So THIS is the scam that Bush is going to use to justify his war...

Great Debates
1

Here is the link.

The White House is making a deliberately impossible demand on Iraq in order to justify Shrub’s war.

So in other words, “we know you killed somebody, and if you don’t show us the body, that proves you’re guilty.”

I guess the White house now thinks that the November elections have proven that Americans are total idiots, inacapable of seeing through even such an arrogant, illogical and transparent gambit such as this.

The really convenient thing for the Bushies with this demand is that no matter what Iraq shows them, they can still say Saddam is hiding something. They’re not even PRETENDING to be rational any more.

Enjoy the war…

2

Oh, please. This is a test that Saddam HAS to pass. If he provides misleading information, it will be proof that he’s not acting in good faith. And that’s really all you should need, because it’s impossible to completely disarm a country that is actively working to stop you. Weapons can be hidden in garages and basements. Mobile labs can be hidden. Iraq is a big place.

What you apparently aren’t getting is that the requirement on Iraq is to DISARM, not just to ‘allow inspections’. If they provide misleading information, that would be evidence of their unwillingness to disarm.

And how much do you want to bet that the U.S. is witholding information about Iraq’s WMDs that it doesn’t want to reveal until AFTER Iraq makes its declaration? And that’s a good thing. Here’s the formula to make Iraq honest:

  1. Make sure that they know that you’ll overthrow the government if you have any evidence they are trying to get around the inspections.
  2. Give them a short deadline, so they don’t have time to concoct fairy tales or seriously hide equipment.
  3. Don’t tell them what you know, and make sure that they know you have intelligence, but not WHAT intelligence. That way, they will always be taking a risk by witholding anything.
  4. Repeat steps 1 to 3 until you are satisfied that Iraq has disarmed.
  5. Institute controls to keep them disarmed until the regime changes.

The problem you’re having is that this strategy is pretty much indistinguishable from the strategy of just trying to go to war any way you can. It pretty much has to be, because if Saddam thinks that you’re not really serious about war, it’ll give him enough rope to hang himself.

I’ve been stepping out of these debates for a while now, because I’ve realized that the proper strategy to use against Iraq if you DON’T want war is essentially the same strategy you would take if you do. The most likely way to wind up in a shooting war against Iraq is to do what the U.N. wants, which is to appease Saddam. The best chance for peace is to prepare for war and make Saddam know it.

So until the endgame plays out, we can’t really know what the Bush administration really wants. You’ve got your biases, so you assume this is all a nefarious plot to go to war. I tend to take them pretty much at face value.

And the other problem is that even the correct strategy for avoiding war will probably fail. Saddam is, after all, nuts. So even if the Bush administration is trying desperately to avoid war, their actions may make it look like they wanted a war and got one. This is going to be one of those endless debates where people line up on opposite sides of the ideological fence and go ‘nyah nyah’ at each other.

Unless the strategy works, and war is avoided and Saddam is disarmed.

3

How are we supposed to know if it is credible or not?

4

What exactly is impossible about the deadline?

And, if you’ll check, the deadline was set by U.N. resolution, not by the White House.

5

The impossibility? How about the fact that varifiability is just not possible. No matter what Saddam does, the White House can claim that it just isn’t enough. Who gets to decide if the reports are credible-Bush or the U.N.? If the U.N. is satisfied with the report, will Bush back down?

6

Exactly. Bush is asking Iraq to prove a negative.

“Show us the WMD’s.”

“There ARE no WMD’s”

“AHA! you’re violating the agreement! Kiss your ass good bye.”

Even if Iraq shows everything it has, the White House can still claim they’re hiding something. It’s impossible to prove Bush wrong.

7

That’s a great question. I haven’t seen a clear, unambiguous answer. My impression is that the UN Security Council will decide, but the US reserves the right to act independently of the UN.

8

Which completely undermines and invalidates the UN charter. Why should the US (read Bush) get to unilaterally decide international policy?

9

Because we can. We have the weapons and we’re the world’s only super power.

Furthermore, IMHO it’s good that the US has this power, because the UN has behaved irresponsibly with respect to Iraq, particularly since 1998, when the inspectors were kicked out.

10

Would you mind explaining the difference?

11

Relax guys, the weather is not ideal for invasion for another 60 days. Then, it’s Saddam-a-bye-bye. As much as I think that Bush’s motives are wrong and that he is a greater danger to the U.S. than Saddam Hussein, Hussein is a continuing danger and I won’t miss him at all. As for Bush’s warmongering, there is nothing I can do about it but complain, we are stuck with this imbecile until at least Jan 2005

12

Ahh, there is nothing so useful as a lie, repeated over and over again until it becomes The Truth. Does it bother you, though, to repeat the lie that the inspectors were kicked out?

You are correct, in one respect, though. The U.N. has behaved shamefully in not lifting the murderous sanctions on Iraq that have killed over a million civilians.

13

But the inspectors weren’t kicked out, as you surely know by now. And should the U.S. now threaten Isreal? How about Turkey? After all, the U.N. is being “irresponsible” toward these countries in regard to Security Council resolutions.

Hell, given your standards Nicaragua, Guatemala and Chile could make an excellent case for amasiing troops along the Rio Grande. But they don’t have the weapons and they’re not superpowers, so it’s OK to fuck them over, right?

But at least the Chileans can take comfort in the U.S.'s new zeal to destroy that brutal thug Saddam Hussein. Perhaps there is now some hope that the brutal thug Henry Kissinger will be extradited. Oh, wait … sorry, Chile.

14

You may be technically correct, but whether they were kicked out, or simply left because there was no point in continuing in the face of Iraqi games and obstruction, is a minor distinction.

Uh, cite? I’d love to see you, or anyone, prove that sanctions, and not Saddam, are responsible for these deaths.

15

A “minor distinction”? On the contrary, this lie is used often by the warmongers as one more proof of Iraqi iniquity. By 1998, Iraq had been 90-95% disarmed, according to Scott Ritter. The inspectors were withdrawn before an imminent U.S. attack. The attack came precisely because Iraq had been complying with the inspectors, and it looked like the U.S. would be forced to lift the sanctions. (Yes, I know it was U.N. sanctions, but the U.N. is nothing more than a tool of U.S. foreign policy.)

http://www.cam.ac.uk/societies/casi/

16

I don’t understand this. What would you like to see in Iraq? Do you honestly believe that if we just dropped all sanctions and let Saddam do whatever he pleased that everything would be OK? Do you really believe that this is what the people of Iraq want.

I know that I disagree with you greatly, but I do not believe that you and and some of the other posters here actually want to defend Saddam as you come so slose to doing.

17

Because we are a sovereign independent nation.

The UN holds no authority over us or anyone else. DO NOT make the mistake of believing that it is anything other than an organization to help facilitate communication and collaboration between nations. Unfortunately, many in the UN and the rest of the world have already made that mistake.

18

Ooops, I forgot to say that it is not so much that we get to set world foreign policy, but that the world does not get to set ours.

19

Ah, the familiar tactic of the demagogue.

The most common mistake is seeing this conflict as one between the west and Saddam, or between the U.S. and Saddam, etc. To tell you the truth, if Bush and Saddam and his cronies were to go out in the middle of the desert and fight it out, I would welcome such a spectacle. The problem is with the people in the middle, the civilians, the poor who always suffer the brunt of wars and aggression.

What do I believe the people of Iraq want? Well, I believe that they would like to have clean water so that their children don’t die of diarrhea. I believe that they would like to be able to import pencils and medical supplies. I believe that they would like to be able to live. I believe that they would like to give birth to babies that aren’t born without a mouth or a brain or genitals.

The economic sanctions are a crime against humanity. There is absolutely no justification for them; they harm only the people of Iraq, and not Saddam and his cronies. But, then, that is the point: it is Total War designed to destroy the remnants of Iraqi society.

The only possible moral position is to lift the economic sanctions, while enforcing the military sanctions. Don’t allow weapons into Iraq, but do allow medical supplies and water sanitation supplies, etc. This monstrous evil that we are perpetrating has got to stop. We have to stop killing people.

20

Why do you keep saying “our” and “ours”? Did you have something to do with it?