February 20, 2003

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  War with Iraq on Hold?

  
  

   

  
  

       We are doing some good. With the numerous people standing in protest of an impending pre-emptive strike against Iraq & those of us mostly quietly adding our voices to this, the Administration is truly losing favor with the world & its own people. See this MSNBC online article, detailing the recent developments:  http://www.msnbc.com/news/842500.asp?0bl=-0.

  
  

       Here is an excerpt from that article:

  
  

  "In exchange for Turkish help, the United States has offered Ankara an economic aid package that includes $6 billion in grants and U.S. government backing for up to $20 billion in loans that Ankara could secure through private banks." Turkey officials are holding out for $30 billion.

  
  

       Think of how much benefit that $26 billion would have for our own citizens. Think of all the families with no homes anymore, thanks to the Welfare Reduction Act, living under overpasses, in abandoned homes, shelters, or in parks. Think of the many elderly & children with inadequate health care, as well as those with NONE! Think of our own food banks shelves, so poorly stocked that many get virtually nothing. Think of all those out of work, trying to find meager jobs, which often put them in further debt because of the financial cost of having a job (don't tell me there isn't, when you consider wardrobe, travel, childcare, phone, etc!). A minimum wage job barely covers the costs for a family of ONE, if that person lives with parents, etc, much less touch the expenses of more than one person.

  
  

       Here's another thing to consider... that $26 billion is hardly a fraction of what the Administration is considering spending for the upcoming threatened war! Who will benefit from the spending of all this tax-payers' monies? Not I, nor the average US citizen, for sure. I can think of a million better ways to spend tax monies than those Shrub is proposing.

  
  

       Someone recently mentioned that Saddam is accused of murdering children in his country. I find that especially hard to fathom, knowing that he opened up education to all children & also the statistics reflecting that over 50% of Iraq's population is children, under 18! These are what Jr wants to destroy, or rather... MURDER!

  
  

       I cannot & will NOT back his choices! We are brought up, taught to respect & defend this country & its Commander in Chief. For the former, I am fully committed. To the latter, I have NO respect!

  
  

       I hope that some of you caught the Discovery Channel's program about the nuclear testing of Bikini Atoll, shortly after WWII. As I informed someone else recently, the current nuclear devices we have at-the-ready (at least 6,000 of them, with another 4,000 on stand-by) have as much destructive power as 1,000 times what we dropped on Hiroshima & Nagasaki! What this means is that just ONE of them would completely destroy the entire state of New York. Also, the level of radiation that is enough to instantly kill would cover an area of about 100 miles outside of Ground Zero (based upon the Bikini Atoll Baker test, which was detonated 90 feet below the surface of the ocean, which may be way out-dated technologically now). Put it this way, the fruit grown there is still too dangerous to eat, after more than 50 years! And we still have enough loose components to build another 10,000 MORE nuclear weapons over those which are completely assembled!

  
  

       What I have written here is not secret. It's available to anyone who might be interested. To think that ANY country would be stupid enough to really want a war with us is nuts! To be fearful of another country wanting to attack us is also nuts. Are we ready to reopen those 50s bomb shelters so many families went out of their way to have installed in their backyards? I have news for you... those are totally worthless as protection against today's nukes. Guess who will be the ONLY ones in bomb shelters that realistically COULD be safe? Not you... not me... think... Our leaders. Who will they lead after such devastation anyway, if they are all that's left of humanity?

  
  

       Have any of you seen the movie The Day After? As horrendous as the events in this movie appear, they are far from realistic. It plays too softly on the effects of nuclear weapons. To me, one of the stupidest mistakes made in the movie was the US nuclear missile silo guard who walks into a convenience store after the nuclear blast & takes a plastic-packaged food item from one of the displays, because he is hungry. Because of his job, he would have been trained that EVERYTHING within a hundred miles would be contaminated with toxic levels of radiation. To watch him open the bag & eat the contents shocked the shit out of me! If his exposure at the time of the blast didn't kill him, that radiation-contaminated food certainly would. And death by ingestion of radiation-contaminated food is a horribly slow, painful death.

  
  

       If nuclear war comes, you'd better hope that you are at Ground Zero, or within a hundred miles of it, so you won't suffer! Me? I don't expect to be so lucky.

  • 4:39 am
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