The problem is, your analogy breaks down because you are killing others and damaging a country while you are doing the saving. Who is to say that you are doing less damage by using military force on a whole nation than by using other means?
Once you calculate the sum total of misery in each scenario, which one is better?
Will the mother who loses her child and husband understand that it was “all for the better”? Would she have chosen this over previous conditions if she knew in advance? Would the Iraqi people you are purportedly trying to help, agree that it’s worth the sacrifice of a few relatives to get rid of a corrupt regime? Shouldn’t it be their choice, not yours? In an ideal world, we could ask them. We can’t, so that makes the issue complex. It’s the appearance of “America knows what’s best for you” which so rankles. We talk about democracy but we gave the Iraqi people no choice. If it was so bad in Iraq, why didn’t we spend our billions of military dollars giving people amnesty in our country (if they chose) instead of bombing them there?
The problem is, your analogy breaks down because you are killing others and damaging a country while you are doing the saving. Who is to say that you are doing less damage by using military force on a whole nation than by using other means?
Once you calculate the sum total of misery in each scenario, which one is better?
Will the mother who loses her child and husband understand that it was “all for the better”? Would she have chosen this over previous conditions if she knew in advance? Would the Iraqi people you are purportedly trying to help, agree that it’s worth the sacrifice of a few relatives to get rid of a corrupt regime? Shouldn’t it be their choice, not yours? In an ideal world, we could ask them. We can’t, so that makes the issue complex. It’s the appearance of “America knows what’s best for you” which so rankles. We talk about democracy but we gave the Iraqi people no choice. If it was so bad in Iraq, why didn’t we spend our billions of military dollars giving people amnesty in our country (if they chose) instead of bombing them there?
Actually, as I see it, the problem is that Bush has put forward a variety of motives for the war. In arguments, all too often when one of his motives is questioned, pro-war arguers move onto a different motive. I see conversations like,
“But Iraq has Weapons of Mass Destruction!”
“We’ve seen no evidence that he has these weapons in any useable form.”
“But Iraq violated the UN Measures!”
“These measures do not contain triggers for going to war.”
“Have you forgotten September 11?!”
“There’s no evidence that Iraq was behind the September 11 attacks.”
“But Iraq is torturing its citizens!”
“Yes, but an invasion isn’t the right answer to that.”
“Look, I’ve shown you that Iraq has Weapons of Mass Destruction, that they’ve violated the UN Measures, that defeating them is vital to fighting the War on Terrorism, and that they mistreat their citizens. How many more reasons for the war do you need?”
“Aaaargh!”
While not all arguments are of this nature (and of course, neither side is as simplistic as I’m portraying them above), it can be very difficult to address all the points simultaneously. What you’re seeing as an inability to accept multiple reasons for action, I see as an inability to argue against multiple unrelated reasons simultaneously.
There is, it’s true, a certain suspicion amongst many anti-war people that the administration doesn’t have a single really good reason for war, and so they’re throwing out all the reasons they can think of in hopes that something will stick. But I don’t think you need to address that suspicion; I don’t see many anti-war folks hinging their objections to the war on it.
I disagree. My fiancee’s father, to take one example, is a conservative veteran who voted for Bush, who voted for Jesse Helms every chance he got. He thinks the war is a terrible idea, thinks Bush screwed things up grandly. I’ve encountered that same sentiment many times – including here on these boards – from veterans.
See, this is what I’m talking about above. Is the national security threat the primary motivation for the action in Iraq? I think that’s one of the weakest pro-war arguments in the arsenal – indeed, I think that invading Iraq creates, rather than contains, a threat to national security. Hussein has no motivation to attack the US (beyond attacking patrolling planes in Iraq’s airspace), and plenty of motivation for not attacking.
But honestly, I didn’t think national security was a primary motivation for the action – I thought that liberating Iraq was being done because we’re such a selfless nation of do-gooders. If that’s the case, our actoin makes more sense. But it’s hard for me to figure out which reason is really our primary reason, and which reasons are just beneficial side-effects.
I disagree. Although we went a long time without inspectors in Iraq, it’s very possible that Iraq used that time to get rid of its WMDs, so that it could readmit the inspectors later and put its thumb in the US’ eye. I saw no indication that the inspectors were failing in their job, and definitely think that we should have acquiesced to the international opinion that the inspectors should have been given the time they needed to do their job.
Not at all. Our choice is to lessen the resentment that many Middle-Eastern folks feel toward the United States in the region by working together with world bodies to defuse crises, or to heighten that same resentment by adopting an I-don’t-care-what-anyone-else-thinks attitude. Hatred of the US isn’t an on-off toggle.
As I had hoped would be obvious (silly me), I avoided specifying the viable alternatives because off two reasons: (1) It has already been done, even in other threads on the SDMB, ad nauseam by me and other posters here. And (2) that is not the subject of this thread, and I am loathe to hijack it in this way.
If you’re interested in reading more in depth about some of the viable options to war, read some of the threads Abe cited earlier, or Google “alternatives to war in Iraq” and see what you, come up with yourself.
I personally get tired of pro-war people saying that we don’t have viable alternatives to war in mind, just because we don’t detail them in depth every time it comes up in discussion. I (and many, many others) have already done so, many times over. It is not appropriate to this discussion, if we’re to keep it on-topic. If you’re really that interested, feel free to look it up.
You are saying that replacing a dictatorship with another is not always good. well duh! The chances of this happening in Iraq are ridiculously small And you have no reason to believe this would happen. But in any case, I do not see how any new dictature would be worse that Saddam’s regime. So your point is moot.
Well, you’re wrong. My country IS a dictatorship. Political prisoners, no freedom of press, no respect of human rights, widespread corruption: the whole shabang. And compared to Iraq, it’s a paradise to live in. There are millions of iraqi expatriates around the world. The few who are returning are a very small minority and that minority is going back either for religious reasons (wage jihad against the infidels), wounded national pride and anger about the civilan casualties. NOT because they want to defend Saddam’s regime. The sign you were talking about is a perfect example of what is going on in Iraqi minds: they want Saddam’s regime to end but they also don’t want innocent men, women and children to die.
I didn’t say it would be unconditionally friendly. I said it would be friendly, period. Surely a huge improvement over an openly hostile regime from the american point of view. Saddam has done much worse than just stripping people of their property and hogtying the economy. No matter how bad the U.S botch it, it will still be a huge improvement.
Maybe you should question the reliability of the “intelligence community’s” assumptions. What makes me think that alqaeda is being weakened are the arrests of several high placed members and the total lack of attacks on u.s soil when the timeframe is ideal. Facts, not assumptions.
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I don’t think Bush and Blair should be faulted because Saddam Hussein offers a plethora of reasons for why he should be removed as the leader of Iraq.
I didn’t like when the Bush administration seemed to push the Al Qaeda connection. It gave the Axis of Appeasement the opportunity to discount all of the evidence Colin Powell gave at the U.N. Even though it may well be true. There is certainly evidence that Al Qaeda and Ansar al-Islam are comingled.
**
That may be so.
But you show me a cite on the SDMB that laments that the U.N. didn’t make the ultimate decision on whether to go to war in Iraq, that also includes criticism of France, Germany and Russia for the breakdown in diplomacy, and I’ll give you a dollar.
Those that apparently see the U.N. as the absolute authority on war in Iraq are against the Bush and Blair opinion; and not against France, Russia and Germany’s opinion. France rendered diplomacy moot the moment Jacques Chirac said (paraphrasing) “No matter what you say or show us, we will not authorize military action in Iraq.”
That’s “Bush failing at diplomacy?” Bush’s failure was being convinced that he could show all of the evidence that existed that Saddam Hussein was lying, hiding and playing games on WMD, and the rest of the world would have no choice but to concur and move along, having said what they said in Resolution 1441.
Silly George. Since when do politics and logic have to intersect?
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I said it was A primary motivation; not THE primary motivation. Given the 20,000 times Bush cited the potential threat of Iraq’s WMD, I would assume it is the primary motivation, but not the only one.
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Then perhaps you should refresh your memory, by checking out President Bush’s every statement that involved “Iraq” or “Saddam Hussein” since about November 2001.
I don’t think you can put “honestly” and “I didn’t think national security was a primary motivation for the action” in the same sentence, if you do that.
**
Read some Tony Blair speeches. He’s more eloquent than Bush. Maybe you’ll get it then. Unless “not getting it” is a position you’ve staked out for yourself on this issue. Believe me, I’ve seen that one on these boards a few dozen times.
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:rolleyes:
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This popular position perpetuates the myth that we were supposed to look for Saddam Hussein’s WMD as Saddam attempted to hide them from us. Perhaps you should read U.N. Security Council resolutions 678, 687, and 1441 to disavow yourself of that myth. The inspectors were there to be verifiers; not detectives.
As for, “I saw no evidence the inspectors were failing in their job,” I give you Hans Blix:
Please provide me the cite where Iraq did one of the two things Blix says must occur at the end of that passage. I’ll wait.
More Blix:
There, Daniel. You said that you had no evidence that the inspections weren’t accomplishing their jobs. Now you do.
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I’m glad to hear that you will be a champion against France’s, Germany’s and Russia’s irresponsible intransigence on this issue.
Isn’t it most important that we work with other nations? Why do people who think like you make it essential that any action be taken “through world bodies?” More of Europe supports that action in Iraq than does not.
As I’ve already stated, Bush, whether you chose to hear it or not, has cited a national security threat against the United States posed by Saddam Hussein several thousand times. For a U.S. Commander in Chief to cede a national security decision to a “world body” that may or may not have the U.S.'s best interests at heart would be absolute deriliction of duty.
What alternative would you have proposed that hasn’t been tried over the last 12 years? I think it’s pretty defensible to argue that if we wanted to change Saddam’s behavior it would require force.
What else? We only got as far as we did because of the threat of imminent force. You can only threaten so long before you actually have to follow through. Twelve years is pushing it.
There’s always other options. There’s always something else to try. You may beleive that there was still more that could have been tried. You may be right. I don’t know. That still really doesn’t explain the vituperous denouncement of the action which produces a desirable result.
If I grant for purposes of debate that the administrations tactics have been wholly and completely deplorable it still has no bearing on the superlative human rights benefits that this action produces. If it’s a murderer who jumps into the lake to save a life, you can still hate the murderer, you can still denounce him. By what logic do you denounce his beneficial actions? Why should we evaluate the deed based on the man?
Avalonian:
I agree with you, and I think I’ve been clear about this a couple of times already. That’s why I say “in effect,” meaning that that is the result if not the intent.
This is a problematic point for your argument, and one that I’ve considered but not discussed to date.
If the goal is indeed the furthering of human rights, the lessening of genocidal atrocities, it should be abundantly clear that the removal of Saddam’s regime would be beneficial to your goals.
Protesting against this action with the goal of stopping it is directly contradictory to these humanitarian goals. It may even lead this barbaric regime to believe that it enjoys support. It would me, if I were Saddam, and indeed he has publically lauded the protestors.
Protesting against Saddam’s regime would undoubtedly have shown him a more united front. I don’t know if it would have done anything, but it might.
There is the uncomfortable possibility to consider that the protests may have encouraged his position of resisting the UN’s resolution actually making a war more certain.
Please don’t take that as an insult or an accusation. I raise the possibility for your thought.
As I said above, there is at least the possibility that presenting a United front may have given him pause and made him more cooperative.
If you had succeeded and Saddam’s regime was preserved and allowed to continue its atrocities unfettered, how is that “doing good?”
Me too. In the last twelve years since we instituted a diplomatic solution that ended the first gulf war hostilities about 500,000 Kurdish people have been exterminated. Thousands have been tortured, and millions have lived in abject poverty and repression. We talk about the cost of war, but that has been the cost of diplomacy in this instance.
I see no other reasonable conclusion in the face of what has occured than to say that the diplomatic solution has been a catastrophic failure far more costly in humanitarian terms than any war to remove him could have been.
I understand, but do you concede that there has been a colossal humanitarian cost to inaction over the past twelve years? In hindsight, I think it’s safe to say that the diplomatic attempt was demonstrably not the best course of action. By what wishful thinking do you expect that to magically change?
I’ll put it quite simply: The cost of attempting a peaceful diplomatic solution is all those that Saddam has tortured, executed , exterminated, and repressed into squalor for the last twelve years. That number of lives lost is well over half a million. By no stretch does a removal through force approach that number. It’s an order of magnitude less.
The argument that diplomacy has catastrophic human costs in this circumstance is undeniable.
Give war a chance.
I hope I’ve acknowledged it for you here. I don’t acknowledge it as a possibility because it is in actuality what we have been doing for the last twelve years. I don’t think you can call it a success.
When the solution approaches parity with the problem. The problem is north of 500,000 lives in twelve years, plus the torture and repression.
This is not true. Support figures in the US approach 80% according to a poll by CNN I saw Wednesday, and we have a good bit of international support. Again though, this really isn’t about popularity, or it shouldn’t be.
From a humanitarian standpoint success isn’t measured in popularity but in lives saved, and repression and atrocities ended, right?
I don’t understand. You think we will lose? You think Saddam will somehow remain in power?
Am I confused here, Scylla? Didn’t you say a couple weeks ago that you had decided that you opposed the war? I believe you cited the utter debacle of the diplomatic efforts of Fearless Misleader? Are we talking about the same Scylla?
In the “Iraqi Street” our support is growing by leaps and bounds and we are being actively aided by the populace. That’s what’s happening now. We are being led to the Fedayeem Saddam, shown weapons caches, and looked upon as liberators. The Iraqi Street in the form of people like “Mohammed” who have made selfless acts of courage and compassion on our behalf against the regime tell us a lot about the opinions that matter.
I have a theory. Even supposing Bush is a lying imperialist who thinks he’s conquering Iraq to Halliburton’s earnings, it just doesn’t matter. Because one thing is absolutely certain, is absolutely clear. Our soldiers who are there, who are doing the job, they are doing it to liberate Iraq and save a people from a tyrant.
You may disagree with our leaders by find it near impossible to place fault with the way our soldiers are comporting themselves.
You may be right. It may be perception. However, I think that my perception is basic and eminently reasonable.
Saddam’s regime is an abomination in the eyes of God and man. Nobody here, I’m sure would defend it.
Twelve years of diplomacy have been a catastrophic failure. By no reasonable argument is there any reason to suggest Saddam will stop or leave unless we force him too.
Removing the regime ends its evil.
If one is an activist for humanity how can one argue a course of action which results in the preservation of these ongoing atrocities?
How do you argue to let it stay?
Errata:
I have no response for you.
maximum C:
I addressed this in my previous post. Diplomacy = 500,000 +++ dead, in twelve years, millions repressed, abject poverty, and human rights atrocities. War = maybe 100,000 at most (a WAG but a good one. I’m open to better,) one time cost.
Five to one in favor of war.
Nietzsche:
Close. The status quo is overwhelmingly negative vis a vis humanitarian goals and has not been amenable to twelve years of diplomatic attempts at change. Why argue for a course of action that will preserve this unacceptable state?
And one can point to our occupation of Japan and our change of regime as a time when it worked. We did not supervise Iran’s regime change. We did japan’s. Japan is a better model.
Japan and Germany bore no resemblance to each other, yet it worked in both. What argument is proposed that not only will it not work, but the results will be worse than the current regime?
Again, you’re arguing a hypothetical, that it may not work. On the other hand, it may.
I think the argument that we make terrorists is a false one, and future attacks are a prognostication, a potential problem, not one that automatically is.
OliverH:
There’s a lot of posts here, and I hate to repeat myself. I’ve made arguments, if you address them, I can answer you. I can’t do much in the way of a meaningful response other than repeating myself to your blank assertion.
Why not us? Why stand by and let this regimes barbarism and atrocities continue?
Actually I argued back then that leaving an impotent Saddam in place was better than creating a martyr, against people who thought he should be removed and it was a mistake to stop. I think I was wrong.
He didn’t stop short of using WMDs.
I don’t share your access to a time machine, or crystal ball or wherever you derive your proof.
You use gun control as an example but I don’t see the analogy as being valid. One who argues against gun control is indeed arguing a result that leaves guns available to homicidal madmen. However, that is not the primary effect. It is, they argue a negative of the greater good that the right to bear arms provides (or at least I argue it that way.)
The peace protestors posit no greater good that I can see.
I agree that we could have done better, and there is cause for legitimate criticism because of it. I don’t think we should have stopped because we didn’t achieve the optimum solution as letting things default to the status quo would have been even worse.
Even if true, Halliburton making a bunch of money is hardly an objection to the humanitarian gains of regime change.
yawndave:
I don’t know either. I hope your right. In the meantime force that results in immediate positive humanitarian goals seems like a viable stopgap, or at least not something worthy of protest.
or late for dinner.
Rusalka:
I addressed this in an earlier reply on this page. I hope you won’t think me rude if I refer you to it rather than repeat.
So one would be right to protest the procedure for entering the war, but should support the war itself because of its beneficial effects on the Iraqi people? Regardless of its potentially disastrous effects for ME stability, etc?
You didn’t, by any chance, receive your eduction from Jesuits?