Most of the work in Bosnia and Kosovo was handled by the Europeans, In Rwanda we should have gone, but that was a more immediate emergency situation as well. The differences are great. While both cases were or would have been military actions they weren't starting a war. Invading Iraq was starting a war. If we are going to start a war it should only be because we have to, and because that is a last resort. Iraq did not meet that criteria. Never again can the U.S. say we dont' start wars or that we only used war as a last resort. That honor is gone from the U.S. forever. As far as Iraq being a sponsor of terrorism the support was tenuous and scarcely a threat to the U.S. Iraq should have been incredibly low on the list of state sponsors of terrorism that we needed to go after, and it shouldn't have even been on the list of state sponsors of terrorism that we needed to start a war to deal with. Saddam was a horrible guy he deserved to be ousted, and the Iraqis deserve a huge hand for having their elections. Military force still isn't the best way to spread democracy.
Are you purposely being dense? For instance if democratic change DOES stabilize in Iraq, and they reject the insurgency - that is a HUGE blow against AQ and terrorism in general. If the Muslim population THERE of all places, rejects the insurgency - AQ's recruiting could dry up completely. You suspect blah blah blah. You don't know. All indications are that even the Shiites will support a secular government. Your suspicions only serve to bolster your own predetermined conclusion which is hardly convincing. Wrong. The stated goal of the fundamentalist insurgents is to create another Taliban like state. Rejection of that option by the Iraqis is clearly a defeat for AQ and their bretheren. You'd have Muslims rejecting that vision of a fundamentalist Islamic state. That is why it will be a huge blow to AQ. They want to project that there is ONE united Muslim front fighting the West and modernity. Not true and this will conclusively prove it. Yes.
Sigh. How does this disprove my point? It doesn't. Besides, the 'Europeans' sat on their asses and did nothing until the US and Britain signalled they would go it alone unless they moved. The UN did NOTHING pre-strikes. But even this is beside the point - which is to refute thegary's assumption that we SHOULD not act unless we NEED to act. And? Do you even have a point or are you just trying to be a contrarian? So? Who gives a ****. If you SHOULD act then you SHOULD act. Again, how do we define 'have to?' For you it might mean only if we are about to be attacked. In that case you would have abandoned those in Bosnia and kosovo to Serbian genocide. If you had the choice you would have left Rwandas to die by the millions. NOT ME. I think your idea of 'honor' is misplaced. AND? Again, as to most of your points I say SO WHAT! It is undeniably an advantage that a state that was supporting terrorism is no longer doing so. You can argue mitigation of scope - I'll grant. AND? Its still goes in the advantage column. Right. So easy to say. He deserved to be ousted but we should have continued to let him crush his people... I disagree.
You were the one who brought up the comparison. I was merely pointing out the situations don't really compare because they are so different. Well you can act without starting a war. If you are going to start a war the criteria most certainly should be higher than for any other actions. Have to, means when there are no other options. We had other options. Have to, means our nation is in certain and immediate danger if we don't. Again I set a different criteria for helping a world wide effort in a limited engagement than I do to invading unprovoked against a a non-threatening sovereign nation. Honor has to do with upholding stated ideals of self determination, self rule, having your word mean something, etc. If you believe that Bush did want to go to war in Iraq so that we could spread democracy then he lied as to his reason for going to war. Lying in order to trick people into letting you start a war is in itself dishonorable. If an ideal is to spread free-will and choice, then marching in at gun point and forcing your form of govt. on them isn't honorable. It's all about benefit analysis in the war on terror. If taking out a Saddam's regime at this stage of the game makes us more unsafe from terrorism then it doesn't count as an advantage in that regard.
No, they aren't different in the context I used them, which is that there are scenarios where acting is the correct course even when we are not threatened directly. For that purpose they are fine examples. Your answer was irrelevant to that point. The core of your criteria is danger to our homeland. As above there are instances where action is warranted without such a threat. And you say 'you can act without starting a war,' but continuing containment (the alternative in this case) not only fails to capture ANY of the advantages of intervention, but it ONLY addresses the one assumption we were wrong about - that Saddam had WMD, lol. Uh, self determination....self rule....like letting Iraqis vote for their leaders instead of getting crushed by a despot? Maybe its just me but that sounds pretty consistent with our ideals. I don't know and its irrelevant, I'll point out AGAIN, to the question at hand: 'Is the intervention justified.' That is different than 'was the intervention properly justified.' I'll grant you Bush was either lying or so blinded by his own view that he did not justify the war properly. Blah blah this is so silly. Saddam was an artificial impediment to free-will and choice. We removed him, now they have free will and choice. That is perfectly honorable. I'm not claiming in as an advantage in that regard. It is advantageous to have one less state sponsoring terrorism (against ANYONE). There are other benefits I've gone through above that relate to the war on terror as well.
hayes, i am not assuming we should not have gone to war, and you certainly didn't refute any part of my philosophical moorings. need, as you said is a relative term and you are trying to paint franchise in a corner because of it. the human, socio-political and economic costs of this war are far too high. i think you are the one being purposefully dense. i asked you if there were alternatives to unilateral invasion. if you spent half as much time answering your own response: "such as?", as you do apologizing for this administration and their war, i bet you could with better answers than i. you are a bright guy but your lack of sensitivity to the price we've paid for your "scorecard" is baffling.
OK, then I must just have misunderstood you. Care to clarify? Are you saying we should have intervened or not? In your opinion. No. The choice was between unilateral intervention or continuing containment. If you think there were other choices on the agenda then please elaborate. I'm not saying that maybe out of all possible courses of action there were no alternatives - although again I'm not sure what you mean - I'm saying out of the choices being discussed by the administration and the international community. Not sure where I've apologized for this administration. In fact I've said many times that I am not a Bush supporter, and that if you want to castigate Bush for his justification of the intervention, then go ahead. My point is that saying 'Bush did not justify the war properly' is NOT the same as saying the intervention is not justified. I'm not sure what's baffling about my assessment. It is usually necessary to weigh the pros and cons to MAKE an assessment of a situation.
the problem is that you don't realize that you are apologizing for them by looking for justification without regard to cost. i think we will just simply disagree on this cost. i'm not a pacifist but i am bothered at our brothers and sisters dying over there. i'm not saying they died in vein, but they did died without our government exhausting every possibility before putting boots on the ground. we could have removed him another way.
Hmmm. I couch my opinion as such and you attack it with your opinion stated as fact. All indications are that the Shiites are bidding their time waiting for the US forces to leave. Until the troups leaves, I suspect that the Shiites will say and do whatever it takes to make the US happy. Once the US troups leave after being asked nicely by the Shiites, the Shiites will have free reign of the Iraqi government. Your guess is that the Shiites will support a secular government. I find that apocryphal. Looking at the Persian Shiites in Iran, I don't see a secular (or West friendly for that matter) government. Given the relatively close ties between the Persian and Arab Shiites, one must consider Iraq becoming a theological state a real possibility. To complicate matters, the two biggest minorities in Iraq, the Kurds and the Sunnis, will not be happy with a Shiite run government, regardless of secularism. The Sunnis fear reprisals from the Shiites and are actively fighting the interim government and occupation forces. The Kurds want their own independent country, which may be their death wish since the Shiites and the Sunnis are not going to stand for that. My guess is that the iraqi situation will likely not end well. I hope that this is not the case. Psychologists have a term for this. It is called projection.
I don't do this. I certainly regard the cost. I disagree. We tried several times to remove him without putting boots on the ground. Didn't work.
For dealing with Iraq. The reason we were supposed to even be there was the WMD issue. That is what the UNSC resolutions were all about, that is why people like you crow about Saddam "defying the UN," and that is the justification that convinced the American people that taking Saddam out was the right thing to do. Since then, we have found that the administration ignored several diplomatic solutions, choosing to wage a poorly planned war against an enemy that could not have been anywhere near a threat to us for a bare minimum of a decade. Our men are dying over there now, and they are dying because this administration did not exhaust every possibility before putting boots on the ground.
It seems like you are saying the ends justify the means. I disagree. The means you should use depend on the situation. If a third grader has in the past stolen from a classmate, pummeling that student with an axe handle and then not really taken care of the student medically except with first aid afterwards isn't a good solution. Add to that the fact that the school faculty claimed before hand the the 3rd grader was armed and a threat to everyone including the teachers themselves. It is true that the third grader won't steal from a classmate or bother anyone else in the class before. I could make a check list and trumpet the results too. disturbance removed from class so that others can learn more easily and efficiently - check Student punished for bad behavior - check ok so the student wasn't really armed, but his past criminal behavior shows that in the future he could have been a threat. Since columbine happened we know that students are capable of causing death. So that is two out of three on the check list. Then when someone argues that isn't honerable that the student should was beaten with a wooden axe handle, I could respond "Do you think a class room disturbance should be dealt with or not? In the past we've sent students to the office, or some were even given swats, and those were supported. Why is it all of a sudden that you are against action? Either action is good or action is bad." That seems like the type of argument you've set up. The truth is their are acceptable degrees to which actions should be taken. The invasion of Iraq went beyond that. At this point by your rationale someone could take out Geore W. Bush and make a check list. - Military aggressor who invaded sovereign nations without threat of being attacked taken out - check - Leader who wouldn't cooperate with the rest of the industrialized nations removed - check - Leader who cooperated with corrupt Iraqi exiles, and even put a terrorist(allawi) in charge of the nation he invaded without provocation - check All of those things are factual, but none of them warrant an invasion of the U.S. and removal of Bush.
As I've pointed out, the only thing the UNSC was dealing with was the WMD issue. None of the other advantages of intervention would be accomplished by maintaining containment, and all of the disadvantages of containment would have continued. What we have now is more advantageous.
We can go back and forth with made up situations. I'm dealing with the situation in Iraq. If you'd like to engage in that, please do.
I did engage in that. Using analogies is a common way of talking about subjects. But if you want to not discuss hypotheticals that is fine. I think it is still safe to say that the end doesn't justify the means, nor do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
and the situation has consequences beyond those borders. this thread began as a discussion of the political gulf between this administration and europe. the general consensus in europe is anti-bush. unlike you, i do care what the rest of the world thinks of our policies. i guess you believe that the bushies are the only ones capable of administering the world's justice.
