Never would have guessed.
I actually understand that, but do you think that this is how the protests appear? I mean, if you want to protest for alternative X*, it behooves you to be clear that you are protesting for alternative X. Protesting against alternative Y isn’t relevant.
I’m sure that you are familiar with the expression from the Vietnam war, “we had to destroy the village to save it”.
With your attitude, I fear that the U.S. is the village we are destroying to save another.
That’s it? You don’t like the gun control analogy? How unfortunate that I put nothing else in my response to you.
Wait–I did, didn’t I?
I’ll ponder that while I try to digest your apparent claim that the primary effect that peace protesters are advocating is the continued brutality of Saddam Hussein’s reign.
BTW, I don’t have the fact in front of me, but since you are using teh 500,000 casualty figure as an extrapolation for future result, can you tell me how many of those occurred in the last 3 years?
**
There was a lot of replies directed at me. Can I get just a little slack while trying to respond fairly and thoughtfully to them all?
It’s not that primary effect that they’re advocating, but it seems fair to say that it is the primary result.
Unfortunately I can’t with any degree of precision. It is clear that the large majority occured during Saddam’s attempts at genocide which I believe occured outside of three years ago IIRC.
I will go back and reply to your post by point, presently.
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Ok. I don’t really see how that relates to the OP though other than as a clarification of your particular position of the administration’s strategy.
**
We are in agreement as to how to proceed presently, are we not?
I beleive that this was what I saw, perhaps wrongly as the essential nut of your argument. Open makets provide a benefit, the right to bear arms provides a benefit. These benefits can be weighed against unwanted effects.
There is no benefit to Saddam’s regime that I am aware of.
I am aware of no reasonable argument to suggest that it will go away other than if it is forced to. Twelve years of diplomatic attempts and controls seem to have demonstrated that accurately enough.
It seems to me an either or proposition because of the demonstrated failure of diplomatic efforts over twelve years.
Either remove the regime forcibly, thus putting an end to the atrocities and repression, or do not, and accept the unacceptable.
If you do not accept the either or proposition please describe an alternative that you can argue will succeed where others have failed over the last 12 years.
Failing that, by what criteria is the huge humanitarian net gain of this course of action worthy of denouncement.
It seems pretty safe to me that without a credible alternative, the net effect of the protests is to preserve Hussein’s gvernment.
While I don’t think you fall into the category of protestors my OP is directed at, failing your credible alternative, your ability to come up with a different answer, how then can you denounce one that has the undeniable effect of immediately ameliorating a decades long human rights atrocity on the scale of genocide?
**
Perhaps. But these are hypothetical problems. While they are valid fears they are not necessarily going to come to pass. Indeed, I see no logical obstacle to supporting the war for the humanitarian benefit, while arguing strongly and as forcefully as necessary to ensure that we recognize these dangers and conduct ourselves both in the persecution and the aftermath of the conflic in such a manner so as to minimize these dangers.
These things will not be a direct cause of the forcible removal of Saddam, and will depend in large part in the manner in which we proceed, and are not inherent to the forcible removal of the regime.
But is not genocide an overwhelming issue? Is not the whole point of the peace protestors to further a humanitarian stance. The humanitarian issue is not fairly described as just an aspect, it is (and I invite you to disagree if you will,) the essential nut motivating the peace protestors.
War has unacceptable humanitarian consequences. If it was a Soccer match I doubt they’d object (than again those things do get violent.)
In Saddam’s regime the consequences are much worse. Our soldiers I would argue are persecuting this war in the most humanitarian fashion possible.
In terms of numbers killed, people repressed, and tortured, in terms of humanitarian atrocities, the ongoing regime of Saddam Hussein has proven itself to be an order of magnitude worse than a war waged in the most humantiarian fashion possible with the stated goal of removing that regime.
Why denounce it when the alternative is worse?
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But this is a fallacy. It doesn’t work with speeding tickets, and it doesn’t work in life boats. The inability to save everyone or to fix everything is not an argument not to save someon, or fix something, and it’s certainly not a reasonable cause to denounce someone who attempts to save someone.
I don’t want to be sarcastic, but I don’t want to be accused of skipping something. I do think I covered the point, though.
Destablilizing other Arab nations is not a consequence inherent in the removal of the Iraqi regime. It is a hypothetical that may potentially occur. If I go under anaesthetic for an elective surgery, I am potentially risking death, but it is not an automatic consequence of anaesthesia. Any course of action on the scale of global affairs has potential side-effects and consequences. A reasonable way to proceed (to my thinking) is you seek to maximize positves and do your best to minimize negatives. You do not cease all activity for fear that actions may have undesirable effects. Such paralysis, doing nothing, carries its own consequences.
No. Nor do I think it will be the sole result. I think that is a good result though, and a big one. It is big enough to make it compelling and desirable.
If we are very smart, and very lucky, and we do this thing right, we may very well other desirable benefits. Yes, we may destabilize other Arab countries, but we also may not. If we liberate the country and persecute a humanitarian conflict and provide respect, aid and help to the Iraqi people, the may actually start to like us as some already are.
In all fairness to those making the argument that the Iraqis may not like us, and our actions will earn resentment, there is the counterpossibility that we will earn respect and gratitude.
We may destabilize the region. We may also stabilize it, and bring a greater good.
None of these outcomes are inherent in the fact that we are persecuting this war. That fact, by itself will not cause any of them.
What our soldiers do during this war, and how we handle the aftermath will be in my estimation the prime determiner.
Hopefully now you won’t feel so snippily disposed towards me for glancing over your points earlier.
I had hoped you’d cut me some slack and read into the overlap of some of my other replies, and meant no offense.
While I have heard some intelligent and reasoned arguments in favor of this war, the majority of supporters I’ve spoken to are essentially saying: “Look how evil Saddam is, and we’re fighting him, so we must be really good!”
:rolleyes:
Why the rolleyes? While simplistic there is more than a little element of truth I think in the idea that fighting evil is virtuous.
I have traveled to the US more than 50 times I know more than 30 cities and It goes without saying that I like the US and Its people but let me make some observations on this INVASION on Iraq :
Its an Invasion because no formal declaration of war has been given, so that whinning about geneva convention rules do not apply for the coalition AND the Iraqui people.
I find it Sad that most advocates of this Invasion equal ANTI_AMERICAN to people not supporting the desicions of GWB and its government.
I see America more divided than ever, and worse Its government and most important your president LOST the biggest chance to reunite and take away the diferences after the 9/11 horrible attacks.
Right now your goverment is ALL republican (the majority in the Seats) and the president, so there are no counterwights to stop him ON SPENDING and on his desicions…I was there in the 91 resecion and I saw the terrible things that happended then, no wonder Old gezzer Bush lost the 92 election. Not one to stop the goverment or to regulate it…just see how countries do when too much power falls on the same party: MExico Russia, Japan, germany, Iraq, and countless dictatorships around the globe and in history.
THis has to be the biggest error an american president has made, a real PR nightmare, he should have waited till the Un and the detractors of an invasion had their time exhausted and made a better campaing on other countries as to have better footing on the situation. GWB even chikened out on a second vote on the UN because he did not even got the MExican Vote and the Chilean Vote.
This action has created more Osammas in the middle east and alienated the NATO.
If you ask me the balance is pretty bad for the US and in the event of a Real attack in the US, will you still support this invasion? I am not thinking of an attack tomorrow or 3 years from now but maybe 10 to 20 years from now…will you be still be using that moronic color alert chart…?
GWB made a big mistake and yes Saddam has to go but he did not sell is product very good cuase the world is not buying. Free people in Iraq? ok guys how about Tiananmen Square why dont you free China where thousands of children are slaughtered each year? See how those arguments do not stand up?
Let me see if I can sum up what I’ve said in threads past:
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I believe that the war (or at the very least, the way we are going about the war) will inevitably increase terrorist action against the United States in greater proportion than had we not gone to war (or gone to war in a different way). The lukewarm reception we are getting from Iraqis, not to mention the reaction of many Middle Eastern countries, bear out this fear the more I read about it. I have seen little that convinces me that ill will won’t linger for decades to come, swelling Al Queda ranks above what it would’ve had, and hampering international anti-terrorist effort, no matter how we rebuild.
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I have seen little evidence that taking out Saddam Hussein will make America safer from the WMDs he is supposed to have. I understand that there are other reasons to get rid of him, fine humanitarian reasons, but given that safety from any terrorists he might aid (see next point) is a big selling point of this war, I am not convinced that it just won’t make things much worse when some of them inevitably disappear into terrorist hands.
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While I have read of evidence that he approves of and encourages terrorism, I have seen little that says that he would give away his precious WMDs to terrorists. There is a HUGE step between giving money to suicide bombers and giving out WMDs that you have worked extremely hard to get to forces that you have no control over and who hate you only a little less than they hate Americans. I believe the interpretation of the CIA report holds here.
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I don’t have a better solution on hand; I don’t pretend to be as well-versed in these complex matters as even some posters here. But I have heard little from war supporters that allay what I mention above. Though obviously, I’m always willing to be proven otherwise.
I’ve probably left key stuff out, given my fatigue, but that’s the best I can do right now…
If “fighting evil” were all it took to make one virtuous, then Stalin should be singing in Heaven next to Mother Theresa. After all, he certainly fought the evil of Nazism, did he not? Why drag his motives into the question? And shouldn’t the Chinese be praised for forthrightly freeing the Nepalese from thier enslavement to superstition and mumbo-jumbo, lifting the brutal yoke of the Dalai Lama from thier shoulders?
No sale.
scylla
I’ll give you a detailed reply tomorrow, but for tonight I just thought that I would mention that you very quickly tar every potential negative consequence with “hypothetical” while pretending that the benefit you perceive is “guaranteed”. Do you have some crystal ball that it telling you exactly hwat teh new regime in Iraq will look like and how magnanimously it will treat the various religious and ethnic factions inside its borders over the next 12 years?
Well you certainly have consistency!
Is this an accurate representation of your position:
Whatever the motivations (e.g. control the Iraqi oil) that led the US to invade, and whatever casualties there are, it is justified because over a decade ago Saddam (installed by the US) used ghastly means (sold him by the US) to commit atrocities.
And the new ‘regime’ will be much better.
I appreciate that you are genuinely concerned about quality of life for ordinary people, but I think you’re naive.
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If Bush is motivated by oil profits, then what will he be prepared to do next time supplies are threatened?
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Do you think Bush and his team are knowledgeable about local conditions in the Middle East?
How much planning have they done about who rules the country afterwards? -
How much money and troops are they prepared to leave in Iraq to ensure order?
How will the locals and neighbours view the presence of the troops? -
Will the new Iraqi Government be able to ever have an anti-US policy?
Or will that trigger ‘consequences’? -
What is the current US position on Afghanistan?
How well has that (UN backed) regime change worked?
Sorry, but the only thing that’s moot is hoping you would read what I say. The chance of the situation in Iraq NOT improving is not only not ridiculously small, it is quite high. You are the only person waffling about another dictatorship. All that’s needed is for the different ethnic groups to take up arms against each other. No dictator, but plenty of dead people.
Methinks you are weakening your point, not mine.
Hardly. The Kurds currently enjoy a degree of autonomy they haven’t seen in ages, and potential warfare between the groups is doubtful to improve their situation. As for expecting a government to be friendly, period, that is a BIG stretch considering the general mood in the arab public. Unless, of course, you wanted to say that the US should impose another puppet regime. The Shiites will hardly tolerate that longer than it takes you to say ‘Oops’.
It’s funny that you consider only that information as reliable which supports your opinion, and dismiss that which refutes your opinion, solely on the basis that one supports you and the other doesn’t.
Yes, several Al Qaeda members have been arrested. At the same time, they have recruited several very prominent new people to their cause, like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and as much as absorbed the Taliban, whose forces increasingly go on the offensive in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is more and more unravelling, the Arab public is streaming into the arms of the militant groups. Did you ever consider that Al Qaeda might have a certain priority of goals, and that making an attack in the US is not necessarily top of the list? The Arab public is more and more turning against their governments who are more or less cooperating with the US. Replacing those governments with islamist radicals would be a huge success for Al Qaeda and would at the same time provide them with new havens.
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Yes. The fears brought up are hypothetical, and I do indeed guarrantee that removing Saddam will prevent further atrocities and human rights atrocities from him.
Not at all. Using Genocidal repressive Totaltarianist as a starting point, though. I think it is a reasonable conclusion to expect that anything else is going to be better. We could hardly do worse.
In concurrence with Oliver’s thesis, I recommend an article in the current Atlantic Monthly “The Fall of the House of Saud” by Robert Baer, formerly of the CIA.
You bitch my argument like that and call me a sophist?
You can fool some of the people some of the time but you can’t fool a woolly Mammoth.
One need not bother. A close reading of my parable will reveal that the doomed pachyderm has fooled himself.
Don’t be foolish. We can always do worse.
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That is not a valid representation of my position, nor is it factually accurate.
We by not stretch installed Saddam, and the “ghastly means” thing is technically accurate in some instances but misrepresentative in the context you’ve applied it.
Yes. I think that’s a pretty safe bet. This is arguably the worst, most oppressive, most inhumanely genocidal regime on the face of the earth. I think that it is reasonable to expect that a representative government will do much better than the worst on the face of the earth. Certainly at least trying to make it better isn’t worthy of protest, is it?
I’m not arguing my standpoint. I’m trying to resolve the standpoint of the protestors with a very basic disconnect.
How can they promote a course of action which preserves this? After weighing the humanitarian concerns how can they conclude that Saddam’s regime is preferrable to removal?
I don’t know, and have no grounds to speculate. I’m discussing the facts before us.
Yes.
Probably quite a bit.
I think the number is 75 billion or so.
That will depend in large part on how they comport themselves. I think they are and will do very well.
It will surely trigger “consequences”
Better than the Taliban.