Why is America { the Bush adminastration} so set on war with Iraq? Where is the moral issue that drives the country to war? Who is the enemy here? Who attacted America on 9/11? Sadamnn Or Bin Laden? What ever happened to the American concept of staying out of over-seas wars? What happened to the idea that America would only go to war to defend itself? Who really believes that Iraq is a serious threat to the usa? Is America so freeked out after 9/11 that it is losing it’s moral direction?
I believe if there were honest answers to your questions the USA would not be so polarized by this upcoming war, nor would significant portions of the rest of the planet so against this war in the first place.
I think if we could set aside the extreme hawks and the extreme doves for a momment, we would find a majority of people in the dark about the entire issue. With that in mind, it shows the Bush Administration has failed in a major way to openly and honestly explain their position and why a war is necessary.
In short, the war has not yet started but Bush has failed in a major objective. Starting off on the back foot is never a good thing.
Wrongo, Duckster, equivocation is the domain of cowards in matters that concern moral men.
And no matter; evil can be only determined by the constructs of moral men.
Cowards, I fear, fear the unequivocal .
Do you follow…?
No? Well, I like you anyway.
These are of course my judgments and opinions, but it seems to me that this whole thing has gone beyond questions of moral authority and has become a question of political, economic and military power. As Duckster said, or at least as I understood his post, if we did have a clear moral imperative and a clear necessity we would not be asking or discussing this question. More than that we would have a clearly and consistently stated objective for the war instead of the multiple choices the President has been test driving. At least in the late, unlamented war in Southeast Asia there was a clear policy purpose for the commitment of US blood and treasure to the fight–a policy of militarily resisting any territorial expansion of Soviet and Chinese influence directly or through client states. In our present situation we have had any number of objectives for getting into a war in the Middle East market tested, some plausible but some fantasies.
The body with the first responsibility to check or authorize this sort of thing, the US Congress, abdicated its responsibility some months age by essentially authorizing the President to go do whatever he wants whenever he wants. It now looks as if the President probably cannot get the seal of approval from the UN Security Council. This leaves the onus for the whole thing squarely on the President’s shoulders, including the responsibility to justify and account for what may well be a five-year occupation of what will probably be an increasingly hostile and restless Iraq. Think the West Bank and Gaza in Baghdad.
In the absence of a threat to a vital national interest I see no moral imperative here, but morality has little to do with matters of international politics. The question now is power, not morality.
In a country where half the population is reported to think there I a connection between Saddam, Osama and 9/11 (probably based on the fact that every one has an Arab sounding name and how can you tell those people apart) success is going to count for more than moral authority. At this point the President has the power to wage war on Iraq and it looks like it’s going to happen.
stop supporting saddam and terrorism.
Huh?
Who are you and what are you talking about?
Back to the OP…
The most important role of any government is to protect its citizens. Apparently, the Bush administration feels that Saddam poses an immediate threat to our security. So in their opinion, they are morally justified because they are protecting the citizens of the U.S.
At least that’s the argument. Whether you believe that Saddam does indeed pose an immediate threat and must be removed in order to protect our country is up to you.
With what? With what is he going to terrify the most powerful military force in human history? His own little pink patty paws? Intercontinental drone aircraft armed with nuclear anthrax? Voodoo incantations?
Anybody fool enough to attack America is going to be vaporized in hours, not days. But Saddam’s crazy, they say. Can’t be detered by nuclear weapons, 'cause he’s nuts. So how come he’s been sitting on his hands for years while our airplanes bitch slap him whenever they feel like it? How can Rumsfeld stand there with a straight face and say he’s attacked our aircraft hundreds…hundreds…of times and not managed to hit even one!
Yet we are assured that he prays for guidance every day. He must have gone to a different Sunday School than I did, the one where Jesus sayeth “Do unto others before they do unto you”. Are Methodist churches different in gated communities? Thier Jesus packs heat?
I think most of the people, including me, who support the UN to enforce its resolution disarmament of Iraq is because of Iraq’s noncompliance with UN resolutions in the first place, not because of warmongering. It’s like a cop who gives a hot chick a warning, every time, just because she says she’ll stop next time and it’s so damned appealing for him.
I know what you’re thinking (or at least I hope I do): Why now? Why not enforce resolutions that hurt Israel by forcing them to give up land that they should have given up years ago?
Well, I don’t think israel is openly opposing america, nor do I think they are oppresing their people, but if I had a nickle for every country that opposes america and oppresses their own nickle, well, I’d have a nice candy bar, I can tell you that.
All this considered, I’m craving a candy bar.
Later.
Did I said oppresses their own nickle? Yes, well, we have a lot of nickle oppressors out there, indeed, but I mean people.
:smack:
Agreed. I support the UN enforcing its resolutions. I do not support the US and the “coalition of the willing” to illegally enforce a UN resolution without authorization. That’s warmongering.
Because we didn’t do what we should have last time, which was rmove that SOB from power.
Right! 'Cause if we’d removed the sumbitch 12 years ago, we wouldn’t have had the Iraqi attacks on US targets and clear Iraqi funding of al Qaeda that we… didn’t… have…
Hm…
erl, was your reply to luc offered as some sort of weird non sequitur rebuttal, or are you merely expressing displeasure that Saddam’s still around? If it’s the latter, I’m with you. If the former, then I’m wandering around lost, trying to figure out what dark alley your train of thought detoured into. I suppose you’re playing the “woulda coulda shoulda” game, but I’m not certain what relevance to the current question of war you think it has.
That’s fine, as far as it goes. I think just about everyone agrees, including George Bush.
But, what if the UN refuses to enforce its own resolutions (as it has done for 13 years) Then, the only choices are:
– nobody enforces the UN resolutions, or
– the coalition of the willing enforces the UN resolutions.
Not such an easy choice, is it?
First, december, you have to show where Iraq is in violation of the resolution, before you figure out how to enforce it.
I suspect, but don’t know, that the UNSC would be willing to enforce it, if they could prove Iraq in material breach.
First things first.
Not an easy choice, but, more importantly, not our choice to make.
We are a member of the UN, the UN is not a member of the United States. In mathish, we are a subset of the class “UN”, hence, the UN cannot be a subset of the US.
To belabor a metaphor I have nearly beaten senseless, Tennessee is a member of the US. If the US decides to go to war with Canada over its relentless production of inferior beer (overlooking our own crimes in the exportation of Coors), then Tennessee goes along. It is not, however, the privilege of Tennessee to conduct such a war on its own, even if South Carolina and Missouri agree.
To my knowledge, the UN has not pinned a tin star to our vest and declared us “Enforcer of the Will of the UN”. A coalition of the recently purchased may indeed make war against Iraq, but draping UN legitimacy over such an action is smoke-and-mirrors.
Erislover answer Mr. Elucidator question. Why Saddam reacted that way? If he is an evil madman as Bush says then he would have used the WMD (that bush says he has) to kill a couple of millions.
I nominate the term “coalition of the willing” as the biggest misnomer of the year. When we have to bribe and threaten the fence-straddling members of the UNSC to go along with us, they are anything but “willing”.
Here is an editorial from The Des Moines Register that might be material to the discussion. In addition the Des Moines paper and the much more Republican Cedar Rapids Gazette both ran and editorial by Burns Weston, who hold a dual appointment at the law school and in the political science department at the University of Iowa, that I can’t pick up on either paper’s web site. Professor Weston ( who is no wild eyed radical) says that absent either a direct threat to the nation or an UN authorization an invasion of Iraq is unlawful. Professor Weston thinks that an invasion without a security council resolution is a clear violation of our obligations under the UN Charter which the US not only ratified but helped write.