Hey, according to the Resident “We don’t need anybody’s permission, Jacko” (Ok, I added the “Jacko”)
No. The resolutions put the burden of proof on Saddam, to show that he is in compliance. And the deadline set by the original resolution was, iirc, 15 days after the end of the last Gulf War. So the man has been demonstrably in breach of UN resolutions for 12 years. But we can’t have a “rush to war”…:rolleyes:
I have a couple of problems with this quote.
First of all, Bush does not say he has weapons of mass destruction. He maintains that saddam is developing them. There is a huge difference.
Second, do you think saddam would be smart to let the peace protestors and UN lessen or eliminate the Bush attack, or for him to attack bush and in effect change the war from a war of aggression by america to an iraqi war of aggression?
Saddam may have no morals when it comes to allowing innocent people to die for his causes, but he is not a fool.
The “he” in your post has an ambiguous antecedent, but I’ll just assume it refers to George Bush, he who declared Jesus his “favorite political philospher.” In that case, I fail to recall where exactly Jesus advocated preventive war. “And if thine enemy plans to smite thee on thy cheek, smash both of his beforehand.”
I saw columnist Cal Thomas quote Ecclesiastes “a time for war” as justification. But I’ve also heard Ecclesiastes described as the book of the Bible that presents the example of what not to do: it says death is the end, that you should eat, drink & be merry, and that money is the “answer of all things.”
Perhaps Cal could’ve quoted Ecc. 7:9 “Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools.”
Well Kaddar you are proving my point. You argue that Saddam is not stupid enough to launch a war of agression because right now he is wining the public relations war. So why are americans about to launch a war against a delirious madman who is so eager to live?
One possibility is that he is delaying the attack so that he may develop weapons on mass destruction, thus creating a situation similar to America’s relations with North Korea.
Okay. Let’s assume Iraq is in violation of a UN resolution by not proving, on its own, that it’s complying with the resolution.
Now construct an argument why this necessitates war.
Surely you’re not saying that the response to violating any UNSC resolution is a full-scale war?
Why do we have to keep going around on this, when the facts are clear?
No, violating ANY U.N. resolution is not a justification for war.
Violating a U.N. resolution that involves the security of the states around said country, when those resolutions involve large quantities of illegal weapons of mass destruction, MAY be a good reason.
Violations of of resolutions which were agreed to as a condition of a cease-fire in a war in which an armistice was never signed, DEFINITELY is a reason to begin a shooting war again.
And that’s what makes this situation different. The Gulf war has not ended. There was a cease-fire signed by Saddam with a number of conditions attached to it. Saddam did not honor any of those conditions. Therefore, the cease-fire is null and void. This is also why the U.S. and Britain were within their legal rights to maintain the no-fly zones and to fire on Iraqi military targets on Iraqi soil that violated the conditions of that cease fire.
Bush is within his legal rights to invade Iraq without approval of the Security Council for this reason. The U.S. was a belligerant in that war, and a signatory to the cease-fire agreement.
Legalistic sophistry, Sam Technically, North and South Korea are at war. I doubt very much that you are likely to suggest that at artillery barrage from North Korea would be legally admissable.
Its a bad thing. Worse, it is a stupid thing. I am not moved to care whether or not it is a legal thing.
Sam, I think we’d all be a little more confident in this line of reasoning if the country bound and determined to start a war could actually provide convincing evidence that these weapons of mass destruction exist.
So far we’ve got a speech from Colin Powell that cited some circumstantial evidence of fairly dubious veracity and timeliness, and a number of claims that have turned out to be lies - e.g. the amazing disappearing report, or the terrible deadly aluminum rods of doom. The actual evidence that Iraq poses a threat is pretty lacking. And I won’t even get into the issue of “why Iraq and not Iran or North Korea?”
Once again, Sam, that is a non-argument. Possessing the LEGAL RIGHT to make war does not mean war is the correct or moral choice. The United States isn’t obligated to make war. Can you provide a good argument for this war without falling back on the “well, we have a right to start a war!” non-sequitur?
If there is a good reason to wage war, I wouldn’t even care if the “legal right” existed to do so.
The only people that doubt weapons of mass destruction exist seem to be a few people on this board. The Bush adminstration thinks they exist. Britain agrees they exist. France agrees they exist. The New York Times agrees they exist. Every Democratic presidential candidate agrees they exist. The U.N. inspectors think they exist.
But on this board, we have to keep going 'round and 'round, with the same old, “There’s no PROOOOOFFFF” argument.
And here I thought the SDMB was about fighting ignorance.
I know Mr. Rushmore exists. Been there, seen it, know where it is, and can tell you where it is. That’s what I mean when I say I “know”. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to find Nasties buried in Saddams back yard, and as long as they stay buried I could care less. But I don’t “know”.
By what arcane intelligence do we come to have hard proof that these things exist and yet not know where they are? We keep swearing up and down that we know for sure, no questions, no doubt. But we can’t show you. Does this crapola sound familiar?
Sure, I’m all for fighting ignorance. Doesn’t mean I’m gonna gun down an illiterate.
Probably for the need of attention drawing away from real crises. They need an enemy to attack to draw away from things such as the economy, and other such issues at the homeland.
It’s always a challenge to distill the content from the effusive rhetoric in elucidator’s entertaining posts. I’ll play straight man.
Mr. elucidator, I take issue with your characterization. Firstly, I would say that Saddam is “a risk taker who is prone to error”, not “crazy”. (KJI and GWB, OTOH are risk takers who so far have not been shown to be prone to error.) Thus, Saddam is, “unintentionally suicidal”: he gets poor external information from his intelligence services, and has a tendency to err. Think “Malevolent Keystone Cop with a Nuke” rather than, “Mad Scientist”.
Second, he hasn’t been sitting on his hands. Here are some recent militarily adventurous miscalculations by Saddam:
1994: Faced with (overblown) internal threats, Saddam mobilizes the Republican Guard to mass near the Kuwaiti border. The US reinforces its position and passes a Security Council resolution confining Iraqi troops above the 32nd Parallel.
2000: Iraq attempts to mobilize its army to mass near the Syrian border. (Iraqi troops would be deployed in Syria to show Arab solidarity against Israel). That little expedition got called off for unclear reasons.
Third, the reason we have been able to bitch slap Saddam - I mean apply military force efficaciously on the Iraqi regime - is that although Saddam has remained militarily adventurous, he hasn’t had the nukes or WMDs to back up his ambitions. Once he does, then his behaviors will no longer be containable.
(The preceding may address Estilicon’s concerns as well.)
But on to the OP. The justification for war includes the following:
- Enforce the ceasefire accords that Saddam signed after Gulf War I.
and - Create an environment whereby the relentless declining costs of producing mayhem can be met by international action. This is flowbark’s “Pre-emption, but only multilateral pre-emption” doctrine.
What concerns me is that both #1 and #2 assume a degree of international assent that appears to be missing currently. Which is too bad. I doubt whether Saddam will be the last rogue who covets WMDs.
WMD proliferation was one of the challenges underlined by the event of 2001. It is unfortunate that the current US administration chose to pass over this opportunity to construct an international framework for containing such threats. Such are the costs of unilateral tendencies.
Frankly, my feet have been getting colder on the subject of the Iraqi attack over the past week. I find it worrisome that the current administration seems intent on alienating its friends abroad as it downplays the probably considerable post-war costs of occupation at home. I support an assault on Iraq in a general sense: however, I am not so sure about this particular invasion.
“What concerns me is that both #1 and #2 assume a degree of international assent that appears to be missing currently.”
(Ok, #1 may assume a degree of international consent morally, but as Sam points out, it doesn’t imply that according to international law. I actually put some weight on that point. Still, I maintain it is in the US national interest to gain international assent for its actions, unless we want to be the world’s sole supercop.)
The underlying assumption here is that it was possible to set up this multilateral framework of right-thinking nations if only it were done correctly.
Frankly, I don’t see it. My personal opinion is that if the U.S. had been more ‘accomodating’, then they just would have been pushed around.
I’d like to know just what the U.S. could have done to cause France to forget about its 30 billion dollars in oil contracts, or to not worry about the U.S. finding evidence that it had violated sanctions by supplying Iraq with arms. I’d like to know what the U.S. could have done that would cause Russia to write off the billions of dollars Iraq owes it, for the good of the world.
The way I see it, many of the ‘alliances’ that supposedly existed pre-911 were an illusion, and when the cards were finally laid on the table and the world was asked to put up or shut up, it turned out that different national interests trumped all.
It’s not like this is the first time the U.N. Security Council members have put their own interests ahead of the interests of the world. The Soviets vetoed SC resolutions 174 times. The U.S… has vetoed U.N. resolutions over 100 times. Disputes in the U.N. go back to its formation. Remember the Suez crisis?
Bill Clinton, that master politician, was unable to get U.N. support for actions in Bosnia or Rwanda. He was also unable to get the U.N. to support operation Desert Fox, or the maintenance of the no-fly zones.
France is claiming today that it wants strong sanctions and intrusive inspections. Even if you accepted that, that’s far more than Billl Clinton was ever able to get out of France, because in the last five years France has been working to try and get the sanctions and no fly zones lifted in Iraq.
Before you can convince me that Bush wrecked world cooperation, you need to show me that that cooperation has ever existed.
elucidator,
[list][li]just who the hell is Mr. Rushmore and where is he hiding?[/li][li]the expression is “I couldn’t care less” not “I could care less.”[/li]The United States is to the United Nations, as Tennessee is to the United States? WTF?
You took the words out of my mouth.
This is quite possibly the biggest piece of bull I have ever seen posted on this board. The sheer amount of wrong assumptions inherent inside of it makes me gag.
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The UN is not a sovereign nation and does not get to ordinarily tell any nation what to do.
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The UN represents nothing more than the individual interests of its memnber states. These usually conflict.
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The UN does not get any final say in how military force is allocated.
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By the same logic, the US can’t go to war without the WTO encouraging it, or we couldn’t change our postal rates to Germany without Nato approval.
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Since the UN resolutions don’t really have anything to do with why we are going to war, your entire argument falls apart like a piece of wet kleenex.
To me, there are several very good reasons to go to war.
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Saddam has repeatadly attacked our planes over the last decade.
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He has continued to give money to support terrorism against our ally, Israel.
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Though he does not encourage Al-Quada, he does allow other terrorist groups onto his soil and grants them sanctuary. These, too, must be rooted out.
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He has over the last decade effectively committed mass starvation murder against his own citizenry to gain a trifling political advantage.
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Destroying him willopen the way for a new, free Iraq, which will serve to destabilize the existing political configuration of the Mid East. Yes, this is a good thing. Iran and Saudi Arabia will be put on notice, and will, one way or another, be forced to stop supporting global terrorism with their blood money. With a little luck, free democracy can be planted there.
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(least important) Saddam has repeatedly violated UN resolutions and apparently has not destroyed his chemical and biological weapons. Actually, the weapons are a threat, but in the long-term, because should terrorists get ahold of them, its VERY VERY BAD!
How is this “evidence”?
EVIDENCE, Sam. What’s the evidence? Why the dodging and weaving? Saying “Well, those guys believe they exist” is simply argument from authority and/or popularity, depending which guys you’re referring to.
Does Iraq have WMD? Possibly. Probably, even. But then, Canada probably does, too; I don’t seriously believe, and I don’t think you seriously believe, that the possession of anything that can be construed to be a chemical weapon constitutes justification for war and the deaths of thousands. What I’d like to know is what WMDs they have and how they constitute a threat, and I’d like someone to actually say it straight. Lies about nonexistent reports and Aluminum Rods of Doom do not fill me with great confidence in this adventure.