Quit the internet for Lent except e-mail. Why? Do we wait until we get hit first? From a strategic standpoint, this would make sense, the interpretation of a lot of that NIE report could go either way, and in the end, what's the difference between 6 months, a year, or the end of the decade. Yes I know that you know that Sadaam didn't want to use them, and I'm glad you can base that on speculation from GWI, but I need a little more than that. To me the NIE report is most telling, and even if Sadaam had no immediate plans as you made the claim the NIE report was trying to tell (questionable). He was definitely in league to obtain fissile material and begin a program. Did the administration use questionable evidence? Maybe, in fact I'll even give you this one and say probably. Was their no reason to go to war? This one I won't grant you. I'm sorry, Sadaam with nukes is not what we want. Not when he can sell them to terrorists, use them for himself, or do any number of things with them. The risk is simply to great, and so strategically, its smarter to go now when there is no risk of that, rather than later when there is. That's great. We need to do what's best for America though. Global community? There is none. We get sanctioned by other countries we get sanctioned, but simply put, our power is to great for those sanctions to last... ok. That's a mighty big speculation. I think you're out of you're element on this one. I don't think Bush/Cheney tried to say going to Iraq was going to be easy or that we'd be accepted by all. It's there though, we are welcomoe, I've had friends who are over there tell me, I even saw something on the local news the other day where there were war protestors outside the White House and they got in a fight with some Iraqi Americans who walked by and started supporting the President. Do you think the rule of America is not superior to the rule of Iraq under Sadaam? Is that why you moved to Canada? Wasn't there for that one buddy. Be it that you've reviewed all the evidence, I guess I'll just have to grant you this one. I'd like to read your theory of just war. Here maybe this will make you happy, MacBeth, you were soooooo right about everything. You are the ruler of Foreign Policy and a true defender of truth. I was telling andy his critique of the NIE report, which by the way is your main reference document, was looking backwards because the words in there are severe and they warrant some sort of action. You have a nice day as well.
MacBeth, you just got OWNED ...and hindsight is 20/20 when you try to go back and analyze decision made in times of uncertainty. What a horrible argument you are putting forth here.
twhy77, I think you're a bit naive in your response, but I don't do the micro-dissection/post response that several others here do pretty well. Just not my thing. I wish you had been around (lurking or otherwise) during the period MacBeth is talking about... because I don't see anything from him in the post you are responding to that is not true (from the perspective of this BBS) or an exaggeration. MacBeth and I don't agree on everything, but I think I can say we agree on this, even if some parts may be for different reasons. twhy77, I don't think you've looked as deeply into this as you should, but that's just my opinion.
Simply put its like this. Even if we were lied to to the extent that many on this board believe we were (highly questionable), its in our best interests strategically to do it. This is from a strict foreign policy perspective and any claim otherwise seems a bit naive and idealistic.
When MacBeth is all frothed up, he may appear to overplay his hand -- but he's been consistent (and right, in my view) that the criteria for war was not present when George gave the Go Ahead. If you base a pre-emptive war on intelligence, you'd better be damned sure you're right. Being pretty sure is not good enough. Many said the 'evidence' of WMD was not conclusive enough. Turns out they were right. Sure, it's 'hindsight' that proved them right, but that's just the point. George needed better intelligence (insert random joke here ) -- before committing troops at that time. While we may be guilty of understating Saddam's tyranny, that tyranny, alone was not sufficient for war. Intervention needs either a trigger point, or conclusive evidence that something is in the works. The evidence he had was not conclusive. That is certainly clear today.
I totally and completely disagree that this invasion and occupation was in our national interest when we did it. Some other time down the road, but not then. Turn on the news... we didn't need to be in this situation. Saddam was a problem that could have and should have waited. This is a disaster for our country in so many different ways that it's rediculous.
No, we wait for evidence that is supported by more than just people with a vested interest in Saddam being ousted. The difference is that he was contained. We could have verified that he didn't have any weapons without shedding any blood and without spending over a hundred billion dollars. So, first you concede that the evidence was questionable and then you go on to say that since Saddam might have been developing nukes (assumption based on evidence you admit is questionable), that we had to go in and take Saddam out. Saddam didn't even have the beginnings of a nuclear program, nor did he have any other WMDs. Strategically, it would have been much better to finish what we started in Afghanistan, including finding OBL and rebuilding that country. As it is, our actions are going to create more terrorists than we have now. So I guess your position is "might makes right." That is the kind of thinking that will destroy our country. Rumsfeld stated before the war that we “would be greeted as liberators with sweets and flowers.” That is a direct quote. How about one which is not justified with false evidence and is fought against a country which directly threatens the United States. Yes, if I remember correctly, the report itself concluded that we could address the concerns by completing inspections. We pulled the inspectors AND refused Saddam's offer to allow the FBI and CIA to scour the country.
An opposing viewpoint, before the WMD fiasco: http://www.ird-renew.org/news/NewsPrint.cfm?ID=548&c=4 Just War in Iraq Robert P. George January 10, 2003 Robert P. George is the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He is also a board member at IRD. A revised version of this article originally appeared in the December 6 edition of the Wall Street Journal. Used here with permission. Over the past few months, a number of Christian leaders—Protestant and Catholic—have questioned whether a war in Iraq can be justified. They have expressed many concerns, but three of the most important are these: (1) Can military action be morally legitimate if it is pre-emptive? (2) Is it morally permissible to use force to remove a tyrannical and aggressive regime from power, as opposed to merely disarming it? (3) May the United States legitimately lead a coalition against Saddam Hussein if the United Nations refuses, in the end, to authorize the use of force to remove or disarm his regime? The religious leaders raising these questions are not pacifists. They do not suggest that the use of military force is never justifiable. Rather, they argue that a pre-emptive war in Iraq waged by the United States and its allies with the goal of removing Saddam from power does not satisfy the requirements of “just war theory.” It was by explicit appeal to the body of principles comprising the theory of “just war” that President Bush’s father justified the use of military force to evict Saddam from Kuwait in the Gulf War of 1991. The current President Bush also makes his case for using force against Saddam by invoking these principles. The debate, then, is not about whether just war principles ought to guide our government’s decision as to whether to go to war; rather, it concerns the application of just war principles to the case at hand. President Bush maintains that these principles authorize—even require—the use of force to prevent Saddam’s acquisition and possible use of weapons even more frightening than those he has used in the past. The religious leaders who oppose war insist that they do not. Who is right? Let’s first examine the question of pre-emptive military action. Although the medieval architects of just war theory held that punishing past aggression is among the legitimate purposes of war, most modern authorities on the subject rule out retributive justifications for resorting to arms. The modern tradition holds that war may be waged only for defensive purposes, and then only as a last resort. President Bush’s critics insist that pre-emptive action cannot be defensive, and that prior to another actual act of aggression by Saddam just war principles limit the United States to diplomatic, rather than military, options. In my judgment, the critics are mistaken. Pre-emptive action is “defensive” when it is motivated by a reasonable belief that a proven aggressor is in the process of equipping himself with the military means to carry out further aggression with impunity. Few people doubt that Saddam is seeking to enhance his chemical and biological arsenal, and (even more ominously) to acquire nuclear weapons. Few deny that he will, if successful, use these weapons to terrorize other nations in the region and force them to bend to his will. Bill Clinton observed as far back as 1998 that Saddam’s quest to dominate the Middle East by acquiring weapons of mass destruction is an active threat to U.S. allies and vital interests. According to Joseph Lieberman, “every day Saddam remains in power is a day of danger for the Iraqi people, for Iraq's neighbors, for the American people, and for the world.” John McCain says that Saddam “is a clear and present danger to the United States of America.” If Presidents Bush and Clinton and Senators Lieberman and McCain are right about the gravity of the threat posed by Saddam, then pre-emptive military action against his regime is in no way excluded by just war doctrine. Indeed, it would be perverse to suppose that force may not be used against an aggressive tyrant such as Saddam until after he has armed himself with weapons of mass destruction. By that point it would be too late. His threat to use, say, nuclear arms against Israel, Kuwait, and other nations would deter any effective military response to his aggression. How about the morality of using military force to remove a regime, as opposed merely to disarming it? In a letter to President Bush, Bishop Wilton Gregory, President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, asked: “Should not a distinction be drawn between efforts to change unacceptable behavior of a government and efforts to end that government’s existence?” The answer is that the relevance of the distinction depends entirely on the circumstances. There is no absolute moral principle forbidding the use of force to dismantle a tyrannical regime. The question requires prudential judgment. If a regime’s murderous aggression cannot be prevented without removing the regime, then force may licitly be used, assuming the other requirements of justice in warfare are observed, to remove it. Finally, let’s turn to the question of who may properly authorize and carry out a military action to disarm or remove Saddam. A traditional criterion of just war is that proper authority must wage it. According to some religious leaders and other critics of the President, the United States and its allies, unless authorized by the United Nations, are not a legitimate authority for waging war to destroy or disarm the Iraqi regime. They insist that the international community, operating through the United Nations, alone has the authority to use force in Iraq. I will not here address claims that some on the Left have made about U.S. obligations under international law. Suffice it to say that nothing in just war theory places unique authority to prevent aggression in the hands of the “international community” or international organizations such as the United Nations. Of course, President Bush has acted prudently in building international support and obtaining a United Nations resolution requiring Saddam to abandon his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and submit to unconditional inspections. However, should the United Nations decline or fail to enforce its just demands for unconditional inspections and Iraqi disarmament, the United States and her allies have every right to protect themselves and other potential victims of Saddam’s aggression. Catholic scholar George Weigel has observed that just war theory, properly understood, is part of a larger theory of statecraft. Its principles guide political leaders as to when they must refrain from using military means to achieve their ends, but they also give guidance as to when they are morally obligated to resort to arms for the sake of preventing or resisting aggression. The United States Catholic Bishops and other religious leaders have rightly reminded the President and the nation that war can be justified only as a last resort. But we must be clearheaded about what this principle means in the current circumstance: If Saddam submits to truly unconditional inspections, and if United Nations inspectors are able to eliminate his illegal weapons and demolish his weapons manufacturing infrastructure, then an invasion of Iraq would be unnecessary, and therefore unjustifiable. If. People of every faith should unite in prayer that the people of Iraq and of the United States and her allies will be spared what Lincoln called the “mighty scourge of war.” At the same time, given Saddam’s record of aggression and duplicity, no one should assume that military force will not, in the end, prove necessary. It is a tragic fact of human affairs that sometimes statesmen cannot fulfill their moral duties to prevent aggression and resist tyranny relying exclusively on diplomatic or other non-military means. In these circumstances—though, to be sure, only then—just war theory supposes that the decision to fight is not merely optional; it is morally required.
http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.asp?ref=/novak/novak061203.as Michael Novak June 12, 2003, 8:45 a.m. Errors of Mass Destruction WMD search and accusations. he Bush administration has made two errors regarding weapons of mass destruction. First, it is now failing to make clear that prior to the war the administration did not have the burden of proving that there were, or were not, weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. That burden fell on Saddam Hussein. (This simple conclusion should have always been clear to all, since the U.N. inspectors never carried the burden of proof either.) Since Iraq was known by U.N. inspectors to have had many such weapons until 1998, and since the disposition of these weapons after that time was not known, as by international obligation it ought to have been, the United States had no practical choice but to assume that they were still in existence. Second, the public has not been made aware of how small a set of objects the U.S. is now looking for. In January, Hans Blix said that, among other things, 8,500 liters of anthrax were unaccounted for. How much space do 8,500 liters occupy? That's about 45 drums — the size of oil drums — probably spread out in several different hiding places. If one contemplates how much damage a single teaspoon of anthrax caused in Washington, D.C., when it was spread through the mail in October of 2001, the United States was right to be worried about the enormous damage that a suitcase full of anthrax delivered by a small cell of terrorists might wreak. That is why our troops in the field are not expecting to find huge warehouses or enormous storage spaces. They are looking for materials that may be hidden in somebody's basement, behind a false wall, in a space the size of a clothes' closet. THREE FURTHER POINTS After September 11, given the character of Saddam Hussein and the variety of terrorist leaders who took shelter under him in Baghdad, from Abu Nidal to top people of al Qaeda, President Bush had to recognize a clear and worrisome danger. On any day that went by, terrorists seeking biological weapons might offer their clandestine delivery system in exchange for a supply of Saddam's weapons. Again, as Stanley Kurtz has pointed out on NRO, several Iraqi villagers recently became ill after they broke into an unguarded nuclear facility at Tuwaitha (the one bombed by the Israelis years ago). In ignorance, they had emptied out barrels containing radioactive materials in order to use them as water containers. The New York Times now laments that these dangerous materials had been left unguarded, and so could have been seized by terrorists intent on manufacturing "an inestimable quantity of so-called dirty bombs." Here is the New York Times making Bush's prewar argument! And, by the way, 1.8 tons of low-enriched uranium counts as a weapon of mass destruction, doesn't it? Finally, Democrats in Congress should assemble all the evidence about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction revealed by President Clinton and Vice President Gore right up till they left power in early 2001, and by the U.N. inspection teams both in 1998 and again in 2003. Then they should try to measure any daylight between this evidence and the evidence adduced by President Bush and his team. They may end up pointing fingers at themselves. — Michael Novak is the winner of the 1994 Templeton Prize for progress in religion and the George Frederick Jewett Scholar in Religion, Philosophy, and Public Policy at the American Enterprise Institute.
Interesting article Twhy. I guess we differ on whether 'reasonable belief' of arming means you go to war, or whether it means you do everything possible to verify that belief before taking action. We had pictures of the missile sites when the Cuban Missile Crisis launched. We did not have that kind of evidence with Iraq. I accept that many had a reasonable belief that Iraq was developing WMD. Our intelligence, however, had not verified that belief to a reasonable level. My disagreement was the urgency with which George sprung into action. The inspectors were there, the threat had existed for quite a while, and progress was finally being made. Possibly action against Iraq was inevitable. Certainly there was reason to devote more and more resources to confirming or refuting the belief that Saddam was amassing weapons. I don't think that effort was made. As Deckard said -- it's quite possible more harm than good was done by undertaking this action ** when we did it.** I don't think you had to wait until Saddam struck. But you certainly should have ensured you were right before marching on in.
The Novak article outlines some of the points which made me say MacBeth and others 'overplay' their hand on occasion. Certainly, Saddam was more of a threat than we sometimes portray, and if i recall correctly, he was extemely uncooperative with inspectors until very late in the game. i recall one editorial that suggested Saddam played up the fact he may have had WMD's in a misguided effort to discourage his detractors -- a MAD scenario or some such thing. All of that, however, justifies increased resouces to verify those contentions. You simply have to catch him first. You suspect he's a danger, you have reason to believe he's a danger, you really think he's a danger -- but you got to find out!! The bar was set far too low, in this instance, before going in. And this error was magnified when George belittled and alienated many of his allies along the way.
I was refering to my post prior to the one you have responded to in this thread. 1) Applying your strategy excusing attacking anyone anywhere. Anyone could become a threat, and could develop WMDs. 2) As far back as 1947, the United Nations established an internationally agreed standard for action, and not only was pre-emptive or preventative war not an accepted means of defense, it was specifically defined as an act of aggression. We should know this; we were it's primary authors. Now before you try and say that that was then, this is now, beyond the usal flaw in that selective use of application, it should be noted that it is still in the active definition as defined by the UNSC, and what's more, we ourselves have cited it as a means of objecting to actions in the recent past, well into the age of terrorism. The reasons why pre-emptive action is not an acceptable defense action are legion, but most are based on a common sense approach and a knowledge that it can be exploited. Anyone who assumes that suspicion should apply to everyone but themselves will never get it, but suffice it to say that we always did, till we broke it ourselves. 3) War is and always should be the action of last resort, for so many reasons. Suspicion is not even part-way down the path. No, it's very clear. And a hell of a lot of difference, in that there was a mechanism in place which we had agreed to, and it neede very little more time. We brushed it aside and rushed in citing urgency, nad were wrong. In that respect, the difference in time equals lives lost. God. Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or CBW against the United States, fearing that exposure of Iraqi involvement would provide Washington a stronger cause for making war. Iraq probably would attempt clandestine attacks against the US Homeland if Baghdad feared an attack that threatened the survival of the regime were imminent or unavoidable, or possibly for revenge. Such attacks—more likely with biological than chemical agents—probably would be carried out by special forces or intelligence operatives. • The Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) probably has been, directed to conduct clandestine attacks against US and Allied interests in the Middle East in the event the United States takes action against Iraq. The IIS probably would be the primary means by which Iraq would attempt to conduct any CBW attacks on the US Homeland, although we have no specific intelligence information that Saddam’s regime has directed attacks against US territory. Saddam, if sufficiently desperate, might decide that only an organization such as al-Qa'ida—with worldwide reach and extensive terrorist infrastructure, and already engaged in a life-or-death struggle against the United States—could perpetrate the type of terrorist attack that he would hope to conduct. • In such circumstances, he might decide that the extreme step of assisting the Islamist terrorists in conducting a CBW attack against the United States would be his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him. It's right there in black and white. It's not what I'm trying to tell you, it's what the NIE says, what the intel directors have confirmed it means, and what even several administration officials have since admitted. If you call this questionable, you're not trying to be realistic. This is what the WH was being told at the time, period. "in league to obtain..." So war based on what he wanted to do? How far removed from last resort can you get? Oh, please. Ok, I'll grant you that the world probably isn't flat. Some are still arguing about what the intent was for using questionable evidence, but precious few are even trying to deny it any more. The facts speak for themselves. I'll let andy, rim, GV or someone better at that sort of thing list the exact FACTS as we know them...for the 14, 325nd time. A) Neither is the sky made out of cheese, but what has that to do with anything? B) We also didn't want the Soviets to have nukes. Or the Chinese. Or just about everyone but Israel who has them. And still to date, there is still only one country who's used the dmned things. Again, read the NIE report, specifically the section I quoted. Uh, why? He had WMD last time, didn't use them. ANd, again, pre-emptive warfafe; so wrong it's not funny. People keep saying this and overlooking the somewhat relevant detail that we weren't looking AFTER OUR OWN INTERESTS at home, WE WERE INVADING ANOTHER COUNTRY. Would you allow other nations to pursue their own agendas wherever they choose...or again, only us? If so, why did we fight GW1, again? Uh..we spent decades upon decades telling other countries, including allies like Great Britain that they had to accord with the global community...but when it opposes us, suddenly it's meaningless? Do you really want to go back to a Medieval Might Makes Right mindset? Yes, consistent with history, logic, and the findings of the NIE. You'd prefer to swallow an even bigger theory as a pretense for war? MR. RUSSERT: If your analysis is not correct, and we’re not treated as liberators, but as conquerors, and the Iraqis begin to resist, particularly in Baghdad, do you think the American people are prepared for a long, costly, and bloody battle with significant American casualties? VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, I don’t think it’s likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators. I’ve talked with a lot of Iraqis in the last several months myself, had them to the White House. The president and I have met with them, various groups and individuals, people who have devoted their lives from the outside to trying to change things inside Iraq. And like Kanan Makiya who’s a professor at Brandeis, but an Iraqi, he’s written great books about the subject, knows the country intimately, and is a part of the democratic opposition and resistance. The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but what they want to the get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that. ...and ...I have no doubt that we will be met with open arms and flowers by the people of Iraq. You were saying something about someone being out of there depth? It's there though, we are welcomoe, I've had friends who are over there tell me, I even saw something on the local news the other day where there were war protestors outside the White House and they got in a fight with some Iraqi Americans who walked by and started supporting the President. Personal opinions don't alter facts, or make generalities true. I have no idea what the majority is, I am simply stating that we were wrong in our pre-war predictions. This is one area, at least, where the administration has pretty much admitted error. Do you think the rule of America is not superior to the rule of Iraq under Sadaam? Is that why you moved to Canada? Irrelevent. There are many systems which might be judged as superior to ours...would that prove to be true, would that give them the moral right to invade us and put us under thier control? Or are we back to might is right? I honestly can't tell if this is a lame swipe, or an honest concession. Needless to say it's easily proven...it happened in here. Lol. I'll send you my old thesis. Short of that, though, a person can object without having to offer solutions. I may not know how to cure a headache, but I can still say with some certainty that decapitation is not the answer. See, now, this is just assinine. I made a point of saying it's not about feeling superior. This isn;t like having called a play right in football. This is about people losing their lives, and I am not gratified at having been borne out, because it's meant I was right about an unjust war. I would much rather have been wrong. As things are, we are a very dangerous, very arrogant superpower, and hisotry doesn't record those kinds of players having positive effects on the planet. And I was wrong about 2 things in this, anyway; I thought he probably did have WMDs, and I thought the Turkish question early on could have developed into a big problem. Beyond that my take has been, sadly, correct.
1) Yeah, right. 2) It's not hindsight when you saw it in advance. Bob: Hey, you'd better slow down. There's a deer corssing up ahead. George: Shut up. I drive better than you, so don't tell me how to look after my car. Bob: Well, this is still a deer crossing. George: Whatever. Bob: Look...I see a deer! Slow down! George: There is no deer! Jesus, will you pipe down! Bob: You can't see the deer because you're not looking! It's right there! George: No, it's not! That's a shadow, idiot! Bob: No, I can see it...look out! George: For the last time...there is no Thump Bob: God, you hit the damned deer. Why didn;t you pay attention? George: Oh, easy for you to say NOW. Hindsight is always 20/20...
A) It's only highly questionable if you want it to be. B) Ok, let's clear something up...do you prefer democracy, ie a responsible government serving the people's wishes, or dictatorship, ie a leadership that does what it sees as the best for the country, and assuages or manipulates the populace by whatever means necessary to do what it wants?
Oh getting an argument with you on line is so tedious. I'm not doing the whole quote thing. I'll just post an article from one of my good friend's father. http://www.archden.org/dcr/news.php?e=75&s=3&a=1832 George Weigel Iraq and just war, revisited A year later, here's the question posed to those who argued that it would be morally justifiable to use armed force to compel Iraq's compliance with U.N. disarmament resolutions: if you knew then what you know now, would you have made the same call? I would. We know some things now that we also knew then. We know Saddam Hussein was in material breach of the "final" U.N. warning, Resolution 1441; his formal response to 1441 was a lie. We know he had the scientists, the laboratories, and the other necessary infrastructure for producing weapons of mass destruction (WMD). We know he was seeking long-range ballistic missiles (again in defiance of the U.N.) to deliver biological, chemical, and perhaps nuclear weapons. We know now, in even more horrifying detail, that Saddam's was a terror regime in which unimaginable brutality was normal state practice. We know, now as then, that Saddam's regime provided safe haven for terrorists. (I'll grant you I'm still looking for a knock-out link for this one) And we should know now, as we should have known then, that these four facts — Saddam's pursuit of WMD, his internal repression, his defiance of the U.N., and his links to international terrorism — were of a piece. Some have said recently that Saddam himself was the real "weapon of mass destruction" in Iraq. That's a little too clever. But the truth in the trope is that Saddam's regime, as its actions and capabilities demonstrated, was an "aggression underway." The aggression took different forms at different moments over twenty-some years. But the "aggression" was constant. We also know now that we haven't found caches of WMD in Iraq. What difference does this make to the moral analysis? Prior to the war, no one doubted that Saddam had WMD. The U.N. thought he did. France thought he did. The only question in dispute was, how was he to be disarmed? And while the investigation of Saddam's WMD programs is incomplete — millions of pages of documents remain to be translated; some high-ranking Iraqi WMD scientists still refuse to cooperate — it seems to me that something like this happened: Saddam got rid of chemical and biological weapons in various ways: some were destroyed outright, other materials may have been sent to Syria, still other weapons may remain buried. Saddam was willing to bet that the U.N. would never authorize an armed enforcement of its resolutions; that the U.S. would cave in; and that he could then ramp-up his WMD programs after U.N. sanctions were lifted. Meanwhile, as David Kay noted in his now-famous report, internal controls were eroding in Baghdad, making it more likely that Iraqi military officers or scientists would transfer WMD to terrorists or other rogue states (which is why Dr. Kay told the Senate that, despite the failure to find WMD caches, Iraq was perhaps even more dangerous than we thought). Suppose we knew all that in March 2003? Would that have made a substantive difference to the moral case for the war? I don't think so. If the "regime factor" is crucial in calculating "just cause" in situations like this, the more complex WMD situation as we now understand it doesn't vitiate the case for the war. As David Kay suggested (in a largely unreported comment), it may strengthen it in some respects. And while moral arguments from consequences are not without difficulties, the case for the war has also been strengthened by several of its results: Iraq is building the infrastructure of a civil society; no more mass graves are being dug; rape is no longer an instrument of state policy; a free press flourishes; children are learning from reliable textbooks rather than being poisoned by propaganda; an interim constitution that provides protection for a broader array of human rights and a more representative form of government than can be found anywhere else in the Middle East has been successfully negotiated by a wide variety of Iraqis; Iraq's economic resources, including its oil, are being used for the benefit of the Iraqi people, not a murderous regime; the Iraqi people are vigorously engaged in publicly debating their future, despite the efforts of terrorists to shut debate down. A year later, I would still contend that the war was morally justified. The argument isn't a simple one. In this kind of world, it never is. George Weigel is a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. Weigel's column is distributed by the Denver Catholic Register, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Denver. Phone: 303-715-3123
In other words, you've given up winning the argument and decided to post an op-ed in place of a response. twhy: You weren't around during the pre-war debate. Advanced search is disabled, but you can still catch up by searching the period of time leading up to the war. There is ZERO that is inconsistent about MacBeth's arguments here. Those of us who opposed the war, and did so specifically due to the unconvincing nature of the alleged threat, have not changed our positions a whit. Those who favored it have changed theirs several times, in the most meaningful ways. MacBeth and several others (including myself) were called out in the most vicious ways for saying things that now turn out to be true. It should be noted that neither of us doubted back then that Iraq had WMD's -- only that Iraq didn't pose a meaningful threat. We were called idiots and much, much worse. Constantly. It turns out we were not only right -- we were even more right than we knew. Several of those who favored the war back then, based on the intel, have now changed their positions. The ones who continue to favor it have engaged in the most egregious forms of revisionist history this board has ever seen. You can only say that stuff about hindsight from an ignorant perspective. I don't blame you for thinking it -- again, you weren't here. But it isn't hindsight. We said this stuff a long time ago and we took our lumps for standing up for what we believed in. We were right, those guys who favored the war back then were wrong. I don't blame them for being wrong back then either -- they were misled. Back then it was an arguable judgment call as to the extent to which this administration could be trusted to give us a full accounting of the threat. As it turns out, we were right and they were wrong, but they couldn't have known that for certain back then. Now they can. And their only recourse is to pretend those arguments never happened and try to craft new ones. Those arguments did happen though and they're searchable. Educate yourself and drop the hindsight crap. It's crap. As a matter of record.
A)No MacBeth, The NIE report you sight, which by the way isn't even part of the CIA.gov's NIE report , and even if it was, the conjecture was only for that immediate time. Let an evil dictator grow and you get something quite different. B)You need to shore up those definitions of dictatorship and democracy. Democracy is a flawed regime in Aristotle's world. It's where the people rule for their own interest. I think you have the idea of a polity in mind maybe? Even then we're a far cry from that. What makes your definition of a dictatorship different from a monarchy? Where's republic? For a brilliant exposition on just war theory read my earlier post by Robbie George.
I don't think I'm trying to say that MacBeth is wrong on what went on in the earlier part of the conversation. I'm questioning the analysis. It's just that andy was saying the things that were in the NIE report were wrong and nobody knew that, as you guys have both admitted that you thought Iraq had WMD's. Its just a simple part of the argument. Read Weigel's piece its good, especially the part about the Kay report and how Iraq might have been a bigger threat than we thought. I simply think the issue has a lot more gray areas than we've seen presented here on the BBS, which comes mainly from lazy research and argumentation on the point of the BBS's conservative members, but not from any lack of evidence for a gray area. I'm just trying to be fair and my gut tells me that neither side is right at this point, and MacB seems to have thrown down the ceremonial touchdown spike (and not in a pompous way, I'm sorry I implied that) on the argument.
The *best* evidence they have been using is the same evidence the administration has been trumping for years as far as I can tell, which is nothing which has stood up to scrutiny. It's all looks like some weird justification for making Laurie Mylroie's fantasies come true.
twhy: The old arguments are relevant specifically because the right was arguing with talking points from the president and the vice president of the United States. If the president and vice president had some secret, ulterior motives for the war -- ones they did not present to the American public as the reasons for war -- it is no one's fault but their own that they are now accused of misleading the nation on the most important possible matters. If they did not knowingly mislead the nation on a matter that sent Americans to die and to kill innocent civilians in a foreign land, then they did so from a position of willful ignorance. I'm not sure which is more troubling. Either way they surely shouldn't be trusted to make these sorts of decisions ever again. As to MacBeth and I (and others) suspecting Saddam probably did have the WMD's, we both argued that didn't constitute an actionable threat as he had no way of using them to inflict harm on America. Further, our own intelligence back then told us he almost certainly wouldn't even try to do so unless we went to war. This is important. The same people who told Bush and Cheney he probably had them (not definitely - probably) told them he probably WOULDN'T use them unless he was attacked. Bush and Cheney then told the American people there was "no doubt" that he had them, that we knew where they were (LOL) and that they constituted an immediate threat (directly contrary to what they were told by the intel sources they based their whole case on). Further they used all that ridiculous, heated, lying rhetoric about mushroom clouds to sway right people with right doubts in order to conduct a war they'd decided on before the debate began. I don't post in this forum very much anymore. The main reason is that it is folly to try and conduct an intelligent debate or discussion when the other side keeps moving the goalpost. The only reason I'm responding to you is that you were not here for those discussions and so I don't hold you accountable for all the wrong, and vicious, things that were said. But you can't start a new discussion that chucks the old one. The old one is as relevant as can be. If, having read up on the arguments that went before, you want to start a new one that accounts for all that and poses a new point, I'd be happy to discuss it with you. As it stands, you say that stuff about hindsight and the rest of your argument's shot. You're not on record for making the assinine arguments the right did back then, but you're complicit if you ignore them and, by extension, you ignore the arguments the president and vice president of the United States made. I strongly urge you to read those old threads. They will blow your freaking mind. If, having read them, you want to come back and admit we were right and the POTUS and his BBS supporters were wrong but you've got a new point to make, I'll be all ears. But not before.
