Almost all the world leaders that Bush has made his pleas to have disagreed with him. They told him Saddam’s Iraq was no more dangerous than it was several years ago. GWB himself brought up the real reason a few days ago. “The guy did try to kill my dad.” Not to mention costing him the election. GWB wants to avenge his daddy’s greatest failure and show the world that he’s a better man than Papa. Never mind that thousands of America’s sons and daughters may die just to kill “the guy.” Never mind that it will cost hundreds of billions of dollars that we don’t have to spare. It’s a Texas guy thing.
Saddam Hussein might well be a murdering criminal scumbag, but he would never have attained the level of power he now commands had it not at one time suited Western (not just US) interests to aid him in opposing the Shah.
The “my enemy’s enemy” strategy is what gave the world a powerful Saddam Hussein - just as it allowed the Taliban to attain power in Afghanistan.
While the US may well be spin-doctoring the available facts to present them in a manner likely to gain maximum support for military action against Iraq, the major aim of which is to depose Saddam Hussein, the fact remains that Saddam Hussein does represent a major threat to US interests in the region - whether or not Iraq has ever given overt or covert support to Al Quaeda, and whether or not Iraq currently has or is close to developing WMD.
My perception is not so much that Iraq is being “set up”, but that the US has committed itself irrevocably to ousting Suddam Hussein from power, and that if it cannot be justified on the basis of Iraq’s weapons stockpile then the US government will keep searching for other reasons which will justify military action against Iraq in the eyes of US citizens and the world.
I just don’t get this argument. We gave money to SH, and weapons etc. 20 years ago. So what? In retrospect was it a bad idea? Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t, who can say?
What does that support have to do with the argument about whether or not SH should go now? We helped the Stalin win WWII, does that mean that we were wrong to then fight the cold war against him? Is there some law of foreign policy that a one time ally or friend can never become an enemy?
I am not sold on the Iraq invasion as a prudent action, but I am baffled when people bring up our past support for SH as an argument against war today.
Just to make myself clear – obviously my admittedly tired and uninspired reaction to your simple views wasn’t clear enough (see also follow-up post) – noone is finding anyone’s murder funny. Tears still come to my eyes when I think about what happened. But when reactionary forces take 9-11 to be an excuse to bomb whomever they want, whenever they want, they are not doing anything to recover the lives lost but are only making sure that they weren’t the last!
We certainly used Saddam to our advantage during the cold war and, even more so, he used us. He was always a murdering thug, but he was still useful in terms of dealing with the Soviet Union. And the threat of a nuclear war with the USSR was much greater than any threat he might pose.
But regardless of what the PTA says, September 11th was an act of war against the US by Arab muslim terrorists. Terrorism is now a much bigger threat than nuclear war with Russia. And we have made it clear that countries that support such groups are our enemies. Saddam clearly and openly supports such groups.
To put it simply, attacking Iraq is part of the big picture, not simply revenge for it having the main role in 9/11 (which it probably didn’t). If that makes me an arrogant, war-wongering American, then I guess I just am.
So on one hand you have a possibility of a devastating terrorist attack being carried out successfully, despite the best efforts of the FBI and CIA. On the other hand, if you start a war you have a certain death of thousands of people or more, mostly Iraqi soldiers but also including many Iraqi civilians and US soldiers. I don’t think it’s a very clear cut choice.
While I have no problem with anyone seeking to depose Suddam Hussein as ruler of Iraq, I’m extremely concerned about what happens once that objective is achieved.
It’s great to talk about bringing democracy to Iraq, but true democracy would involve allowing the Iraqi people to decide who will lead them, irrespective of the candidate’s attitude towards the US and the West. Both the US and Britain will be looking to install as leader someone who is first and foremost friendly to US interests.
We in the West have a long history of helping tyrants gain power when it suits our interests to do so, deposing them when they no longer serve our interests, and expecting the citizens who have suffered under their rule to not only be grateful for being “liberated” from such tyranny, but to also forget our role in installing those tyrants in power for our own selfish ends.
And please, don’t anyone try to tell me that we supported these tyrants because we believed it was in the best interests of their citizens that they hold power - it was our interests they were serving, often at great expense to the citizens of the nations they ruled.
And it is our interests we are seeking to protect now, and we will put a higher priority on protecting those interests than we will on ensuring that any regime change is for the lasting benefit of the Iraqi people.
I totally agree that the outlook for creating a democratic government in Iraq is almost nil. However, the reason for this is that neither arab culture nor the Islam religion is the least bit conducive or receptive to the idea. And I certainly don’t favor trying to change either of those because it would be impossible.
Be that as it may however, I still believe that eliminating the current Iraqi state is a necessary part of preventing another 9/11. Even if it means civilian casualties (which it inevitably will).
I didn’t hear the planet’s liberals complaining about US troops flying 90% of the sorties to win “regime change” in Yugoslavia. In fact, the Euros dragged us into their own back yard because they’re too weak to fight their own wars. Still. And Milosevic posed no threat to the US homeland.
Eh, a lot of liberals did complain about the 1999 bombings, especially after it became evident the U.S. had bombed schools and hospitals. Having talked to innocent everyday Serbs who lived in horror during those months, I’m still firmly convinced it was a bad thing to do.
And it’s not that Europe was too weak to fight its own wars, but rather Nato was split on whether to step in or not (a lot of people could see Milosevic’s fall coming) and decided “Well, if the US wants to go it alone, let 'em do it.”
Hail Ants as a self proclaimed "arrogant, war-wongering (sic) American can you articulate what is this “big picture” constitutes, or is it something you read on the back of a cornflake packet?
No, it’s the abuse of that power that’s getting people riled
The big picture is preventing another 9/11 by eliminating America’s self-proclaimed enemies through the use of military force. 9/11 made it clear that terrorist threats aren’t just idle saber-rattling. So we are making it clear that we intend to respond in kind. And not just respond, but launch pre-emptive strikes against those we deem to be a threat. And again, because of 9/11, it is up to the terrorist-supporting regimes to prove they aren’t.
September 11th was not an anomoly, a once-in-a-lifetime blip. It will probably happen again unless we take very active steps to prevent it. Including invading terrorist-supporting countries.
Every other country in the world doesn’t see the need for us to do this because they are not the ones that terrorists are going to attack.
Even if George Bush’s motivation is to help his friends in the oil industry and divert attention from domestic issues, so what? I’m no big fan of the guy but replacing a dictator like Saddam (and his sons) in favor of Cadillac-driving Texans is hardly something to get hysterical over. Don’t get me wrong, I think this is about US self-defense (and the argument could much more easily be made that it is the Euro companies trying to cut deals with the Iraqi regime that are greedy) but the level of animosity directed toward Bush seems misplaced.
So you see MarkyDeSade that, if Iraq is not being framed, it’s not for any lack of will to do so.
I hope that the boys in Washington learned enough from this weekend’s little fiasco to do the job properly when the time comes. What with the internet and all (Thanks Al !), the standards by which hoaxes are judged have gotten a lot tougher since the days of Desert Storm.
My apologies, but I’m sort of slightly flabbergasted. Would you think the US armed forces looking at the prospect of inner city trench war appreciate this perspective?
I think the framing the Iraqis with uranium in a cab thing is the product of an overactive imagination. No offense intended. That just sounds a little paranoid. Hussein’s a bad egg and he’s not scoring any points with anyone. Folks are afraid to take action against him and are peeing their pants because Bush is not. Sadaam’s a GIANT-SIZED pain in the #$%^& and needs to be dealt with firmly. Having said that I’m dead set against carpet bombing civilians. Perhaps there is an alternative. I seem to remember a previous adminstration taking out a pesky nutjob regime in Panama several years ago…
Bernard Lewis was on Book TV this past weekend. He has written a book What Went Wrong: Western and Middle Eastern Response. In the book he tells how the Muslims were leaders in science, arts and culture up until approximately 500 years ago. He says that this is what is causing most of the problems in the Middle East. There are two schools of thought in the region concerning what went wrong. Some say that they deserted their religion. The leaders in this school of thought are the Saudis and Asama Bin Laden. The other school says that they have let the world pass them by and what is needed is for them to modernize. He agrees that we have made mistakes in our dealings with Middle Eastern countries, but says that it is not the main cause of problems in the region. One thing he pointed out was that with the proliferation of communication the difference in how they live and the way we live in the West has become very apparent.
He seemed to contradict himself when talking about a new war in Iraq. He said that the people are ready for a change and it will take very little to defeat Saddam today, since he is much weaker than he was in 1991. However, then he said that it was easy in 1991, and would have been harder 5 years ago and even harder today. In this regard though, he stated that waiting will make it even harder in the future. We’d all benefit from reading this book.
Would the same standard of proof above be sufficient?
Do you have an exit strategy, or a choice between “nuke and run” or a permanent large-scale US military presence. Would these strategies make further acts of mass terrorism against US interests more or less likely?
Well, apart from the point that terrorism is not a US concer, “every other country” might have the view that the current approach is not in the US’s medium/long term interests
