[SSJunkie68-69]

Bill, first thanks for your service to our country. My Dad is an ex USAF pilot.

The one point I have to disagree with you on is the Oil issue. Everyone who is critical of the war can easily place the blame on the US for wanting to get our hands on the oil and, for me, that couldn't be further from the truth. National Geographic ran a special a week or so ago on their channel that was all about Saddam. The man was a brutal dictator who knew nothing about human rights. The country he created was based on fear. He had family members spying and reporting on other family members. If you said anything bad about him, a crew of his thugs were sent to your home or work and you were picked up, taken to cell and beaten mercilessly. If your voice of opposition was loud enough and you really ticked him off you or your family members were picked up and never to be heard from again. How do we know this, because Saddam had video tape shot of the beatings, dismemberment or death and made sure everyone associated with you saw them. His idea was to control the populace by fear and oppression. It worked for a long long time.

The day Saddam took power of the Bath Party, there was a meeting held of all party members. There was 300-400 people there. In his speech, he called the names of 66 party members and asked them to stand up. Once they did, they were all escorted out of the meeting and were called traitors. He then proceeded to execute each of them, right outside of the meeting hall. For those remaining, it showed them what Saddam was capable of doing. Word spread fast, oppose Saddam and you will be killed.

Remember he was in a war with Iran? He lost that war and countless soldiers. His much highly regarded army return to Iraq defeated, humbled and humiliated. His country was once cash rich but now cash poor so what does he decide to do, invade Kuwait which brought you, Bill, into his conflict. We all know what happened next thanks to your efforts and the efforts of hundreds of thousands brave members of the Armed Forces of the US and allied powers.

The US urged people of Iraq to overthrow Saddam. The time was right and we knew we were not moving into Bagdad at that time so we did our best to convince the people of Iraq to over throw and topple his regime. Well, once Saddam saw what was going to happen, he went after his own people in the North and the South with quite a bloody vengeance, hence the no fly zones. Saddam and his regime could only operate in the central part of the country but the fear and intimidation tactics used for many years before still quitted a very upset and troubled populace. Any attempt to over throw him was now gone because the people were too afraid and no one in the outside world, including the US, would take part and help support the people trying to win their country back. Thousands upon thousands of people died.

Then there is the whole issue of the violations of the Surrender Treaty from the first Gulf War he signed as well as the whole fiasco with the UN Weapons inspectors. He had weapons he was not supposed to have. There is no mistake about that. You don't hear about that in the news but HE DID HAVE WEAPONS he was not supposed to have. He continued to turn his nose to the UN and prevent the weapons inspectors from doing their jobs. He played a game of pokers Bluff and it back fired on him. Can you honestly tell me that each time he refused these people to do their job that any of us thought he did not have something he did not want us to see or know about.

At the time Saddam was ousted from power, well over 300,000 of his countrymen were brutally killed because they opposed him. It was men, women and yes children. He wiped out 4000 Kurdish villages in the north alone. Entire villages that had been around for centuries were wiped out and the land left ruined so no one could farm it. His military exploits cost him another 800K to 1 million of his country's men.

I am sorry sir, but with all due respect this war is not about oil. This war is about removing terrorist threats so we don't have another 911. Saddam was a terrorist. He turned brutally on his own people. He vowed his hatred of the US repeatedly and praised Osama for what he was able to inflict on the US. Many peoples families, in his country and outside of it, lost family members, or had family members raped and tortured because of his actions. The man was a coward and his own people will remember him for what he did to them. Sure some people might view him as a martyr, much like some people still think Hitler was right, but those are the people we need to remove from this land and send them to hell where they belong. So many people really don't know the whole story and when they are told, they look at things in a different light. That's the reason I wanted to share the article I received this morning. I, for one, am sick and tired of hearing nothing but negative crap being spewed out by the media.......if it bleeds it leads.....that approach has to stop. During WWII how many times did you get a daily body count. How many times did people openly criticize the government for the handling of the war. If WWII happened today and Britain was getting bombed like they did back then, how many people would say this is a war we can't win? I am sure there were people who at the time might of advocated that but as history will show they were wrong. In 50 years when we all are geezers, I am sure the events of today will be looked on in a much different light than what we are seeing currently. We see a daily body count of the soldiers who die in Iraq but hundreds of people die across the US each day as victims of violence. We have a "war" on crime here in the US but how often do you see the body count of those people whose life was taken away from them in South Central LA, New York, Dallas, Miami, DC or any other city or town in the US?

War is something I have never personally experienced other than speaking to my family members and relatives who were in it. My Dad was a SAC pilot in USAF during the Cold War and took off from the flight deck with a nuclear bomb in the bomb bays. To this day he will never forget the feeling of flying around with that bomb on board knowing the destruction it was capable of producing. War is something I have studied. War is not pretty. War is brutal. Innocent people die in wars. Soldiers die in wars. Families are for ever effected by war. In a perfect world we would be free of all wars but this is not a perfect world is it? Wars happen and people die, that is fact. War should avoided as much as possible but we did not start this. We need to finish it though and thank each and every person for doing what they are doing or have done. For those who have been injured and those who gave the ultimate sacrifice, I offer my gratitude and my appreciation for what you have done. I will never forget it and as long as I am around I will make certain it is never forgotten.