# SDMB - Fair and Balanced ? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 29, 2005, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-fair-and-balanced/310353 "2005-06-29T13:25:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 16
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2005, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-fair-and-balanced/310353/301 "2005-07-03T20:11:17Z")
> [@RedFury](#): > > Note that I italicized the word “currently” in the original post. Though perhaps my syntax wasn’t the best, I don’t think it’s that hard to understand that I was asking for current (meaning, at the time of the invasion) evidence tying Saddam with actual plans and means to attack the US. But we are arguing at cross purposes. I keep saying that the twelve years of violations (and human rights abuses, and failure to abide by the inspection regime, and links to abu Nidal, and support for Palestinian suicide bombers, and etc.) were enough justification for the invasion. And you keep saying, no it isn’t, give me something else. I am not going to accept your ideas of what justified the invasion, since (in my view) that has already be adequately justified. Italicize whatever you like. I do not accept the premise of your question. An invasion of Iraq is justifiable, absent some evidence that Iraq was about to attack the territory of the US. The whole rationale for the invasion was to stop Saddam **before** he could launch such an attack, or hand over WMD to other terrorists so they could launch another such attack. That’s why we are treating North Korea differently from Iraq. With North Korea, it is too late - they could nuke South Korea or Japan. With Iraq, it was not. > [@RedFury](#): > > Hostile to the US? How, exactly? Again, try giving me a factual response. Hand-waving won’t make the question go away. Nope, sorry, already said I’m not going to play that game. Feel free to go ahead and assert that Iraq was not hostile to the US and her allies. If that’s the way the world looked to you before the invasion, certainly nothing I could cite would convince you. **Sam Stone** was right, and it was a lesson I needed to relearn. Arguing about the Iraq war is pointless hereabouts - people keep demanding cites that the sky is blue or that water is wet or Iraq was actually our bestest friend in the world. We don’t agree on what would justify an invasion of Iraq. And a justification that appears rather obvious to me seems completely wrong-headed to you. Some Dopers - not sure if you are one of them - have been upfront that even if we had found mountains of WMD in Iraq, that would not justify the invasion. Which smacks to me of “even if Bush is right, he’s wrong”. And nothing is going to change someone’s mind about that. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2005, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-fair-and-balanced/310353/302 "2005-07-03T20:30:11Z")
Wow, this thread certainly has legs. Hope **Shodan** doesn’t mind answering the the question following. Based on this statement: > [@](#): > > I keep saying that the twelve years of violations (and human rights abuses, and failure to abide by the inspection regime, and links to abu Nidal, and support for Palestinian suicide bombers, and etc.) were enough justification for the invasion. Are you in favor of a US invasion and regime change in North Korea? After all, it seem as though that country has a considerably longer and more colorful history of human rights abuses and general troublemaking than Saddam’s Iraq did. I won’t argue against either answer, but if the answer is ‘no’, I’m curious how one might justify one but not the other. Is it location? Relative weakness compared with the other? Presence or absence of certain natural resources? What? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2005, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-fair-and-balanced/310353/303 "2005-07-03T21:03:42Z")
**Shodan’s** rather flexible standards raise other interesting questions: do the same standards apply to other nations, or does America recieve some special dispensation unavailable to the lesser sort of nation? Clearly, he regards our signatory status to the UN charter as just so much hot air, entailing no actual obligations on our part: we don’t care, we don’t have to care, we’re the Americans. Nonetheless, he is perfectly willing to borrow a scrap of legitimacy from the UN inspection accords, if it suits his purposes. And dispose of it when it proves inconvenient. Does he wishe to dispose of international accords and go straight towards an global struggle for world domination unhindered by such vacant niceities as treaties, obligations, etc? Perhaps he has a point, a brisk round of thermonuclear Darwinism would certainly simplify the international political situation, as well as rendering any global overpopulation issues moot. Pox Americana. ---
**Author:** ![Scott\_Plaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2005, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-fair-and-balanced/310353/304 "2005-07-03T21:06:40Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Pox Americana. You mean, pax, don’t you? No, wait, you don’t. [sub] Nevermind.[/sub] Come to think of it, under these circumstance, I feel the same way as you, elucidator ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2005, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-fair-and-balanced/310353/305 "2005-07-03T22:26:06Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#): > > Hope **Shodan** doesn’t mind answering the the question following. > > Based on this statement: > > Are you in favor of a US invasion and regime change in North Korea? After all, it seem as though that country has a considerably longer and more colorful history of human rights abuses and general troublemaking than Saddam’s Iraq did. > > I won’t argue against either answer, but if the answer is ‘no’, I’m curious how one might justify one but not the other. Is it location? Relative weakness compared with the other? Presence or absence of certain natural resources? What? My objections to an invasion of NK would be practical and not moral. After all, they have The Bomb. So the short answer is “relative weakness” on the part of Iraq. If we could magically overthrow every tinpot dictator in the world, at minimal cost to ourselves, yes, by all means. No such magic exists. If you are asking if I believe in the Star Trek Prime Directive, no. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-fair-and-balanced/310353/306 "2005-07-04T00:45:30Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > My objections to an invasion of NK would be practical and not moral. What if we had a perfect magic 8 ball which told us, before we went into Iraq, how difficult and costly it would be. Would you still have supported the war? ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-fair-and-balanced/310353/307 "2005-07-04T01:00:23Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I keep saying that the twelve years of violations (and human rights abuses, and failure to abide by the inspection regime, and links to abu Nidal, and support for Palestinian suicide bombers, and etc.) I’m sorry to keep harping on this point, but if he didn’t give money, intel, or arms to the suicide bombers, how was he supporting them? Would you say that Bush Sr. had supported the Iraqi insurgents who Sadaam slaughtered after Gulf I? If not, where’s the difference? Or are we talking about, in the abstract, somone feeling that a position is valid and thus ‘supporting’ it? I mean… by the time we’re talking about ‘moral support’ for Palestinian murderers, I think we’re well outside the bounds of casus belli, right? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-fair-and-balanced/310353/308 "2005-07-04T01:13:21Z")
Before the war started, I said that the U.S. had better be prepared to spend years or decades in Iraq. Has this war been particularly costly or difficult? As wars go, no. 2000 dead is awful, but the U.S. lost 25 times that number in Vietnam. Hell, the U.S. lost 700 men in a training accident in the run-up to D-Day. War is a deadly, horrible business. I understand people who have principled objections against the war, but what I can’t abide were those who supported the war and then changed their minds after seeing that people were actually being killed. If you’re going to advocate war, you had better damned well be clear on what that means, and you had better be ready to see it through to its conclusion. Starting a war and then cutting and running is about the worst of all possible outcomes. And as far as I’m concerned, even the people who opposed the war should put that behind them, because the clock can’t be turned back. The question now should be, “Is it better to leave now, or do we have an obligation to stay and see the job done?” I believe there’s only one answer to that question: You broke it, you fix it. People like Andrew Sullivan, who was one of the biggest war hawks around and then bailed on the war within a year, are contemptible. Frankly, it could have been much, much worse. I supported the war even though I knew there were all sorts of very bad possible outcomes. From ‘fortress Baghdad’ to dams being blown to the oil fields being lit on fire. Before the war I said that I thought that the war itself would result in maybe 500 U.S. casualties, but a ‘Fortress Baghdad’ scenario could result in thousands of American soldiers killed, and if Saddam used WMD, the toll could be even higher. War is the last resort because it is brutal and truly awful. Once you’ve decided that it was truly the last resort, It doesn’t really matter how many casualties you sustain as long as you can continue fighting. Do you think the U.S. should have quit WWII if they’d lost a hundred thousand more men? Two hundred thousand? A million? At what point would it have been too costly to continue? Answer: If there’s no other choice, you continue until you are unable to fight. (and yes, I understand that it’s a point of contention whether or not this war was truly necessary. I believe it was. Had it not been fought now, it would have been fought in five or ten years under much worse circumstances.) Wars are also very complex, and it’s guaranteed that mistakes will be made when fighting them. No battle plan ever survives first contact with the enemy. So those who changed their minds about the war because ‘mistakes were made’ are also fooling themselves. To this day people still argue whether or not the U.S. needed to fight on Iwo Jima, or whether the Battle of the Bulge was the result of serious errors. This stuff is unavoidable, because your enemy is also smart and trying to screw up your war plan. It’s easy to be a armchair general and get all indignant about how badly the war is being run, but to me it looks like about par for the course. So speaking for myself, the number of casualties and the difficulty of the war up until now do not even come close to shaking my support for it. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-fair-and-balanced/310353/309 "2005-07-04T01:32:10Z")
**FinnAgain** - I think he did make the offer. Taken by itself, not enough to support an invasion. Taken in connection with everything else, well… > [@MaxTheVool](#): > > What if we had a perfect magic 8 ball which told us, before we went into Iraq, how difficult and costly it would be. Would you still have supported the war? Now **there’s** a tough question. I don’t know. I guess I would ask the same magic 8 ball to show what would have happened if we left Saddam in power. Would Saddam have lost prestige when it became widely known that he had actually divested himself of WMDs, for the most part, then been executed in a palace coup along with his two nasty sons? Then Iraq develops into a real country with some kind of respect for human rights. Or would Saddam then managed to bribe his way into having the sanctions lifted, fired up his WMD programs, and got cracking on developing nukes and bio-war while the French and Russians convinced the UN to look the other way? Would Ghaddafi then assume he could get away with trying to get WMD? Would North Korea then be emboldened to try even more insane brinkmanship? Would Iran develop nukes to defend themselves from Iraq, use them to attack Israel, and WWIII then breaks out? I don’t know. The question to ask the 8 ball is not “what happens this year in the MENA”. The question to ask is, “what will it be like fifty years from now, when all of us are dead and our children have to deal with what we did - or failed to do”. I don’t know. You do the best you can with the information you have. Someone is always - always - going to second guess you, no matter what. I think Bush Sr. prevented, literally, WWIII. But he left Saddam in power. And so the Kurds died, and so did the Iraqis. And here we are. Ask again - in fifty years. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-fair-and-balanced/310353/310 "2005-07-04T02:04:05Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > Has this war been particularly costly or difficult? As wars go, no. 2000 dead is awful, but the U.S. lost 25 times that number in Vietnam. Hell, the U.S. lost 700 men in a training accident in the run-up to D-Day. War is a deadly, horrible business. Which is why you don’t go into it unless there is no other possible alternative. You have never accepted that such was the case. > [@](#): > > I understand people who have principled objections against the war, but what I can’t abide were those who supported the war and then changed their minds after seeing that people were actually being killed. YOU’re saying that? Crocodile tears. There was no one on this board more insistent than you that the WMD’s were there, Saddam presented a grave and gathering threat, and that it was worth having the Americans spend whatever lives and money it would take to do it. Now you’re piously rubbing your hands and telling us you knew it all along - as if we don’t remember? > [@](#): > > And as far as I’m concerned Which is \*how \* much? > [@](#): > > , even the people who opposed the war should put that behind them, because the clock can’t be turned back. Wrong again. The thing those of us who did know all along, and tried to tell those of who refused to hear it, must do now is to try to minimize the damage. The goals being unachievable, it’s time to minimize the further damage, and that means getting \*our \* people back out. > [@](#): > > I believe there’s only one answer to that question: You broke it, you fix it. “You” does not include all of us. “We” did not break it. Some of us did, and the rest of us have to clean up after them. > [@](#): > > I supported the war even though I knew there were all sorts of very bad possible outcomes. Most of which you discounted. > [@](#): > > Once you’ve decided that it was truly the last resort That was not your conclusion. That was your premise, and you went about looking for reasons to support it. Gonna find those WMD’s any day now, aren’t we? :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > I understand that it’s a point of contention whether or not this war was truly necessary. I believe it was. Then you should have been able to make the case to us. You have not. Quit kidding yourself. > [@](#): > > Had it not been fought now, it would have been fought in five or ten years under much worse circumstances. Self-serving bullshit. It was not inevitable, it was a choice your hero Dubya made. There was no change in facts on the ground that were trending toward the war being more likely at any time in the future. Worse circumstances, you say? How? Were those precious WMD’s you argued here so strenuously about going to show up in those five or ten years? You’re not fooling anyone but yourself with that crap. > [@](#): > > So speaking for myself, the number of casualties and the difficulty of the war up until now do not even come close to shaking my support for it. It hasn’t cost \*you \* a fucking cent, and it hasn’t affected the lives of a single family \*you \* know. Do you have any idea how fucking insulting a statement that was? If it’s still that important, come on down and enlist. You’re eligible. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-fair-and-balanced/310353/311 "2005-07-04T02:09:08Z")
Not a single line of that diatribe is worth responding to. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-fair-and-balanced/310353/312 "2005-07-04T02:19:53Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > Not a single line of that diatribe is worth responding to. Based on this alone, I score this debate: **ElvisL1ves: 1 Sam Stone: 0** ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-fair-and-balanced/310353/313 "2005-07-04T02:33:57Z")
Boy, I didn’t even know about the Star Trek Prime Directive until now. Had to look it up. But if that’s not good enough, here’s one from a former president that the current president should have followed. It is, of course, worth noting that old Grover was the last one to follow this policy, to the everlasting regret of the families of thousands upon thousands of needlessly dead soldiers in strange places all over the globe: > [@](#): > > While naturally sympathizing with every effort to establish a republican form of government, it has been the settled policy of the United States to concede to people of foreign countries the same freedom and independence in the management of their domestic affairs that we have always claimed for ourselves… Words to live by, and even more importantly, to govern by. (from [Grover Cleveland’s Address on Hawaii](http://www.hawaii-nation.org/cleveland.html)) ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-fair-and-balanced/310353/314 "2005-07-04T02:35:53Z")
Un-fuckin-believable! Every rational basis for war having vanished, you guys are trying to sell us conjectures! “Well, maybe…you never know!..Could happen!” India should attack Pakistan tomorrow morning. Pakistan is hostile to India. Lousy human rights record. Sure as hell working on WMD, which it may very well give to anti-Indian terrorists. According to you two, this is all you need. Why should Japan wait for China to grow too powerful? Lousy rights record, a history of hostility going back centuries. Attack now, before its too late! Civilization requires risks. I walk the dangerous streets of Minneapolis unarmed, because I accept that risk. Any standard of civilization between nations requires the same risks. Aggressive war without provocation, without threat, based entirely on conjecture violates those standards. Standards, I hasten to remind you, we ourselves were instrumental in setting. If the rest of the world adopts our new! improved! standards of decency, I can give you a real good prediction for the state of the world in fifty years. Peaceful. Very, very peaceful. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-fair-and-balanced/310353/315 "2005-07-04T02:43:45Z")
> [@Fear Itself](#): > > Based on this alone, I score this debate: > > **ElvisL1ves: 1 > Sam Stone: 0** Oh, I’m sorry - was there a debate there? All I saw was a bunch of ad-hominem rants. Maybe I missed the incisive analysis. ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-fair-and-balanced/310353/316 "2005-07-04T03:29:52Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Italicize whatever you like. I do not accept the premise of your question. An invasion of Iraq is justifiable, absent some evidence that Iraq was about to attack the territory of the US That’s just it, isn’t it? Absent the Law of The Jungle where The Big Dog rules, there’s simply no possible ‘justification’ to launch a preventive war. Specially in light of the _fact_ that despite your continued protestations to the contrary, Iraq was a paper tiger. IOW, the much ballyhooed “Iraqi threat” existed in your feverish minds only. I mean, with what, _exactly_, was Saddam about to express his “hostility” towards the US _with_? Voodoo? And for that your country couldn’t wait to go to war a minute longer? And an illegal one at that if the treaties you endorse – and helped create – mean anything. Yet many on your side – as the inneffable, **Mr Stone** just did – have the gumption of not only holding on to such fantasies, but keep trying to tell the rest of of that “war is a matter of very last resort.” And you guys can keep a straight face when you say/write that? Please. That’s why I keep asking you for cites to _anything_ other than the worn-out, mantra-like recitation of _excuses_. Because there aren’t any! > [@Shodan](#): > > The whole rationale for the invasion was to stop Saddam **before** he could launch such an attack, or hand over WMD to other terrorists so they could launch another such attack. No, let’s call that what it was and continues to be: **fearmongering propaganda** that relied on faith-based “evidence” for its first premise and went [against your very own intelligence agencies](http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1139)for the second: > [@](#): > > Hussein also had no incentive to give, or history of giving, such weapons to terrorists—another Bush administration justification for the invasion. In fact, the administration accused Iraq of supporting terrorism but forgot to mention that the groups Hussein supported didn’t focus their attacks on U.S. targets (they primarily attack Israeli targets). Furthermore, Hussein had no incentive to give super weapons, which are expensive to develop and produce, to radical and unpredictable terrorist groups that could turn them against him or that could get him into even more trouble with the great powers. > > **Of course, the CIA told the Bush administration that Hussein was unlikely to use any weapons of mass destruction or give them to terrorists unless the United States provoked him by attacking Iraq.** Senator Bob Graham (D-FL), then chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, requested that the CIA’s analysis be declassified before the Congress debated the resolution to support the war. In response, the administration declassified only those findings that supported its bellicose position. Graham had to pressure the administration to get the entire text declassified. Unfortunately, that astoundingly important analysis—making Hussein’s possession of unconventional weapons (even in the absolute worst case, nuclear arms) less important—was ignored by the Congress, the press, and the American public in the race to support the administration’s war. In other words, a small, relatively poor nation could be deterred even from using a few nuclear weapons against a superpower with thousands of nuclear warheads. **Well in advance of the war, the CIA report clearly indicated that Hussein was not the imminent threat the administration claimed.** (bolding mine) So I’ll ask again, what else have you got? Anything? How about a conscience? * * * > [@Sam Stone](#): > > Has this war been particularly costly or difficult? As wars go, no. 2000 dead is awful, but the U.S. lost 25 times that number in Vietnam. Hell, the U.S. lost 700 men in a training accident in the run-up to D-Day. War is a deadly, horrible business. Digusting, truly disgusting. Apparently, in **Sam’s** little world the anywhere from 25,000 to 110,000 dead and multiple times that number of wounded Iraqis due to this crazed carnage, simply didn’t happen. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-fair-and-balanced/310353/317 "2005-07-04T04:47:56Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > **FinnAgain** - I think he did make the offer. Yes, I’m aware of the reality of the offer. I am, however, unaware of any proven payments to suicide bombers. That’s why I asked for a cite somewhere upthread. Absent such confirmation, can we really say Sadaam supported terrorism? ---
**Author:** ![gum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bbe5ce/32.png) [@gum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gum)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-fair-and-balanced/310353/318 "2005-07-04T06:46:03Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > Yes, I’m aware of the reality of the offer. I am, however, unaware of any proven payments to suicide bombers. That’s why I asked for a cite somewhere upthread. > > Absent such confirmation, can we really say Sadaam supported terrorism? [The Kurds seem to be sure of it.](http://www.husseinandterror.com/jpeg%20pics/08sized.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-fair-and-balanced/310353/319 "2005-07-04T09:56:39Z")
> [@gum](#): > > [The Kurds seem to be sure of it.](http://www.husseinandterror.com/jpeg%20pics/08sized.jpg) You know, in a site designed to Fight Ignorance, you’d do well not to link to sensacionalist conspiracy-laden portals, peddling lies that have long been debunked. Then again, if you think there some genuine news in there, best get on the horn to the WH pronto! Gotta love the name: [Saddam Hussein’s Philanthropy of Terror](http://www.husseinandterror.com/) Some choice quotes: > [@](#): > > Beyond cash and diplomatic help, Saddam Hussein was the Conrad Hilton of the terrorist world. He provided a place for terrorists to kick back, relax, and reflect after killing people for a living. Nope, no hyperbole there. None at all. > [@](#): > > Or perhaps Al-Ani saw a former student from Hamburg named Mohamed Atta to discuss more practical matters. The Czech government sticks to their contention that they did observe this Iraqi diplomat meeting with Mohamed Atta just five months before 9-11 Bullshit. > [@](#): > > As the May 8, 2003 New York Post and other news outlets reported, Baer ruled that Saddam Hussein’s government was complicit in the September 11 attacks and that the Baathist government owed the plaintiffs a judgment of $104 million. > > \ > > This lead to the following headline from the most unimpeachable name in news, CBS: “Court Rules: Al Qaida, Iraq Linked.” > > Thus, there is abundant and undeniable evidence that Saddam Hussein provided money, diplomatic services, shelter, medical care, and training to terrorists of every stripe, including those complicit in the 1993 WTC bombing and — according to a Clinton-appointed federal judge — the September 11 attacks. Get real. Or get tin-foil. Your choice. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-fair-and-balanced/310353/320 "2005-07-04T17:31:03Z")
First of all, thanks for taking the time to relatively calmly and rationally and completely lay out your position. You may think that all this typing and arguing never accomplishes anything, but I now understand somewhat clearly what your position is, which I didn’t before. Which is something. Not that I think you’re RIGHT or anything, of course… > [@Sam Stone](#): > > I understand people who have principled objections against the war, but what I can’t abide were those who supported the war and then changed their minds after seeing that people were actually being killed. (a) who on the SDMB falls into that camp? (b) what about people who supported, at least in a lukewarm fashion, the war before it started, but now feel that all the reasons they had for supporting it were false… who feel lied to and betrayed? © what about people who don’t necessarily think we should yank all our troops out tomorrow, but who DO think that the way the war was argued for, presented to the American public, decided upon and initially waged, and the way that justifications for those decisions have changed over time, and the way the Administration seems incapable of ever admitting that anything has gone less than perfectly, and Abu Ghraib, and Gitmo, and all the rest of that, is an enormous blot on a country that we still love, but which we’re almost ashamed to be associated with, some of the time? My point is, you’ve basically said: (1) You supported the war before it started (2) You support the war now (3) You think it’s worth the price Now, those statements are all well and good, but what you’re ignoring are all of the other numerous issues that piss so many of us off, such as (among others): -failling to get the job done in Afghanistan, and catch OBL, first -not letting the UN inspectors finish their job, and in fact turning them into objects of ridicule -throwing away the international goodwill we got from 9/11 -the whole WMD thing, whether it was intentional lies or people fooling themselves into believing what they wanted to believe -the revisionism about the whole WMD thing -Abu Ghraib -The massive underestimation of how difficult and lengthy the war would be -“mission accomplished” -the current seeming quagmire -the question of whether the Iraq war is increasing or decreasing the number of terrorists who are out there to get us -the administration’s inability to admit error -the administration’s divisive rhetoric, demonizing patriotic citizens who oppose the war as traitors who hate our troops -the huge amounts of money this war has cost us, far more than we were initially told -the lack of an apparent exit strategy -various procurement scandals involving the huge amounts of money being spent and of course -lots and lots of dead Americans and Iraqis. Even if, all other thing being equal, one thought that the war was the right choice, I can’t see how anyone could be happy with the Bush administration’s performance in beginning and running the war. > [@](#): > > And as far as I’m concerned, even the people who opposed the war should put that behind them, because the clock can’t be turned back. No, but politics continue. If I could suddenly convince everyone in the US that the war was a terrible mistake, it wouldn’t mean we’d all instantly agree to pull troops out, given the current situation (that’s another argument). It might, however, mean that Bush’s support would plummet. > [@](#): > > Frankly, it could have been much, much worse. I supported the war even though I knew there were all sorts of very bad possible outcomes. Did you support the war even without the WMDs? That is, can you point to a post of your from before the war saying “even if absolutely no WMDs are found, and it takes multiple years and thousands of American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars, I believe this war is a good idea”? In other words, I’ll ask you the same question I asked **Shodan** : if you could have looked in a magic 8 ball and seen exactly what would happen up through July of 2005, would you still have thought that going to war was better than not going to war? > [@](#): > > War is the last resort because it is brutal and truly awful. Once you’ve decided that it was truly the last resort, It doesn’t really matter how many casualties you sustain as long as you can continue fighting. So the number of casualities is irrelevant? If there were 200,000 US dead in Iraq so far, would you still think going to war was correct? > [@](#): > > Do you think the U.S. should have quit WWII if they’d lost a hundred thousand more men? Two hundred thousand? A million? At what point would it have been too costly to continue? Answer: If there’s no other choice, you continue until you are unable to fight. Ahh, yes, compare the war in Iraq to WWII. Good times. Because if we’d ignored Hitler, he would have been precisely as much thread to US national security 10 or 15 years down the line as Saddam would have been if we’d continued to treat him the same way we were. And even in WWII, we DID have an option. We could have just stopped fighting. Granted, it would have been a terrible, awful, catastrophic national disaster. But if we got to a point where almost our entire military age population was dead, but we still had enough people to defend our shores, we would have been better off making peace and living on as a nation. (Of course, that’s not because of the human price being so terrible, but because of our actual national survival being at stake, so it doesn’t really address your question.) Seriously, though, you don’t think casualties (and, for that matter, monetary price) matter at all? If I said “here’s a plan that gives a 100% guarantee of converting North Korea to a democratic society, and I guarantee (through magic) that it will cost $85 and 3 American soldiers’ lives”, don’t you think it would be worth it? And another plan that would cost $850 billion and 3 hundred thousand American soldiers’ lives would NOT be worth it? > [@](#): > > (and yes, I understand that it’s a point of contention whether or not this war was truly necessary. I believe it was. Had it not been fought now, it would have been fought in five or ten years under much worse circumstances.) Was Saddam becoming more of a threat as time went on? Given that he was basically ZERO of a threat when we invaded (as we basically pushed him over very easily, and there was no WMD program), seems like he’d have a way to go before he was enough of a threat to be worth invading. Now, obviously, you can make a Chamberlain-Hitler-appeasement comparison here, but let’s face it: Saddam had been in power for 10+ years since the first gulf war. If he’d been using his time to build up the military and become a threat, he would have BEEN a threat already, unless you can demonstrate that at some point in, say, 1998, he suddenly woke up and said “you know, I’m going to start building up my military until I’m a threat to the US again (because it worked so well last time)”, and we learned about it, and we actually had a very short window in which to conquer him before it ceased to be relatively easy. > [@](#): > > Wars are also very complex, and it’s guaranteed that mistakes will be made when fighting them. No battle plan ever survives first contact with the enemy. So those who changed their minds about the war because ‘mistakes were made’ are also fooling themselves. To this day people still argue whether or not the U.S. needed to fight on Iwo Jima, or whether the Battle of the Bulge was the result of serious errors. This stuff is unavoidable, because your enemy is also smart and trying to screw up your war plan. > > It’s easy to be a armchair general and get all indignant about how badly the war is being run, but to me it looks like about par for the course. I agree with you on principle. However, I think the number of mistakes of various types in this war is far above any expected amount. > [@](#): > > So speaking for myself, the number of casualties and the difficulty of the war up until now do not even come close to shaking my support for it. Could the number of casualities and difficulty EVER shake your support for it? 10 years from now, if the situation is totally unchanged except that there are 5 thousand more American dead, will you have precisely the same position? 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