That’s an intellectually fair position. On the other hand, going to war, and PARTICULARLY the unprovoked invasion and conquering of a sovereign nation, is such a grave decision, for so many reasons and in so many ways, that I think it needs something a lot more substantive and crucial than “well, our best political and economic models indicate that, if we invade, things will be better in 50 years than if we don’t invade. Probably. On average. Oh yeah, and we also predicted that we would be welcomed with open arms and the war would be over in 6 months, so you can see that we’re really good at the prognosticating.”.
Particularly given how utterly amorphous and undefined that kind of discussion is, it just gives any charismatic leader who can rally the country behind him an excuse to invade anyone, any time, with any justification.
Also note that the question is not just:
(1) invade Iraq
(2) don’t invade Iraq
…and see what the middle east looks like in 50 years
it’s
(1) invade Iraq
(2) don’t invade Iraq, have hundreds of billions of dollars to spend on other things, have thousands of Americans still alive, have international goodwill and prestige, have energy to focus on catching OBL, have lots fewer Arabs hating us
…and see what the world looks like in 50 years
I’m still waiting to hear from you regarding this rational argument.
Reasonable people can disagree about things, but the debate prior to the war was anything other than reasonable. And like it or not, those who supported the war were the most unreasonable of all, as the evidence afterwards has clearly demonstrated.
You can find a small sampling of the kind of trash promoted by the war mongering right on the boards here in this thread.
The fact that a small majority of voters prefer one interpretation over another does not make that interpretation reasonable a priori. A given interpretation can be judged reasonable only on the basis of its own merits, regardless of how many people favor it. Furthermore, a view that appears reasonable in an “information poor” environment can appear idiotic in an “information rich” one.
I think those who supported, and continue to support, the war are wrong. I argued forcefully against them prior to the invasion, and I argue against them now. My arguments are, at least as far as I can see, reasonable and reality-based. Are you suggesting that just because a larger group of less-informed people disagrees with me, I should recant? Shodan (in response to Red Fury):
My, what a damning list of evidence. I’ll comment on them one at a time, but before I start I’d liked to draw the reader’s attention to the conspicuous absence of the letters “W,” “M,” and “D” in the passage above, and remind everyone, once again, how incredibly integral those letters were to the case for war prior to the invasion. Why, in these parts, “WMDs,” and Iraq’s alleged possession of them, were practically all we talked about!
Moving forward, then:
1) Twelve years of violation of the inspection regime.
It’s true that Iraq violated the inspections regime, especially at the beginning. By the early to mid 1990s, however – especially after UN inspectors uncovered its covert nuclear weapons program – it appears Iraq came to the conclusion that it was useless to continue playing that game. So twelve years is an exaggeration: it was more like 5 or 6 years, after which we saw several years of, albeit grudging, compliance.
Let’s not forget that under the inspections regime Iraq disposed of hundreds of tons of chemical munitions, biological agents, and so forth.
And let us not forget as well that for at least a year prior to the invasion the Iraqi government complied with every single demand made upon it by UNSCOM, as far as I know. The inspectors were granted unfettered access, routinely made unannounced site inspections, etc., with full Iraqi cooperation. During this period of intensive inspections investigators failed to turn up a single shred of evidence linking Iraq to the production of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. The only infraction – a missile system found in violation of the post Gulf I agreement – was scrapped.
Now, we have to consider the threshold for action here. Are these violations, and false/exaggerated accusations of violations, sufficient cause for war? For the loss of 1800 American lives thus far, plus tens of thousands of American casualties, untold numbers of Iraqi dead and wounded, complete destruction of Iraqi infrastructure, and 300 billion + of US taxpayer dollars? 2) Unquestioned hostility to the US and her allies.
Naturally, the US was hostile in return. Many states are hostile to US interests. Is hostility a justification for invasion? 3) Unquestioned history of aggression against her neighbors.
Many other states also have such histories. But how does Iraq’s war against Iran two decades ago, or its invasion of Kuwait a decade ago, justify a current invasion, today? Hadn’t Iraq already been punished, harshly, for its bad behavior, by decade-long sanctions and an intrusive inspections regime? 4) Unquestioned previous possession of “WMDs.”
To be more specific, unquestioned previous possession of battlefield chemical munitions. Much like those possessed by many other states in the world, both friendly and unfriendly. Munitions, I would like to add, that were not, and never had been, a threat to the US itself. 5) Unquestioned previous use of “WMDs.”
Yes. A crime against humanity, especially the Anfall program. But how is this previous usage related to the war on terror, such as to justify a “preventative” invasion?
Of course, none of these events taken in isolation would be sufficient for an invasion; I’m aware our board’s right-wing militants argue that we must look at the “Big Picture;” we must consider that when added together, 1+2+3+4+5= 15! (And on the warmonger secret decoder ring, 15 is the code number for “invade!”)
But do all these reasons, even added and taken together, justify the invasion? There is no straightforward answer to that question, really; it all depends on where you think the threshold for US military action should lie. Since war is such a risk-filled and terrible business, I argue that the threshold for military action should be high. Shodan, on the other hand, and others of his ilk, argue that the threshold should be low. (That’s why they were all such big supporters of Operation Desert Fox, and of the bombing of Kosovo. Oh wait – no, they weren’t. Oh well, as Wilde used to say, consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.) And after all, if possession of chemical munitions can be included as a causus belli, well, the US is pretty much free to invade whoever it sees fit.
But as a counter example to the above we can take the relationship between Iran and Israel. Israel meets many of the qualifications listed above: she is in violation of significantly more SC resolutions than Iraq ever was, she is unquestionably hostile to Iran, she has a history of aggression against her neighbors, and she currently possesses real “WMDs” in the form of nuclear weapons, not just battlefield chemicals. Given the above, would not Iran be justified in cobbling together a coalition of like-minded Islamic states and invading Israel in an act of preventative self-defense? Following Shodan’s logic, I’m sure many Iranian militants would answer that question affirmatively.
Finally, I notice one thing on this list rather conspicuous in its absence: namely, a reference to actual terrorism as it is traditionally defined. Apparently, real links to terrorism or terrorist activities are not a requirement for inclusion in Bush’s TWAT. (Did I love just writing that last sentence, or what?) I’m aware that Shodan references Saddam’s “support” of terrorists a bit further on in the thread, but I just wanted to point this out in this context to demonstrate the wooly-headness of the pro-war contingent. Apparently, in Shodan’ mind, “previous possession of WMDs,” aggression against neighbors,” “violations of the inspection regime,” and “not liking America” constitute acts of interstate terrorism.
This is, to say the least, a unique definition of the word “terrorism.”
Not Wilde. Emerson. “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”
Indubitably. The unfortunate coincidence of a inane policy and an adored orifice has not escaped our attention, we are simply too politely circumspect to remark upon it.
Because Iraq did not abide by the conditions of the ceasefire after their invasion of Kuwait.
You know what? I had a much longer, line-by-line refutation of your breath-takingly dishonest attempt at revisionist history, but it is not really worth it. If you have really convinced yourself that more than five or six words of your post was true in even the loosest sense, then debate with you is a completely empty exercise.
Oh, and, on the nature of the inspections and Sadaam’s non-compliance… we had CIA operatives mixed with real inspectors pretty much from the word go. Sadaam knew this, and for years was saying that we were using the inspections to spy on him. We, of course, dismissed this as mere rhetoric. But… I am unaware of any provision making it mandatory to accept espionage as long as the US is the one doing the spying.
As you know so well yourself, Hussein refused access to the inspectors because they were spying. That does not change the fact, as documented by both Kay and Duelfer, that Iraq had en essence given up its “WMD” programs in the mid 1990s.
Let us note as well how you whistle past the graveyard; in the opening section of the report you cite, Blix states flatly:
But okay, Shodan, put your money where you mouth is: list those demands made by UNMOVIC or the US, in the year prior to the invasion, that Iraq did not comply with.
Translation: I can’t beat you in a fair debate, so I’ll just call you names instead.
I thought I’d seen it all but I never thought I’d see the day when a card-carrying member of Bush’s Apoligentzia would quote Orwell’s doublethink in order to score points for his side!
If that doesn’t describe the Usual Suspects to a T, I don’t know what does.
See, that’s the difference. Emerson might have written “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” but it was Wilde who wrote the far more eloquent “Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds,” first.
At least that’s what they tell me over here in Europe.
By the way, did y’all ever here of the Svensson Brothers, Thor-Ulf and Leif, who were the first men to actually build an airplane?
A) the fact that you offer no indication of what you were saying would happen?
or
B) The fact that several of the anti-war war folks in that (and other) threads made equally incorrect predictions of hundreds of thousands dead, starvation, etc. etc.
But, of course! Their contribution to aeronautics is often overlooked, but they did demonstrate beyond any question that reindeer antlers lack any aerodynamic applicaton. IIRC,the “takeoff” site of their expermental vehicle has been renamed “Mt. Domfuk” in thier eternal honor.
luc, you were right. I offer up my underbelly to your steely claws of bartleby’s quotations. That’ll teach me to trust a cite called brainyquote.com. Motherfuckers.
(And I so remembered the quote using the word ‘small’, too. Drat!)
Oh, and, not to totally hijack this thread, but the latter formulation would, IMHO, be inferior to the former. The idea isn’t that all consistency is bad, but that a foolish consistency is bad. Seems an essential difference to this 'murkan.
Not to futher any such hijack, but, boiled down, its just “foolish is dumb”. I had Emerson thrust upon me once, and it seemed even than that he delivered the blazingly obvious as if he expected gasps of surprise.
Translation: You can lie through your teeth about what you just said, and if anyone calls you on it, it’s *their * fault for “misunderstanding” a “great soul” like yourself.