Perhaps. But the converse is not necessarily true: that if we take out Saddam it can’t and won’t happen again. Therein lies the flaw.
Furthermore, deniability doesn’t enter into it. Not in the slightest. We are already going to war with Saddam over weapons we assume he has. Not weapons we know he has, because however many times we repeat ourselves, the fact is we don’t know. Any one with more brains than cole slaw knows that if anything happens that looks even remotely state-sponsored, Iraq will get blamed. Frankly, I’m surprised that one of Iraq’s many enemies hasn’t already pulled something like that.
Iraq is our enemy. Likely. Our only enemy? Oh, no. Not by a long shot. 'Cause when Al Jazeera starts streaming videos of Iraqi widows and orphans on every Moslem TV set in the world Al Queda won’t remember what a recruitment problem was. Who’s the happiest guy in the world today? Osama bin Laden. Who can he thank for that boundless joy? Ah, you know that one already, don’t you.
Look, I personally cannot solve all of my own problems, let alone all of the problems of the world. What I can do is solve the ones I am currently able to solve. No, we cannot defeat all of the enemies of the human race. But we do what we can, when and where we can.
Case in point. I am not able to build houses for all of the homeless in Mexico. But my church was able and did go down and we built three homes. We didn’t solve all of the problem, but I got to help a little girl have a home. We made a difference.
“sigh”. Look, we do know that he has them. This is one place where I get chapped. People like you wouldn’t believe that Saddam has these weapons unless he shoved them down your throat. Quite frankly, good people would die if we revealed our intel sources to people who have a vested interest in disbelief. And I don’t think that those good people should die because you are politically committed to disbelieving our current administration. The speech that Secretary Powell gave to the United Nations already endangered people who risked their lives to get us necessary information.
Of course, you’re gonna tell me I’m wrong. And unless you can show me that your military security clearance is higher than my clearance, etc, I’m going to ignore you as ignorant.
This last is actually a valid point. However, I have been taught that moral courage is doing the right thing, even when it is hard or you stand to lose something for doing it.
Saddam Hussein is a danger to our country.
Saddam Hussein is a danger to that portion of the world.
Saddam Hussein is a danger to his own people.
After 12 years of trying diplomacy, something has to be done. We’re the ones with the ability and the will to do the right thing. I thank God that our president has that moral courage. That is a trait that GWBush has that Clinton did not.
You are correct. We don’t know. Why? Because Hussein has ignored every Security Council resolution requiring that he cooperate with inspectors to prove he doesn’t have them.
So let me ask you some questions ** elucidator **. Lets assume Saddam has no prohibited weapons. Why has he jerked the inspectors around for 12 years? Why put up with sanctions when if he had just cooperated with the inspectors, they probably would have been lifted 11 years ago? Why, even knowing the U.S. is coming to take him out, he still doesn’t fully cooperate with the inspectors? Even without proof, I find it impossible to believe he has nothing to hide.
Well, as someone pointed out in another thread, compliance shows weakness. At least, that’s how many will see it. So Saddam has to try and balance the risk of US invasion with the risks of being seen as weak. Dictators rely on the perception of their strength to remain in power, not to mention the risks of being viewed as a “weak” nation in that region…
“Interesting that it comes from a notoriously left-leaning paper.”
Not half as interesting as the notion of the Times as “notoriously left-leaning.” According to whom? The rightwingers who edit the National Review?
The excerpt you cite is from the Times’s most prominent conservative columnist, William Saffire,who has been affiliated with the paper decades. This is not the least reason to invalidate your characterization of this largely centrist newspaper as “notoriously left-leaning.” The Times also publishes columns by centrists (e.g., Keller, Friedman and usually Dowd), and by liberals of a fairly moderate stripe (e.g., Kristoff and Krugman–though Krugman has become more markedly liberal since the Bush administration began to diverge from the Clintonian policies he largely supported.)
FTR, it is not appropriate to attribute the views of a columnist directly to the newspaper that publishes the columnist. The Times has it’s own editorial page and, as a matter of fact, France does figure a bit in this, its most recent editorial on Iraq-related matters.
Here’s the relevant excerpt:
“There is no ignoring the role of Baghdad’s game of cooperation without content in this diplomatic debacle. And France, in its zest for standing up to Washington, succeeded mainly in sending all the wrong signals to Baghdad. But Washington’s own destructive contributions were enormous: its shifting goals and rationales, its increasingly arbitrary timetables, its distaste for diplomatic give and take, its public arm-twisting and its failure to convince most of the world of any imminent danger.”