You know it is kinda funny that GWB has decided that the UN is actually relevant when he no longer wanted to pay to clean up the mess he created. I guess GWB does not have the stomach for nation building after all. And let us not forget that "the Iraqi people love us".
If I understand the connotation of your statement correctly No Worries, yes I suppose that Iraq would still be a glorious paradise if it were not for that infernal GWB...
Dark Rhino, This particular topic has been beaten to death here, so I will just cover my argument with broad strokes. If we did not go to war against Saddam, he would still be in power and still be contained like he has been since the first Gulf War. You can make arguments about the Iraqi people being better off, but the sad truth is that the GWB and the US in general do not give a flying f*ck about the Iraqi people. The mess that GWB created is the billion dollar a week that we are spending on Iraq, along with the 2-3 soldiers who get killed every day there. It is a sad thing to me that GWB now appears more concerned about the $$$ than the soldiers. GWB also may be conceeding the little bitty democratization experiment in Iraq.
Actually, I have followed much of the topic at hand that's "been beaten to death here"; Batman Jones and MacBeth (among others) have clearly had something to say. And if I might add, they have done so rather well. But I suppose the point I am trying to illuminate is the apparent adjudication of responsibilities or lack there of by the U.N. and why no one has seemingly called them on it.
VICTORY! YES! This really is a cop out in the first degree. You make broad assertion, then use specific facts to prove those broad assertions. If I show that your specific facts are incorrect, your broad assertions necessarily have no warrant, hence cannot be trusted as valid conclusions. Either you can back up your argument or you can't. In addition, I find it funny that you would talk about ME missing the forest for the trees. I've said several times that you're not being productive in your constant rehashing of the same accusations that I have no doubt you've been making since the Vietnam War about militarist conspiracies. Bush (who I am not a supporter of, did not, and would not vote for) ignores the UN and you cry conspiracy and doom. Bush goes back to the UN and you cry conspiracy and doom. How's that seeing the big picture? The US refuses anything but multilateral discussions with North Korea, it doesn't fit into your worldview of neo-con conspiracy so you ignore it. How is THAT seeing the big picture. Give me a break. I never really disputed this. I only pointed out that there are other reasons for proliferation, and most of the examples you point to are really examples of cause/effect other than US policy. This serves mainly to point out to you that you're distorting your worldview with exaggerated and false impressions of WHAT is causing proliferation. Spare us. You don't know jack about the facts, and that really is problematic. You claim one thing, showing a causal chain. I show how that's not true, and then you trivialize the facts you originally brought to the conversation, lol. India and Israel are perfect examples of this. What is the alternative? Where is your alternative glynch? Give us something new to move onto! The current policy is to try and slow proliferation as much as possible. That includes, interestingly enough, containment, which you support, but containment involves sanctions, which you don't. Give us your educated opinion about how we should handle proliferation. Yes, we all understand you think Bush is on a Pinky & the Brain trip for world domination. I like it when you point it out because it makes you look so silly. But that's ok too, because we need radicals to keep us firmly grounded. False. I've clearly stated that I think the Administration lying is problematic. However, the action of intervention in Iraq was justified. If the next intervention gets nuked, then we would have acted too slowly. One of the main reasons we should act preemptively. Besides, as you and I have both pointed out, no one believed Saddam HAD nukes. I could go tit for tat with the chit-chat comment you made above, but I think this is a legitimate point so I will answer it (unlike you tactic of merely skipping most things). Prolif in NK and Iran is inevitable unless action is taken. It really is irrelevant whether the prolif is this year or two years from now. It will happen eventually for a variety of reasons, only ONE possibility of which is their relationship with the US (others that are more likely are prestige within the country, power relative to neighbors). North Korea has been a threshold state for quite awhile. That means they have the material to build bombs but did not take the step of announcing themselves a nuclear power. Iran started their program not out of fear of US invasion, but as a counterbalance to Iraq's program. Iran may or may not be accelerating their program, but if its inevitable what do you suggest we do? And the US is working through the UN to prevent that, no? How do you reconcile the UN's clear goal of stopping proliferation with your accusations of neo-con conspiracies for 'world domination?' Nope. Never said anything like this. I say there is no alternative to slowing horizontal proliferation as much as possible. It is simply too dangerous to allow in places we have the ability to stop it. Iraq is one place we could stop the threat, we did, and that is good. Proliferation in many places has NOTHING to do with US policy AT ALL (India, Pakistan, Iraq, Israel). Non-proliferation has IN FACT prevented MANY states from proliferating (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Brazil, Argentina, Germany). Those are ALL states that would have nukes absent the policy you would abandon. Do you think the world would be better off if they HAD proliferated? Run away. But if you want to keep a shred of credibility why don't you take a stab at answering some hard questions: (a) What is the alternative you suggest to counterproliferation policies? (b) How do you reconcile your position that advocated containment as a policy, instead of intervention, with your condemnation of sanctions, which are a critical part of containment? (c) How do you reconcile your position that neo-cons are using non-proliferation to actualize their plan for world domination with the UN's pursuit of the same policies and goals?
maybe we get a compilation from all the different threads over the last few years and publish it as one of those 'point and counterpoint' books ...
maybe we get a compilation from all the different threads over the last few years and publish it as one of those 'point and counterpoint' books ... I vote that you edit it and correct my typos and your fact errors. Actually Macbeth should be in charge of editing it and expanding into into a multivolume set with numerous foot notes and appendices so that ir could be included in a graduate seminar of some sort. Hopefully Clutch doesn't dump all of these valuable debates and saves them for posterity. Maybe it could be entitled A "Rockets Guy's Guide to Bb, Politics, Religion, Race, Life and Topless Bars. (sorry you two women who used to be on the bbs)
(March 2003) BUSH: (pees on U.N.) (September 2003) BUSH: (on knees) Please help, U.N.! I don't know what I'm doing!
Err... I'm a little late here, sorry. If you do not respond Hayes I will of course declare myself the victor of this debate and talk bad about your momma. But seriously, I suppose it will simply save me time to agree to disagree and let you have the last word if you like. Originally posted by HayesStreet First, and foremost, let's acknowledge that you conceed as INDISPUTABLE that he was a genocidal dictator. You conceed that Iraq was a state that sponsored terrorism. You conceed that he had a history of acquiring WMD. Of course, you've been ignoring these all along and merely trying to poke holes in ONE of the justifications for war. ONE of the justifications for war? Can you please explain to me the basis for 1441, otherwise known as the ONLY "legal" justification for war? Where is the genocidal dictator clause and the state sponsored terrorism clause? Additionally, my not addressing some of your points shouldn't be considered any concession at all. Since the war was about WMD I argued your contentions about WMD, the rest is far more muddled an issue in my view but I'll address your points. I have yet to see any evidence that Saddam was behind any single terrorist attack (outside of the Bush plot anyway). No evidence linking him to Al-Qaeda besides the infamously bogus Czech intelligence report and the hilarious attempts to link Ansar al-Islam to Saddam despite them operating in territory controlled by our good friends the Kurds. This administration has continued to insinuate connections to radical Islamic terrorist groups despite the fact that they pretty openly despise secular Saddam. Hell even Colin Powell gets up in front of the cameras after one of Bin Laden's tapes come out to say that this obviously means there's a connection even though Bin Laden clearly trashes Saddam in the tape. Since the CIA hasn't been able to provide the evidence maybe you can provide it for me to read and I mean evidence, not manipulated suspicions and politically motivated fairy tales. I know you'll probably attempt to dredge up Saddam's support of the Palestinians as state sponsored terrorism however I find it difficult to consider giving money to the surviving family members of suicide bombers and murdered Palestinians any more so state sponsored terrorism than the US giving Israel $3billion a year to illegally occupy land and randomly kill innocent bystanding Palestinians in what we sophisticated Americans would call their right of self-defense from people trying to eject them from what the entire world considers an illegal occupation. Saddam giving families $10k to live a better life under dehumanizing occupation is hardly any reason for this country to spend $100 billion invading Iraq. This attempted justification for war is simply more of selectively dealing with symptons to the real problems in the area. Furthermore, your choosing to tip toe through Saddam's WMD past is a shame because you know full well the American involvement in emboldening his regime until 1990 when he apparently had the impression that we wouldn't mind him invading another country. Second, it is indisputable because it is ridiculous to argue that Saddam would not have continued to acquire nukes. He's spent the last twenty-five years actively trying to acquire them. Two major military actions were required to stop that acquisiton (Israel's '81 bombing and the '91 invasion by the UN and subsequent sanctions). Numerous scientists and other officials from his program have said he was determined to acquire them. No one has a credible argument why he would all the sudden give up this ambition. He may have temporarily stopped to get rid of sanctions, but what credible argument do you have that he changed his mind? I don't think you have one. In the absence of a credible argument to the contrary you are left holding the bag. Hayes this is not a thread on religion so please don't start with a faith based assertion and then walk ten miles down the line and say well I showed you now didn't I. You know darn well that the 91 invasion had nothing to do with Saddam's having WMD and everything to do with his invasion of Kuwait. Even in 1991 our government resorted to lying about Saddam's "evil doing" with the whole incubator baby nonsense to outrage Americans in support of the war. Saddam had all those WMD years before 1991 and never was an invasion of Iraq even thought of in this country. Not even after he gassed his own people and not even when he attacked Iran and used WMD on them. It's simply false to say that all of a sudden in 1991 WMD was this huge concern. The issue again which you are skirting regarding WMD is that while Saddam was our thug proxy in the area, it didn't really matter what he did. Sure there'd be the condemnations and the slaps on the wrist just like we do in regard to Israel but it didn't really matter what he did as long as he was trying to kill the right people. You also know full well that these numerous former Iraqi scientists have said ALL kinds of things. They've hardly been very reliable as our failure to find a damn thing is demonstrating. The CIA was not talking about nukes, but chemical and biological weapons. Of course, we know he HAD used those WMD before, which makes me very skeptical of a declaration he would not use them again. If he'd acquired nukes he would have become much more dangerous. If a nuclear armed Iraq invaded Saudi Arabia, for instance, what would our response be? Would a nuclear exchange be more likely? If a move was made to remove him? Absolutely. Even without invading, could he use nukes to dictate oil policy to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait? Absolutely. Are those inevitable threats to the US? Absolutely. You completely ignore the reasons I give in the last post about WHY he would be so dangerous if he acquired nukes. If you want to make some counterarguments, please do. What does it matter what specific WMD the CIA was talking about? Are you telling me if someone invaded your home you'd use the bazooka but not the 9mm? He only had one country to lose and he lost it without using what he supposedly had. You'll have to explain that logic to me. As for your contention that he was this huge danger and that a nuclear armed Saddam would be much more dangerous then why was Saudi Arabia steadfastly against this war? The potential victim of Saddam's nuclear armed invasion wouldn't even let us take care of this threat! Even Iran was against the war and surely there'd be few if any countries higher on the target list than Iran. The truth is that both Saudi and Iran see the US and it's ties to Israel as far more of a danger in the area than a Saddam contained on all sides by Turkey, Iran, Israel, and US troops in Kuwait/Saudi. Saddam had nowhere to go and everyone in that region knew it. Not invading Iraq doesn't mean we don't continue to deny Saddam access to WMD by the way. It's not an all or nothing proposition as you'd like to make it appear. Why do you just ramble on and ignore my answers to you? I admitted its possible that he destroyed them. That certainly didn't change his disposition to reacquire them. And I love this argument about his dispersing the WMD he DID have. Do you realize that if your idea is true, he would have had to disperse them BEFORE the intervention? So it was not the intervention that caused the dispersal, but the buildup, which even the UN acknowledged was necessary to get Iraq to open up to inspections, lol. Your timeline is screwed up. Hayes I love to ramble, thanks for the compliment. Your ideas here are disingenuous. Since we all knew a US invasion of Iraq was going to happen the second that Congress authorized Bush to use military force several months before the start of the war I doubt it's a stretch to say Saddam knew the same thing. Buildup, intervention, tomato, tomata, we all knew war was coming and so did he. The dispersal however is not the worst of it since if he were still in power he would still have control of his people. Now that he's out of power, the dispersed weapons could be anywhere with anyone. NICE! You're quoting Tariz Aziz now? Love it. Remember you ignore the justifications for removing Saddam other than WMD. I don't understand how you fail to admit that WMD was the only "legal" justification given for this war. It's probably because you know it was a pretext but still, it is the reason given to the American people. Saddam was not an imminent threat to the US based on his being a genocidal dictator and his giving money to the families of dead Palestinians. The threat of Saddam acquiring nukes was enough to remove him. The fact he was a genocidal dictator was enough to remove him. The fact that he sponsored terrorism was enough to remove him. Each of those independently justify the war. The combination only makes the case stronger. If this is the case then we shall be invading Iran, North Korea, Syria, and who else? Maybe Cuba too? Yeah, why not! And also please keep in mind that I've already explained the administration and I diverge in our justifications of the war (ie the admin would not have intervened if Iraq had opened up to complete inspections, while I think we should have removed Saddam anyway for the other reasons like genocide). Well I actually found someone who'd scare me more as President than George Bush. -you believe we should have continued to allow Saddam's genocide, even though we had the power to stop it. Saddam's genocide is not a matter of US national security. The guy's been killing people for decades as our buddy and now it's all of a sudden a reason for war, whatever. If the UN wanted to go after Saddam because he killed his own people then fine but 1441 had nothing to do with that. I don't believe our military's role is to fight full scale wars all around the world to remove genocidal dictators and interestingly enough it's not our government's policy to do that unless of course there is an economic interest involved. -you believe we should have continued to allow Saddam's sponsoring terrorism, even though we had the power to stop it. -you believe Saddam was not going to try and acquire nukes, and that he'd be no more of a threat if he DID acquire nukes. -you cherrypick reports from the CIA while at the same time castigating them as being inept. -you support 'containment' as the alternative to war, while castigating the US for UN sanctions that hurt the Iraqi people badly, while hardly affecting Saddam at all. Of course you can't HAVE containment without sanctions. I believe if you want to solve the problem of terrorism then you address the root causes which are the Palestinian situation and Saudi grown radicalism. You want to play pin the tail on the donkey with Saddam instead of dealing with the real problems. Forget what I believe regarding Saddam and nukes, Saudi Arabia's not joining this war speaks to what most in the region believe in regard to Saddam as a threat. I can't believe you'd accuse me of CIA cherry picking, I'm not George Bush thank you very much. I absolutely support containment and it's worked. Of course Bush Sr. dropped the ball in a major way by allowing Saddam to fly his choppers and massacre people in 91. Clinton also dropped the ball by not fully supporting an overthrow and getting a bunch of people killed. There were ways to deal with this menace besides invading and having us occupy Iraq for who knows how long. We not only did it the hard way, we did it the stupid way.
brillant post Timing I absolutely agree with everything you said. When did the Constitution and the rule of law become meaningless?
Not true. Intervention to stop genocide is an acknowledged (by both the UN and 'international law') 'legal' justification. See Bosnia and Kosovo. I didn't ever connect Al Queda to Saddam as I've said several times. However, for Iraq to come out and say 'we'll give thousands to the family of anyone who becomes a suicide bomber' is absolutely supporting and more importantly encouraging terrorism. Whether or not Israel is also committing atrocities is irrelevant to that determination. Someone strapping on a bomb and blowing up a bus full of children or a pizza parlor is a terrorist. If you don't think so then we'll never agree so skip it. I'm not sure what you mean here. I hardly tiptoe through anything. If you'll like to elaborate I'll respond. Second, it is indisputable because it is ridiculous to argue that Saddam would not have continued to acquire nukes. He's spent the last twenty-five years actively trying to acquire them. Two major military actions were required to stop that acquisiton (Israel's '81 bombing and the '91 invasion by the UN and subsequent sanctions). Numerous scientists and other officials from his program have said he was determined to acquire them. No one has a credible argument why he would all the sudden give up this ambition. He may have temporarily stopped to get rid of sanctions, but what credible argument do you have that he changed his mind? I don't think you have one. In the absence of a credible argument to the contrary you are left holding the bag. We'll there was one intervention in 81 to stop his nuclear program. There was an intervention in 91, yes to get him out of Kuwait, but as you may have noticed, many restrictions were put on Iraq as a result, like inspections (hello is anyone there?) to make sure he didn't have WMD (incuding nukes). Whether or not we didn't care what he did when he was a proxy (which is a vast overstatement since he also got support from the Soviets) has NOTHING to do with any of this. If you want to point out different administrations pursued different policies that contradicted each other, that is fine but affects none of this discussion. You act as if that changes something but it really doesn't. Well my points specifically deal with Saddam's drive for nukes, which I contend was inevitable. Not finding anything has no affect on that. To win this point you have to give some rationale as to why Saddam WOULDN'T have acquired nukes at some point in the future. I give his history and his motive and his means. You give nothing back. The CIA was not talking about nukes, but chemical and biological weapons. Of course, we know he HAD used those WMD before, which makes me very skeptical of a declaration he would not use them again. If he'd acquired nukes he would have become much more dangerous. If a nuclear armed Iraq invaded Saudi Arabia, for instance, what would our response be? Would a nuclear exchange be more likely? If a move was made to remove him? Absolutely. Even without invading, could he use nukes to dictate oil policy to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait? Absolutely. Are those inevitable threats to the US? Absolutely. You completely ignore the reasons I give in the last post about WHY he would be so dangerous if he acquired nukes. If you want to make some counterarguments, please do. I am pointing out that the inevitability of his acquiring nukes was a threat of such magnitude that action was justified. Who's being disingenous? Gee, can you think of any reason why the SA or Iranian governments don't want to come out and openly support the US intervention in Iraq? Maybe because they could do what they've always done, which is stand aside and let us clean up the mess and let thier populations vent at us instead of them. Interesting. Two things. First, following containment to deny him access inherently means massive sanctions. Are you now a supporter of sanctions? If so I don't expect you join glynch's lines about the millions killed by 'our' sanctions. We know how much you and glynch think of hypocrites ... Second, glynch is clearly on record as contending that non-proliferation policies like containment inevitably fail. Do you agree or disagree with him? If you agree then you have quite a problem explaining how it is NOT an all or nothing issue, since failure of containment necessarily makes war the only sure way to stop Saddam from acquiring nukes. Why do you just ramble on and ignore my answers to you? I admitted its possible that he destroyed them. That certainly didn't change his disposition to reacquire them. And I love this argument about his dispersing the WMD he DID have. Do you realize that if your idea is true, he would have had to disperse them BEFORE the intervention? So it was not the intervention that caused the dispersal, but the buildup, which even the UN acknowledged was necessary to get Iraq to open up to inspections, lol. Your timeline is screwed up. This is a little confusing. If we all knew that then how do you explain the administrations last minute agreement to not intervene if Saddam allowed full inspections? And again it was the UN supported buildup, if you are right, not the intervention that caused the dispersal. And again how does this disprove my point that he would inevitably have acquired nukes? It doesn't. NICE! You're quoting Tariz Aziz now? Love it. Remember you ignore the justifications for removing Saddam other than WMD. I addressed this above. Removing a genocidal dictator IS an accepted legal justification for intervention. Certainly WMD was the main reason given by the administration for intervention, although the others were given as well. This is why I have previously, multiple times, said that the administration and I differ on our opinions. I contend his genocide was enough to justify intervention. You don't apparently. Although I find it laughable that you both castigate the Israelis as oppressors - and Palestinians as worthy of support and praise, and the US as hypocrites, while at the same time arguing that we should NOT have helped the Iraqis - whom you acknowledge were oppressed and killed en masse by Saddam. WHO is the hypocrite? The threat of Saddam acquiring nukes was enough to remove him. The fact he was a genocidal dictator was enough to remove him. The fact that he sponsored terrorism was enough to remove him. Each of those independently justify the war. The combination only makes the case stronger. Have you read any of this thread? I have explained this already. Read my prior posts to glynch since you obviously haven't, and you'll see the explanation. -you believe we should have continued to allow Saddam's genocide, even though we had the power to stop it. My, my. So we should only intervene for national security reasons, huh? You're not quite the liberal I thought you were. That's a page right out of Wolfowitz's philosophy, lol. And it is just silly for you to propose that we do nothing because he was previously an ally. What possible difference could that make. Its saying that because we made a bad decision to support a genocidal dictator in the past, we should always do it. That is ridiculous. Uh, first of all you are absolutely wrong. Interventions in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Haiti were all undertaken without 'economic interest' involved. Join Glynch in the 'don't know what I'm talking about' line. Second, I guess you and I just disagree. I find it simply inconceivable that someone can say we should NOT act to stop genocide when we have the power to stop it. Moreover I find it dispicable as it follows in the footsteps of those who said the holocaust was 'none of our business' and the mass genocide of Pol Pot was 'none of our business' and more recently of those who said the rape camps and genocide in Bosnia was 'none of our business.' The story of genocide is not just of the victims and the perpetrators, but also of those who stand on the sidelines and do nothing. You are one of those people, and I am not. -you believe we should have continued to allow Saddam's sponsoring terrorism, even though we had the power to stop it. -you believe Saddam was not going to try and acquire nukes, and that he'd be no more of a threat if he DID acquire nukes. -you cherrypick reports from the CIA while at the same time castigating them as being inept. -you support 'containment' as the alternative to war, while castigating the US for UN sanctions that hurt the Iraqi people badly, while hardly affecting Saddam at all. Of course you can't HAVE containment without sanctions. Not sure why you think a solution dealing with Saudi Arabia and Israel is mutually exclusive of dealing with Saddam. You are making way too many assumptions about what you think I think. Not really. As I said they have other motivations for not supporting the war outwardly. You can't both argue that he had WMD but dispersed them, AND that containment worked, lol. Second, that gives you the problem of the contradiction over sanctions. Third, that cements in place that you would abandon a people we could help to a genocidal fate. Agreed. Although this is not 'a matter of national security for the US' so it would seem you're faced with another contradiction. Hmmm, so 1441 is NOT the only justification for action, eh? Apparently you are more of the assassination crowd, which I don't really have a problem with, but it really cuts your credibility in light of many of your other arguments.
no, I am totally serious I don't read all your posts, but the number of posts where you two guys address each other is amazing. Most heated discussions crescendo to a breach, but yours don't.
The rationale behind Bush's pre-emptive war was that Hussein was an imminent threat. I simply don't see any evidence of this after 1991. If Hussein didn't use his WMD's when we attacked Iraq (two times), when was he going to use this supposedly massive stockpile of weapons? Hussein may have "inevitably" wanted to restart his weapons of mass destruction program, but, it would not have ammounted to much if international pressure was maintained and there is no evidence that the UN was going to remove sanctions against Iraq. As it turns out, the 10 year policy of containment pretty much worked. I would prefer that imperfect policy to having US soldiers over there being picked off like flies while rebuilding a country that doesn't want them there. Rather than helping defeat the forces of Islamic terror, Gulf War II only created another endless front and rallying cry for these nutjobs. And several billion dollars in revenue for Halliburton, inc. Doesn't Whitewater seem very quaint right about now? ; )
It was not that he was an imminent military threat, but that he would SUPPORT terrorists with WMD to use against the USA. Good job on us to take him out before he had that chance.....and also a nice message to send to the rest of those rogue nations who preach hate mongering of the USA in order to quell the poverty stricken masses in their own countries. Hey, don't blame the Saudi Royal family for your troubles....blame the USA....pathetic.... DD
Well, Bush and Blair and Colin Powell made their case for on the basis that Hussein *was* an imminent military threat. Need we review the public record again? As to your claim, there is simply no evidence at all that Hussein was willing to share any of his resources with another power, terrorist, or not. Supporting terorists in the form of sending money to Palestinian families is quite a different matter to handing over WMD's that cost an impoverished Iraq millions of dollars of resources and manpower while also potentially giving the presumably religious enemies of the very secular Hussein some powerful leverage. Again, if Hussein a) had WMD's and b) was hell-bent on using them against the USA why didn't he use them in 1991, or 2003 (or any years in between)?
you left out Clinton...he said it back in 1998. perhaps that was the intelligence supplied all of these guys?? or were they all just making it up?
It was not that he was an imminent military threat, but that he would SUPPORT terrorists with WMD to use against the USA. Make that terrorists with whom Saddam had no close ties and with WMDs that he did not own. Actually Saddam was higher on Al Queda sh*t list than the US. Saddam giving Al Queda WMD was unlikely since they would likely turn around and use them against him. Thus, promoting the idea that Saddam would give Al Queda WMDs is vicious make believe.
