I was curious what the other people here thought about the situation with Iraq. I have found that there is very little informed debate on Iraq; most of the debate on both sides in regurgitated rhetorical nonsense. In contrast, I've found the people in this forum are generally far above average intelligence and able to have a civil debate.

I'm going to start by stating how I see the situation in Iraq. Here are the rules for response:

1. No ad hominem attacks. That means: attack the argument, not the person.
2. Do not invent strawman arguments to tear down. You don't want to put words in somebody's mouth if they didn't say them.
3. Only use informed and supported arguments; I don't want to hear "Bush SUXORS!" or "Kill the towelheads!"
4. Stay on topic. Who should have won the ballot count in Florida is entirely irrelevant.
5. Ignore any miscreants who violate these rules, even if they engage in a personal attack against you.

I think we did a good job with the discussion on SUVs and several of the others. If this devolves into a flamewar, I'll be the first to ask that it be locked or deleted.

-Biscuits

We are in an entirely undesirable situation, both for the United States, the European nations, and Iraq.

The case that Iraq has Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical weapons has already been proven, in 1992. If you don't believe me, consult your history books. Iraq was given the equivalent of a court order to disarm and prove to the world that it had. It is now Iraq's job to conclusively follow that order and show the world that it has complied. Saddam Hussien refuses to do this. All the nandering about "proving your innocence" is irrelevant. Once the case has already been made against you, you need to provide a convincing case for "reasonable doubt."

Saddam knows that it is only by keeping his people unified against an outside enemy that he can keep them united under his leadership. He is going to do everything to hold onto power, so it will only be on the verge of war that he will consider destroying his powerful weapons (right now a powerful bargaining tool) and only then if he believes that it is more likely to keep him in power than the alternative.

Because of Saddam's unreasonable stance, his people were suffering horribly from the embargoes. The United States has tried various means of forcing an end to this issue including bombing Iraq several times, tightening parts of the embargo, angry words. France (one of Iraq's largest trading partners) and several other countries have been pressing for some time to have the embargoes dropped, partly for humanitarian reasons and partly for economic ones. They have weakened parts of it, especially the limits on infrastructure and food products. During all this, Iraq's myriad neighbors have intensive smuggling programs on the borders, bypassing much of the embargoes and threatening the whole program with irrelevance. The entire system would have collapsed in a few years. Still, it did not have to be handled now or in this fashion. W was extremely unwise in both his presentation and timing, causing the United States extreme damage while hindering the possibility of beneficial resolution short of war.

Because of Bush bringing Iraq back to the forefront of world affairs, the world now has to act in a short time-frame. If Iraq is not convinced to disarm, then it will show the world that the U.N., E.U., U.S., etc. are not serious about our nonproliferation agreements. Already, because we are dragging our feet, Iran and North Korea have restarted their nuclear programs. The longer we leave Iraq in noncompliance, the less likely it will be that we can save these international treaties. As soon as Iran, North Korea and pals have NBC, their neighbors will get them and so on. Pretty soon, it will be impossible to intervene in world affairs for any member of the U.N., including our European allies. The Nuclear Umbrella will be rendered meaningless and Pax Americana will be a distant memory. There is a likelihood that this could lead to a renewed period of world conflict. After all, who is going to be willing to stop the next genocide or save Kuwait the next time it is invaded?

Iraq is not a direct threat to the United States. They have links to terrorism, but they are not a significant contributor to them in world affairs. They are an oil-rich country, but this war is not entirely about oil. The reason it has to be convincingly threatened, and if, God forbid, it becomes necessary, fought soon, is for the sake of world peace in every country, including France, Germany, Belgium, Russia, and China. For the United States (and Britain), we have to follow through with our stated intentions. Not only that, but we have to play the lead in disarming Iraq. The other countries are not willing to let the nonproliferation agreements die, but, if the United States is going to insist on fighting this war with or without them, that is exactly what they may do. None of these nations like Hyperpowers and by hampering the United States, they damage its international power while enhancing their own. It is a risky game to be sure, since the more they isolate the U.S., the more the isolate themselves. Most people suspect that France, Russia, China, and Belgium will belgrudgingly accept a war in the end, after doing their damnedest to damage the U.S power. Germany is likely going to be the odd man out since they are the only country to completely rule out support for force in any form.

-Biscuits

My first thought on the subject is and always has been why, all of a sudden, did Iraq become a concern? The Gulf ``War'' was a decade ago, we heard nothing out of it for that entire decade, then, suddenly, it becomes an issue a few months after Sept. 11, 2001. I have yet to hear any evidence that Iraq's position changed around that time, nor that any contraband was found.

At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy nut, I'm starting to honestly feel that this is all a big smokescreen. For what, I'm not entirely sure. Maybe for the fact that we've been unable to find Osama bin Laden. Maybe so that it becomes easier to curtail US civil liberties.

I also find the discrepancy between how we're dealing with Iraq and North Korea interesting. N. Korea has made blatant threats, and we're still well inside diplomacy as a tactic. Iraq has done, as far as I can tell, nothing, yet we're threatening the use of nuclear weapons against them.

Also, preventative attacks are explicitly against international law. Someone in the US government apparently claimed that it would be okay since we're talling them about it first. Did it make it okay when your school bully told you that he was going to pound you after school? I don't think so.

(In partial violation of point 4, it really embarrasses me on every level for GWB to claim that Saddam went after his daddy, especially considering that GHWB is the person most responsible for putting Saddam in power in the first place, back when he was the Director of the CIA.)

The Iraqi embargoes were failing, so it had to come to a head in the next few years. I don't know why it had to be done so suddenly. I think it has been handled exceedingly poorly, but I think it is important to look at what we should do now. We can choose not to go to war with Iraq, but only if we are willing to accept those consequences as well:

1. A blow will be struck for peaceful resolution in world affairs, changing U.S. and world politics for ever.
2. The Bush and Blair administrations will be impotent and voted out of office next election.
3. The United States will forfeit much of its power as a world leader by showing that it does not have the conviction to follow through on its CLEARLY stated course of action. This is true regardless of how fallacious you may believe that conviction to be.
4. France and Germany will be considered two of the new great powers.
5. The U.N. will be saved, but by refusing to deal with the Iraq issue, it will be largely impotent. It is also likely to go bankrupt if the United States quits funding it, unless the rest of the world ponies up the cash.
6. The Arabs will still hate us just as much for threatening war as if we had actually followed through, possibly more so because we had shown weakness
7. The United States will still be seen as unilateralist.
8. All nonproliferation regimes will be rendered totally impotent. Already, North Korea and Iran have restarted their nuclear programs.
9. No country in the world will be able to interfere in genocides or unprovoked invasions without the threat of WMD.
10. There will be a renewed period of world conflict with little anybody can do.

The world would keep on spinning if we don't go to war. Some nations may be willing to live with these consequences. Taking the whole picture into consideration, even doubting some of the justifications, are you willing to deal with these very real consequences in exchange for the very real consequences of war?

-Biscuits

Okay we go in and kill saddam what is going to happen afterwards will the world just bog off and leave the country to its own devices. Now either the country will become a nice cosy democracy which i doudt or someone similar or worse than saddam will take over. At worst it will be some religious extremist who will then do his greatest to take out america or however.

The gulf states are not know for being democracies i am not too sure if any of them are.

As to relgious extremeists i am against them no matter what the religion be, be it muslim, christian, shiek or manchester united.

So yes go in and take out the allegid treat but afterwards what happens and also if we do attack iraq what suprises are waiting for us in our own back yards.

On a more personnel note i am based on oil tankers and we can all guess where they visit lots. So if you want me i'll be hiding in the spare liner

1. This is a good thing
2. I'm not sure that's true. I can't speak to UK politics, but I'm not sure about Bush. Certainly there is a massive amount of protest about his actions, but they're not likely to vote for him under any circumstances. Of the rest (of which I am not a part), I don't have a good handle on whether they want war or they want a resolution to this situation (which I still believe was largely the fault of the Bush administration, if not outright engineered by it).
3. I'm not sure that the loss of power follows, nor, if it did, that that would be a bad thing. Canada is not a major world power, and you don't see terrorists going after it, even though it has a largely similar world view. But I think that the international community knows that the US is an elected republic, and that these actions are largely based on the current administration, not as part of public support. If Bush were reelected next time (let's hope not), then that might come into play as a show of public support for his own private war.
4. I don't know that diplomacy alone, or the resolution to not fight, can make one a world power. Maybe it ought to.
5. I think that you're flat-out incorrect about the UN. It was well publicized a year or two ago that the US has been consistently failing to pay its UN dues. So I don't think that not receiving money it's already not receiving will have a great impact.
6. At this point, the majority of the Arabic and Islamic Asian community already hates us, for both legitimate and illegitimate reasons. I don't think that anything we do at this point is going to have an effect. As I already implied, tying Iraq to terrorism with little to no evidence was just stupid, and just makes it seem like we're focusing our attentions on the international Islamic community, while nearly ignoring the probably greater threat in North Korea.
7. That point is irrelevant. You're arguing that these are the consequences of not attacking, and your point is that it won't make a difference. Maybe you're saying that that is an invalid reason not to attack, in which case, you're right, but I don't think it's really significant.
8. I'd hate to see a world where every Tom, Dick, and Harry has nuclear weapons, but I still think that it's somewhat disingenuous for the US to say, essentially, ``Now that we have nuclear weapons, along with our friends, we think it's time that no one else gets to have them.'' That's like taking your ball and going home. You and I would both like to say that the countries that have them now (barring India and Pakistan and North Korea, if they have them) are unlikely to attack another country, but the US is getting ready to attack Iraq without either provocation or international support. In addition, I don't think that popular support is necessarily the proper way to determine these things. Many awful things have been done under the auspices of popular support.
9. This is the TD&H argument from before. I simply don't have an answer for this. I assume that you're saying that human rights issues are certainly an appropriate reason for intervention (possibly amongst other reasons), and I agree. But I don't know how you can prevent this. How many formerly Soviet nuclear weapons are wandering around the world right now? We don't know. And there's no need to test. You only have to get it right once. So there's no way to find out who's doing anything, really, unless they want you to know about it.
10. I don't know that this is necessarily the case, but it's certainly a greater possibility than it was before, but, I don't think that, at this point, not attacking will have any effect on this.

After what happened to the USS Cole, I think you'd better stick closer to the core of the ship.

Basically, I think there are two main reasons to go to war:
1. U.S. prestige. If we fail to follow through on our stated intentions, it makes us look weak. The world won't see this as a disagreement with an administration, the United States seeing reason, or anything of the sort. They will see it as the United States backing down under foreign power and our enemies (and some of our allies) will celebrate it as a great victory.
2. The non-proliferation treaties will be worthless except as toilet paper. Our last chance at salvaging them is to convince Iraq to disarm and this will not be possible without, at the least, an imminent and convincing threat of war. If we succeed here, we can at least make progress against North Korea and Iran, but if we don't, there is no way we are going to convince them of anything.

I think that it is highly probably that, shortly after the CWC, BWC, NPA, etc. are discredited that these countries will have Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical weapons (NBC). Furthermore, I think it will destabilizing for these countries to have these weapons, which will enable them to engage in wars against their neighbors without fear of retaliation. They can also engage in genocides and other atrocities without repercussions. Usually, the mere threat of force is all that is needed and right now we protect all of our allies under what is known as the "Nuclear Umbrella." A lot of people say the United States shouldn't be the world's policeman. If we let these countries have NBC (well, they can have the broadcaster), then we CAN'T be the world's policeman, in any situation.

In essense, my argument for a war in Iraq is that a stitch in time saves nine. I believe that war should only be used as a last resort, but through rhetoric from all sides, the U.S., France, Iraq, etc., it has become necessary and to refuse to do so would have devastating consequences.

-Biscuits

As a soldier about to deploy to the SW Asian Theater I'd like to add my two cents.

1. Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) in the past and cannot demonstrate conclusively in the present that they do not possess WMD capabilities today.

2. Iraq has used WMD on both their own people as well as against Iran (perhaps against the US during the 91 campaign though that is a topic for debate which I care not to get into).

3a. Iraq supports terrorism. If you doubt this you must have had your head in the sand. A perfect example is the $25,000 checks that go to Palestinian terrorists' families after they blow themselves up attacking Israeli interests/people.

3b. Iraq supports terrorism. There are countless "conicidental" meetings between players in the Iraqi government and members of several terrorist organizations, to include Al Qaeda. Most intelligence sources appear to agree that Iraq implicitly (if not explicity) has permitted Al Qaeda and other like-minded terrorist groups to operate from within Iraq territories (both in Iraq proper as well as areas under "Kurdish" influence.

4. Iraq refuses to cooperate and plays a game of brinksmanship in order to pit the world political bodies and their member states against one another. This tactic has served Iraq well and led to the eventual withdrawal of all UN inspection teams in 1998. Iraq continues this tactic to this day. For example Iraq's two missiles both violate the UN agreements post-1991 and yet not one day ago Tariq Aziz stated Iraq will not destroy the missiles.

The above comments are generally accepted facts. Now I have my own view of why the French and Germans in particular have been stalling. I have a sneaky suspicion that much of what will be found in Iraq will have been French and German industry supplied contraband.

Anyways, I'm ready and willing to go. I think it's the right thing to do and if you disagree with me that's okay. Those that serve in the armed forces are serving (whether they know it or not!) to you can disagree with this nation openly and vehemently if you like.

Basically, I think there are two main reasons to go to war:
1. U.S. prestige. If we fail to follow through on our stated intentions, it makes us look weak. The world won't see this as a disagreement with an administration, the United States seeing reason, or anything of the sort. They will see it as the United States backing down under foreign power and our enemies (and some of our allies) will celebrate it as a great victory.

I'm sorry, but I just cannot see any justification for ever allowing *pride* to start a war. It would be far better to allow Saddam to "plant one on the USs' chin" because the US takes the moral high road than to cause un-necessary loss of life just to avoid it.

Note that I'm not saying that the US shouldn't go to war, just that pride should never be a motive.

I have no doubt that Saddam is an evil man, nor that Iraq would be far better off without him. I have yet to be convinced that he presents an imminent threat to the US. (Beyond the SAM sites lighting up planes flying over Iraq's sovereign territory of course).

I believe that the US has to go down the UN route. Completely. Of course, we know that Saddam will make every delaying play in the book, but ultimately I believe that the backing of the UN is neccessary to prevent further anti-US sentiments in the future, both among allies and foes. The September 11th attacks on the WTC brought forward an amazing amount of goodwill to the US from around the globe. I think that it is important to realise that much of this has been squandered, and to wonder what could have been done to prevent that.

I do have to wonder about France and Germany though. Assuming for one moment that US and UK intelligence conclusively shows a pressing need for a war in Iraq, what are France playing at? You could wonder whether France has something to hide - they have been one of Iraq's most important economic partners for many years. You could wonder about the fact that France has had highly advanced NBC weapons capabilities too. Of course, this is just 'me' wondering out aloud...
And look at France's history. Twice in the 20th Century they believed that there was no threat directed against them. Twice they were wrong. Twice it took significant sacrifices by allies to save them. Twice, the USA joining the war was a hugely significant factor in their liberation. Is their memory only as long as their last bank statement?
Now Germany, of course, might just be trying to get back at the US for both wars. You might also wonder why they don't have some gratitude for the fact that they still speak German and not Russian. (Yes, I know that we're all friends now, but there would have been significant casualties in Germany had the USSR ever invaded.)

Perhaps it truely is that neither France or Germany have been persuaded as to the need for war.

Personally, I haven't been persuaded. But then, I am not privy to any of the intel that my tax payments help provide. I do have to observe that the increasing amount of media propaganda in the US is really getting on my wick. At least with the internet I can find other sources so that I can stay better informed. But for the whole part, I think that GWB is conveniently using Iraq to cover up for a lack of definitive success in bringing Osama to justice, and for other domestic deficiencies.

The one thing that does add a lot of credance (in my eyes) as to the need for war is the fact that Tony Boy is so up for a game of soldiers. He has generally been regarded as a vote-pleaser, taking the route most likely to win his party the next election. And make no doubt about it, going to war without the UN could well lose him the next election, unless something happens that proves beyond any doubt that he was correct to do so.

I would largely be inclined to agree with you genixia, except for two things. First, that is not the only reason or even the most important. Also, there are a lot of things tied up in U.S. prestige, such as our international economic clout and political clout. I probably should not have even mentioned it because the debate will invariably get sidetracked.

-Biscuits

Also, there are a lot of things tied up in U.S. prestige, such as our international economic clout and political clout. I probably should not have even mentioned it because the debate will invariably get sidetracked.

No reason it should; We don't have any

A perfect example is the $25,000 checks that go to Palestinian terrorists' families after they blow themselves up attacking Israeli interests/people.

I realize that this is a tangent, and we shouldn't follow it, and while I understand your point totally, you have to wonder:

If a Palestinian bombs an Israeli mall, and then the Israeli government shells and runs tanks over Palestinian residential areas, and then a Palestinian bombs an Israeli mall, and then the Israeli government shells ....

Who's the terrorist?

And if you want to go down that road...

Why doesn't Iraq petition the UN to disarm the USA, since the USA is funding Israel to the tune of $3.4B per year, has nuclear weapons (and a history of using them), biological agents (that have been 'used' on their own citizens) and missiles with a range that exceeds 150km?

I have to wonder what Bush is really up to. We know that Iraq cannot verify the destruction of the WMD that they use to have. We know that Saddam Hussein sponsors terrorist attacks. We also know (at least until recently) the Saddam was acting more like this was a game than an action with any serious consequences.

I have a few trains of thought on this action.

1) The only way to win a war is by beating the population. If the population is tired of the fighting, the military will follow quickly. The Iraqi population does not want to be occupied. If we occupy, there will need to be soldies on every corner, and HMMWVs on every block. I can almost guarantee that those soldiers will be shot (at) daily. Occupying a hostile nation is not a fun thing to try to accomplish.

2) People seem to forget that we had over 750,000 people stationed as part of Desert Shield. Last numbers I heard were around 150,000. That 750,000 was just to beat them back. It was not to occupy the country. Our weapons are amazingly better than they were 12 years ago, but if we go MOUT (and Saddam would be a moron to try to stand in the sand like he did last time), most of those advantages are non-existant. I really hope that the cockiness because of our techological superiority doesn't put our soldier's lives in danger. The only times we've had problems is when we've underestimated the enemy.

It is possible that Bush is just using the deployment and tough words as a ploy to force Saddam to comply. If so, its already worked as seen by Saddam finally allowing U2 overflights, interviews with scientists, and the ban on WMD (that one cracks me up). That is a very expensive show of force, but our troops don't get as much training (at least our fliers) as they really should. This might just be a giant exercise, but I doubt it.

Something needs to be done. I am for military action as long as we get more soldiers, and more cooperation in the international arena. I don't think it is going to be pretty, but something needs to be done about him.

I feel that Iraq is more of a threat than North Korea is. North Korea only has a single, untested, missile. I can't say if North Korea has a nuclear warhead, but they have not shown a willingness to use it. Iraq has shown a willingness to use WMD on several occasions. They've used chemicals against Iran. They've used both chemical and biological against the Kurds. They've threatened use of WMDs against Israel (since that is the only country they can reach) if the USA interferes.

Sorry about the rambling, and probable incoherence. I just got done with like 14 hours of work (44 hours in the last 4 days or so) and my brain hurts.

They've threatened use of WMDs against Israel (since that is the only country they can reach) if the USA interferes.

Ok, so N.Korea is getting a little off-topic.

But considering that they have just announced that they are considering pulling out of the 1952 armistice with S.Korea (technically they've been at war still for the past 50 years), and the Director of the CIA stated last week that intel points to N.Korea being able to hit the US' west coast, how would that shift your viewpoint?

Genixia, why should that be prefixed with a ?

Seriously.

Other than Saddam being verifiably nuts (I read an interview where Khaddafi called him insane), there's not a lot of difference. I'll admit there's more recent evidence of Iraq doing ``bad'' things, but the US is just as guilty at points in its past, as well.

Of course, I'm playing something of the Devil's Advocate here, but you have to admit there's more than a little hypocrisy involved.

But considering that they have just announced that they are considering pulling out of the 1952 armistice with S.Korea (technically they've been at war still for the past 50 years), and the Director of the CIA stated last week that intel points to N.Korea being able to hit the US' west coast, how would that shift your viewpoint?

I took that into account. Note that they have a single untested missile. Do they have a NBC warhead for that missile? I don't know. Do they have the guidance system required to hit what they aim at from that far away? I seriously doubt it. Would they risk angering North America (not just the US, but I'm willing to bet Canada wouldn't be very happy either) to deliver a single missile? Again, I seriously doubt it. Have they expressed the willingness to use that WMD, not like Saddam has.

Just replace the word "prestige" with "credibility", and the point becomes more clear, at least to me.

-ml

I suspect that US economical and political credibility within the World would be far enhanced if the US simply paid it's UN dues on time, rather than making excuses that their political system won't let them.

Part of me even suspects that GWB is really trying to kill UN credibility as a means of renegotiating the dues.

While we're on the subject of requiring binding UN resolutions to be complied with by member states [which is the underlying rationale for why we can/should go to war with Iraq anytime soon in about half the posts to this thread so far], you have to look no further than the many binding resolutions that the UN has passed regarding Israel pulling out of occupied territories invaded 30+ years ago without justifcation.

This is a point which the US [& UK] governments and of course - Israel, constantly overlook and ignore while berating Iraq and other countries (e.g. North Korea) for acting in the same unilateral way and while at the same threatening this exact same sort of unilateral action that they are so concerned about other states doing said unilateral actions that they want to go to war unilaterally to protect us from such unilateral actions...

With the US - its always a case of "do as I [and/or my friends] say"
not "do as I [and/or my friends] do".

As far as Iraq goes, I and many others "westerners" would have to this to say to W and Blair, "show me the money"!
- if Iraq is full of WMD as you assert, then surely your vast intelligence organisations could come up with some decent evidence to show Sadam doing stuff illegally - in violation of UN resolutions.

If so, where is the evidence?

Its one thing to say Iraq is not complying with UN resolutions - its quite another to show it. Yes Iraq has to prove its innocence, and thus far they have a done a pretty good of job of trying to do that - even Blix hasn't really found anything seriously in breach of the rules yet.

One problem is that as most folks around the world (especially the Middle East/Arab states) see the US [and UK] acting like this:

W & Blair assume that no smoking WMD guns = Iraq is hiding stuff and not the equally plausible scenario - given the evidence to date and/or lack of contrary evidence - that Iraq has possibly destroyed some or all of the guns/WMD etc some time ago and Blix & Co haven't got around to reading or inspecting the paper work about this yet.

In any case the Middle East has one country with proven and known nuclear WMD, currently headed by someone that has shown much of the inhumanity Saddam and others of his ilk showed their own people and neighbouring states, and this country also ignores UN binding resolutions and that the US seems to not care about it...

What Colin Powell showed at the UN was simply a dog and pony sideshow.

I also note the comments from Blair about Iraq aiding and abetting terrorists.

The same can be said about Pakistan - its full of known Al Qaeda terrorists, yet the US is not asserting publicly at least, that Pakistan aids and abets terrorists.

And the underlying (and unclear to many perhaps) cause to all this is of course oil - if Iraq (and the Middle East) had no oil or other natural resources that anyone wanted, would the West care what happened in Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia or any other Middle Eastern banana republics?

The true answer in that case would be "Probably not".

Nobody much cares about the conflicts in Djibouti, Ethiopia or Eritreia or any one of half a dozen African states - mostly because they don't have oil or much else we need in the West so we ignore the conflicts there and don't care if UN resolutions are ignored.

Anyone who asserts that the coming war in Iraq is not about oil is missing something very important - the whole Middle East is "about oil" whether we like it or not.

And for those countries like Israel that have no/few oil resources, the most important thing to fight about is fresh water.

In response to a piece of rebuttal 3:

In reply to:

---

Canada is not a major world power, and you don't see terrorists going after it, even though it has a largely similar world view.

---

Canada is NOT a world power, and that is precisely the point. Besides, targeting Canada would be essentially the same as targeting the US. The US is not at all likely to sit idly by and watch one of it's closest allies get hammered.

In reply to:

---

1. Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) in the past and cannot demonstrate conclusively in the present that they do not possess WMD capabilities today.

---

The real problem with this point, "they can't prove they don't have the weapons", is that effectively, they can't prove they don't have the weapons. It seems that every time an inspectors report comes back negative, the US response is "You aren't looking hard enough/in the right place" No proof ever seems to be forthcoming from the so-called intelligence services as to where these weapons are supposed to be hidden, just comments that they are sure they exist.

If the entire country could be conclusively scanned from top to bottom with no results, you get the impression the US would still be saying, "Well, you just didn't put as much effort into looking as Iraq did into hiding the things". There doesn't seem to be any way at all of satisfying someone who has determined that there WILL be a war and they're just looking for a vaguely justifiable excuse. I guess the US is working on the principle that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but since this is essentially an unproveable scenario it means there is no way to avoid conflict.

pca

I guess the US is working on the principle that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence

In fact, it seems to be working under the assumption that absence of evidence is evidence of hiding evidence.

Let's say I go to your house and prove you have 10,000 pounds of heroin lying around. I get you to agree to dispose of it in my presence, but about 1/2 way through you kick me out of the house.... Now, when asked about what you did with all that heroin, you pretend like you don't know what I am talking about. I KNOW you had that heroin and I KNOW you wouldn't destroy it without making a record of it. The only other two alternatives are that you still have it or you sold it.

That is essentially the situation with Iraq. They haven't even come up with an excuse that is as good as "the dog ate it." We already proved they had this stuff in 1992 and if they can't prove they got rid of it, they still have it. Unfortunately, Iraq is a huge country with tons of places to hide stuff. They had 6 years of experience on how weapons inspectors work to learn how to hide things plus another 5 years to hide things after they left. Our intelligence on them is very spotty (closed country), but their intelligence on weapons inspectors has been telling them where they will be searched in advance.

So, I think it is disingenious to argue that they don't have NBC as it was already conclusively proven in 1992.

I've just been on a rampage shooting a gun at my neighbors. If you see a gun in my hands and I put it behind my back, when you ask "which hand is it in," you are going to expect it to be in one of them. If I then proceed to tell you that is in neither hand and that I have no idea what you are talking about, I would hope that you get suspicious.

-Biscuits

This may give some insight into what France is thinking. Wow!
News analysis: Chirac's outburst exposes contradiction within EU
Google Search on Related Articles

-Biscuits

It doesn't provide any real insight into why France is opposed to attacking Iraq. To suppose that it's just to be anti-American, I think, is a little disingenuous. All it really says is that it's using this opportunity to try to hold sway over the EU, and potentially, NATO. It's more possible that they saw this as an opportunity to grab some power, but I don't think that this is the fight they'd want to pick unless they already disagreed with it on some level.

My thought has always been that it is a power play. The more they oppose the war, the more they weaken the U.S. However, I don't think the French hate America; they oppose "hyperpowers," whoever they may be. If the French are the main obstacle to any of our interests, we will pay more attention to them, as will everybody else.

Also, they gain the potential of dominating the EU. By getting everyone united against the U.S., they take control of Europe. It is a dangerous game, as seen by the reaction of their neighbors. The more they isolate us, the more they isolate themselves. I was not expecting the French to be so blunt, and I am curious if it was planned or real anger.

There are other interests of course. The French are one of the primary trading partners of Iraq, so economic reasons are pretty compelling for them. There are also humanitarian reasons, since the French strongly oppose civilian casualties on moral grounds.

The French are unable to contribute much militarily, since they have less men, ships, planes, etc. than everybody else. Also, since they insist on designing most of them without any foreign cooperation, they are generally inferior to their American/British or Russian/Ukrainian/Indian counterparts. Last war, they only sent an empty aircraft carrier, that was too small for most allied planes to land on anyway. They gain the most power by focusing the world on diplomacy. I think they want to save the nonproliferation regimes as much as we do, but if the Americans and British say we will act with or without the rest of the world, the French don't have to worry about their interests being neglected. And, if Iraq miraculously disarms from diplomacy, the French are on their way back to being a Great Power.

-Biscuits

I think that the French still resent the fact that the US speaks English and not French.

That link was insightful. I find it difficult to believe that Chirac would be deluded enough to believe that France could ever be a superpower again, or that Europe wants to be 'led' by France. (Or Germany for that matter). England and France have been embroiled in so many petty trade disputes in the past couple of decades that the view of the average Brit is that the French are rather self-serving. (eg the one where they wanted English chocolate to be renamed because apparantly their definition of chocolate has to have a certain percentage of cocoa solids. Or that Champagne can only be French. And let's not even start on cheeses.)
Strangely, and I've never met a French person that I didn't like, and they can be very friendly. Visiting France is a pleasure, and simply attempting a conversation in French, regardless of you success, will turn a stranger into a friend. It's only their politics that seems to be affected.
Besides all this, the Europe Commission has a rigid structure of rotating leadership, so any thought that France entertains about being King of Europe is crazy.

...since they have less men, ships, planes, etc. than everybody else. Also, since they insist on designing most of them without any foreign cooperation, they are generally inferior to their American/British or Russian/Ukrainian/Indian counterparts

Remember that a lot of modern European aerospace technology consists of multinational projects. eg Matra/BAe missiles (France and UK), Eurofighter Typhoon (UK, Spain, Germany and Italy), Airbus Industrie (France, Spain, Germany and UK)

Do they have the guidance system required to hit what they aim at from that far away? I seriously doubt it.

The world has changed in the last few years. They do have a guidance system, courtesy of Rand McNally and the United States Government: it's called a Global Positioning System. If techno-geek audiophiles can put GPS into their car stereos, I suspect that the North Koreans can do the same thing with their missiles.

tanstaafl.

If techno-geek audiophiles can put GPS into their car stereos, I suspect that the North Koreans can do the same thing with their missiles.

It's just a tad bit more complicated than that

It's just a tad bit more complicated than that

Really? Don't misunderstand, I am not doubting you; but I am curious as to what those complications would be. IANARS.

With GPS the missile will always know exactly where it is, and exactly where it needs to go. Too far South? Just fire a small maneuvering jet and aim it a bit more North.

What am I missing here?

tanstaafl.

It's just a tad bit more complicated than that

If you wanted to put something down a specific chimmney, then yes.

But they'd only need to get accuracy within a kilometre to do some serious damage. Heck, probably not even that. It wouldn't be that complicated to glue GPS, an altimeter, and possibly some inertial sensors together with a small embedded PC. I'd even bet that a suitable PIC microcontroller would do the job.

The real technical issue though is making sure that it works as expected, and that the code doesn't have any bugs. That's one vehicle that they'd want to ensure went the right way. Obviously they'd also need to protect the system from the elements - ICBM are basically orbital in nature, temperature and radiation are both factors.

Fortunately for us though - civilian GPS has a height and speed limit, something like 40000ft and 550mph, although don't quote me on that (Derrick would probably know). ICBMs would exceed both, and anything slower and lower could be taken out fairly easily I would guess. But that wouldn't rule out the bad guys getting hold of a milirary GPS receiver and using it. I believe that the military signal is encrypted somehow. Obviously, I wouldn't know the details of that. I'm guessing the units need to be manually keyed to decrypt the stream, and that the keys change on a fairly frequently basis. Assuming there is only one encrypted stream, and that there are many listeners, key management would be a weak point in the system. (Somehow every listener would need to change keys at the same time, giving an avenue of attack.)

I think that is a new record for staying on topic. Anyway, thanks for playing, thread's over. How bout them Cubs?

Anyway, North Korea's missiles are unproven. Most analysts believe they do have nuclear warheads, but I think if they only shot one, we could detect it pretty early and shoot it down; our fighters fly at roughly the same speed as ICBMs and, while extremely difficult, there are pilots that train on such things.

Iraq and North Korea both have "weapons of mass destruction." In Iraq's case, Saddam has extensive chemical weapons and limited biological weapons. He is a few years away from developing nuclear warheads, although it is probably he can already build a "dirty" bomb. He can deliver these weapons by short-range ballistic warheads or artillary shells.

North Korea has some chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons already. It is very difficult to know how many they have, but they apparently have some of each. Their nuclear weapons are probably about as powerful as the ones used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They can deliver their weapons by short-range ballistic warheads, artillary shells, and long-range/intercontinental ballistic missiles. They also have ONE MILLION MEN stationed at their border, most of whom have been training for their entire lives. In contrast, the U.S. currently has 200,000 or so men in the Middle East. They have threatened that any hostile actions will be responded to with a "sea of fire," involving the total destruction of Seoul (sp?) and several other South Korean cities, followed by military invasion.

It will be easier to deal with North Korea once Iraq has been conclusively dealt with. Don't, however, assume that just because it is not front-page news that nothing is being done. The U.S., South Korea, Japan, and China are actively working behind the scenes for a peaceful resolution. The most likely scenario is that we bail North Korea out of imminent financial collapse and they put their war plans on hold for another 5 years.

If we fail to deal with Iraq and North Korea, it is likely that Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Iran will go nuclear within the next 5 years (some within months). Those countries will be followed by virtually every other country in the world within the next 15 years. If we don't deal with Iraq's biological and chemical weapons, you will see a similar expansion of those weapons and their re-introduction to warfare (which has been thankfully limited up til now).

-Biscuits

Having read all the posts and replies to posts in this thread as of Tuesday evening, I feel compelled to address an issue that seems to be generally ignored.

Everyone seems hung up on the ideas of should we go to war, and what are the justifications, and is the war about oil, and will the allies support us, etc.

Has anybody given much thought to the consequences of doing this war, whether we win, lose, or draw?

There will be no winners here. Oh, sure, we may (probably will) go in and just like last time kill a bunch of poorly trained, inadequately equipped Iraqi soldiers and blow up a lot of tanks and bridges and things. But the financial consequences of this action will be devastating -- more so to us than to Iraq.

A dozen guys commandeered a couple of airplanes and flew them into a couple of skyscrapers and damn near took down the whole US economy. We have thousands of skyscrapers, thousands of jet planes, and yet this relatively infinitesimal attack on our resources had enormous consequences. I don't mean to belittle the loss of life and the tragedy of the attack. But only a tiny fraction of one percent of our assets were destroyed, and yet... Don't ever say that terrorism isn't effective.

So imagine what the effects will be if the entire Arab community, or even a sizable portion of it, unites and acts effectively against us. An oil embargo, a dozen effective suicide attacks, could prove immensely damaging, not to the physical infrastructure of the country, but to the confidence, the "psychological infrastructure" of the citizenry. With the overall economy balanced on a razor's edge (can you say multi-trillion-dollar national debt?) it will take very little to push us over the edge.

Want to take it a bit further? Read the book "Warday" by Streiber & Kuselka. The premise is a very limited nuclear strike against the US (total of 6 bombs, all exploded high in the atmosphere doing little blast damage, but the EMP would destroy most communications, make inoperable any automobile built after about 1980, destroy most civilian computers in the country taking out virtually all of the banking records... How many millions do you think would die with no transportation, no communication and thus no government?

We're not just playing with Iraq's future here. We are putting our own very much at risk.

tanstaafl.

Hmm.. I doubt Japan would as they have a well-grounded viewpoint when it comes to nuclear issues. Japan also discovered post WWII that not spending significant sums of cash on defence had some remarkable economical benefits, and they are more likely to negotiate for protection from economic partners (such as the US) than they are to start spending cash on something that they don't really want.

Taiwan wouldn't want to antagonise China by going nuclear. Since the USA is basically the reason that China hasn't reclaimed Taiwan as it's own, I doubt that anyone wants to rock that particular boat...It's an uneasy peace, but peace none-the-less.

South Korea - Probably not, for similar reasons as above. If North Korea attacked them with a Nuke, then US servicemen would also die. Since the US would almost certainly retaliate with some SSBN launched cruise missiles, Seoul doesn't really need to go nuclear for it's own protection. I doubt that the US would be happy with them acquiring Nukes for potential offensive use either - too much risk of escalation. If they went behind the US' back to get them, then the US might just close up shop there, taking the land mines with them. 1 million men would be waiting...

Iran - First chance they get.

www.idleworm.com

Check out "Gulf War 2". Rather amusing. Note that the coalition forces have a resounding success in Iraq, despite the final outcome.

Firstly, I doubt the Arab world would embargo everyone, since they want to sell their oil as much as we want to buy it. Our economy would screech to a halt as fast as theirs would (the U.S. uses something like 25% of the world's oil and the Middle East produces something like 37%). If they just embargo the U.S., we could buy all our oil from other sources while the European buy Arab oil (the market will just shift). Of course, if we seized Iraqi oil fields, it really wouldn't matter if they wanted to embargo us (assuming they didn't mine all the waterways, which would bring about a nice little regional war). Eventually, we would open new wells in the Carribbean, Alaska, and gain access to the extensive Siberian oil reserves.

I don't think any terrorists are going to make a massive electro-magnetic-pulse that destroys all the computers in the world. That sounds like a scheme from COBRA at best. Even assuming that it could plausibly be done with ballistic nuclear warheads, there are very few countries with that many warheads, fewer with ICBMs and fewer still that would launch them at us or let terrorists steal them. We could probably also shoot down a limited number of warheads, so I suspect they would have to launch a heck of a lot to hit much of anything.

-Biscuits

As far as economic damage goes, it is really hard to say. War provides an enormous boost to economies, as new jobs are created and the government pumps massive amounts of money into the economy. The question is whether the economy grows enough during wartime to pay off the debts down the road. In some wars, such as World War II, it does. Regardless, there should be a short-term boost. It is doubtful this war will be long enough or costly enough to make as big of a difference as a lot of people want to pretend.

As far as political consequences, if we win, it will significantly strengthen the U.S. credibility. Winning a war has a calming effect on quasi-allies as well as enemies. We can hopefully prevent future wars and prevent the destabilizing spread of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. Germany will be isolated by refusing to go to war, perhaps France as well, while Britain and the U.S. will get a boost in perceived power.

If we lose the war (all the Iraqis have to do is fight us to a draw), then the U.S. loses credibility and the world smells blood. We will be powerless to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction and will actually speed the spread of world conflict. As we lose economic clout, our economy may suffer, but our relations with our allies, for engaging in an unpopular war, will suffer more. Our enemies will take advantage of our weakness. Power perceived is power achieved. We will be next to powerless to protect our interests.

As far as terrorists go, they have not launched a large successful attack in any first-world country since 9-11. If we defeat Iraq, it will give the public renewed confidence (unless Bush wants to keep hysteria high with his "terror alerts"). Terrorists will be increasingly active, especially targetted at the U.S., but I don't know how much more so than if we showed weakness by backing down from war. Terrorism in Israel might decrease from less money going to the families of suicide bombers, but it might also go up from increased antagonism.

Basically, what I'm ending up with is a mixed bag. Most of the consequences, such as Arab anger and world frustration at United States unilateralism has already been suffered and backing down isn't going to help it much while showing signs of weakness. The rest could go either way, but probably won't change too drastically.

-Biscuits

South Korea would very likely arm themselves with nuclear weapons, as would Japan if they felt sufficiently threatened. The U.S. is a long ways away and is always going to be perceived as having other interests as well. These countries are going to want their own arsenal that they have direct control over rather than relying on the discretion of the United States.

This isn't the best source (the age), but here are a few choice quotes:

Mr Kim said the North should not "even dream of having nuclear weapons", which he said would be a dangerous development. "If North Korea gets nuclear weapons, the stance of Japan and our country towards nuclear weapons would change," he said.

With its highly developed nuclear industry, including plants that could make bomb-grade fissile material, Japan was rated, even as far back as the 1970s Ranger Royal Commission in Australia, as capable of building a bomb within weeks of a decision to do so. In the early 1980s, the US headed off incipient nuclear weapons programs by South Korea and Taiwan, which both have the industrial capacity to build bombs.

The emerging threat of nuclear arms and ballistic missiles is already causing a shift in Japan's defence posture. On Monday the Japanese Self-Defence Agency was reported to be seeking 20 billion yen ($A280 million) to test an anti-ballistic missile system being developed with the US.

Tests could start in Hawaii in April next year.

Last week Japanese Defence Minister Shigeru Ishiba said Japan could launch a military strike on North Korea if there was evidence that it was preparing to attack with ballistic missiles.

I doubt Taiwan would go nuclear, although they probably could within weeks. The United States will not support them if they declare independance. I think we might make a similar threat about nuclear weapons, but, if everybody else suddenly got them, I don't know. Also, if Japan started to increase their focus on personal defence, they might also choose to decrease our military presence there (but maybe not).

Iran restarted their nuclear program a few days ago.

-Biscuits

In reply to:

---

Most of the consequences, such as Arab anger and world frustration at United States unilateralism has already been suffered and backing down isn't going to help it much while showing signs of weakness.

---

Sorry, but I have to completely disagree with this. It is a far greater show of strength for the US Government, despite all the provocation, to be seen to be pursueing all other avenues of settlement. I believe the protests here in Australia, and in the US and UK, are proving that the if their respective governments backed down from the agressive talk their popularity would soar. Peace is what people want, not governments that are pretending to be strong by rattling sabres.

Also, at no point is anyone suggesting that if the US takes this road that Saddam or anyone else is going to be parading around pretending they've beaten the US or anyone else. They're all going to be too interested in making sure that they comply to UN requirements - which is ultimately what we want AFAICS. Sure, there's going to be a lot of posturing from Iraq. But there already is - using all available avenues of peaceful settlement is not going to change this.

This is the other side of the coin of your quoted argument, I believe.

For peace,

Paul

I believe the protests here in Australia, and in the US and UK, are proving that the if their respective governments backed down from the agressive talk their popularity would soar.

The popularity of the respective governments would not soar. They would be seen as impotent. People protest over everything, but that doesn't mean that it is "what the people want." 10% cares strongly about the issue on either side. The rest are ambivalent and it doesn't matter to them one way or the other. In addition, perhaps 5% of the entire population is going to know enough about any given issue to make an informed decision. If you want to use all those silly statistics out there, I believe they say that the majority of the U.S. population supports war and a significant number of people in Britain and Australia do as well. At the least, the current administrations in each of these countries would be finished.

Also, at no point is anyone suggesting that if the US takes this road that Saddam or anyone else is going to be parading around pretending they've beaten the US or anyone else

Riiiight. Regardless of the circumstances, Saddam and Al Qaeda and all the radical muslim clerics are going to be intentionally refrain from manipulating the facts to say what they want.

They're all going to be too interested in making sure that they comply to UN requirements

Just like Saddam has been doing? After all, he did fully disarm back in 1992, and once the option of force has been taken off the table, he is going to suddenly take the French seriously.

Seriously, if I were running Iraq, I wouldn't disarm either, yet. I would play the Western countries against eachother, opening up faultlines between allies and within countries, undermining western power. I would attempt to get the Muslim people to support me and egg on militants in every surrounding country. Then, at the last minute, I would deliver the coup de grace and agree to all French demands for disarmament, essentially giving the finger to the United States. As soon as world attention shifted again, I would start all my weapons programs again, drawing the ire (and possibly low-level action such as bombing) from the U.S., keeping my people united against a common enemy. Rinse, repeat. If I played my cards right, I would be able to dissuade any foreign powers from significantly intervening in Middle Eastern affairs, rendering any embargoes ineffective and allowing me to finally wipe out those pesky Kurds and Shia muslims.

Do NOT underestimate Saddam Hussein. He may be mentally unbalanced and a cruel murdering tyrant. He is also, however, a political genius that has managed to STRENGTHEN his power despite losing the first gulf war. He is an expert at turning any situation to his advantage.

-Biscuits

Protesting is one sided. The people who agree with what's going on stay home.

The people who agree with what's going on stay home

No, it's the people that can't be bothered that stay at home, whether they agree or not, that's why so many minority opinions succeed.

Your photo looks suspiciously like Saddam Hussein letting off with a 12bore, are you sure that you don't have a hidden agenda here?

The position I really think is poorly thought-out is that of Germany. The other countries, no matter their stance, have left themselves room to negotiate. Germany has painted themselves into a corner by stating they will not support war, even if there is a UN resolution. Hence, nobody cares much what Germany thinks since they don't have room to manuever. With France, on the other hand, a lot of effort is being put into convincing them to change their minds and the U.S. is letting them lead us around by the noses with their demands for more time and more diplomacy. If France had just said "no war under any circumstances," Iraq would already have been invaded.

Granted, France does have a veto on the security council and Germany does not, but I think if Germany had left themselves room to negotiate, the world would pay more attention to them now, whereas if France had ruled out war, they (and the UN) would already have been made irrelevant. Schroder just wanted to win reelection, no matter the costs to his country.

-Biscuits

The last that I heard, Germany wasn't prepared to send any troops under any circumstances. They didn't completely rule out supporting a further UN resolution though, or even (politically) supporting action under the existing one, if merited. (Which they don't think is the case at the moment).

Here is a rather lengthy but very well written essay that is worth reading. If I had to state my stance on the current subject, I couldn't do it better than this guy does.

That is a powerful argument. It is a little more emotional than I would use, but he gets his point across pretty well. The mentions in passing about idolizing John Brown put me off and I disagreed with the argument that it is likely for Saddam to attack the U.S. mainland (although I can see him killing every man, woman, child, and their pets in Isreal. Overall, I think he summed up a lot of the arguments pretty well. Appeasement is not going to be the answer, especially against a Saddam Hussien. By avoiding this war, we are only going to create more wars that are more costly down the road. By going to war, we will do more good in Iraq and the world than by abandoning those people to the "leadership" of Saddam and his goons.

There are very real costs if we go to war, but there are also real and more potent costs if we put our heads in the sand. Are you willing to sacrifice the credibility of the Western World and allow any Joe Tyrant to get his own nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons without being hamstrung by the French from having any credible deterant? There is a very real link between doing nothing now and the future proliferation of weapons of mass destruction of all sorts and their eventually use.

A stitch in time saves nine

-Biscuits

Wow. That's very well written, and mostly well reasoned, but it's plagued by several basic follies.

First, there's the idea that promoting democracy will make everyone like us, and, even more basically, that pushing our ideas of ideality on others will do the same. The essay fails to point out that large portions of the reason that many Arabs dislike or hate the United States and the western world in general is due to the failed attempts to Westernize the Middle East, from the 40s -- likely earlier -- to, probably, now. In addition, many of the stated reasons also have to do with US interference in their world, from support of Israel's often incorrigible attacks against their neighbors, internal and external, to the total support of the Saudi ruling family.

Second, there's the idea that the democracy we promote would be egalitarian. We've blatantly put people in power before. There's no reason to think that we wouldn't encourage certain factions while repressing others. He points out the cordon of soldiers protecting the members of the ``proto-democracy'' in Afghanistan. While it's true, they were also keeping out others.

Third, the idea that, somehow, we can annihilate all the bad people is ludicrous. There will always be some nutjob that thinks that he can and should destroy us all. It's happened throughout history, and it's unlikely to stop because we want it to.

He does make a good argument as to why attacking Iraq is not pre-emptive, though. It'd be nice if our administration could put it in such terms to us and the rest of the international community, instead of just rattling sabres.

We've blatantly put people in power before

IIRC, a certain Mr. S. Hussain being one of them.

I think our main problem is that the media does not care about the truth, they care about selling newspapers and magazines and cable advertisements. Thus, they are going to only portray the most emotionally wrenching stories from either side without ever giving us a fair and balanced view of the real situation. No one wants to listen to a history of the various UN resolutions and the subsequent Iraqi violations of them; they want to hear about the poor mother of 6 whose husband was tortured by Saddam for failing to win a soccer tournament. There are thousands of news sources around the world. True, most may all print the exact same story from Reuters or the Associated Press, but there are enough out there that you can generally find alternate views and better reporting on most important stories. Read the New York Times or the Economist for once instead of merely watching Fox News or listening to the sound bytes on the radio.

Here is a funny clip of a guy interviewing antiwar protestors. Now, I know there are going to be just as many pro-war people that are ignorant and some of the people at this rally may have known what they were talking about, but I think this illustrates the plight of the average world citizen regurgitating the rhetorical nonsense they were told by the media:

http://brain-terminal.com/articles/video/peace-protest.html

-Biscuits

So he's making fun of people for not knowing a way out of this situation? I'd argue, as you have, that GWB put us in this situation to begin with. People have a right to express their frustration with this. It is, as one of them said, the government's responsibility to deal with it. They, supposedly, have a staff of international diplomats and policymakers that are experts at this. They are simply letting those people know that the choice taken is the wrong one, and to find another way.

I believe that France and Germany, along with basically everyone in the Western world believe that Saddam is, to put it bluntly, evil. If it were as simple as just killing him and everything would be good, as much as it bothers me morally and ethically, I'd do it, because sometimes the ends do justify the means. But that's not the case. If we invade Iraq, we just show the rest of the Middle East that we do have a penchant for unilateralism, and it's just going to piss off more people. There's bound to be some way we can start to show the Middle East that we can coexist on the same planet without getting in each other's way.

I don't know what the alternatives are, but they are bound to exist. If the current administration could show me that they've explored any alternatives, I'd be less argumentative. But it seems that they haven't. If the Kennedy administration had been like this in 1961, the east coast of the US probably wouldn't be here today.

Of course, the thing that pisses me off as much is the fact that the Bush administration is using this whole Iraq debacle as a smokescreen for the progressive curtailing of the civil rights of US citizens, from the so-called Patriot Act, to some people who have just disappeared under the Federal governments expanded authority to detain people without charges. Basically, without saying it, habeas corpus has been lifted across the whole of the nation.

And, for me, that casts unbearable suspicion on the whole of the Iraq affair. Rational citizens think that it's okay to detain people without any of their guaranteed rights, because ``they're terrorists''. Of course, the whole of our legal system gets thrown out the window, because then you've got one organization working as judge, jury, and (hopefully not) executioner.

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out--because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the communists
and I did not speak out--because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out--because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me--
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

-Martin Niemoeller

Bitt, I agree with you 100% about Bush and Ashcroft using the "War on Terror" to take away the personal freedoms and liberties that make this such a great country. Everything that patriots have fought and died for throughout our history is being thrown away for the mere illusion of security. Worse still, the citizens of this great country don't seem to care very much: "why should I care about my privacy if I don't have anything to hide?"

Back on topic: The problem with peaceful ways of dealing with Iraq is that we can't think of anything else. Weapons inspections failed last time and they are failing again. The embargo hasn't done much of anything and although we've isolated their country politically, Iraq doesn't seem to be changing their behavior. The only way that Saddam will disarm short of war is at the point of a knife. If he knows that he can not delay and argue any more, that his country is facing imminent invasion, that unless he disarms, he will either be killed or arrested as a war criminal, then he might disarm. If he still were to refuse on D-Day-1, I don't think there are any peaceful ways to convince him otherwise.

-Biscuits

(First, I'd say thanks to Biscuitsjam for starting this thread. A civil debate. Let's hear it for that concept. This thread dropped down the list quite a bit, but when I thought where I could best post an Iraq war rant/polemic, I couldn't think of a better place to put it-- also didn't want to clutter up some of the more recent, more specific threads. Also, I don't expect to somehow revive this thread...and it probably doesn't even qualify as civil debate...mostly I'm just getting this out of my system!)

I'm not entirely sure that this will qualify as a polemic -- that term connotes (to me, anway!) that you know what you are talking about. My meager collections of opinions may not qualify. In the polemic vein, though, I will offer this opinion: Saddam has won. Yes, it is only the 18th of March, and the brigadiers of the 3rd Infantry Division have not yet fired off their flares, but I think Saddam has won. I'll come back to that.

I won't lay claim to being some high-end philosopher. Much of what I have to say is the product of received opinion. Soooo, much of what I have to put in to this post includes links to other, smarter folks and to news bits that I thought were informative.....and boy will it ramble...

The Philosophy Gap

I hardly think that I am the only person who asks "What is GW Bush's obsession with Iraq?" As I try to understand that -- and whether my extremely low opinion of "Shrub" is justified -- I have earnestly tried to understand what makes him/them tick. A while back, I linked to a radio program on this subject and, in deference to folks who can't/won't play Real media, I'll sum up that show like this:

- A Gallup pollster (Frank Newport) says that if you are a white, evangelical Christian you are much more likely to support Bush in general and "the war" in particular.
- A long-time Bush observer (Wayne Slater of the Dallas Morning News) says that, while there is no indication that GW Bush thinks that God (tm) speaks to him in his dreams (saying things like "Invade Iraq, Georgie!"), Bush *does* have some sense that he is on a divine mission -- or that his being in office is part of a divine plan -- so that any decision he makes *must* be the right one (I am oversimplifying and encourage anyone so interested to listen to Slater's explanation...)
- A journalist from the BBC (Nicholas Fraser) says (more or less!) "Holy Crap! If voters in Europe encountered a politician who seemed to be so religiously inspired, they would run 180 degrees in the opposite direction."

The Middle East Gap

From my limited perspective in the U.S., it had seemed that the attitude of Christians (at least fundamentalist Christians) toward Jews was not always very positive. The term "Christ killers" comes to mind. I like to stay as far away from free-floating conspiracy theories as I can, but one remarkable aspect of the past year's debates and discussions about the on-going Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the very surprisingly high degree of support for Israel among evangelical/fundamentalist Christians.

(parenthetically, I will say that I almost felt that this was a place where I had some sympathy for Shrub: When what you have to work with are Arafat and Sharon, why should I be surprised if he turns up his nose and avoids the whole situation for as long as possible?)

*Anyhow*, if I am trying to make sense out of the high degree of support for Israel's excesses coming from American (meaning U.S.) Christians, the only thing that I have been able to latch on to as a tool is a recent novel by Robert Stone called "Damascus Gate". Not sure that this novel qualifies as history, but it seemed to hint at some of the possible cross-connections between various Judeo-Christian apocalyptic strains.

Anyhow, even allowing for Palestinian suicide-bomb atrocities, for reasons that I don't come close to understanding, there seems to be an unprecedented level of support for Israeli Jews -- some higher alignment of interests -- among U.S. Christians (OK, perhaps I wasn't paying attention before) at a time when the Israeli government has swung as far to the right as I can remember and is engaged in as controversial a wave of ultra-reciprocal killing as I can recall (naive 23 year-old leftist, peacenik Washington State student among the recent dead.). Stone's novel laid out this alignment of interests in religious, apocalyptic terms (I may have to read it again). I open the floor here to any Christians (or other folks) to dispel my notions -- explain the recent demonstrations of support for Israel on other grounds.

My sense, though, is that one thing this apparent alignment seems to do (and maybe this should be no surprise) is to increase the antagonism not just to Palestinians but Arabs in general and Muslims in general. So for anyone who wondered or cared where I was going with this, I suppose I can sum up the proposition: Recent increased support for Israel among evangelical Christians also translates into more support for invasion of Iraq.

The Towel-head Gap

I am going to go out on a limb here: In the mind of the American public, I don't think that the life of some poor innocent non-combatant farmer in Afghanistan or his innocent non-combatant farmer cousin in Iraq is worth much. In the Vietnam era, I remember a chip-on-the-shoulder bumper sticker (and more vividly a tatoo) to the effect of "Kill 'em all...let God sort 'em out". I get the sense that we are willing to take this approach. Oh, if we puree 100 people at an Iraqui wedding party with an AC-130 gun run? I think we'll manage to forget it pretty quickly.

Where did this feeling of mine come from? Well, for one, the 48 Afghans who were previously killed by an ill-considered AC-130 burst don't exactly seem to be sticking in our collective memory, never mind the many other civilian casualties. Call me judgemental, but I also have the sense that there's a certain element of "all Arabs are pretty much alike" that contributes to the "average" opinion here.

Please consider this snippet from a recent on-air survey of some Rotarians in Missouri (from an NPR news bit):

Mr. HARRY MURRELL (Rotarian): We could do it alone. We don't need the United Nations' approval. We don't need France's approval. We don't need Germany's approval. You know, historically France has always been against us. I think a lot of people have forgotten September 11th already. They just plain forgot about it.

WERTHEIMER: Going to the UN in the beginning was wise, says Realtor Shirley Sallenshooter(ph), but it's taken too long.

Ms. SHIRLEY SALLENSHOOTER (Rotarian): I think we need to go ahead and start the war, because while we're waiting, trying to get world opinion on our side, the terrorists could be in our country waiting to attack us the minute we start war. So I am very concerned that we need to start this now and get it over with.

What I take away from this -- "a lot of people have forgotten about September 11th" and "the terrorists could be in our country waiting to attack us" in the context of interviews that were specifically about an impending war with Iraq -- is that "average" Americans (Rotarians at least!) don't make any great distinctions between Iraquis and Al-Quaeda terrorists and that it is all one big, dark, evil world full of sinister Arabs east of St. Louis... (and they are making their way west to Kansas City!!).

The Propaganda Gap

From the beginning I was skeptical of the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld Iraq war rationale. One day it was terrorism, the next day it was WMD, then it was terrorism. I smelled Tonkin Gulf. For all of you who are clinging to the various aluminum tube rationales cited by the Bush administration, I have a prediction: some day in the future most of the world is going to look back at those tubes (if they haven't already) and consider them a big, fat lie -- another Gulf of Tonkin Incident.

Dissident voices are pretty hard to come by in the current CNN-Fox media rainbow. One interview I recently enjoyed was with John "Rick" McArthur of Harpers. Oh, aluminum tubes? Baloney? Oh, the IAEC statement that Iraq was 6 months away from nuke capability? Ummmmm, they never said anything like that. Once it is over, what else will we discover that Bush's folks invented?

Y'know, I would think I was cynical and overly pessimistic about this whole adventure if it were not for letters from State Department professionals like this gent (oh, or like this gent). The former I think is really striking.


The Turkey Gap

The point was recently made about the U.S. "making Turkey our bitch". Whatever exception was taken to this phrasing, I have to say that I think it is very apt and correct. On of the most horrifying aspects of this whole Iraq war thing is just how cavalier U.S. politicos can be with regard to very tenuous situations like Turkey and the Kurds. I don't pretend to know what the most just resolution of the whole Turkey-Kurds-Iraq relationship is, but it is my opinion that the current administration *isn't even thinking about it*. "Hey, Turkey, yeah we've been supporting Kurds against Iraq, but howsa 'bout we invade Iraq through Turkey and Kurdistan?". I don't know what this all means except that we seem *very* willing to offer 23 billion to a country like Turkey so they will play along, but we don't seem very attuned to the possible destabilizing consequences of our expedient desires (Oh, why should we care? We'll be back at Fort Benning before the Turks and Kurds *really* start killing each other!)

The Crusade Gap

Some of you may have already played the Flash game Gulf War 2 cited by genixia previouly in this thread. For anyone who hasn't played this "game", I highly recommend it. I have returned to it every 5-6 days and it seems to get more real every time...

It occurs to me that Tommy Franks' little army may just drive to Baghdad in short order, vaporize Saddam, and impress the *hell* out of CNN with aggressive tactics. This seems like a case, though, where we can win the war, but lose the war. D'uh! What this mean? I think there's a reasonable chance that we can win the immediate war against Saddam but set the stage to tilt the scales against ourselves in any continuing attmpt to protect ourselves (like from terrorism).

This seems like a case where the U.S. administration can't manage to see the forest for the trees. This puzzling, aluminum tube-fueled idee fixee of war against Iraq is oblivious to the historical images of The Crusades that it evokes. A while back I read an article and book by Bernard Lewis entitled "What Went Wrong?"; among other points, I think it offered a reasonable explanation of how it is that many Islamic states and societies resent and suspect "The West" in general and the U.S. in particular. In practical terms, this war will only make matters worse and will lay the foundation for many Mohammed Attas of the future. We should dread this outcome, yet we, as a country, seem intent on the "gated community" approach (as referred to in this essay by Brian Eno).

Further, I think here in the U.S. we have managed to consider issues of "East versus West" in fairly selfish, US-centric terms. Issues such as those brought out by Lewis' books -- Islam's (including radical Islam's) relations to Western societies and values -- exist in many, many countries, yet we seem to be focused only on U.S. interests.

On we go, sword in hand. When Bush used the term "crusade" some time ago, the media characterized it as a slip. I did not buy that explanation. At first I attributed it to Bush's ignorance of the full meaning of the term -- and that his handlers had to explain it to him. Recently, I am more convinced that Bush and his people truly view this as a Crusade -- that the divine guidance toward some crypto-Armageddon really does make this a Crusade for them -- just that it is considered impolitic to say that openly.

The President Gap

So, more and more political commentators portray Bush's stance on Iraq as a matter of deep, nearly religious, personal conviction, but as much satisfaction and admiration as Bush's simple, basic Crusade messages evoke in some quarters, I predict that history will view his presidency quite harshly. No heroic Roosevelt or Lincoln as some would hope, rather a Franklin Pierce or Herbert Hoover. Much of this historical opinion will be founded on the inept and arrogant foreign/military policies and the damage done to the U.S.'s reputation, to important relationships, and to important institutions (the U.N.).

I don't necessarily think that this mistaken war will result in a one-term presidency. The timing of the war is such that the tendency to line up behind "support our troops" will likely carry Bush/Cheney to a 2nd term. Only then will it become clear that everything else is completely farked up and Bush's popularity numbers will begin a steady decline.

The Two-Party Gap

Bush *could* be a one-term president if the main opposition party had *anything* to say that distinguished them from the Republicans. Aside from the rare dissenting voice like Robert Byrd, the Dems seem intent on lining up a la: Democrats Criticize Failed Diplomacy, but Call for Unity Before War so that no one can call them unpatriotic. WRT the 2004 election, I think they are doomed. If this article represents the party line, *I'm* not voting for them (again!).

The Beacon Gap

I think this is a sad day to be an American, IMO. The notion of the U.S. of A. as a beacon of democracy, even if it hasn't always been supported by our behavior, has been a nice ideal. Things *are* better here than many other places. Look, I can post this under my own name without police knocking at my door (so far, anyway!). I won't go to bed hungry tonight. I didn't die at age 1 from dysentery. My hands have not been chopped off by rebel forces. The accident of my birth -- that I was born in this country -- is something that I am always thankful for. The notion of a liberal democracy that other countries admire, the country of the Marshall Plan is something I cherish. Well, I think while we were busy working on new walls and gates for the Rotarians, we forgot to clean the lens in our beacon.

Saddam's victory

This megalo-sociopath has really learned how to manipulate "the staff" during his "institutionalization" in Iraq. I doubt that any options to bow out -- exile on St Helena or in the Seychelles or somewhere -- hold any appeal. The guy seems sick enough to ride the bomb all the way even if if takes thousands of innocents and supporters with him.

If I accept that notion, then I'd have to look at what Saddam might think he has accomplished. Well, by walking a behavioral tightrope, it appears that he has maneuvered us into the role of the reviled crusader in a way that will *decrease* our own security going forward. He has managed to separate us from our friends. Even at the moment that he is vaporized by a smart bomb, I have the very sorry feeling that he will have had the last laugh.


[edit: "student", singular]

You know, historically France has always been against us.

Yeah. Like during the American Revolution. And Haiti's independence. And Vietnam.

People are so stupid.

I will buy you a one-way plane ticket to anywhere in the world if you officially give up your US citizenship.

Wow, you had quite a bit to say on this and you make some very good points.

I’d like to explain the little I can about the evangelical attitude toward Israel from an insider’s perspective, though for reasons I’ll get to, the Rev could probably give a better answer. At least a little of the evangelical support comes from end-times prophecy and the belief that Israel represents (or will represent) “God’s chosen people”. For some Christians, this has led to an attitude of “I’m a Christian, therefore I support Israel.”

One of the notable things is that in the bible, the end-times are prophesied to come when Israel is at peace and walls are no longer necessary (my paraphrasing here). Until recently, this has really made no sense as there was no Israel. Now it makes more sense, though of course Israel is certainly not at peace. Some see the possibility that removing the threat of Iraq being the first step toward this peace coming about. I am inclined to view the situation this way, though I don’t believe bringing peace to Israel should be our nation’s motivation in attacking Iraq. I should also point out that there are some evangelicals who don’t believe that the Israel of today corresponds to the Israel spoken about in these prophecies (i.e. the name is the same, but the people are different).

There are at least two major views of eschatology within evangelical Christianity (and many more depending on how you count), though it seems that one particular version of dispensationalism is loudly touted as being the “party line”. My own church (and the Rev’s if it is Southern Baptist) holds to this view of the end-times, though personally I am not decided and will probably remain that way. Edit: I forgot to finish this thought: However, this prevalent view holds that during the “tribulation” (7 years of badness) God (who has been working through the Christian Church ever since the first century) will again work thorough Israel.

How exactly this translates into the U.S. foreign policy I’m not certain, but this is clearly a driving force among evangelicals. This is where I’ll have to defer to those more knowledgeable than myself. However, my feeling toward biblical prophecy is that it is generally not something designed to show us how to live and act, but to confirm the authenticity of scripture as well as Jesus Christ. The foretelling in Daniel of very specific events that would happen years after the book was written did not as much help prepare the people for the events as it offered compelling evidence afterward that he’d received inspiration from a divine source.

From my perspective, we should treat Israel as any other nation, and if God’s prophecies occur, then that is a testimony to the scriptures. I don’t believe we need to “help things along”.

As far as evangelicals and conspiracies go, I think that’s a little bit far. More likely there is a pattern of thinking that has developed certain attitudes toward Israel that influence Christian decision makers. I should emphasize that I’m speaking a great deal out of ignorance here, but I do understand at least a few of the underlying issues.

I have the very sorry feeling that he will have had the last laugh.

That's a laugh I'll gladly concede him ... his last.

As far as evangelicals and conspiracies go, I think that’s a little bit far. More likely there is a pattern of thinking that has developed certain attitudes toward Israel that influence Christian decision makers

Well-stated Jeff. My experience with evangelical Christianity dictates the same response. The difference in decision-making stems from a vastly different world-view, not from any sort of organized conspiracy.

Jeff, thanks for taking the time to illuminate some of this.

At least a little of the evangelical support comes from end-times prophecy and the belief that Israel represents (or will represent) “God’s chosen people”. For some Christians, this has led to an attitude of “I’m a Christian, therefore I support Israel.”

So it sounds like I'm not necessarily hallucinating WRT a tie-in between evangelical (sounds like that's the right term?) beliefs, end-times and Israel.

One of the notable things is that in the bible, the end-times are prophesied to come when Israel is at peace and walls are no longer necessary (my paraphrasing here). Until recently, this has really made no sense as there was no Israel. Now it makes more sense, though of course Israel is certainly not at peace. Some see the possibility that removing the threat of Iraq being the first step toward this peace coming about. I am inclined to view the situation this way, though I don’t believe bringing peace to Israel should be our nation’s motivation in attacking Iraq. I should also point out that there are some evangelicals who don’t believe that the Israel of today corresponds to the Israel spoken about in these prophecies (i.e. the name is the same, but the people are different).

Interesting that last point. That whole interpretation thing.

There are at least two major views of eschatology

Show's how rusty I am....had to run over to dictionary.com!

Likewise, I discovered that there is a Dispensationalism Web Site , where I found:

"Dispensationalism is a term that describes a system of theology, or a set of guidelines for interpreting scripture that lead to some specific conclusions about God, Israel, the Church, and the Endtimes."


How exactly this translates into the U.S. foreign policy I’m not certain, but this is clearly a driving force among evangelicals.

So, one guess is that some of those evangelical-Israel connections were there but maybe weren't as apparent (to me, anyway) until things got bad recently and expressions of support got louder, more noticable...

As far as evangelicals and conspiracies go, I think that’s a little bit far. More likely there is a pattern of thinking that has developed certain attitudes toward Israel that influence Christian decision makers.

I am wary of getting into a conspiracy mindset. By definition, conspiracies are pursued in secret. The fact that I don't understand how some of this works doesn't mean that it is secretive or conspiratorial. I am more of the "pattern of thinking" way of thinking myself.

(Interesting, though, I just finished reading two things: the book "The Bureau and the Mole" about Robert Hansen and an article in Harpers subtitled "Undercover among America's secret theocrats". The first detailed Hansen's ironic/weird membership in, and some of the controversies surrounding, Opus Dei; the second was about the Fellowship Foundation aka "The Family". Neither of these was very reassuring from the standpoint of diminishing conspiracy anxieties!)

Much of what I see, though, is in the "pattern of thinking" vein, or something like cognitive dissonance. That being said (and you know my irreligious constitution) the prevalence of divinely-inspired patterns of thinking in the current White House, DoJ, and elsewhere doesn't help me sleep better at night!

[tangent]
In a recent thread there was debate about whether the administration was invading Iraq so that its pals (Richard Perle?) could make money. I don't see folks sitting around saying "Let's invade Iraq so we can make money." I see folks formulating other rationale for things like invasions and then making a bundle of money is sometimes seen as a happy coincidence.
[/tangent]

I should emphasize that I’m speaking a great deal out of ignorance here, but I do understand at least a few of the underlying issues.

More than a few, it seems. Thanks again for taking the time to respond.

[by the way: That book I mentioned earlier was in some ways a real stinker. I usually enjoy Stone's writing, but Damascus Gate was a tough read with a confused plot line and characters. I only read it because it was the last book I had on a long vacation in May 2001. I remember it, though, because it tried to examine Israel and the place of Jerusalem in ways I hadn't seen before -- and it also drew some characters and movements that immediately jumped back from memory on 9/11]

That's a laugh I'll gladly concede him ... his last.

I haven't met or heard of anyone who will miss him or say nice things at his funeral. If I can think of this whole mess as some crummy movie plot, though, this seems like the movie where you get the bad guy, but the bad guy planted a bomb somewhere and the movie really isn't over...

US invasion of Iraq 'inevitable'

The United States says American forces will enter Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction even if President Saddam Hussein complies with an ultimatum to leave.

Can anyone find proof of this outside the BBC report? I haven't seen anything like this on US news sites, and don't know any other news sites outside the US beyond the BBC.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030318-4.html

Search for ``no matter what''.

By the way, news.google.com is a good source for verification, as it tries to group similar articles together, although it didn't help a lot in this case.

Ari Fleischer today said, that even if Saddam leaves, the coalition will go in and disarm Iraq peacefully.

Jim, Maybe there is more common ground here than I first thought after reading your post. Could you support the war as a war of liberation from essentially a mass murderer?

Ahh, thank you. The BBC didn't go into detail on this, but the above story does.

Overall, my views on the entire matter have been shifting a bit. I don't like how the US is becoming so distant from the rest of the world right now. But, I also find myself glad something is finally being done about the situation that the UN discussed back in the early 90's. I also am still siding with the people who believe that the US current actions will make matters worse down the road. The problem with this though is that I don't see a better resolution beyond removing the current administration, and replacing it with one that is a bit quieter about its policies. As the MSNBC article pointed out, no one had problems with the 3 non-UN sanctioned military actions preformed under the Clinton administration.

Could you support the war as a war of liberation from essentially a mass murderer?

Could I in principle? Yes. Do I support this war at this time? No.

Let me offer another snippet from the previously cited Sunrise Rotarian interviews:

Mr. HANK RADIKKI (Rotarian): Once you get a quarter of a million troops lined up on the border and we've taken the stand, we've shown why we're doing this, it's way too late. The implications of backing down are huge. It's way too late. I think we just have to do this.

[tangent]
I should offer an apology to any Rotarians on the BBS. It is an organization I know next to nothing about and I shouldn't lump them all together without warrant. I will say, though, that I found the responses of this particular group to be downright horrifying.
[/tangent]

One big problem I have is that Mr. Radikki's main rationale for this war is not unique. In some ways, it looks like it will be adopted on a post-hoc basis by 80 percent of the Democratic Party -- "In for a Penny, in for a Pound" -- I mean, once you have all the soldiers in position, how can you back down? -- "But we already baked the cake!!!" This seems like a really shitty rationale for a war where lots of poor bastards are going to get turned into chutney -- US soldiers, Iraqui conscripts and Iraqui civilians alike.

"The implications of backing down are just huge". Well, I sure *do* think we got ourselves into a fix....but wish we had avoided it.

I guess my biggest problem with the war as proposed is that the administration's case for it shifted from day to day and is based on some considerable deceits. Can't find evidence? Make it up. I guess I find myself in a position that is almost a mirror image to Mr. Radikki: now that I have opposed the war on grounds of shoddy justification for so long, how can I *not* continue to oppose it?

Back to your point, though, one question is how Saddam's murderous tendencies have come to the fore just recently in the "stack" of rationales. I mean, wasn't he a murderous bastard back when he was *our* murderous bastard bulwark against Iran? Wasn't he a murderous bastard in 1991 when W's dad let him retreat to Baghdad?

If the new rule of law is that we should invade any country ruled by a murderous bastard, then it would sure help if we (meaning the U.S.) could get a few other countries to go along with us.

Don't get me wrong. There are times when I wonder how the world sits by -- US, Europe, UN, all -- while butchery runs unchecked (read Gourevitch's book on Rwanda and wonder where the world was...and wonder if W was president, would we have responded?)

So, I both wonder on one hand why we are so selective in our "liberation" ....and, on the other, where these liberations might end.

I'm not sure that is a very consistent answer to your question (full of moral relativism equivocation!!), but that's what I can offer.

Aside from the "murderous bastard" aspects, I would also weigh the loss of life under a continued Hussien regime against the loss of life during this war (lest it not work out as tidily as CNN projects)....and during the aftermath as competitors scrabble to be the new democratic government of a makeshift country with divided interests (and after the Sunrise Rotarians call for our MPs to come home).

Lastly, I take issue on two pragmatic aspects: I think the Crusade aspect will make our situation vis-a-vis the Muslim world much worse.

And I'll admit it: I am a UN kind of guy. I think the way forward is through institutions like the UN and things like treaties -- both of which we seem to be relegating to the trash heap under Shrub.

What pains me is that, as the world's remaining superpower, we *could* have played our cards differently. We *could* be enjoying a much higher degree of affection and support -- but I think we failed to see how much nicer it is to be invited to a party than to barge in.

The guy seems sick enough to ride the bomb all the way even if if takes thousands of innocents and supporters with him.

This is what I fear the most. The religious/military fanatic level seems to have risen quite sharply in recent years, and moreso in recent months with the N Korea crisis. I think that the governments know a lot more than they are letting on about capabilities of the fanatics in the world. Given the fact Saddam has had 12 years to disarm and the UN keeps giving him "more time," he'll keep dragging his feet and laughing all the way ot the bank with his billions he makes selling oil outside of the UN sanctions and moving his missles and alleged WMD all around his backyard like an 8 year old kid with his toy soldiers. He's playing the UN for fools and he's winning.
I support Dubya in his decision, but I really think his old man should've taken the crazy bastard out in 1991. That's where the mistake was made originally. War is not good, but neither is Saddam and he has to go. Just MHO here...

In reply to:

---

the Rev could probably give a better answer

---

I can give a longer answer, however I cannot give a better one... I yield the remainder of my time to Jeff.

to any Rotarians on the BBS. It is an organization I know next to nothing about and I shouldn't lump them all together without warrant.

I always thought the Rotary Club was an amiable, if slightly self-important, organisation of philanthropic social clubs with no particular religious agenda. Mind you, you could say the same about the Church of England

Peter

I always thought the Rotary Club was an amiable, if slightly self-important, organisation

Prompted by the thread, and never having thought further than seeing the logo outside pubs and hotels, where they have weekly meetings, I looked at the site and felt that it was possibly time for a re-think, they seem to be a very focussed charitable organisation.

I think that the point was that here are people that claim to be charitable middle-Americans who have no charity for the international community, not to cast aspersions on the Rotary Club in general.

Sorry, that was the point that I was trying to get across, in response to Peter's perception, and to generally isolate the views quoted from the aims of Rotarians generally.

I think we're all saying the same thing.

I think we're all saying the same thing.

It's called "violent agreement"!

I support Dubya in his decision, but I really think his old man should've taken the crazy bastard out in 1991. That's where the mistake was made originally.

As I said elsewhere, I think that 'finishing' S.H. in 1991 would have been seen as justified (if not exactly endorsed by Russia and some others), and that failure to do that was deliberate. I am willing to concede that I might be wrong in the formar part (global 'placet' on Hussein's removal), but not the later (that US needed him).

As I understand it, there were two reasons for leaving Saddam in power after 1991.

The first was that the UN mandate was strictly about expelling Iraqi forces from Kuwait.

The second, as I understand it:

1. The Saudi government and population are Sunni muslims.
2. The Iraqi government is Sunni/Secular.
3. The majority of the Iraqi populace is Shiite.
4. Iran is mostly Shiite.
5. There is a history of animosity between the Sunni muslims and the Shiite muslims.

Deposing the Iraqi government would have left Saudi Arabia with a majority Shiite country right on their northern border. This would have made Saudi uncomfortable. Leaving the sunni/secular government in charge in Iraq would have been a better option from the Saudi point-of-view.

Moreover, Iraq served as a useful buffer between the fundamentalists (again Shiite) in Iran and Saudi.

I guess that the US administration figures that:
a) Iran is more moderate these days.
b) They're next, anyway. cf Axis of Evil.
c) They'll be replacing one (tyranical) secular goverment in Iraq with another (non-tyrannical) secular government.

The majority of the Iraqi populace is Shiite.

I think that if you discount the Kurds in the north and the Marsh Arabs/Ma'dan in the south that this is not true. I also get the impression (though I could well be wrong) that those populaces don't have any real interest in Iraqi government, and are happy to remain in their tribal structures. Based on that, I doubt that the Shiite Iraqi community would have a large impact on any new Iraqi government. Of course, this is based on my inference that those peoples would rather just be left alone, and that they don't feel that having a controlling interest in the Iraqi government would be an appropriate action.

The real solution to all of this would likely be for northern Iraq to become part of a new Kurdistan, and the southern part to become it's own Fertile Crescent nation.

northern Iraq to become part of Kurdistan

But that'll make the Turks uneasy, because then their (Southern) Kurds will also want to become part of an independant Kurdistan.

I think that that's a major Turkish concern anyway, regardless of whether it's supported by a recognized state.

I think that if you discount the Kurds in the north and the Marsh Arabs/Ma'dan in the south that this is not true.

Not according to this:

Britain also favored Iraq's Sunni Muslim Arabs -- then about 20 percent of the population -- over the Shiite Muslim Arab majority and ethnic Kurds who had rebelled against British colonial rule.

See, Britain managed to screw up the Middle East again. Now it's America's turn.

Edit: managed to find another quote in the same article that reinforces my other point about Iraq serving as a buffer to Iran:

Leaders of the Shiite opposition insist their community's share of power in any post-Saddam Iraq must match its 65 percent share of Iraq's 22 million people.

Those aspirations worry some of Iraq's other minorities as well as the country's mostly Sunni Arab neighbors, who fear that Iran's influence over Iraq would grow.

Yeah, but my point is that allowing the Kurds in northern Iraq a degree of autonomy from a new central Iraqi government could be seen as encouraging separatist behaviour in the Turkish Kurds.

It's not a question of being supported by another recognised nation-state (should the northern Iraqi Kurds seceded completely), it's a question of legitimising the Turkish Kurds' standpoint.

Well, it doesn't say that the 80% Shiite population is not mostly in the Ma'dan, but it's probably not. I stand corrected. Urban Iraq is probably mostly Sunni, though. Maybe that's what I was thinking of.

It's too bad that they can't embrace secular governments over there.

We learned in my Islam course that Roger is correct. That the majority of the Iraqi population is indeed Shiite, and the government is Sunni. This makes for a pretty unstable situation. I'm sure that if the people weren't so damn scared of Saddam, they'd take him out in no time. But I could be wrong.

it's a question of legitimising the Turkish Kurds' standpoint.

I guess I'm changing the argument now, but I don't see where the Turks have a leg to stand on as far as their repression of the Kurdish community goes. The Turkish Kurds are hardly any more than unnamed slaves, as far as I can see.

But back to the question, they've alway been separate from Saddam's Iraq. I don't think that a population that is either under attack or ignored is really part of that country. At least Turkey keeps an iron fist over their Kurds -- not let them roam ``free''.

The Kurds shouldn't fear Turkey or Saddam. Little Miss Muffet is who they should be afraid of.

I'm not saying that the majority is not Shiite or that the government isn't Sunni (though it's more secular than that would lead you to believe), but that extracting the Kurdish and Ma'dan Shiite pupulations leaves you with a majority of Sunnis. The issue is whether or not the 80% Shiite population is concentrated in the north and south as Kurds and Ma'dan. This map shows that the population is mostly distributed that way, but it doesn't show density.

Edit: This article claims that The Sunni to Shiite ratio is much closer than Roger posited, at 52:42, which means that leaving out the Kurds, who are surely nearly 100% Shiite, at 19%, acording to that article, the Sunni claim a majority, and that's not touching the Ma'dan.

Other articles claim other ratios, which could easily make my argument inaccurate. That was just the first on Google.

This is what I fear the most. The religious/military fanatic level seems to have risen quite sharply in recent years, and moreso in recent months with the N Korea crisis.

If I could characterize fanatics of the past decade (at least those I think we should be most concerned about), I'd say that they come from Egypt, Yemen, the Phillipines, Saudi Arabia (and other places) and that they have spent time in all those places and countries such as Spain, France, Germany, Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. among others.

I'm not exactly sure what the recently-commenced war against Iraq really does on this front (or how exactly this relates to another, very serious, issue with North Korea).

What I would like to think is that when the German, Kenyan, or Italian police uncover terrorist intelligence that has implications for the U.S., that they will promptly tell their good friends here in the U.S. about it, and that we would do likewise.

This is a simplistic example, but my concern is that in a near-sighted pursuit of "the right thing" we have sacrificed "the good".

I think that the governments know a lot more than they are letting on about capabilities of the fanatics in the world.

I try not to be any more jaundiced than is warranted, but I can't say that I share your confidence. I just finished reading The Cell and I have to wonder just how much our "humint" (human intelligence) capabilities have improved. Also, when Colin Powell offers such limp proof in front of the U.N., and when the Bush administration is reduced to *fabricating* evidence (aluminum tubes and bogus IAEC Iraq report), I can't say that I am willing to give the government the benefit of the doubt.

Given the fact Saddam has had 12 years to disarm and the UN keeps giving him "more time," he'll keep dragging his feet and laughing all the way ot the bank with his billions he makes selling oil outside of the UN sanctions and moving his missles and alleged WMD all around his backyard like an 8 year old kid with his toy soldiers. He's playing the UN for fools and he's winning.

It may not seem like it, but I do appreciate this point of view up to a point. Well, the balloon has gone up. We'll see what unfolds.

I support Dubya in his decision, but I really think his old man should've taken the crazy bastard out in 1991. That's where the mistake was made originally. War is not good, but neither is Saddam and he has to go. Just MHO here...

All of my bombast aside, I stand prepared to be wrong. I have been wrong before. For example, in 1991, I thought we were grossly overestimating the ability of air power to turn the tide and avoid coalition/U.S. casualties, when in fact events proved that, given the unique, open desert battlefield and a very well executed, limited campaign, coalition casualties were amazingly low (what, 200 as compared to __K Iraqui casualties?)

I don't think what is unfolding is predictable. The 101st may stroll into Baghdad and all may be sweetness and light with all of Iraq's liberated factions/minorities....

I am *still* jaundiced, though, in a way that I think is justified. CNN toadies like Lou Dobbs touting how 50, yes *50*, countries now support our invasion --- I want to know how many of them came on board in the last 24 hours...and how many of them are commiting funds or (more significantly) young men and women.

Oh, and about 2 days out from the deadline, Bush announces a "Roadmap" plan for peace in the Israel-Palestine debacle (a situation he seemed pretty inclined to ignore). How much of this was to give the impression that invading Iraq will somehow improve the chances of solving the Israel-Palestine problem -- or how much of this was to help Tony Blair?

I heard a guy say something on TV tonight that I thought summed up the whole "right/perfect" versus "good" issue, and I was surprised to hear it from someone who I might have considered a hawk in other circumstances. It was Zbignew Brzezinski. To paraphrase:

"It's not Saddam that is the issue. It is whether America can lead...and lead in a way that other nations can respect."

. . . thought summed up the whole "right/perfect" versus "good" issue . . .

Interesting that you've made this point in two different posts without really explaining what you mean. However, the distinction between "right" and "good" is a good (and probably right too ) one to make. Not that I agree with you in this particular situation (though I have been convinced that our attitude toward other countries has been detrimental to our cause), but often it is much more difficult to discern the "good" in something than to follow the wooden "right". We need to be aware of this tendency and always check for the "good" in what we do. This may sound kind of relativistic philosophically, however I don't believe that it is. I think that many times we become so obsessed with the rules we've made, we forget what the purpose was in the first place.

Though I respect the band Rush immensely, as you all probably already know, I cannot agree with them philosophically in most areas, though I appreciate the effort. "The Color of Right" off of Test For Echo, however, is an exception to the rule and is bang-on target.

LOL!



Nice one!

hehe

Zbignew Brzezinski

Wasn't he Carter's National Security Advisor during the Iran Hostage crisis? A pretty good quote concering that situation: "President Carter inherited an impossible situation -- and he and his advisers made the worst of it."

Interesting that you've made this point in two different posts without really explaining what you mean. However, the distinction between "right" and "good" is a good (and probably right too ) one to make.

Yes, I probably didn't do a very good job, that. I think there are different variations on this theme (dare I say "paradigm"?) along the lines of "In the search for the perfect, the good was lost" and "so busy doing right, he forgot to do good".

An organizational example of the former: New manager takes over group of 5 talented programmers working on a project, but is concerned that they are only operating at 90% efficiency (they spend a lot of time on a particular BBS and sometimes take long lunches). He is determined to raise productivity to 98% and so blocks somebbs.comms.net on the firewall and installs a time clock. Morale plummets, 4 of 5 staff quit, project fails.

I think the latter "right versus good" is most often applied to situations where, as you suggest, "wooden" sometimes bureacratic, rules trump what most folks would consider good judgement.

Not that I agree with you in this particular situation (though I have been convinced that our attitude toward other countries has been detrimental to our cause), but often it is much more difficult to discern the "good" in something than to follow the wooden "right". We need to be aware of this tendency and always check for the "good" in what we do. This may sound kind of relativistic philosophically, however I don't believe that it is. I think that many times we become so obsessed with the rules we've made, we forget what the purpose was in the first place.

I may be oversimplifying by applying this "good-right" label or maybe just misapplying it. Also, while the "good" part of the equation really conveys a balancing of morality judgements, I think that the current situation can also be approached on just practical grounds as well.


What the *hell* do I mean? I think that in a resounding, selective fixation on *one* UN resolution, albeit one that does resonate with some portion of the US electorate, I think we failed to bring other important allies along (touting of recent support from 35+ latecomers notwithstanding). In our zeal we even went so far to exaggerate some pieces of evidence and invent others. This last will not improve confidence in our government's future pronouncements.

So, I think the "good versus right" issue is that we are being shortsighted.

Let's fast-forward to late 2004 with a scenario that I do not know will be correct but which I think is in the realm of probability:

- The immediate war on Saddam is long over and Saddam is dead.
- The Iraquis fired a few scuds but that's about it.
- Significant WMD capability was *not* found in Iraq or the credibility of evidence of WMD is in dispute among our historical allies
- Rioting and assasination attempts in places like Egypt and Pakistan in the wake of the March 2003 invasion led to some pretty immediate repression of the rioters, but now those govenments are hunkered down trying not to lose power, trying not to stir up their radicals any more...on the defensive.

OK, now the U.S. wants help finding/stopping a suspected terrorist plot, or in putting OBL in his grave, or it wants to find a diplomatic way (maybe even involving the UN!) to deal with/contain North Korea....

I guess my point is that I think that there could be many situations in the near future where it would really help for us to have more true/willing allies, to be perceived as a multilateral-oriented nation, and to have inspired less resentment.

As that resigned diplomat said, has it really come to "just so long as they fear us"?

Though I respect the band Rush immensely, as you all probably already know, I cannot agree with them philosophically in most areas, though I appreciate the effort. "The Color of Right" off of Test For Echo, however, is an exception to the rule and is bang-on target.

Given the radical nature of this BBS on some issues, I am afraid that I may expose myself to serious ridicule and harassment when I admit that I do not have any Rush tunes! I keep saying I'm going to fix this....

Wasn't he Carter's National Security Advisor during the Iran Hostage crisis? A pretty good quote concering that situation: "President Carter inherited an impossible situation -- and he and his advisers made the worst of it."

Yes, the same guy and a reasonable quote, although I am never quite sure what you are supposed to do in an impossible situation.

I think it was no-win. Do nothing? Get hammered by the Reagan campaign. Do something? Get hammered by the Reagan campaign. In cynical political terms, I have to guess that the desperate "Eagle Claw" probably *was* the only thing that would have improved Carter's reelection chances -- if that's what you care about -- had it worked.

Well, its low probability of success was borne out and Khomeini certainly got to stick his finger in Carter's eye (and got their 8 billion back, too!). Perhaps Carter should have just skipped Eagle Claw and sent the Ayatollah a bunch of TOW missiles on the QT.

Given the radical nature of this BBS on some issues, I am afraid that I may expose myself to serious ridicule and harassment when I admit that I do not have any Rush tunes! I keep saying I'm going to fix this....

*whew* I thought I was the only one. I can't bear to listen to more than two Rush tunes in a row. I currently have zero Rush tunes in my collection. And I'm Canadian to boot!

I watched a very interesting programme on PBS last night, "Frontline - The War Behind Closed Doors". Anyway, they were looking at the Iraq conflict from a modern (ie Gulf War to present day) historical and political perspective.

It turns out that Stormin' Norman has a lot to answer for.

At the end of the Gulf War, Bush Sr and Colin Powell were concerned that the conflict should end cleanly, and not be drawn out into a messy affair like the Vietnam and Korean Wars were. To that end, kicking Saddam out of Kuwait was the only goal. Regime change, although desirable, was not a specific goal.

So the Gulf War had crippled Iraq, and liberated Kuwait. Saddam was on the point of being toppled from within, by either the Shi'ites in the South or the Kurds in the North, and Bush was fairly confident that could happen. He delegated responsibility for the terms of the ceasefire to the military.

Saddam wanted the ceasefire at any cost. He knew that the longer the war continued the greater the chance that he was either killed or toppled. He was concerned that Iraq's territory would be eroded by the then current US land forces, but ultimately would have been willing to relinquish some of his land to retain control.

So at the ceasefire agreement the Iraqi generals were rather pleasantly surprised to hear that the US would give back all of Iraq. They asked whether they would be allowed to fly helicopters. Stormin' Norman thought for a while, realised that Iraq's roads and bridges had been badly damaged, and agreed. The Iraqi's then confirmed their request, but this time prepending the word 'armed' before 'helicopters'. Apparantly, without really thinking, Stormin' Norman reaffirmed his decision. Saddam got everything he wanted.

Those helicopters were used to great effect by Saddam to quash the uprisings. The Shi'ite uprising in the South was put down within 2 weeks, involving the brutal deaths of (estimated) tens of thousands. The Kurds in the North had been more structured than the Shi'ites. Their uprising probably would have been successful, had the US intervened and protected them, but again, was brutally put down. Helicopter gunships chased the Kurds into the mountains, firing rockets at them along the way.
Allied fighter planes were still flying daily sorties at the time, and watched this happen. The pilots were pretty pissed off (to say the least) to have to watch the helicopter gunships fire upon unarmed civilians whilst they fled. They were ordered not to get involved.

By the time the White House reacted to this brutality it was too late. Although many Kurdish lives were saved when the US set up safe refuges in the mountains, any chance of toppling Saddam was lost. From the moment the US stepped in, Iraqi helicopters ceased operations against the Kurds.

The program also looked at US (miltary related) politics stemming from the same time frame. Paul Wolfowitz was working (in the Pentagon) on his then secret policy document. It was so radical that some concerned staffers that read it leaked it to the Washington Post, where it caused disgust amongst most of the US public. It called for a change in US foreign policy, to use US military might to change the World, as opposed to managing US interests within the World. It called for preemptive strikes as opposed to reactive strikes, even where US interests were not prevalent. Supporter of this document included (surprise, surprise) Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.

When GW took office, he was naive in foreign affairs. Indeed, during his election campaign, he was schooled in foreign affairs by republican delegations visting the Texas Governor's Mansion. His naivity was well demonstrated during his campaign. During the first nine months of office he kept out of foreign affairs. The hawks (Rumsfeld and Cheney) were balanced by the moderates (Powell, Rice), so nothing much was done at all.
But post September 11th, 2001, that all changed.

Many people point to one statement by the President as being the most significant statement that he's made, "We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed this act, and those who harbor them."
That statement opened the door for the Hawks to run the show.

As I said earlier, a fascinating programme, and well put together. I really have not done it justice here. My limited powers of expression cannot accurately portray the interviews, video footage and well written narrative, and I've completely ignored segments of the program that dealt with other relevant subject areas, e.g., Clinton and Containment, UNSCOM etc.

Apparantly you can watch it online;
Frontline - The War Behind Closed Doors

Pretty good summary, actually. There isn't much left in the way of serious TV journalism in the US, but Frontline holds a big share of that small market.

Total tangent: I was almost amused to read this (symbolic? freudian?) mistake in a BBC news bit:

"The US Marines regrouped and Captain Crevier also called forward two M1-Abraham American tanks to try to help punch a hole through the Iraqi resistance.

(from this story about a battle in/for Umm Qasr)