If I answer all these questions, will you shut up?
Or will you repeat them in a few weeks, pretending you were never told the answers?
Anyway:
1. Is it not true that the reason we did not bomb the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War was because we knew they could retaliate?
Yes.
2. Is it not also true that we are willing to bomb Iraq now because we know it cannot retaliate- which just confirms that there is no real threat?
Yes. There was no real threat against the US military. The threat Iraq appeared to be was a terrorist threat, not a military threat. Nobody believed that Iraq could harm the US or its allies militarily. It was about terrorism.
3. Is it not true that those who argue that even with inspections we cannot be sure that Hussein might be hiding weapons, at the same time imply that we can be more sure that weapons exist in the absence of inspections?
Yes. We only knew that he hadn't destroyed the weapons he had. Whether he still had them or where he hid them or whether he shipped them off we did not know.
4. Is it not true that the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency was able to complete its yearly verification mission to Iraq just this year with Iraqi cooperation?
Yes. That means Iraq was a mere 12 years late complying with this particular term of the cease-fire agreement.
5. Is it not true that the intelligence community has been unable to develop a case tying Iraq to global terrorism at all, much less the attacks on the United States last year? Does anyone remember that 15 of the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia and that none came from Iraq?
No, it's not true. In fact it is public knowledge in the Palestinian territories that Saddam's Iraq paid money to Arab terrorists attacking Israeli civilians. Whether the "global intelligence community" is as clever as the average Israeli or "Palestinian", I cannot tell. Maybe they didn't know.
Yes, everybody remembered that the hijackers were from Saudi-Arabia. But Saudi-Arabia was not at war with the US and had not violated a cease-fire agreement.
6. Was former CIA counter-terrorism chief Vincent Cannistraro wrong when he recently said there is no confirmed evidence of Iraq’s links to terrorism?
Yes, he was wrong.
And if you read the news about Iraq carefully you might notice that there are indeed lots of terrorists fighting on Saddam's (and his party's) side. If you attacked me instead of Saddam, you might find that no terrorist will try to avenge my death. That's because I don't have links to terrorists.
7. Is it not true that the CIA has concluded there is no evidence that a Prague meeting between 9/11 hijacker Atta and Iraqi intelligence took place?
I have no idea.
8. Is it not true that northern Iraq, where the administration claimed al-Qaeda were hiding out, is in the control of our "allies," the Kurds?
No, it's not true. Al-Qaeda were located in Biara at the Iranian border, some miles south of Sulimainiya. The Kurdish government did not control that particular part of northern Iraq until the 2003 invasion when Peshmerga (Kurdish) troops with American air support invaded the village.
More here:
http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/2006/03/zarqawi-was-here.php
9. Is it not true that the vast majority of al-Qaeda leaders who escaped appear to have safely made their way to Pakistan, another of our so-called allies?
Yes.
10. Has anyone noticed that Afghanistan is rapidly sinking into total chaos, with bombings and assassinations becoming daily occurrences; and that according to a recent UN report the al-Qaeda "is, by all accounts, alive and well and poised to strike again, how, when, and where it chooses"?
Yes. Turns out fighting a war with the NATO "allies" is not as easy as we thought.
11. Why are we taking precious military and intelligence resources away from tracking down those who did attack the United States- and who may again attack the United States- and using them to invade countries that have not attacked the United States?
Irrelevant. We are tracking down those who attacked the US. Limiting the search to Afghanistan wouldn't make a whole lot of sense. The attackers, as you said, were from Saudi Arabia. Afghanistan is far from the centre of the conflict.
12. Would an attack on Iraq not just confirm the Arab world's worst suspicions about the US, and isn't this what bin Laden wanted?
I don't think it is what bin Laden wanted. Al-Qaeda seemed surprised not only by the attack on Afghanistan but also by the attack on Iraq.
The Arabs' worst suspicions about the US is that the US, if attacked, will react violently. That's exactly what we want them to think.
Bin Laden's plan more likely relied on the US giving in to bullying easily. That's the terrorist strategy.
13. How can Hussein be compared to Hitler when he has no navy or air force, and now has an army 1/5 the size of twelve years ago, which even then proved totally inept at defending the country?
Same as Hitler in 1930 can be compared to Hitler. The US should have invaded Germany in 1930 and spared us a whole lot of grief.
For me it's the gassing of people that makes Saddam a Hitler.
14. Is it not true that the constitutional power to declare war is exclusively that of the Congress? Should presidents, contrary to the Constitution, allow Congress to concur only when pressured by public opinion? Are presidents permitted to rely on the UN for permission to go to war?
Refer to the War Powers act. Also note that the US have already been at war with Iraq at the time of the invasion.
15. Are you aware of a Pentagon report studying charges that thousands of Kurds in one village were gassed by the Iraqis, which found no conclusive evidence that Iraq was responsible, that Iran occupied the very city involved, and that evidence indicated the type of gas used was more likely controlled by Iran not Iraq?
No, I am not aware of such a report and I don't believe it exists.
What I do believe, however, were the eye witness reports I have personally heard when I visited a city close to the village of Halabja. Iran had no reason to use poison gas against Kurds (who were more on Iran's than Iraq's side anyway) and the aircraft flying the attacks were Iraqi. Plus the Iraqi government proudly took responsibility for the attack.
16. Is it not true that anywhere between 100,000 and 300,000 US soldiers have suffered from Persian Gulf War syndrome from the first Gulf War, and that thousands may have died?
It's possible.
17. Are we prepared for possibly thousands of American casualties in a war against a country that does not have the capacity to attack the United States?
No. But are we prepared to wait for the country to gain the capacity to attack the United States?
18. Are we willing to bear the economic burden of a 100 billion dollar war against Iraq, with oil prices expected to skyrocket and further rattle an already shaky American economy? How about an estimated 30 years occupation of Iraq that some have deemed necessary to "build democracy" there?
Well, oil prices fell dramatically since the invasion and the war cost less than the credit crisis caused by lending money to poor people who do not repay it. So I think this point is moot now.
19. Iraq’s alleged violations of UN resolutions are given as reason to initiate an attack, yet is it not true that hundreds of UN Resolutions have been ignored by various countries without penalty?
No, it's not true. You are confusing security council resolutions with general assembly resolutions.
20. Did former President Bush not cite the UN Resolution of 1990 as the reason he could not march into Baghdad, while supporters of a new attack assert that it is the very reason we can march into Baghdad?
Yes, that's true. Before Saddam broke the cease-fire there was no legal reason to march into Baghdad. (This is one of the questions that relies on the reader forgetting about the cease-fire terms and that Saddam broke them for 12 years.)
21. Is it not true that, contrary to current claims, the no-fly zones were set up by Britain and the United States without specific approval from the United Nations?
Yes. It is true that the UN didn't really care much about Shiites and Kurds.
22. If we claim membership in the international community and conform to its rules only when it pleases us, does this not serve to undermine our position, directing animosity toward us by both friend and foe?
I don't know. Once we find an international community that actually has rules (and does not make them up as they go along) we can try and find out.
23. How can our declared goal of bringing democracy to Iraq be believable when we prop up dictators throughout the Middle East and support military tyrants like Musharaf in Pakistan, who overthrew a democratically-elected president?
I assure you that the majority of people in the middle east have no idea that we are doing that. I know people from the West Bank who don't know the difference between Ireland and England, let alone whether Pakistan is a democratic republic, a fascist dictatorship, or an ancient monarchy run by the family of Donald Duck.
They are not stupid, they just aren't interested in the world as much as those of us who live in the west and travel between countries a lot.
24. Are you familiar with the 1994 Senate Hearings that revealed the U.S. knowingly supplied chemical and biological materials to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war and as late as 1992- including after the alleged Iraqi gas attack on a Kurdish village?
I am aware of the "alleged" gas attack because I spoke to people who were there and saw a gallery of pictures of victims in a Kurdish government building.
As far as I know the poison gas used was German but it wouldn't surprise me to hear that US companies were also involved. What surprises me is that that is an argument against the invasion or for denying that the attack happened.
25. Did we not assist Saddam Hussein’s rise to power by supporting and encouraging his invasion of Iran? Is it honest to criticize Saddam now for his invasion of Iran, which at the time we actively supported?
No, the US did not assist Saddam Hussein's rise to power. Saddam also rose to power long before the invasion of Iran, and both happened without US help. (It's a common urban legend that the CIA was involved in both, but the truth is that the US under Carter helped Khomeini to come to power in Iran and then sold weapons to Iran under Reagan.)
26. Is it not true that preventive war is synonymous with an act of aggression, and has never been considered a moral or legitimate US policy?
I guess this falls under the "forget about the cease-fire agreement" proviso.
27. Why do the oil company executives strongly support this war if oil is not the real reason we plan to take over Iraq?
Oil company executives tend to be conservatives, conservatives tend to support democracy and fighting fascism. It's not surprising that they would support the invasion. I don't think they support the "war", merely the invasion part of it. I have never heard a US oil company executive saying that he supported Saddam's attacks against Kurds and Shiite or against Kuwait, i.e. the things that started the war.
28. Why is it that those who never wore a uniform and are confident that they won’t have to personally fight this war are more anxious for this war than our generals?
This assumes that they are. It's not a universally accepted fact that people who never wore a uniform are generally more in favour of war than people who did wear a uniform.
John McCain was in favour of the invasion (not "the war") and he certainly wore a uniform.
And Barack Obama was against the invasion and never was in the military as far as I know.
29. What is the moral argument for attacking a nation that has not initiated aggression against us, and could not if it wanted?
You can pick whichever one makes you happy: genocide, attempted genocide, threats, firing at US and British aircraft, supporting and financing terrorism, supporting Al-Qaeda by allowing them to have a base in the country, violating a cease-fire agreement.
30. Where does the Constitution grant us permission to wage war for any reason other than self-defense?
Was that traditionally a problem when the US annexed Texas or attacked Spain?
31. Is it not true that a war against Iraq rejects the sentiments of the time-honored Treaty of Westphalia, nearly 400 years ago, that countries should never go into another for the purpose of regime change?
Yes. But so did WW1 and WW2 and all the wars against Napoleon.
It is also true that the tyrants of old wanted permission to fight wars without risking losing their thrones. I don't think democracies should care about the "noble men's" principle to stay in power no matter what.
32. Is it not true that the more civilized a society is, the less likely disagreements will be settled by war?
Yes. Which I assume is why Iraqis now shout at each other in parliament and don't murder hundreds of thousands of their own any more when there is disagreement.
33. Is it not true that since World War II Congress has not declared war and- not coincidentally- we have not since then had a clear-cut victory?
This again falls under the War Powers act subject.
34. Is it not true that Pakistan, especially through its intelligence services, was an active supporter and key organizer of the Taliban?
Yes.
35. Why don't those who want war bring a formal declaration of war resolution to the floor of Congress?
Re War Powers act.