Sua, in case you’re checking in, I will get back to you but probably later tonight or early tomorrow. Very busy here.
Okay Sua, I’m going to have make this as quick as possible.
“Um, Mandelstam, I know you’ve been distracted (congrats, BTW!)…”
Thanks. 
But no unwelcome distractions from that source–though I’ll admit that I’m not the lambada partner that I was about seven months ago 
.
Sadly, I’m more distracted by this war, and by the terrific amounts of work I hope to accomplish before the big day.
“…No precedent has been established.”
Sorry but that won’t fly. The precedent in question is for a major power to diverge from the international-law stance to which it has officially adhered for 60 years and to switch to and then act upon a a new official policy of preemptive war. None of the examples you cited fit that bill. Korea was a UN war. The British did not enunciate a preemptive doctrine, and they got publicly slapped–by the US no less–for their Suez campaign. Vietnam was a quagmire in progress in which the US became embroiled; it heightened the scale of the aggression but did not initiate it.
“From a utilitarian perspective, how does the possibility that other wars and conflicts may arise outweigh the certainty that 60,000 Iraqis die each year because Saddam won’t disarm, that he has killed millions in wars, and that he kills hundreds of thousands of his own citizens?”
Because there are less risky and potentially less lethal ways to to prevent the 60,000 Iraqis from dying. As to the past, that is a matter of seeking justice: and, as I said above, Saddam can be charged with crimes against humanity and tried accordingly. This kind of thing has been done through the UN; or can be done through the new ICC.
Recap: the second prong of my utilitarian critique was this:
“Because having been implicated in some of these crimes, we do not stand a good chance of persuading the world of our noble intentions, and therefore the danger of the precedent and what it might trigger is made far worse.”
Since the precedent stands, this second prong now also stands. (I might add, even without the problem of the unprecedented preemptive policy, the mere unpopularity of this war is enough to make undesirable ramifications likely. Hence, point #2 can be reformulated so as to stand independently of point #1.)
As to my third prong, you wrote:
“what other options are you referring to that would have removed Hussein?”
The simplest and the most obvious would have been acting on the French compromise: i.e., a disarmament timetable to culminate in force (if necessary) after 30-60 days. (IMO if Bush had done this he’d have been hailed as a foreign policy genius instead of an irresponsible Texas bull in an international china shop. He blew his chance to make history in a way he’d have liked.) In the best case of this scenario, Saddam would have disarmed within the stipulated period. In the worst–which is still a heck of a lot better than the mess we’ve created now–the war would have been conducted under the auspices of the UN–with the Europeans participating along with such important new allies as the Micronesians, Bulgarians, and Marshall Islanders.
This would have quelled protest against the war within the region, and mainly eliminated it elsewhere in the world. (It might also have helped to make Iraqi resistance less fierce, and Iraqis themselves less skeptical about their “liberation.”
“what evidence do you have that, had we waited a few months, the UN and other allies would have changed their minds and joined in the attack?”
The French offer was in black and white. I’d call that pretty good evidence.
I keep repeating myself because no one answers me. I certainly did read the responses to my OP, and they most certainly did not address what I said there. Instead, what I got was a litany of “Yes, yes, Saddam is a real bad guy, but blah blah blah…” For example:
And by the way…it has nothing to do with whether the invasion is justified? Are you saying that no atrocities, no matter how evil, would ever justify removing the man from power by force of arms?
I will reply to Mandelstam’s post. First though, I want to reply to someone who, finally, did address my OP:
Let me take those in reverse order:
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They are clearly more committed to their cause because they were willing to put their lives at risk on it’s behalf. If that is not a measure of committment, what is?
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Because they were so committed and then changed their minds after seeing what is going on in Iraq with their own eyes and speaking directly to Iraqi people. Which are two things that no one on this board (to my knowledge) has ever done.
Ummmm…are you suggesting that they were stupid…sorry, “misguided”…because of their belief that their service as human shields would actually affect the administration’s policy, and that because of their demonstrated stupidity…sorry, ummm…misguidedness…we should ignore whatever they say?
Because if you are saying that, then…well, actually, I’d have to admit that you had a point. But you don’t seem to be developing this argument too much…
“(M)orally, self-preservation is a catch-all escape from moral obligation to others”? Seriously? Because if this is what you really believe, I think it deserves it’s own thread. All of the other anti-war types I’ve seen here seem to oppose the war out of high-minded concern for Iraqi casualties (among other reasons). You are the first one I’ve seen say “screw 'em”. I think you are atypical…
Interesting that you should make that point. There is a strain of anti-war sentiment on the right. Pat Buchanan opposes it, as do other so-called “paleoconservatives”. This is most definitely not my kind of conservatism…
I haven’t overlooked this at all. To the extent it is true (and I don’t know what that extent is, mind you), wouldn’t it increase our moral obligation to clean up a mess we had a hand in starting?
This I flat out reject. Hussein’s regime is intentionally torturing and killing innocent people. We are not, and this is more than a difference of degree. I am repulsed by the fact that you would give them even the rough moral equivilency of using the same word, “atrocity”, to describe them both.
Notice that the few people who have are being targeted for death by the Fedayeen Saddam death squads. Think there may be a causal relationship?
And to whom do you assign the blame for this? Who is trying to get supplies to Basra, and who is thwarting those efforts?
So…it is better to be consistently wrong, rather than usually wrong but occasionally right? I happen to believe you have the makings of a valid point here. The difference is, I am not going to oppose a war to liberate the Iraqi people from a torturing and murdering dictator out of concern for consistency. There are higher principles than that.
He tried. He failed. Regardless of where the blame for that failure lies, I am not going to oppose this war because we don’t have a global consensus. What’s right is right, even if the majority is against it.
No. Why is it not a good thing that other nations can depose evil dictators like Saddam? Come to think of it, something like this actually happened not too long ago in Africa. I forget the details of it. I think it was Tanzania, that invaded…Zimbabwe?..to put a stop to genocide. Why is that a bad thing?
And we come full circle. Some of those few who agree with me are those people I referred to in my OP who have actually been in Iraq and spoken to Iraqis. Why do you think that is?
Anti-War protesters change their minds…
No.
Never will.
I am not going to sit down and shut up just because Bush’s war has started.
Just as I suspect you won’t change your mind, even if this turns into another obvious Vietnam debacle.
By the way, am I the only one who has noticed that we are once again stating, “it might take a bit longer than expected…”
I seemed to have heard that somewhere before.
I had written: "Weird, one of the many key problems you overlook is that when Saddam was committing violence on a mass scale the US wasn’t interested in doing anything about it. In fact at certain points in his ugly record, he was our ally (and that of other Western nations as well)."
Weird replies: “I haven’t overlooked this at all. To the extent it is true (and I don’t know what that extent is, mind you), wouldn’t it increase our moral obligation to clean up a mess we had a hand in starting?”
You don’t even know how the US and other countries armed and supported the Hussein regime while it fought a brutal war against the Iranians during a period of some eight years, IIRC? Wouldn’t it be a good idea to get some basic facts straight before you launch into debates with your mind made up? Lack of knowledge in the midst of weighing two sides of a complex moral issue should be a grounds for keeping an open mind; not for shutting the steel trap further.
As to past support increasing our moral obligation to clean up a mess–I’d say it increases our moral obligation to act in concert with our allies and the rest of the world. And right now the majority of the people in the world, including substantial minorities both in the US and UK thinks our moral obligation is to act in concert with international law. And they believe that our uwillingness to do so has very little to do with humanitarian commitments and very much to do with the political interests of the Bush administration. Yes, I know you think that if the majority is wrong they must be ignored: but you yourself don’t seem to know enough yet to judge so confidently against public opinion.
“I am repulsed by the fact that you would give them even the rough moral equivilency of using the same word, “atrocity”, to describe them both.”
And I am repulsed by the lame attempt to cloud this issue with the old “moral equivalency” nonsense. I said nothing about morality or equivalency. What I said is that an invasion is a form of atrocity: whether morally well-founded or not. The impact of a full-scale invasion on a civilian population is atrocious. War is atrocious. That’s a simple matter of fact and it would be just as true if this were a UN war instead of an American campaign.
“I happen to believe you have the makings of a valid point here. The difference is, I am not going to oppose a war to liberate the Iraqi people from a torturing and murdering dictator out of concern for consistency. There are higher principles than that.”
Well since you appear to know very little about the history of the region it’s not surprising that you are ready to focus narrowly on this one secondary point, to construe the present war as one of “high principle,” and to ignore and misunderstand ample evidence to the contrary. I suggest you begin to collect a list of all the known torturing and murdering dictators that currently exist in the world and hold your breath until the US seeks to liberate them on grounds of consistent high principle. Warning: the new Bush doctrine says nothing about humantarian principle.
“[Bush] tried. He failed. Regardless of where the blame for that failure lies, I am not going to oppose this war because we don’t have a global consensus. What’s right is right, even if the majority is against.”
But Bush’s diplomatic failures are widely attributed to Bush himself–for good reason. Among many other things, he had the chance to make last-minute compromises and he failed to act on them. Sometimes the majority is in the wrong, but in this instance I think the majority has a better grasp of the facts that you do–by your own admission.
Humanitarian interventions involving military force are tricky and should always involve maximum international cooperation: via the UN or at the very least NATO. In the past they always have. But, again, the case was never made to invade Iraq on humanitarian grounds. That is a side-issue that happens to have captured your imagination. The case for invading Iraq was made on grounds of non-compliance with UN resolutions to do with WMDs. You are confusing apples and oranges: or rather buying into one strand of argument to the exclusion of others by way of confusing yourself so as to forge along more merrily with your faulty preconceptions.
“And we come full circle. Some of those few who agree with me are those people I referred to in my OP who have actually been in Iraq and spoken to Iraqis. Why do you think that is?”
No one doubts that the Iraqi people have suffered and need help. If this war ultimately helps them to a better quality of life that will be the silver lining in the cloud. However, there are plenty of Iraqis and others in the Arab world speaking out about this war and the former are not overwhelmingly in favor of the war on these terms, and sometimes very much opposed. Why don’t you try to get more information on what Iraqis and other Arabs are saying instead of assuming that only Baathist presence in Basra prevents them from embracing the British troops? Remember the people in this particular region were expected to hate Saddam the most: but the last time around the US let them get slaughtered when they rose up. They do not have cause to trust anyone. It’s just not as simple as you would like things to be. We were not faced with a narrow choice between helping Iraqis through Bush’s war and not helping them at all.
Sure, the U.S. helped Hussein. At the time, it seemed like the thing to do. The Iranians had turned nuts, kidnapped a bunch of Americans, were chanting ‘death to the Great Satan!’ in the streets, etc. Helping out the only country in the area that could balance the power of Iran seemed like the thing to do.
The next question is… SO WHAT? I have never understood this lame argument that, because the U.S. once helped Saddam, he was forevermore off limits to attack. This makes no sense whatsoever. Stalin was our ally in WWII. The U.S. shipped huge amounts of arms to the Soviet Union. Within five years, it was the mortal enemy of the west. Times change.
The argument that Saddam is somehow off-limits because the U.S. once helped him, or that the U.S. is hypocritical for attacking him now because it once helped him, is just ignorant. It ignores the facts of history. Alliances change. Always have, always will.
And anyway, the amount of aid that Saddam got from the U.S. is very, very small. Something like 200 million dollars. As compared to something like 50 billion dollars from the Soviet Union, billions of dollars from France, Germany, China, etc. And those countries are STILL providing military arms and other aid. France sent a whole shipment of Mirage Jet parts and helicopter parts to repair the Mirage Jets and helicopters that Saddam bought from France. Saddam’s front-line fighter is the MiG-29, bought from Russia. You won’t find any American aircraft in his inventory, or any other American weapons at all, because the U.S. stopped it’s very small amount of military aid to Iraq in the 1980’s.
This argument should go away and not be heard from again.
Alright, Sam, let’s learn from history.
Why, pretell, would they have turned nuts? What was the root cause of that particular revolution?
And I must note that while you addressed issues related to the question about the US’ support for Saddam, you didn’t address Mandelstam’s argument.
The problem with that kind of “ends justify the means” reasoning, Sam, is credibility. You simply can’t at the same time act pragmatic, “fire by fire”, real-politik, “our interests”, while you also expect to be an authority on moral, liberation, humanity and high standards.
Maybe it spins here in the west, since the US interests has many times been the interests of us all. But not likely so in the middle-east.
Note that you are not arguing that the US supported Saddam for the sake of the Iranian people. They certainly never gained much from Saddams aggression-war. You are saying that the US supported Saddam because the Iranians were hostile to the US. Which translates into self interest. And mixes poorly with the moral high-grounds of current US adm pro war rethorics.
Sam: "I have never understood this lame argument that, because the U.S. once helped Saddam, he was forevermore off limits to attack. "
I never said that Sam, and I suspect you know it. Debate your own strawman all you want to.
Thus it is demonstrated that those who will not learn from history are doomed to make the rest of us repeat it.
Placing one’s life upon the line is certainly a reasonable measure of commitment. And so I gave them credit for their passion. However, I do not believe that their presence in Iraq would have any effect whatsoever on the war plans, and so it is somewhat fruitless. Jumping out into a firing range to promote gun control certainly is a passionate - and yes, I guess you could say committed - plan, but I question its efficacy. So perhaps you are right. I was hasty in claiming that it does not represent commitment. Perhaps I meant to question its effectiveness.
What two things? Changed their minds? Seen Iraq? Gone to Iraq to speak to the people? Well there are people at ground zero with this whole thing, and you may want to check Collounsbury’s thread to get their view. However, if you want to assume that no one in this thread has done so, then OK, that seems to equally denigrate both sides of the argument.
Well, I am not quite sure how you got that I was calling them stupid, or that we should ignore them. How would you like the argument “developed”? I believe that they are obviously passionately against the war, though I do not believe that their presence will have fuck-all to do with the future planning of the war effort. As such, I would prefer that their passion and feeling take a bit less of a self-destructionary path.
Well, again, I am not sure where you got “screw 'em” from my post. This country is hemmoraging from numerous wounds externally and internally, and I see no moral quandary with tending to those wounds before tending to others. If the only argument you see against this war is “high-minded concern for Iraqi casualties”, then you have an awfully narrow understanding of those opposed to the war, and perhaps would be well served by finding out more.
Yes, there is a large strain of anti-war feeling on the right. As in many things, perhaps most, the current administration ventures far from the standings of most moderates of either party. Again, you seem to have the feeling that the anti-war people are all bleeding-heart liberal types who don’t want any poor Iraqis to get hurt, and you continuing assertion of such does not speak well to your understanding of the opposing viewpoint.
There are numerous threads where the other items popping up in this thread have been discussed ad nauseum. If you were serious in your questions in your OP, then I think your answer is that there are many facets to the folks who are against the war, and those folks who volunteered to be human shields are just an extreme of one of them. The idea that some of them changed their minds after talking to some Iraqis is neither surprising nor terribly indicative that they were wrong to begin with. I doubt highly that they were able to talk to a representative sample of Iraqi citizenry and so the individuals they spoke to may or may not be indicative of the Iraqi public as a whole. The impression that I have gotten from the news and from other threads here is that sure, they want Hussein gone, who wouldn’t, but that does not necessarily mean that they want America to come and save them.
CTB: “The impression that I have gotten from the news and from other threads here is that sure, they want Hussein gone, who wouldn’t, but that does not necessarily mean that they want America to come and save them.”
Or, to put this in a way that might better help Weird Al to get the drift, that does not necessary mean that they want American to come and invade/bomb/occupy them.
Sorry I took so long with this. I might have let this thread go, actually, but I simply had to respond to this:
Well, my goodness. First off, you are awfully indignant over my percieved ignorance (you bring it up several more times in your post), yet I don’t see you jumping in with any information to try and fight it. I could ask, what do you know about the issue?
Second, my saying I didn’t know was part of my policy of not recklessly claiming knowledge about things when I am unsure of the facts. That does not mean I was totally ignorant. For example, I have read this: Top Ten Myths About the War in Iraq. See number 4.
You still haven’t answered my question. Why do you think they changed their minds?
“(S)eeing what is going on in Iraq with their own eyes and speaking directly to Iraqi people” is what I said.
All I am going to say right now is that that is a hella long thread, and a big part of the reason I haven’t replied here for several days. He is confining himself to that one thread, I wonder if I should post my links over there (along with some others I’ve found in the intervening time). I just don’t like threads that get that long, though…they are so cluttered and hard to follow…
I would think, though, that you would have to give a lot more weight to people who, living in a brutal totalitarian regime, are willing to take the great risk of speaking out against those who have the power to hurt or kill them.
Weird: “yet I don’t see you jumping in with any information to try and fight it. I could ask, what do you know about the issue?”
Al, this isn’t the first time that I’ve seen you assume the posture of ignorance as a kind of offensive strategy. My job, apparently, is to educate you; yours is to be skeptical and a bit obnoxious about the information I provide. I’m sorry Al, but I have to be more efficient in my personal fight against ignorance. I fear that you’re a losing proposition for me as you show no signs of genuinely wanting to learn. If you’re convinced by the kind of the information you posted in your link well then more power to you. You seem to have already found a source of information that confirms what you want to believe. What chance do I have of changing your mind?
“Why do you think they changed their minds?”
Presumably b/c they discovered that the regime they’d been defending wasn’t worth defending; or it was worse than they’d believed. I can’t put myself in the place of such people as there’s never been any doubt in my mind that Iraqis would be better off with a different government. But that doesn’t mean that tehre isn’t a right and a wrong way to go about it.
Provide me a realistic way of going about it other than the armed removal of the Saddam regime. This ought to be good.
Ah, I see. And of course, the US is the only one capable of doing it. As opposed to the thousands and thousands of Iraqis who were butchered because the US refused to give the promised air support.
Yeah, the US always knows the right way to go about government change. They knew it in Chile, they knew it in Iran and in so many other places.
That wasn’t an answer at all. Just another one of your anti-American diatribes.
The Iraqis aren’t able to stage a revolt due to the viciousness of the Saddam regime. Not many people are willing to try to organize a rebellion when they know if they are caught it will result with the torture and death of not only them but of their loved ones. I don’t blame them.
I agree that air support should have been given. But according to the gist of your posts, the US should only act when given implicit support by the rest of the world. That support wasn’t given at the time, therefore the air support wasn’t given. I agree that this was a mistake.
Munster:
Do you generally approve of invasion by alien power for the purpose of overthrowing a bad regime?
Oh, I am anti-American?
Funny. I would think my American cousin who was sad to see me leave after 3.5 years in the States four weeks ago would disagree with you.
If anyone is anti-American, my friend, it is you, because you’re defending a course of action that isolates the US internationally, creates greater resentment against them worldwide, destabilizes huge areas and reduces economic growth (by about one percentage point according to the IMF) and incites the active pursuit of damaging US interests in many people. It is you who defends a course of action detrimental to US interests.
**
Except, of course, that they DID stage a revolt.
Thanks for demonstrating that you don’t care at all what the ‘gist of my posts’ is, but rather seek a forum to spew your standard arguments. Sorry if I don’t comply.
I’m defending a course of action to liberate a people who have suffered grievously under a tyrant. It remains to be seen what the lasting backlash will be either positive or negative.
I know they staged a revolt towards the end of the first Gulf War. They did that when they thought they were going to get support that never arrived. They dared not do that again which was the point I was making. And which I am sure you understood.
And if I haven’t interpreted the gist of your posts correctly, then tell me where I am wrong. When in your opinion would it be okay for America to act unanimously without the consent of the UN?