I joined the Marine Corps in the late summer of '90 because I believed it was a just cause… and this is the first I’ve heard of that whole “baby killing” story. My reason was:
“Invading one of our (allies/trading partners) without provocation is wrong. Withdrawal or we will remove you.”
Are/were there other situations where this concept could have been employed where it was not? Yup. Is that wrong? Yup. Does that detract from the justification for liberating Kuwait? Nope.
Urban Ranger, it’s not an either/or situation. To turn your quote around –
It is a sad thing that oil or some other economic/strategic factor is too often necessary before the U.S. will intervene in an ongoing human rights tragedy or take a stand against aggression. But what would you rather have, no attempts to combat evil in the world, or at least some attempts, those attempts occurring where other U.S. interests are involved?
I completely agree Diogenes, but are you suggesting that it is still unsubstantiated that Iraq is not in compliance with UN resolutions and the treaty they signed at the end of the war? I thought the argument was “What should be done to bring Iraq into compliance?” (where reasonable people can have wildly varying views), not “Is Iraq in compliance?”
You have mentioned this a couple of times. Do you have a cite on this?
I mention it because I read the New Yorker article about the attempt to assassinate Bush Sr. A nice article, written essentially from the point of view of the defense lawyers of the assassins, but there were several places in which Seymour Hersch says things to the effect of “A senior White House official told me…” or “Someone who is familiar with these cases is sure…” and so on.
In other words, we are being asked to take Mr. Hersch’s word for it that what he says is true, and that Mr. Hersch’s sources are correct - and that we should not take Bush’s word for it, and that Bush has no sources other than those already made public.
Not to say anything against Mr. Hersch’s veracity, but there are instances where other members of the press also made confident statements about their sources, and it turned out that no such sources existed. The infamous Pulitzer Prize winner and her imaginary “Jimmy”, the eight-year-old heroin addict, for instance, or Bob Woodward citing interviews he had with Bill Casey during a period when Mr. Casey was paralyzed, unable to speak, and during which the CIA guards and Mr. Casey’s family all testified that Woodward was never alone with him.
I guess I should have posted this in the other thread, but as long as I am here…
Sgt. J: Iraq has not been in compliance w/the UN resolution for several years. The current administration did not seem to be much concerned about until it suited them politically.
Failure to comply with the UN is not a justification for unilateral military retribution by the US without even the SANCTION of the very entity which supposedly has been defied.
The whitehouse has never seriously held up the UN resolution as a justification anyway, rather they give cassandra-like predictions of massive Iraqi attacks on the US. They also have tried to infer some nebulous connection between Hussein and Al Quaeda, although they have, as yet, shown no convincing evidence of this. Furthermore, The CIA itself has just released a report CONTRADICTING such an assertion.
The White House has also failed to produce evidence that Iraq either possesses WOMD or that they would have the means to “fire one at the US” as Rumsfeld recently predicted.
Iraq has currently agreed to allow UN inspectors, so, for the moment at least, the UN resolution justification is out the window.
The closer we have gotten to the November elections, the more the WH has ginned up the rhetoric, making more and more dire predictions, yet still producing no evidence that such hysteria is warranted.
IMO they simply wanted to get all the dems who are opposed to a “pre-emptive” strike on Iraq on record as voting against it so that the GOP may then villify them as “anti-American” or “pro-Saddam.”
We are being “duped” in the sense that the threat of Iraq is mostly political rhetoric.
The difference here is that, AFAIK there have been no made-up stories of Iraqi atrocities in recent months that have been trumpeted by the administration to justify the proposed military action. So, we are not being duped in that regard.
Of course, as so many threads in this forum have shown, there is plenty of room for debate as to the accuracy of the claims put forward by the adminsitration in favor of military action.
Here are all the justifications by the administration that I know of so far, and my understanding of their relative accuracy (feel free to correct me):
Iraq is developing nuclear, chemical and/or biological weapons and will use them on the US at the first opportunity – certainly possible but I am unaware of any specific threat involving such weapons that Iraq has made against the US since the end of the Gulf War.
Iraq will provide al-Queda or another terrorist organization with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons from its own stocks to use against the US or allies – no history of such by Iraq and no specific evidence presented by the US that such an action is being contemplated
Failure by Iraq to adhere to various UN resolutions put in place since the Gulf War – true, but from what I’ve read, these resolutions do not provide for the US to take independent military action in response
Refusal by Iraq to allow unlimited access by UN weapons inspectors within framework of existing UN resolutions – true; Iraq clearly is only reopening talks in response to US miltary threat and appears to be delaying inspectors’ return as long as possible; again, no specific mandate by UN for independent US miltary action to enforce inspections
Continuing firing of Iraqi anti-aircraft weapons at US aircraft patrolling the ‘no-fly zones’ imposed by the US after Iraqi supression of Kurdish rebellion – true
Iraq holding Navy F-18 pilot prisoner since 1991 – Navy just last week reversed position that the pilot was missing and presumed dead, and now states that the pilot is alive and held prisoner; main supporting data stated to be claim by unidentified Iraqi dissdent that pilot is alive
AFAIK, two other reasons often attributed to the administration, that a) the US wants to stabilize Iraqi oil supplies to the West and b) that George W. is avenging the assassination attempt against his father in Kuwait, have NEVER been claimed on the record by any administration official.
Looking at it this way, the administration certainly has shaded the truth concerning the Iraqi threat to US interests, but I haven’t seen any big lies like the baby-killing story. Feel free to correct me if have omitted anything or gotten the stories wrong.
Sua, because you and spooje never heard the story doesn’t diminish it’s impact on the american public and more importantly those responsible for making the decision or authorizing going to war. Even if you hadn’t heard the story, you may have still have been swayed your decision indirectly to support the war. (I know, I know, you asking how. Your smart, you know about propaganda and how it works, you can figure it out for yourself. ;))
From Snopes, here’s a quote from [Columbia Journalism Review, 1992]
By the PR industry. Far more powerful than the Kuwaitis.
Are we being duped? In their less guarded moments, even White House staff sometimes, accidentally, speak the truth. “From a marketing point of view, you don’t introduce new products in August” – Andrew “What A” Card, White House Chief of Staff.
—“From a marketing point of view, you don’t introduce new products in August” – Andrew “What A” Card, White House Chief of Staff.—
While this statement has been criticized, and Al Gore misquoted it to give it mroe sinister effect, I’m not sure it represents any “less guarded” moment that reveals the sorts of truths you think it does. From the context of the interview, Card seems to be talking mostly about the press offensive to justify war on Iraq, and the relative lull period of August (especially consider Bush’s relative inactivity at this time due to vacation and other such concerns)
That’s like saying “I’m being sued by lawyers” - it makes no sense. These people don’t work for free.
Look, the OP implied that the U.S. public was being manipulated by the U.S. Government, and to prove it he brougnt an example of the Kuwaiti Government misleading the U.S. public. I just don’t get the connection.
The claim made by Bush was quickly dismantled. Responding to a NYT article published after Bush made his statement, the IAEA issued the following press release:
Later that evening, a White House spokesman (whose name I don’t recall) explained that Bush’s statement drew on the administration’s own conclusions regarding reports released by the IAEA in 1998. Those reports, if I understand correctly, outline the state Iraq’s NW programs in 1998 but don’t make any predictions regarding eventual acquisition.
I think I’ve heard that the IAEA estimated in 1994 that Iraq was 2 to 4 years away from completing the bomb, but that was before the entire program was dismantled. Most estimates that I know of now predict that he might be able to acquire nuclear capacity in a decade or so.
A visit to the IAEA website and perusal of the documentation it contains on these issues is really worth one’s time. You can find the IAEA here.
That’s a well nigh impossible demand.
How can anyone demonstrate the effect of a single propaganda item? Unless an extensive poll was done, along the lines of a marketing research.
Would you recognise the influence of a comercial, you saw a week before, that made you decide to buy product X.
Will there be any WW2 veterans that would say they went to fight the Nazis, because they saw a Disney cartoon that portrayed Hitler as an evil madman?
Propaganda (and commercials) work more subtle than that.
I tend to agree with EasyPhil about the baby story - I remember it specifically, along with a host of other similar stories, likely of similar veracity. I doubt if the administration deliberately lied about these stories, though. Generally, there tend to be all sorts of versions of events floating around, and partisans of different sides will have dramatically different versions of events. Who to believe, then, will depend on who is in vogue as the Good Guy, and who is the Bad Guy. At that time, the Kuwaitis had garnered some sympathy for being invaded, and they were Good Guys; everything they said was the unvarnished truth. Saddam Hussein was the Bad Guy; the worst that could be said about him was bound to be true, and any claims to the contrary were propaganda.
A similar situation will prevail with regards to claims made about other conflicts, e.g. Kosovo, or the Israeli/Palestinian situation, with believability being dependent on one’s view of the various participants.
I imagine in this instance as well, there is some ambiguity as to the exact nature of the Iraqi weapons program, and the potential threat to the US. And I would guess that the current administration is tending to emphasize the worst case scenario. But I don’t think this implies that we are being duped. Fact is that most people are nitwits, and you cannot expect the masses to be capable of the kind of cold cost-benefit decision making that actually underlies a decision to go to war. A certain amount of propaganda is always going to be necessary. (See comments on this score from Hermann Goering. A bit exaggerated, but the underlying point is a true one). This is also true of many non-war issues as well. So I would say unless the administration is deliberately spreading stories that they know to be false, we are not being “duped”.
I would also note that no one is forcing EasyPhil or anyone else to accept the government’s version of events. In fact, he appears to have not accepted it. So his complaint is not so much that “we” are being duped, but rather that other people are being duped. A bit of a difference, I think.
And has EasyPhil even attempted to look for such polling? No. (And given the huge amount of polling done in the U.S., I wouldn’t be surprised if a poll asking “If the Iraqis weren’t tossing babies into incinerators, would you support the Persian Gulf War?” existed.)
In any event, why is it a “well nigh impossible demand” for us to request that EasyPhil provide, oh, what do we call, even an iota of evidence for his entire thesis?
I mean, this is ridiculous. EasyPhil has made an assertion of fact: but for false Kuwaiti propaganda, the U.S. would not have joined in the U.N. war on Iraq in 1990. If it is “well nigh impossible” for him to prove that “fact,” or even give any evidence supporting that “fact,” why did he start this thread in Great Debates? Without evidence, EasyPhil merely has an opinion, and that is what IMHO is for.
When someone asserts something in GD, one damn well be ready to be challenged on it.
Because there wasn’t a single one - Germany declared war on the U.S., not the other way around, and there was a draft.
I would be shocked if such a poll existed. Beyond the fact that such polling is unusual in any event, the incubator story (don’t know how that got changed to incinerators) was - as noted - just one of many stories circulating at the time.
Is his central thesis something that you actually disagree with? It would seem to me that you are painting Phil into a corner, by focusing on the baby story by itself while he offered it as an example, and by portraying his position as being that the story was directly responsible for American participation while he only says that it was an influence.
Was the Lusitania a factor in the American entry into WW1? Would America have gone to war eventually anyway? Any polls? Or other proof?
I suspect that you agree that tales of Iraqi savagry would have some influence on public support for such a war. And if some of these stories turned out to be false, then some of this support was based on a false premise. Which is the point here.
As noted earlier, I think some amount of propoganda is necessary and inevitable in any war situation. But I don’t see your objections here as being relevant.
