I don’t have a premise, I just asked a simple question. Squink put forth the notion that accepting S.H.'s offer would facilitate his demise. I’m just curious why he thinks this is so.
I have no interest in convincing you that overthowing SH was an urgent and immediate necessity. I don’t think it was thus, and I’ve never said it was. What I have said is that I firmly believe (and believed at the time) that we should’ve taken him out back in '91.
I asked a simple question, and yet you assume all sorts of ulterior motives. Sheesh! At least accord me the benefit of the doubt you seem so willing to give to Saddam.
I am a little confused here. How do you get from us complaining about a war being started based on lies and the Administration hellbent on war and unwilling to accept compromises to the idea that we believe SH is “a wronged saint”? None of us have ever said anything resembling that to my knowledge. And, I will note that many of us on this side of the argument have supported Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and other such organizations who have been documenting what a horrible guy Saddam is since back in the days when Donald Rumsfeld et al. were still sucking up to him!
An important difference between George Bush and Saddam Hussein is that George Bush happens to be head of a democracy that I happen to participate in. I certainly have never supported the “re-election” of Saddam but I don’t see it as worth spending a lot of time talking about it (even when he was still around) since I didn’t have much say in the matter … In fact, very few did since Iraq was not a democracy.
Surely the world is better off without Saddam Hussein if you consider that one fact alone completely in the abstract. However, whether the world is better off in the full context of events is another question:
When the leader of the world’s one superpower and most prominent democracy lies and deceives his citizens, the world (and maybe himself) in order to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
When this nation acts to overthrow the leader of a sovereign nation, no matter how vile, without the support of most of the world community and with pretexts that are untrue, and acting against the norms of international law.
When these actions likely lead to more hatred of this nation on the part of those who could likely be recruited to commit terrorist acts.
When it remains unclear how much better Iraq will fare in the absence of Saddam, given both the complicated nature of that society at the moment and the complicated and diverging motives of the superpower that overthrew Saddam.
We could probably come up with more here but you get the drift.
Who said anything about trusting Saddam implicitly? I think the issue is whether or not Bush truly explored all non-military options for resolving the Iraqi showdown, or if he was predisposed to ignore all options and jump straight to war.
Unless you can show that people were willing to blindly trust Saddam on the matter, this is a classic straw-man argument.
Of course he didn’t explore all non-military options. Of course he was predisposed towards war. The issue, at least as I see it, is if this offer had any real credibility to it, considering the source, and/or whether this was substantively any different than the status quo ante. I say “no” and “no”, for reason already stated.
Well, that does rather narrow the focus, John. From such trivial concerns as whether or not he was baldly lying when he said he hadn’t made up his mind, when you quite agree he had.
Did the offer have any real credibility? Easy enough to find out, don’t you think? The offer was utterly abject in its surrender. “Send your FBI, they can poke a flashlight up SH’s butt if they need to…” Maybe they’re lying. OK, so what is lost, what is put at risk? After some months of build-up, I hardly think the element of surprise might be compromised.
Different from the status quo ante? Well, theres the rub, isn’t it? After month after month of shrill and hysterical fear-mongering about SH’s dreaded WMD’s, and claims that SH was outfoxing and outmanuevering those wimps at the UN, what do you suppose might have happened if we sent in the FBI and they find nothing? Which, apparently, is precisely what would have happened because…[drum roll]…he was telling the truth!
So, you are right in one respect: there would have been no change in status: he didn’t have “vast stockpiles” of Bad Mojo before, so most likely he wouldn’t have had them after. What comfort you may derive from that eludes me.
Nope. It’s certainly possible that Bush hadn’t made up his mind and he didn’t weigh all the non-military options and he was perdisposed towards war. It doesn’t even taken a Clintoninan logical contortion to say he didn’t lie since he offered Saddam the exile option to thwart war. Saddam leaves --> no war.
The truth is, we will almost ceratinly never know whether he lied or not. I’d say it’s quite possible that he did. You, though, seem to be unwilling to say he might not have.
Bush was already convinced, as were many Democrats, that Saddam was adept at hiding stuff, and that he was a master of the delaying tactic. Given the climate issues surrounding an invasion, Bush waited until the very last minute to start the attack. Any more delay would’ve pushed the invasion off for 6 months, possibly a year. You don’t turn the military machine on, and then flick it off because some businessman said his third cousin had a friend who overheard his next-door neighbor say that S.H. really wanted to make nicey-nice.
Bush’s point, as Powell made clear to the UN, was that the burden of proof was on S.H. That he hadn’t given the needed proof, and that he had passed the UN declared deadline.
Well, if you simply need one more reason to hate Bush, have at it. Frankly, I never accepted the need to invade, even if we did find WMDs.
Oh, come on now, do you seriously believe this was a meaningful offer? This offer lacked logical sense in the context that we were supposedly confronting Iraq on (WMDs). After all, if Saddam and his sons left but the Baathists still stayed in charge, what have we accomplished from the point of view of protecting ourselves from the stockpiles of WMDs or anything else? I actually wish that Saddam had called Bush’s bluff and said, “Okay, I’ll go.” I’m quite confident the Bush Administration would have then scrambled to come up with other conditions. But, I am sure they were quite confident that Saddam would never accept this sort of demand, which is why they made it.
Bush seems into this sort of thing, i.e., saying that so-and-so has the last chance of avoiding war by simply accepting our demand that he … and then making a demand he knows won’t be accepted. It worked for him in Afghanistan and so he chose to do it again in Iraq. Whatever you think of either of those wars, I think you have to be pretty credulous to believe that the demands that Bush made were demands he thought there was any reasonable chance would be accepted in either case.
Surprised no one’s mentioned the speech the night before the invasion. Fact of the matter is Bush was going to invade Iraq regardless of what Saddam did. Said so himself in that speech.
At least as meaningful as Saddam’s offer, or do you think Saddam’s was more credible.?
Actually, I expect that the US would still have occupied Iraq, but there would have been no war, and S.H. could’ve saved his own neck. But the Ba’athists remianing in Iraq wouldn’t have fought one whit with S.H. gone, so there would’ve been no war.
BTW, it was not just S.H. who had to go into exile, but the senior members of his party as well. I see no reason to believe that would not have dismantled the Ba’athist power structure.
I was being sarcastic and exaggerating…and more than a touch exasperated. I don’t think that even the most rabid of you anti-war types (well, with the possible exception of Alderbaran that is) REALLY thinks of SH that way. I also, however, think that most of you guys ALSO can’t either think or discuss GB rationally. It will be a HUGE relief for me when he’s out of office, and YOUR golden boy is being attacked by the equally rabid right wing guys. Least I’ll have new people to bash my head against the wall against.
Look, you guys oppose(d) the war. Not a problem. I happen to agree with you, that the war was a stupid thing. To my mind, there was no good reason for us to go into Iraq when and how we did. I DID think there were WMD in Iraq BEFORE the war, and have since modified my position (open mind and all that). I didn’t think that just because he had them (when I thought he did), it was a valid reason to invade Iraq. Personally, I think the US HAD achieved its goals of a show of force in Afghanistan, and that we should have really tried to build up THAT country.
Why is it so hard for you to conceed that Bush may have just been wrong about them though? Why does he HAVE to be evil to you? Why can’t it simply be that he DID think that SH had them, that he DID think that SH and Iraq was a threat…and that he was simply wrong about it? There is ALSO no justification for him simply being wrong you know. He’s the fucking president…he’s not ALLOWED to be wrong about shit like this. It doesn’t let him off the hook or anything. I just don’t get it, why you have to demonize the man.
Well, my whole arguement is that, though Bush and Co. DID want their war (not for the reasons they listed, but for others they didn’t feel they could trust us with…one of the things that really pisses me off about them btw), there WERE ways that it could have been averted. My sarcastic comment was because though you guys can certainly blame Bush for everything, I’ve yet to see you heap a share of the blame on SH. He WAS half the equation, and without him and his past history, the US COULD NOT HAVE INVADED IRAQ. Oh, you say, but he allowed in the inspectors. Sure he did…after we put an army on his border. Even then, there was the sense (right or wrong) that he was holding back, that we weren’t seeing everything. By that point (say 1-2 months prior to the invasion), the only thing that he could have done was leave…there WAS no other alternative that would have been acceptable to the US. It had simply gone too far.
Bush and Co., rightly or wrongly, had staked too much on this thing…too much of America’s (and more importantly to them, their own) prestige lets say. Think back to how it was…with France and Germany openly opposing the US on this. Not just them either. Now, try to be objective for once…what would have happened if America had of backed down? Now, narrow the focus…what would have happened to Bush and the administration if we have of backed down? STOP! I can feel your brain just went red when I mentioned Bush…calm down. Take a few deep breaths.
IMO there was no way we (and CERTAINLY no what THEY politically) could back down for anything less than SH abdicating power in Iraq and going into exile. It was that or war by that point. Ok, so you can bitch and moan about THAT, and I’d even agree with you to a certain extent, especially now with my faithful 20/20 hindsight. But the premise of THIS thread is that good ole SH tries so hard to avert war by means of some businessman…and wasn’t Bush evil to have thrown out the chance to stop the war. sob So, in essence you ARE appologizing for SH, and falsely…no where in the cite does it say that SH was willing to abdicate and go into exile in this obscure businessmans plan. And that was THE non-negotiable condition. In addition, why a businessman for gods sake? As it says in Squinks article, the FRONT door was open if they REALLY wanted to talk…there was no NEED to do this secret communications stuff.
So, you are willing to tear your hair at Bush because he didn’t take this ‘last chance’, while basically giving SH a pass for trying what he had done for years…delay and decieve. For trying something that was BOUND to fail given the mood, and in such a way that was just plain stupid. What the hell are diplomats for when we have businessmen, right? Good points guys.
And the bottom line comes from this gem from Squink: "So the bottom line comes down not to WMD’s, liberty for Iraqis, winning the war on terrorism, or even oil, but getting the guy who “tried to kill his dad.” Read through his cite, then re-read this line. To me, this says it all about debating about anything to do with Bush on this board…
You may now return to your /Bush is the font of all evil chant. Sorry to have disturbed the thread.
What would have happened if Bush had “backed down”, you ask? How about saying what would have happened if he hadn’t simply brushed aside all evidence and all other views and gone ahead anyway? Wouldn’t the situation now be a little better? Wouldn’t our image in the world, and particularly in the part we’re trying to change, be a little better now?
Now what is this crap about Saddam being half of the equation? What the hell do you think he could realistically have been expected to do to avert being invaded? The decision had been made long previously and no new facts would have changed that; you acknowledge that. This is a man whose primary, and perhaps exclusive, motivation, like that of almost any totalitarian dictator, is the gaining and keeping of power. In effect you’re blaming Saddam for refusing to commit suicide.
You can get much further without the extremist arguments. Nobody is claiming anyone involved is either a devil or an angel. This was a liar going after a brute, damn the consequences.
(1) I never said that Saddam’s offer was definitely meaningful but only that it was worthy of further investigation.
(2) The difference is that one of these guys was holding all the cards and one was bluffing and had shit for cards. Saddam’s offer, if meaningful, wouldn’t have been so because he is any nobler than GW but rather because he really was backed into a corner. Bush was not, unless you believe that he truly dreaded the idea of going to war against Iraq, a war that he was sure to win, was sure to unite our country and bring him a large (if temporary) boost in the polls just as Gulf War I did for his father, and a war that was very much in line with a lot of the thoughts being expressed in the neoconservative philosophical circles about remaking the Middle East, the post-Cold War world, and so forth. And, there is really zero evidence that Bush was at all anxious…or even interested…in avoiding war and there is circumstantial evidence that he thought it was something that should be done regardless.
Okay, fine. I am willing to agree that technically Bush was not committed to war … I am willing to believe that he would be happy to occupy Iraq with little or no fighting.
So, I would more precisely claim that Bush WANTED to remove Saddam Hussein from Iraq and to take over and occupy that country with American forces.
[Of course, by this standard, Germany in 1939 didn’t want war either.]
Ah, but you see ElvisL1ves, I think that Bush DID have an agenda and a plan that involved Iraq. I think he did believe that SH had WMD, was a brutal dictator, etc etc, but that wasn’t the REASON he wanted to take out Iraq. That was the EXCUSE to go into Iraq. I think he did what a lot of narrow minded people do…they cherry pick their data, only seeing that data which makes their case for them and ignoring the rest. Hell, I see that same behavior on this board every day, but unfortunate for us, this guy is the fucking president of the US!
To answer your question, ya, I think that we could have saved ourselves a lot of pain (not to mention money, resources and lives) if we HADN’T gone into Iraq. Would our image be better? Oh, probably so, though I personally think our image fluxuates wildly in the wind anyway, so many so, and maybe no…depends on what he DID do I suppose. And also on the whims of those in other countries I suppose.
From ElvisL1ves
I think that the outline of a plan had been made long since…I’ll conceed that. There are all kinds of plans though, and without 9/11, this one would have sat rotting on a shelf somewhere and never been implemented. I’ll definitely conceed that GWB used 9/11 to do what he did. I’ll further conceed that he had it in for Iraq, and WMD played only a small part of why he wanted to take it out (though I WON’T conceed that, in his mind at least, they played NO part). However ask yourself this…WHY Iraq? My answer to that is, because we could. Why could we? Well, because SH basically set up the conditions that allowed us the fig leaf we used to do it. We didn’t invade Belgum after all (or to use a more realist example Syria or Iran). We certainly COULD have, and in Syria’s case, with more actual justification IMO.
Realistically? I think the jig was up for our buddy SH, and REALISTICALLY, his only option was to fold his hand, take his billions, and retire somewhere nice and warm near the sea. How is that suicide?? I would LOVE to have that option myself. Sure, I don’t get to rape anyone or murder anyone (or with less harsh language, I don’t get to be the ‘king’ anymore)…but I get to live, and live damn well if you ask me.
I DO understand your point about how the man was wired, and maybe it was unreasonable to think he’d bolt even with the hand writing on the wall. Maybe he just thought that, as in the past, we were bluffing again. Could be he miscalculated, or could be that, as you say, he just couldn’t give it all up. Doesn’t forgive HIS errors in the least, and doesn’t mitigate them just because Bush was ALSO wrong…least not in my mind. Two wrongs make a left… SH HAD an option to avoid war. Because he CHOSE not to use it, doesn’t mean it WASN’T an option IMO. Thats my point. Its obvious you don’t agree, but thats my position on this mess.
Ya, I think SH was partly to blame for the whole god damn mess. Why? Well, I blame him for being such a pain in the ass in the region for so long. I blame him for cultivating the impression he still had those weapons (which I think he actively did). I blame him for constantly pushing things with the US, such as occationally firing off a SAM at our planes patrolling the no fly zone. Ah, you say, but we shouldn’t have been there. Reality check time…he LOST in GWI. He was da loser. Da loser gots to play by the rules of da winner. Its as simple as that.
From jshore’s post, I’m also not saying that Bush wasn’t eager to go to war, or that he was all that interested in a peaceful settlement. To be perfectly honest, I think that Bush was interested in winning, whatever that took. If SH bolted, well and good…Bush wins. If not, then the military will win for him anyway (or so he thought…jury is still out on this part IMO). So no…as you said, Bush held all aces and was going to ‘win’ (in his mind) reguardless. However the fact remains that there WAS a peaceful option available, and it was SH’s decision not to use it…and from selfish not selfless reasons.
You know, the truth is I think we’re more on the same page about muc of this than you might think. I’d even agree that the “legality” of Bush’s invasion of Iraq was about on the same order of the legality of Hitler’s invasion of, say, Poland. I put “legality” in quotes only because I don’t buy into the concept of international law. But, in the sense that there is such a thing as international law, then I put the two invasions on a similar standing.
I’d even agree with you that the US invasion of Iraq was neither the correct tactical decision wrt what our Middle East policy should be as a whole, nor what our efforts to deal with terrorism should be in particular.
But I do see a vast difference between the morality of what Germaqn did in 1939 and what the US did in 2003. And I suspect that is where we’d fundamentally disagree. Plus the fact that I’m willing to accept Bush’s actions as a tactical mistake. An honest disagreement about policy, and not siimply some “blood for oil” type of conspiracy. (Although, to be fair, I’m attributing that last part more to other posters as I don’t recall whether you are in the “nefarious conspiracy” camp or not.)
I’m not really in the nefarious conspiracy camp per se…and I also am not of the opinion (voiced by Squink) that it was all about “revenge for trying to kill my father”. I think it is a whole complicated mess of geopolitical motives that led Bush and Co. to believe it was important for the U.S. to show its muscle in that part of the world, to try to remake the Middle East (U.S.-friendlier nations with a secondary goal…which will too easily get sacrificed when push comes to shove…of more freedom & democracy), to insure a secure supply of oil, etc. Unfortunately, they seem to have so badly believed that this was the right thing to do that they were willing to lie and deceive in order to carry it out. (Not completely clear how much was self-deception and how much was knowingly deceiving others … Probably some of both.)
And, of course, I do agree there is certainly a fairly large moral difference between our actions and 1939 Germany invading Poland. But that is a pretty freakin’ low standard, and I don’t think the difference is not as large as it ought to be. And, what is most disturbing to me is that some of the rhetoric used in justifying our actions has frightening parallels with Nazi Germany, “1984”, and other examples of semantic abuse in history and literature.
