they metal detectors and load of state troopers and guards. There were even some "Pro USA/Pro WAR" protestors outside. [Now who would be standing outside in the freezing cold _supporting_ war I don't know.] So anyway I thought he did an excellent job and brought up alot of relevant points. What struck me was that through the whole thing he was extremely pro American. Talked about his stint in the Army and wanting to defend the soldiers going to fight. Said he wanted to protect them from dying in vain. Said that to be a true patriot is not to blindly follow Bush into a never-ending war but to really defend the Constitution and what we believe in. His main point was that Iraq has no real weapons of mass destruction or biological weapons to the point Colin Powell has made out - his presentation does not stand up to close scrutiny, our policy towards Iraq should be one of diplomacy and through UN resolutions - we should give the weapons inspectors time to do their jobs, not a war that would kill more Iraqis than save any. He also said that there seems to be two things going on right now. 1. the US wants disarmament but also 2. they want to chang the regime in Iraq. The interesting thing is that 2. goes against the UN and all charters of international law but that the US is using 1. to get 2. He said the US is dangerously becoming a rogue state that has no respect for international law. We fought our independence against imperalism but here we are turning into exactly that. He said the main reason for the war is for Bush's domestic politics and that since WE are the people we need to make Bush realize that he has more to lose than win from a "pre-emptive" strike on Iraq. The US is going to continue to try to contain Iraq and destablize the government through the economic sanctions and a war that will kill even more Iraqis. The only way to really solve the problem is to lift the sanctions, let the Iraqi's develop ecnomically and stablize so that they can be equals in the international environment and thus be able to change. He made sooooooo many good points. I wanted to tape it but we aren't allowed. Anyway they've tried very hard to bring him down this year, but he keeps on speaking out against the war in Iraq. Hopefully his voice will be heard soon inshaAllah. |
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