No, it's not about Bush is worse than Saddam...it's about whether or not we have the right to decide what's right for someone else...and the position taken by many in favour has been based on our supposed moral high-ground which, once raised (any lawyer will tell you) comes open to scrutiny, and refutation.
Pole, excellent point. Absolutely, I am guilty. I withdraw my "administration" jab if it helps make my point, but it's probably too late. I got up out of my chair and tried to slap the show's other guests! Jer-ry! Jer-ry! B-Bob! B-Bob! 111chase111, we're talking here. It's all good. I hear you, but I for one don't think of people as "pro-war" in the sense that they go around looking for a war. For what it's worth, I think most protestors (not all, I'll admit, but most) would say this: Saddam is much, much worse than Bush could ever be, but we expect a lot more from Bush, the leader of the free, democratic world, than we do from Saddam. Maybe that ain't fair, but it's a far cry from "Bush and America are worse than Saddam!" Now, if people say American is more *dangerous* than Iraq, you can almost see where they're coming from since we've got a lot, lot more of an arsenal. (I don't agree with this sentiment, but...) If we look like we're behaving irrationally and we have the world's greatest military, that could look scary to somebody.
How are the Iraqi people supposed to decide for themselves? As far as having the moral high ground, when large amounts of people support Bush, when other democratic governments are behind us, when (or if) we get UN approval, then we do have the moral high ground over Saddam Hussein.
1) You cannot enorce self-determination on someone else. 2) No, no, no...that's just it. It's not about having moral high-ground over Saddam Hussein...it's about having it over the world, and therefore being able to tell the world what is right and wrong according to us. It's not like it's a game where every nation morally superior to another is therefore allowed to attack it's morally inferior neighbour...If, say, Norway has moral highground over us, does that mean that, were they able, they would be right in invading us and establishing a system reflective of their own values?
Guys (and gals), It's not even really about having the "moral high ground" (although that gets thrown around like "war for oil" does). It's about attacking someone who is a potential threat to the U.S. As has been pointed out here many times in the past there are worse people then Saddam, there are other people suffering under other tyrants and the U.S. (like most every other country) is guilty of doing some pretty awfull things. But that's not the issue. The issue here is getting rid of a guy who should have been taken out by the U.S. (or someone in the Middle East) a long time ago, not because he's "evil" per se (although that fact makes taking him out more palatable) but because he's an evil guy that threaten's the U.S. He's a threat because he's demonstrated a propensity for using chemical weapons and a desire to obtain nukes. Now, I for one would just as soon not take the moral high ground of "we'll we've got <inseart weapon of mass destruction here> so it's only fair that he's got them". I'd just as soon eliminate the threat. I don't even want the potential of him making weapons available to terrorists (any terrorist) for the purposes of hurting innocent people and the fact that he's so bad makes it easy to rationalize.
One more time with feeling... THe United Nations defintion of what is and what is not acceptable military action in self-defense clearly, specifically and repeatedly states that pre-emptive action against a potential threat is not self-defense, but an act of aggression. It should be noted that the US was largely responsible for the verbiage used in this defintion, as it was pretty much aimed at curtailing Soviet aggression, which usually occurred under the guise of them 'protecting' themselves from parties which represented a 'danger' to the USSR. It should be also noted that the world in general and the UN in particular didn't support the USSR's cause of pre-emptive self-defense...and that the USSR responded by calling the UN 'irrelevent'...Sound farmiliar?
Do you realize how absurd it is to say you should be able, not willing, but able, to act without consideration of your own interests? And even if, not to grant the point but for the sake of this conversation , if you could do so, it has no relevance on whether you action IS just or not. True, it is POSSIBLE than your evaluation of what is just COULD BE affected. However, stop do-see-doe'n aroundf this particular situation. Do you think Saddam is good? Or that he legitimately rules Iraq? Or that the Iraqi people would be better off with him than with someone else? Or that the US would be better off with him than someone else? Clearly the answer to these questions is no. Even most of worldwide opposition would not dispute these things. So in this SPECIFIC example, you know, the one WE'RE TALKING ABOUT, there is no injustice in removing Saddam. I'm not sure why you are assuming my information is on-line rather than 'textual.' Or what that matters. Yes, many lawmen walked the outlaw trail at one point or another. Many more did not. If you mean Louis L'Amour or Zane Grey by 'textual' then I may see how you came to form your opinion. Texas Rangers, for example, were a thriving force during the 'Wild West,' fighting both Comanche and outlaws. They more often than not were not even fulltime lawmen, but citizens of local communities that banded together for specific purposes. And really your point is just plain silly. It is always in a lawman's interest to keep the peace. He is safe. His family and business is safe. It is always in the US's interest for the world to be peaceful. We are well acquainted with your strict non-interventionist views, but they are not shared by most rational people. Not even the anti-war crowd goes as far as you do. It is simply infinitely regressive. And TheFreak, I thank you.
Well, the guy who wrote the article, who has actually experienced real oppression, unlike you, MacBeth, thinks that an outside intervention CAN result in self-determination. Who are you, and how are YOU qualified to say otherwise? Are you really so out of it to suggest that Saddam is in power as a result of the people's will?
I don't think going into Iraq is pre-emptive, however. It is merely Saddam facing the consequences of violating U.N. resolution after resolution. The surrender agreements signed after the Gulf War give the U.N. the right to dis-arm Saddam if failed to do so himself. Right now, the U.S. is working on getting (yet) another U.N. resolution passed. Now, going into North Korea or Iran would probably be considered a pre-emptive action. Which is why there is more talk about a diplomatic solution at least with regards to North Korea.
Barely scanned the thread and don't have time now to read it through. Will try later. Couple things jumped out though: 1. One of those magazines in the Chronicle (Parade? Texas? I don't remember) recently ran an article (week ago Sunday I think) ranking the top twenty or so worst dictators. Pretty sure the list was compiled in association with Amnesty International, but that could easily be my very bad memory working. Saddam was lower than top five I think. I think he was around 7 or 8. At any rate, Saudi Arabia was definitely higher than Iraq with regard to human rights violations. And we love them. Lest anyone think me pro-Saddam (and what a stupid thing for anyone here to say of anyone else here, no matter how passionate your take or how much you hate protestors), I think anyone who makes this list is a very bad man that the world would be better off without. I just don't think it's our government's job to clean up every bad mess in the world. 2. johnheath said he'd like to rid the world of the internal combustion engine. And I don't want to pass up the chance to acknowledge what may be the only time I've ever agreed with him. This is me agreeing with him. 3. More johnheath. (He's a star.) Love the new sig. Welcome to the BBS.
I will buy you a pizza tonight, by calling your local Dominoes and paying with my CC, if you can back up the above statement with fact. There is no way the above is true!
Damn, no edit - here is the whole thing: THE 10 WORST: Tucked deep inside the five-pound pile of advertisements otherwise known as the Chicago Tribune's Sunday edition, Parade magazine has a story listing "The 10 Worst Living Dictators," authored by David Wallechinsky. There isn't a direct link to the story, so I've recreated Wallechinsky's list below: 1) Kim Jong Il - North Korea (Age 61, in power since 1994) 2) King Fahd & Crown Prince Abdullah - Saudi Arabia (Ages 80 & 79, in power since 1982 & 1995, respectively) 3) Saddam Hussein - Iraq (Age 65, in power since 1979) 4) Charles Taylor - Liberia (Age 55, in power since 1977) 5) Than Shwe - Burma (Age 70, in power since 1992) 6) Teodoro Obiang Nguema - Equatorial Guinea (Age 60, in power since 1979). 7) Saparmurad Niyazov - Turkmenistan (Age 62, in power since 1990) 8) Muammar al-Qaddafi - Libya (Age 60, in power since 1969) 9) Fidel Castro - Cuba (Age 76, in power since 1959) 10) Alexander Lukashenko - Belarus (Age 48, in power since 1994)
I don't know. I think that technically, I owe Batman a pizza. I can't believe that anybody in their right mind thinks that Saddam is as bad as the Saudis. Their actual human rights records are not even close.
This is completely hilarious. I had no idea when I spouted off (I aimed for irony) that people *actually* ranked dictators as if they were facial products in Glamour magazine. LMAO! This makes my day. Maybe we could have a computer algorithm like they do for the BCS in college football. You know, with number of executions, strength of schedule, margin of torture, etc. Just make sure they don't use percentage of population imprisoned! LMAO!
No pizza necessary, heath. Anyway, I'm vegan. I don't eat that cheese stuff. Thanks for the sentiment though. That is the article I was talking about. I remembered it wrong, as I said I might. Main thing that stood out to me was that there were people ahead of Saddam (including an ally) on the list.
Little bit more. Sorry. Don't care for the edit function. It surprised me too that Saudi Arabia was ranked higher than Iraq, but not so much. SA's our ally right now. You're no more likely to hear bad things about them in America than you were to hear bad things about Iraq when they were our allies. And that was a time, after all, when they were using chemical weapons against Iran. The point I'd like to make here is not to believe everything our government tells us. They sometimes have good motivation to amp up one threat and downplay another. There were no Iraqis on those planes that attacked us. They were mostly Saudis. We have a lot of enemies both inside and outside Bush's "axis of evil." Saddam Hussein is a killer and a madman, but there are lots of those. One of my concerns about this war is that we might be attacking the easy enemy rather than the most dangerous one, sort of like the story about the guy who loses his keys in a dark movie theater and looks for them outside cause the light's better there.
It's times like these I wish I DID lean on the edit function a little bit. Maybe it's down anyway. rimbaud: If you have it, I think it'd be great to include the text from the article. As I remember it there was a capsule on each dictator. While I'm here, one more reason not to send a Domino's pizza. They refused to join in on the anti-apartheid campaign in South Africa, effectively supporting the pro-apartheid government. As such, even if I ate cheese (or, as I call it, liquid meat), I wouldn't eat their pizzas. Kinda like the problem some people have with Robert Byrd.
Rimbaud, I searched on the web for this list and found a comment that he has the wrong date (typo?) in power for Taylor and Samuel Doe's name was mentioned. Then, I remembered the wheelbarrow story about Doe. Batman, I have yet to find the article linked from <i>Parade</i>.
Here's the link: http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/parade/...PMID=49939&desc=The+10+Worst+Living+Dictators But if you want the whole article, you gotta pay for it.
