Or perhaps the Bush policy derives from the fact that the alternatives suck. Sometimes you’re thrust into a bad situation overall, where there are no clean solutions. It’s always easy to say that someone should have taken the other approach when one starts to go off the rails.
I mean, think about a situation where nothing is done about Saddam. The sanctions slowly erode, Saddam gets the bomb and North Korean missiles. Under such a situation, it’s hard to see how we could avoid a war years down the road. And that war would be much, much more destructive to both the Iranians and the U.S. than a short-sharp regime change today. But the previous course is the one we were heading down under the Clinton administration.
Speaking of which… The Clinton administration advocated the same goal the Bush administration is undergoing now - only Clinton didn’t have the wherewithal or the political capital to pull it off. And he almost certainly wouldn’t have had the support of the people at the time. So the job went undone. I’m not blaming Clinton, but Bush is essentially following the established U.S. strategy.
Clinton’s administration adopted ‘regime change’ as the official stance of the U.S. towards Iraq. But because they didn’t have the poticial support to carry out an invasion, they planned to fund insurrection with the Kurds.
On to North Korea…
Clinton also recommended scrapping the 1994 agreement with North Korea because his administration believed they were breaking it. But North Korea got all saber-wrattly, and Clinton backed down.
Really, what is the U.S. supposed to do? Let North Korea put that reactor online and start building 50 nukes a year? That sucks. Appease them, and let them know that threatening nuclear war is a winning strategy. That sucks. Engage in brinksmanship with a nutbar? That sucks. Invade? That REALLY sucks.
No matter what Bush does it’s bound to suck, because ALL the options suck. So they are trying to walk a tightrope in between several sucky options. Take a firm stance, try to make the North Koreans blink, but make sure the diplomatic bridges don’t get burned so they can back out. Looks like they’re backing out. Nice try. Maybe they’ve got something else up their sleeve now - Bush’s foreign policy team deserves the benefit of our doubt - it’s probably the strongest team assembled in the White House in 50 years.
—Countries who don’t have nukes or armies do not require pre-emptive invasions.—
I still insist: what we are talking about is preventative (which is far more ephemeral than pre-emptive). If war an attack was immament, and we were striking first, THEN it would be pre-emptive.
Clinton had infinitely more respect internationally than Bush does and would have had a much easier time bulding a coalition for an invasion if one was so warranted. Favoring a regime change is a far cry from favoring an unprovoked invasion. When did Bush start caring about the “threat” of Iraq, btw? He never said the word “Iraq” for his first year in office. It’s only now that he can’t find one, sick little Arab in Afghanistan that his advisors have decided that Hussein would serve as a nice little “surrogate” for OBL. Not one thing has changed in Iraq in the last ten years that would make a pre-emptive attack more urgent.
This would make an attack even more inexcusable. We can’t go around attacking other countries for what they theoretically might do in some indeterminate future. (That’s the same rationale that Hitler used btw.) And if we are going to contrive such a justification, then why stop with Iraq? In fact why start with Iraq? There are other countries which could become a greater threat more quickly than Iraq.
“if one was so warranted”? Don’t you think that when NK was secretly building nukes, something more was warranted than giving them oil and nuclear technology? And, the NK’s efforts weren’t really “secret.” It was well known that NK was building nukes.
Clinton faced the same problem Bush now faces, except that Clinton had more options, since NK wasn’t yet a nuclear power. Clinton’s choice (with Jimmy Carter’s help} was to select fantasy. As a result, NK became a still-hostile nuclear power and the US reputation suffered.
There is no “would have.” Clinton was in the same boat, and his response was a total failure. Of course, Bush may fail as well. Time will tell. But, please don’t praise some imaginery, hypothetical Clinton action.
Cite please ? I really don’t want to get into this yet again, but there’s every reason to suspect that North Korea had one or two plutonium bombs as far back as 91-93. Clinton was not foolish enough to discount that possibility during the course of negotiations. However, ignoring the hidden threat does seem to be an integral feature of Team Bush’s jerkish handling of the problem. It’s no wonder China is blaming us for the crisis, Japan is balking at our rhetoric, and South Korea is forging an anti-admimistration path of its own.
First of all, NK has the same right to nuclear weapons that we do. NK has done nothing illegal in developing that technology and Clinton would have had no legal grounds to use military force to try to cripple that development. Clinton’s policy was to try to bring North Korea into the community of nations instead of continuing to isolate and demonize them. (This is Bush’s strategy too, btw.)
The US doesn’t just get to unilaterally decide who gets to have nukes and who doesn’t. Clinton, who was intelligent, informed and respectful of the rest of the world, realized this. Accordingly, he was popular and well-respected internationally. W, who is the epitome of the arrogant, rude, self-important, ignorant “ugly American,” is (justifiably) perceived as a buffoon by the international community and has quickly squandered most of the good will which had been cultivated by Clinton (and W.'s own father, for that matter).
The administration’s obsession with winning a war for Junior is hurting the country economically, diplomatically and militarily. The only friend the US has left is that insufferable little toady, Tony Blair (unless you count Israel, who has to keep sucking up to us to get that check every year). Bush, himself, has said that an invasion of Iraq will be extremely costly and will damage the economy even more than he’s already damaged it. Piling a pointless expenditure of military resources in Iraq on top of that in Afghanistan leaves us wide open for an attack on a third front which W. would be too slow and witless to respond to.
If you want to cheerlead for Bush, fine, wave your pom-poms, but let’s not pretend that his justifications for hitting Iraq have any real merit or purpose beyond the purely political.
This is news to me. Can you please supply some supporting data on NK’s nuclear weapons prior to 1993?
What do you mean by “right”? International law? UN resolutions? God? IMHO foreign policy should be guided by national self-interest.
Similarly, Israel had no legal right to bomb Saddam’s nuclear facility 20 years ago, but it’s a darn good thing they did – for Israel and for the rest of the world.
Clinton failed in this endeavor, and meanwhile allowed NK to become a lot more dangerous. Frankly, I find attribution of motives to be problematic. I don’t know to what degree Clinton was following a sensible policy, which unfortunately didn’t work, and to what degree he was just feckless.
Why not? And if the US doesn’t take the lead in keeping nukes out of the hands of madmen, who else will do so?
This is true. Too bad Clinton didn’t parley all that popularity into getting the world to act in the interest of the US.
Clinton was the one who squandered the good will, because he didn’t do anything with it. It’s nice for Clinton that he can now abroad and get $50,000 for a speech, but what good does that do for the rest of us?
I don’t think “Bush himself” said this. Do you have a cite?
You really think it’s “pointless” to prevent Saddam Hussein from acquiring nuclear weapons? :smack:
Nonsense. They signed a treaty, and violated it. That’s illegal.
More nonsense. Iraq has violated the cease-fire agreement it signed at the end of the Gulf War. This is the purpose behind both the push for regime change (to get a government in Iraq which would not violate the cease-fire) and the invasion intended to bring regime change about. Your description of an “unprovoked invasion” makes it sound as if Iraq were an innocent bystander, instead of the instigator of every one of its international troubles.
Well, perhaps in some abstract sense, treaty violations are “illegal”, if he we are to compare to some mutually respected authority. You could only be referring to the United Nations, as GeeDubya sometimes does when he would like to drape the cloth of legitimacy over his own plans. But it doesn’t wash.
If we are to invoke the authority of the UN, we must, by definition, defer to the authority. In that instance, only the UN has the authority to declare that military action against Iraq is necessary and unavoidable.
And Shodan if violating treaties is illegal, on what level of legality do you place invasion of a sovereign nation on the presumption of hostility at some future date? All nations recognize and respect the right of a nation under attack to resist, that’s a given. It is equally recognized that an agressive attack, which is indistinguishable from a “prememptive” attack, is illegal. Point of fact, it was we who led the way to establishment of that principle, in the sleepy little town of Nuremburg. We charged men with planning and implementing aggressive war. We called that a war crime, and we hanged them.
This idea that a country’s actions can be ‘legal’ or ‘illegal’ is really silly. I vote for a government that will protect myself and my family.
If a neighbor started deploying tanks along our border, and started stockpiling big containers marked “VX GAS - ONLY FOR USE IN KILLING CANADIANS”, and started talking about destroying us, I would want my government do DO something about it. I wouldn’t sit around wringing my hands worry about whether or not they had broken some treaties or international laws.
Of course, I would hope that my government would make a good-faith effort to negotiate a peace. But if they couldn’t, I certainly wouldn’t sit at home and say, “Well, they haven’t actually opened the valves on that VX gas, so I guess I’ll just let my daughter go play outside and hope she doesn’t die.”
You guys that criticise going after Iraq, tell me - what do you think the world will be like in ten years with Saddam in power? Do you think it will be more dangerous? If so, what would you do to prevent that danger?
I should clarify a bit - the concept of ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ actions is useful, even applied to countries, when it comes to standard issues of trade, diplomacy, immigration, bilateral treaties for allowing shipping and protecting property, extradition, etc.
But treaties and legalities NEVER outweigh a country’s basic right to self defense.
Now, the U.S. isn’t under direct threat from Saddam Hussein today, but it will be soon if action isn’t taken to disarm him. But Israel IS under direct threat, and they are allies. If Saddam gets a nuclear bomb, then it will be impossible to remove him from power without risking the loss of Tel Aviv. And that risk is too great, as we’re finding out now with North Korea. So it’s either deal with him now, or get him to completely disarm, or risk a nuclear showdown in ten years.
Still waiting for just what it is this Scheer fellow–or Diogynes and his other supporters, thinks we should do, and why it is we need to be ‘consistent’ with our policies re: two nations who’s geopolitical, economic, and military situations are nothing alike.
But I guess I’ll wait a long time.
Diogynes: <<Countries without nukes or armies do not require preemptive invasions.>>
More silliness. First of all, this isn’t preemptive, it’s preventative. And when a country who already has a recent history of invading its neighbors, of using WMDs against civilians, and whose leader has threatened to “burn half of Israel” has a viable nuclear weapons program, despite the terms of a cease fire, and diplomacy fails to remove the threat, then a regime-changing attack is well warranted.
It’s disingenuous of you to try to gloss over the probability that Iraq still retains WMD development programs, as if that weren’t even an issue.
Uh, Diogenes, Squink claimed that Bush said an attack OF Iraq by the US would hurt the economy. Your cite has Bush saying that an attack of the US BY Iraq would hurt the economy.
It’s a distinction without a difference. A conflict with iraq would be costly regardless of who started it. We’re not going to save any money by attacking them first.
[quote] Hickory6
Still waiting for just what it is this Scheer fellow–or Diogynes and his other supporters, thinks we should do, and why it is we need to be ‘consistent’ with our policies re: two nations who’s geopolitical, economic, and military situations are nothing alike.*
The difference is one of those nations can hurt us (North Korea) and the other one can’t.
“Preventative” is another word for illegal. Bush simply has no legal or moral right whatsoever to invade a defenseless country for what they “might” do in some fantasy world of the future. If he goes through with this, he is literally a war criminal. Such an unprovoked act of purely self-serving aggression will serve only to validate much of the world’s perception that America is an arrogant, unprincipled bully and will (justifiably) create even more international animus. The root causes of terrorism will only be aggravated and further enflamed. The US does not have special rights in this world.
Presumably, Iraq has this selfsame right. Does a Security Council Resolution negate this right? Not according to you. “NEVER”, the word. Treaties and legalities NEVER nullify that basic right. So when Saddam’s soldiers go about the business of killing our soldiers, they will be operating entirely within thier rights, indeed, within thier duties. That makes me rather uncomfortable, Sam. Indeed, that makes me very uncomfortable.
Ahh, finally something december and I can agree on. Robert Scheer is an idiot, not least for proclaiming how stupid those Republicans are, how stupid the Bush policy is, and how smart Robert Scheer is. Oh, if only these people who own and run the world would listen to Robert Scheer, then they would… do what? What should they do Mr. Scheer?
You see, Mr. Scheer is one of these pathetic liberals who thinks that he is so smart because he sees that the policies enacted by those who run and own the world are a disaster for mankind. He never tires of congratulating himself for making the incredible discovery that politicians lie. Yet, he seems completely incapable of considering the possibility that these policies work perfectly well for those who implement them. It is just that the way they are supposed to work do not fit with what Mr. Scheer thinks they should do.
Iran has the same right, and I’m sure they’ll attempt to use it. But more to the point, the situation would never have arisen if Iraq hadn’t started building weapons that scare the crap out of the rest of the world. They have had, and still have, an instant-out option - change their ways, give up their weapons of mass destruction, and be good world citizens. Or, the U.S. has also offered Hussein the option of packing his bags and being exiled to another country. Hussein already has billions stashed around the Middle East for that eventuality.
You act like the U.S. is threatening Norway or something. Iraq is the instigator here, not the U.S. It was Iraq that invaded Kuwait, it was Iraq that continued to torment its citizens and force the U.S. and Britain to institute the No-Fly zone. It is Iraq that is secretly building weapons of mass destruction.
And that is why, of course, the UN threw itself to the ground and wrapped its arms around GeeDubya’s knees, and cried out, imploring “Save us from the dreaded Saddam-zilla!!”
No doubt that is why the world gazes upon us with unanimous wonder and glowing admiration. Why the streets of so many of the world’s cities are overflowing with citizens, singing praises for America’s stern moral vigor. Why we are so beloved of the nations. Why they rush to press thier soldiers upon us, if only to prevent them from forsaking thier native flag to enlist in our righteous crus…endeavor.
Diogenes, the President was saying that if Iraq blows up an American target with an atomic bomb (or if they provide an atomic bomb to some outside group that uses it on a target here), there would be a big cost to our economy. OTOH Squink was talking about the cost of our military in attacking Iraq. Bush’s point is that an attack before Iraq develops nuclear capability will forestall the former cost.