But I thought opponents said that they WOULD trust the administration if they said “We’ve got the evidence”. Now you’re saying you don’t? What do they have to do, release the names of the people who provided it?
Before we go too far down the strawman path, perhaps you should describe exactly what type of evidence you would accept.
I for one believe that the administration has exactly the evidence Cheney says they have, because it’s specific. You know how you can spot spin or equivocation? When you don’t get details. If Cheney said, “we have evidence that they are trying to acquire some materials”, I’d be a lot more skeptical, but still willing to listen. When he says, “They have been trying to buy X number of tons of an Aluminum of type Y”, then I assume they have exactly that, because it’s pretty hard to make something like that up and not have that fact come out later on.
Plus, if you aren’t going to trust that your government is telling the truth when they make a direct, factual statement, just what can you possibly trust? Disbelieving things like that is a good way to head down the tin-foil conspiracy path.
I have no idea. Do you? I understand that this stuff isn’t your run-of-the-mill aluminum tubing, because its manufacture and sale IS tracked carefully. Iraq apparently got caught trying to buy the same stuff in the late 1980’s. For all I know, it’s a special aluminum alloy totally unused in any other industry.
I have no idea again. Maybe they caught them ‘trying’ to buy one load of the stuff, and have no idea if they managed to purchase other loads of it. Or maybe Iraq had a whole bunch left over from their older nuke program. Or maybe they’ve got carbon-fiber rotors as well, and losing the aluminum means they just can’t refine quite as much enriched uranium.
They HAVE to test it? Nonsense. If they only manage to build one bomb, I’d guess that they won’t try to test it to see if it works. I don’t think Israel ever tested a nuclear weapon - do you doubt that they have functioning bombs that they could use? This is a specious argument.
[quote]
Nope, Mr. Cheney. No sale.
/quote]
Elucidator, you’re letting your bias show. You’ve decided ‘no sale’ on Cheney’s evidence without A) hearing it, or B) even reading what he said, other than the single paragraph about it that I posted.
But I thought opponents said that they WOULD trust the administration if they said “We’ve got the evidence”. Now you’re saying you don’t? What do they have to do, release the names of the people who provided it?
Before we go too far down the strawman path, perhaps you should describe exactly what type of evidence you would accept.
I for one believe that the administration has exactly the evidence Cheney says they have, because it’s specific. You know how you can spot spin or equivocation? When you don’t get details. If Cheney said, “we have evidence that they are trying to acquire some materials”, I’d be a lot more skeptical, but still willing to listen. When he says, “They have been trying to buy X number of tons of an Aluminum of type Y”, then I assume they have exactly that, because it’s pretty hard to make something like that up and not have that fact come out later on.
Plus, if you aren’t going to trust that your government is telling the truth when they make a direct, factual statement, just what can you possibly trust? Disbelieving things like that is a good way to head down the tin-foil conspiracy path.
I have no idea. Do you? I understand that this stuff isn’t your run-of-the-mill aluminum tubing, because its manufacture and sale IS tracked carefully. Iraq apparently got caught trying to buy the same stuff in the late 1980’s. For all I know, it’s a special aluminum alloy totally unused in any other industry.
I have no idea again. Maybe they caught them ‘trying’ to buy one load of the stuff, and have no idea if they managed to purchase other loads of it. Or maybe Iraq had a whole bunch left over from their older nuke program. Or maybe they’ve got carbon-fiber rotors as well, and losing the aluminum means they just can’t refine quite as much enriched uranium.
They HAVE to test it? Nonsense. If they only manage to build one bomb, I’d guess that they won’t try to test it to see if it works. I don’t think Israel ever tested a nuclear weapon - do you doubt that they have functioning bombs that they could use? This is a specious argument.
[quote]
Nope, Mr. Cheney. No sale.
/quote]
Elucidator, you’re letting your bias show. You’ve decided ‘no sale’ on Cheney’s evidence without A) hearing it, or B) even reading what he said, other than the single paragraph about it that I posted.
As for “reading what he said”, I hope you don’t assume that my whole source for news of the day is the “Sam Stone News Hour”.
Media Whores Online, BuzzFlash, Tom Paine…the whole spectrum. So there.
You know, its not so much that I fear mendacity on the part of the Bushistas, but I fear them identifying rumor as intelligence. Or worse, accepting intelligence from a third party without due scrutiny.
Historicly, intelligence services “fail” because they deliver information that is unwelcome or contradicts some dearly held assumptions. The most dramatic being Stalins refusal to believe that Hitler was about to invade.
Or who can forget how quickly we believed, as gospel, that Iraqi soldiers were turning babies out of thier incubators. Hell, I bought that one!
Biased? Maybe. Even to this day, I have difficulty seeing Operation Urgent Fury (Grenada) as a valiant triumph of arms. I still think of it as us bitch-slapping some pipsqueek. Oh, yeah, we bad.
Why, even then, I had some reservations as to the desperate plight of our medical students, and the perfidious designs of that crack squad of elite terrorist Cuban bulldozer drivers.
I get suspicious when they start pounding the drums. Maybe I ought to be ashamed. Or maybe you ought to be grateful.
I suppose I wasn’t clear. What I mean is that my opinion is derived from the arguments given and the links provided by SDMB posters in several older threads. So, If you want to know how I came to my conclusion, just read these threads/links. If I was to argue about this topic, I would essentially restate arguments already given by other people here in the past. Which would be quite pointless. To sum up my opinion very briefly, I do not doubt these weapons were actually build, but I somewhat doubt they’re actually lost, and I very strongly doubt they’re still operable. My point was that since I was left unconvinced by the supposed danger of these weapons after reading the debates on this topic, the evidences don’t seem as “overwhelming” as you stated.
So, perhaps we could leave this argument at this.
OK. Let’s reformulate : “there zero reason to believe they’re in Irak rather than say, in Kasakhstan or a hundred of other nations”, so it’s no more an argument in favor of attacking Irak than it’s an argument in favor of attacking Kazakhstan.
If there are 3 millions other reasons, just argue about these reasons rather than invent other unsupported reasons. For instance : 4 or 5 years ago the radar signature of all NATO ships have been apparently diverted. It could be the Iraki secret services…why not? So, you could also add this as a good reason to attack Irak. And you could add anything nasty thing which happened in the world as soon as there’s some remote possibility that Irak could be responsible. Similarily, if you want a resident of your town to be arrested, you could list all the crimes commited in the town during the last year and state that since this guy lives in the town, he could be the culprit for all these crimes, so it’s a good reason to arrest him. It makes no sense.
I was talking about the “suitcases” issue. Now, you’re listing other unrelated reasons. Fine, but it’s not a response to my argument.
What you’re doing is trying to prove that Hussein is evil. Fine (though some of your arguments aren’t very sound : the fact that a country has a grip of vital ressources isn’t a valid reason to attack it in my book, and the Saudis are probably much more hated in the muslim world, and attacking them doesn’t seem in order). I agree that Hussein is “evil” (don’t really like the word, but i’m not going to check my cictionnary for a better word), but if I had to choose a country which will be attacked because its government is evil, I wouldn’t pick Irak but more likely North-Korea, for instance. The question is : knowing that there are plenty of country which have “evil”, backward, oppressive governements and are a threat for their neighbors, there must be a good reason to attack this one rather than another.
In order to convince me that Irak should be attacked, you’d essentially have to convince me that the final result will be on the overall much better than the current situation, and will justify the deaths and destruction which will necessarily result from this war (and also that there are no other better method to achieve the same result, of course)
“In order to convince me that Irak should be attacked, you’d essentially have to convince me that the final result will be on the overall much better than the current situation, and will justify the deaths and destruction which will necessarily result from this war (and also that there are no other better method to achieve the same result, of course)”
How bout if I just flashed you a winning Matt Damon smile, looked pitiful, and said “please…”, then would you be convinced?
I’m trying to figure out if the spelling of “Iraq” as “Irak” is A) an obscure transliteration thing, or B) Use of the magic ‘K’ instead of ‘Q’ (see: Amerika, Klinton, etc), or C) really bad spelling.
I’m pretty sure that in some other languages it’s spelled “Irak” (i.e. German). Seeing as how Clair is a European doper, that might be the spelling she is accustomed to.
Well due to the fact that I started this thread, I think I should keep my bias to myself and comment on my impression of what’s been written so far:
we have two clear camps - this is one of those issues like circumcision that draws heated debate and rarely changes the other side’s view.
nearly every piece of “evidence” presented is opinion, propaganda, heresay, or “from a reliable source”.
George W Bush telling me they have reliable information that he is developing WMD’s (God I hate that label) is simply NOT GOOD ENOUGH. Because GWB says something does NOT make it fact.
Because he is the President of the United States, one gives the benefit of the doubt EXCEPT when he is going to kill a lot of people because he has “secret information”. Do you think GWB is 100% sure SH has all this stuff? Is he 100% sure SH is even trying to make this stuff?
Sampiro’s point that this is about the price of oil is very valid. There is no denying that the oil factor makes Saddam much more of a pain in the arse for the US than otherwise.
Sam Stone’s sentiments are carried by a great many people, but I can’t help thinking that side of the argument is mainly driven by fear of what Saddam MIGHT do if he DID have a decent arsenal.
PRE-EMPTIVE strike… think about it… PRE-EMPTIVE strike.
Consider this analogy: I suspect this guy down the street from me has a gun. I think this guy is a total nutcase who shouldn’t be allowed to own a weapon. My suspicions that he has a gun are “confirmed” when my friend saw him loitering outside a gun shop recently. I break into his house one night and blow his brains out. I am vindicated when I discover he does indeed have a gun under his bed. In court, my defense is that I was carrying out a pre-emptive strike on a potential mass-murderer.
I’ll get off scott free right?
OK, I lied when I said I won’t reveal my bias.
My feelings are this:
** Yes Saddam is a menace, and I’d be a lot happier if he disappeared off the face of the Earth. However, I could say this about a great number of other leaders.
** Yes, I suspect he is trying to build WMD’s.
** Yes, I think the West should be worried about it.
** BUT NO… I do not think a pre-emptive strike is warranted. I don’t think a pre-emptive strike is EVER warranted. If the US-led Allies kill ONE innocent person because of what Saddam MIGHT do, it’s too many.
I say let Saddam draw first blood. IF he ever does use WMD’s on any other nation OR on his own people (as we all know he can because he’s done it before to the Kurds), then disintegrate Iraq.
Inform the Iraqi people that if THEIR leader decides to take this course, then they will probably all die… that the consequence of their leader using WMD’s at any point in the future will probably result in the end of Iraq. Basically, throw the ball into their court.
As it stands now, the Iraqi people (who are also subject to endless propaganda no doubt) probably think that the US is planning to attack Iraq for no reason whatsoever except that they want to take all Iraq’s oil.
Throw the ball into their court. Let them understand that the US does not wish to harm any Iraqis, it is just very worried about the threat Saddam poses to other countries in the region. And if their leader so much as farts on another country, they will have no choice but to completely destroy Iraq.
I suspect under this change of foreign policy, Iraq would clean up its own backyard.
I’m just going to get my goggles and helmet now in preparation for the attacks (from both sides I suspect) on my thoughts!
Cheers, and thanks for such a good response – I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks about this a lot.
This doctrine was reasonable in an earlier time, when a first strike would involve a hit on military resources.
In an era of weapons of mass destruction, I think this is just plain foolish. If a ‘first strike’ means the death of millions, then doing nothing when you have evidence that such a strike is coming is suicidal.
To me, the argument boils down to this: How close is Saddam to getting nuclear weapons, how certain are we of that figure, and does he have any other really, really scary WMDs?
If it turns out that he’s five years away from a nuke, and doesn’t have any really scary biological agents (chemical I’m not worried about - he can’t kill millions, and he would need to drop tons of the stuff to do real damage, meaning North America isn’t really under that much of a threat).
If he’s years away from a nuke, we have some time. Let’s exhaust all possible options. Let’s try to get inspectors in there. Let’s build a coalition. Let’s try to undermine his programs and destablize the regime.
But if he’s two years away, and our error in making that determination is ± 2 years, then we have no time to wait.
I should remind everyone that this is not exactly an attack on a peaceful country. Saddam is in violation of the cease-fire agreements, and therefore the U.S. is within its legal rights to attack. And in fact, the U.S. and Britain HAVE been attacking Saddam almost daily for years. Just the other day 100 aircraft carried out a large-scale strike against Iraqi military targets.
Yes Sam, I think you make a good argument.
I don’t necessarily agree with you, but I think your argument has merit.
What I would like to see is HARD EVIDENCE that he is indeed a real threat in the near future. Personally, I think the West over-estimates his current and near-future capabilities.
The rest of Europe, who currently don’t want a bar of this action, would be far more supportive if there was more evidence.
I would also like to contend that any military efforts towards Iraq would not be a Gulf War-style turkey shoot. In fact, I would liken it more to Vietnam. i.e. have you considered that the Allies (which would include Britain and Australia) could lose?
What if 100,000 Allied forces die and they discover that he really didn’t have what we thought he had?
The best scenario would be an invasion, a quick capitulation by the military, and for Saddam to either be overthrown internally or successfully targeted by the Allies. I consider this HIGHLY unlikely.
Your concern that he could kill millions of people first would apply to any country with a considerable arsenal (think about some of the countries that already have nuclear capabilities that you or I think could actually use them - Pakistan, China, Israel).
I would like to see Saddam “unseated” as much as you Sam, but I would prefer the method to be covert, diplomatic, or economic.
I worry that a lot of Americans would die if Bush did decide on a pre-emptive strike.
I watched “Black Hawk Down” recently, which is based on an actual event in Somalia. 1000 Somalis died along with 19 US elite forces in what can only be described as a botched attempt at capturing a few undesirable warlords. Would they have done this mission had they known the consequences? I don’t think so.
I think an invasion of Baghdad would be just as unpredictable, and potentially exponentially worse.
Daoloth is right. In my case,i t’s because it’s often spelt “IraK” in France (though I believe the official french spelling is also IraQ).
I should have been more attentive, since when a poster asked me for a cite about the unilateral extension of the no-fly zones, I spent a lot of time trying various combinations of words in Google to find said cite. I could find many of them in German, French and Spanish, but I was unable to find one in english. I was about to assume the english speaking medias were censoring this information when I realized the problem was my spelling of “IraK/Q”.
It’s most probably because at some point someone decided that a “K” was the best rendition of whatever arabic letter used in the real name. I suppose that letter IraQ decided upon some official way to spell the name of the country in our alphabet, but that this official norm never really took roots.
I just checked it : the arabic letter is a “qaf”, so indeed, there’s no logical reason to spell it IraK.
The lack of a standard Latin alphabet transliteration of Arabic names can be a haqqa-sayr when doing research. I find the best results are to use lengthy Boolean searches, such as
(Osama or Ousama or Usama) and (“bin Laden” or binladin or binladen) and (Quran or Qur’an or Koran) and (burqa or burka or burqua)
It can be time consuming, but it’s sometimes the only way to flush out what you’re looking for. Most of the research I do is in ancient history, and I swear that every single European & American writer from Aristotle to Zinn invented his own spelling for non Latin names of places and people.
Quick summary of the pros n cons of military action against Iraq.
It seems that in debating whether or not to strike Iraq we are in danger of making the assumption that a successful outcome is a foregone conclusion.
In reality the potential scenarios are varied and unpredictable, ranging from the relatively benign to the relatively horrific.
One very real possibility is that a cornered Saddam Hussein deploys chemical or biological weapons on an advancing invasion force (or against Israel). In the Gulf War the US made it clear that any such action would draw a swift tactical (!) nuclear response. The threat of such an exchange was one of the reasons why the coalition forces backed down from marching on Baghdad in 1991. Has this situation changed? What are the US contingencies for such provocation and what would be the consequences if the US retaliated?
A pre-emptive strike on Iraq is an audacious (bordering on the reckless) move, fraught with uncertainties. I hope that Bush and Blair have clear, damning, incontrovertible evidence that Saddam Hussein represents an immediate and serious threat to international security before embarking on an extremely risky venture.
This is also a big concern of mine. We are brought up to believe that people are innocent until proven guilty.
Do we have irrefutable proof (besides what we are told) that they are producing WMD’s?
Do we have irrefutable proof (besides what we are told) that if they are, that SH would use them for attack rather than defense?
I’m still having a lot of trouble wrapping my head around the justification for “pre-emptive” anything. One can be tried for conspiracy to attack, or conspiracy to violate UN resolutions I guess, but to date the evidence is not concrete in my view.
And its not even for certain whether or not we’ll go to war. Heck, all of this could be a giant ruse to force Saddam to accept the original inspectors and/or formally “resign”.
Quite frankly, I don’t care if he’s the one in power or not, so long as he isn’t building nukes (and we can tell this for sure) and isn’t funding terror groups. He lets off, I’d let off.
The Middle east has no enemy states to the USA. It has no friendy ones, either. It does have opposition states and ally states. Hence Saudi Arabia is an ally, but far from a friend, while Saddam is out Opposition, but arguably should be our friend. C’est la vie.
