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

Great Debates
121

You misunderstand my principle. The whole history of the Middle East in the 20th century has been one of imperialist intervention, whether it’s the old-school “annex 'em and rule 'em from home” of the British and French or the “put our man at the top and make sure he gives us the stuff we want” of the postwar era. The Ba’athist Party was put into power with the aid and direct support of the United States. If the US effects another regime change in Iraq, it’s just going to continue the same problems and build even more resentment. Bush isn’t going in to Iraq out of some altruistic “restore democracy” motive, his fine and stirring speeches (cough) notwithstanding. If he has anything to do with it, the next leader of Iraq won’t be democratically elected, and neither will his successor when the US grows tired of his shenanigans against neighboring countries.

Why was Iran a threat, though? Rewind a bit and take a look at 1979 - what happened then? The Iranian people overthrew Reza Shah Pahlavi - who, incidentally, had been helped into power by the United States. The US completely demonized Cuba after their man Bautista was given the boot in 1959. Do you think it’s a complete coincidence that they demonized Khomeini (who was no saint, either) when he stepped into power as an anti-American when the Shah was overthrown? The whole background of US military involvement in the Middle East is simply a reaction to the local governments not doing what the US wants them to. Nothing the US has done there is a “mistake”; it was an intentional approach to getting what they wanted - chiefly oil - and finding the man (or group) who seemed most amenable to giving it to them with a minimum of fuss.

Going into Iraq now isn’t “correcting a mistake”, it’s schoolyard bullying writ extremely large.

Took me a few minutes to dig it up, but here you go - an article by Jeremy Scahill in the August 2002 CounterPunch. Here’s a relevant quote:

So I don’t know where I got Apache helicopters from, and I take that particular aspect back until I can verify my sources again.

122

Sua Sponte,
Your quote has him saying “it was possible to determine in 1997” that Iraq was disarmed. It doesn’t say that he himself possessed all the information necessary to make that conclustion or had reached it. So perhaps in 1997 and 1998 he believed that Iraq was a serious threat and then he later obtained information which had been collected in 1997 but not available to him which changed his mind. Or he took another another look at 1997 raw information and reached different conclusions. Or he later learned that the “highly credible” intelligence that he talks about in his December 1998 article was not correct.

123

'Course, it’s possible that the U.S. completely demonized Khomeini when he step into power as an anti-American because Khomeini took much the same attitude that you do.
Khomeini took power in 1979 because President Carter decided that the U.S.'s support for the repressive government of the Shah was a mistake, and withdrew that support. Without U.S. support, the Shah could not withstand the public unrest, and fled.

But Khomeini opined that once the U.S. had acted badly in the past, it was always a bad actor. So its present actions, which allowed Khomeini’s revolution to succeed, were for naught.

Of course, it’s always possible that the reason Khomeini was demonized was that he allowed the capture and detention of accredited diplomats, an act that violated all norms of international law and civilized behavior.

Or it’s just because we got pissy when Khomeini demonized us first. It’s kinda funny to accuse the U.S. of demonizing someone who referred to us as “The Great Satan.”

Sua

124

Hey, Cyber –

Ever hear of Occam’s Razor? Why do you keep adding externalities to try to explain Ritter’s behavior?

For your latest to be correct;

  1. UNSCOM had to have lied in its 1998 and 1999 reports, when it stated that it was impossible to determine that Iraq had disarmed; AND

  2. Ritter, after he left UNSCOM - but not before - received access to the hidden UNSCOM evidence that UNSCOM lied about in 1998 and 1999; AND

  3. Ritter decided to keep this new evidence secret from everyone in the world, instead deciding to radically change his assertions of fact without ever bolstering his credibility by publicly revealing this new evidence - or even hinting that he had received access to new evidence.

Note that he has never ONCE said “I was wrong in 1998 and early 1999. New evidence reveals that Iraq had in fact disarmed by 1997. I didn’t have access to that information in 1998 and early 1999.” Instead, he claims that there is now a new “context” for his factual assertions.

Mr. Ritter doesn’t make the arguments you are making. Why wouldn’t he? Or are you merely grasping at straws?

Sua

125

Sua, you provide some interesting reports. I had planned on getting into an in-depth analysis of the numbers, since the first document (the only one I’ve had time to read thoroughly at this point) indicates that Iraq certainly didn’t have shit for a CW program by 1999 - but then it occurred to me that the US doesn’t seem to have released reports on its programs of WMD. I’d be willing to bet the US completely outstripped Iraq even before the beginning of the Iran-Iraq war. Where, then, does the US get off calling other countries a threat to civilization and freedom when it’s got more WMD than most other countries could hope to develop?

126

…and Diogenes creates the perfect segue into my next point…

Imagine, for a second, that North Korea starts getting a little frisky. They make threats against South Korea. They make a few subtle threats against us. They create the impression that they’re going to attack someone in the region. Now, what are we going to do about it? Attack them? While they have a nuke? Not bloody likely. We have effectively lost all credible threat of force against them. All we have left is impotent diplomacy - and Iraq is a perfect example of where impotent diplomacy will get you.

The most compelling reason to attack Iraq is that they don’t have nukes, yet it wants them. It wants them as leverage. (And here someone will inevitably point out that every nation wants nukes, why don’t we declare war on all of them, to which I will respond that is a profoundly stupid counter-argument, and if you honestly can’t see the difference between Iraq and, say, Denmark, then you’re an idiot.) The second Iraq gets its hands on a nuke, it becomes North Korea. It gains free reign to do what it please in the Middle East, and all we can do in reply is emulate the UN and frown thoughtfully at Saddam, while reiterating that nice people don’t conquer their neighbors.

I guarantee you that North Korea is going to give us some headaches in the future as a result of that nuke of theirs, and Kim Il-Jong is but a tiny fraction of the megomaniacal fucknut that Saddam is. Right now, we have the option to do something other than appease and placate that sandy little butthole (apologies to Parker and Stone). Let’s exercise that option while we can.
Jeff

127

Especially since the US is the only country which has ever used nukes on civilians.

128

Khomeini wasn’t a given, though. There were challenges to power from both the left and the right after the Shah abdicated. Do you think Carter would have withdrawn support for the Shah if he had shown himself able to quash the resistance?

I seriously doubt Khomeini was the only one in Iran at that point who wasn’t favorably disposed to the US. Do you really think I’d fall on my knees and thank someone who set a pit bull on me for finally getting his jaws unlocked from my arm? Why in the hell would (or should) the average Iranian suddenly feel grateful to the United States for withdrawing support for a man they’d been backing to the hilt for 25 years?

If there’s one thing that becomes clear when looking over the history of the world after 1945, it’s that the US has absolutely no room for presenting itself as the paragon of upholding international law and civilized behavior.

Well, y’know… if the shoe fits…

As for your reply to Cyber - UNSCOM certainly didn’t assert that it was completely impossible to determine whether Iraq had disarmed. It allowed that there were some amounts of material that could not be accounted for, but it also asserted that it either supervised or verified the destruction of the majority of proscribed material. And there was no uncertainty in verifying CW agents - the problems with Iraq coming up with previously undeclared material only applied to missiles, most of which weren’t CW-ready.

129

What about the difference between Iraq and Iran, or Syria, or Libya, or Cuba. Why is it up to the US anyway to decide who gets to have nukes and who doesn’t. Why should WE get to have them, for that matter? What’s so effing trustworthy about us?

130

Sua Sponte,
All three of your points ignore the possibility that Ritter received additional information from some intelligence agency (which had been collected in 1997). That would also explain why he is reluctant to explain why he has changed his assessment.

Secondly like I said it’s always possible that he reached different conclusion from the same information. Intelligence assessment can be a complicated business.

Besides your hypothesis , to be fully convincing, needs additional assumptions as well to explain why Ritter is a flat-out liar. As far as I know no one has produced a convincing explanation of that.

I agree that it would help Ritter if he produced a convincing explanation of his positions at various times. He claims to have done that in detail in his book which I haven’t read. Have you?

131

I would also like to know exactly what the MOTIVE would be for Scott Ritter (a US marine) to sudeenly flip on his country and fabricate information.

132

Three words: Baghdad Playboy Mansion.

133

Because, for a variety of reasons, Iraq is the easiest one to go after right now. Iraq was on the losing end of a war, which resulted in UNSC resolutions against it, which it has ignored. Iraq is run by a leader who is hated by most of his people. Iraq is hated and feared by all of its surrounding nations. Iraq has shown a desire for invading nearby countries. None of the other nations you mention - including the US - possesses all of those qualities. That doesn’t necessarily mean the US wouldn’t like to be able to attack any of those nations and institute regime change, it just means that we recognize it wouldn’t be possible, for either logistic or diplomatic reasons. Please stop using the argument of “why don’t we attack all of those other nations?” unless you’re seriously in favor of attacking those nations. It’s intellectually dishonest, and has been addressed a thousand and one times before. If you’re just going to ignore the answer, why bother asking the question?

As far as why it’s the US’s responsibility to decide, in your words, “who gets to have nukes” - well, because no one else seems to be willing to do it. Do you think that anyone should be able to have nukes? Should I, personally, be able to have one? Whose business is it to tell me that I can’t build my own WMDs and store them in my garage?

If you can see that maybe not all nations are equally responsible, and thus not equally qualified to be trusted with something like nuclear weapons, then you can see the necessity for someone, somewhere, to act as judge. Why us? Why not? We’re a comparatively responsible democracy, and we have the power to back up our words. We’re as good a choice as anyone, and better than most. And for the same reason that ex-cons with a history of violent crimes are not permitted to own guns, nations with a record of attacking other nations out of a desire for power and money should not be allowed to have nukes.

And yes, Chumpsky, we all know that you think the US is more of a rogue state and threat to the world than Iraq, so there’s no need to pipe up. None of the nations that the US has attacked since the dawn of the nuclear era were invaded solely for such simplistic reasons as “power and money”.

Jeff

134

Attack Iraq because it’s “easy?” What a stupid, gutless reason. I won’t drop the issue of greater national threats because that is the justification the Bushies are using. Attacking Iraq would be a tremendous waste of manpower and assets on an enemy which can’t hurt us anyway. Why deplete these resources on a non-threat instead of reserving them for a real threat?

I think that decisions about nukes should be made by an international consensus and not by a unilateral bully, like the US. In fact I could argue that the fact that the US is the only country in history which HAS been irresponsible with nukes should disqualify them from the discussion.

135

Well, he certainly hasn’t been shy about revealing other confidential connections to intelligence agencies, even when such revelations are impolitic or even harmful. To wit: Ritter publicly acknowledged that he had consistently worked with Israeli intelligence while an inspector. That’s pretty damn impolitic, admitting that he had used Israeli intelligence to investigate an Arab country.
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/7891/ritter.html

He has also admitted that he gave Israel information about the Iraqi military.

http://www.answering-christianity.com/iraqs_holocaust.htm
Such sharing of intelligence by a putatively neutral UN inspector is pretty shocking and impolitic, but he admitted that, too.

Now, why wouldn’t he acknowledge that the reason he “changed his mind” was based on information provided to him by, say, the Israelis? He ain’t been shy in the past.

Well, that is Ritter’s excuse.

http://truthout.com/docs_02/11.25D.bearak.ritter.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/24/magazine/24RITTER.html?pagewanted=7&8hpib

(same article - the NYT version requires registration).

Of course, Ritter fails to explain why a “qualitative” filter is appropriate. The issue is not “what capabililty to cause mass destruction has Iraq gotten rid of?,” but instead “what capability to cause mass destruction has Iraq retained?”
Not only is that the “filter” set up by international law under the Gulf War resolutions, but it seems a darn relevant question. As a hypothetical, that Iraq only maintains the capacity to kill 1,000,000 Israelis or Kuwaitis or Americans, instead of 10,000,000, isn’t particularly comforting.
Finally, of course, while he claims that he is using a “qualitative filter” these days, he still speaks in quantitative terms.

First, I’d disagree with you that my hypothesis needs to explain why he is a liar. Motive is not an element of a crime (before another fight starts, I’m using that as an analogy). One possibility is money - Iraqi sources poured $400,000 into Ritter’s (failed) documentary. See the New York Times piece linked above.

Of course, another possibility is that he is just nuts. The New York times piece shows a conflicted man, to put it mildly. A juicy little quote from this anti-war man in November of this year.

A twisted brain? Hey, Ritter said it, not me.

Sua

136

If this were true, and I were the leader of small country, I would start trying to acquire nukes pronto, in any way possible. Basically you’re saying a few small nuclear weapons make a nation untouchable. Yet despite Pakistan’s nukes, Musharaff got religion quite fast after 9/11, didn’t he.

137

Umm…Musharraf

138

Sua Sponte,
Your arguments seems to be because Ritter has revealed some embarassing details of connections to intelligence agencies we should expect him to always to do the same. Why exactly? Isn’t it possible that the new information was given on the specific condition that he not reveal the source and he kept his side of the deal? Aren’t there many people who will reveal some embarassing details about themselves but not everything? Might not the fact that he was being investigated for working with the Israelis have made him decide to come clean about it?

“Of course, Ritter fails to explain why a “qualitative” filter is appropriate”
Ah but now we are getting into a different argument about what the relevant “filter” is for different circumstances. Of course Ritter choosing to change his filter doesn’t make him a “flat-out liar”.

“First, I’d disagree with you that my hypothesis needs to explain why he is a liar”
If you had decisive proof that Ritter had lied maybe not. But since you don’t you need to build a convincing rationale for his actions.

“Iraqi sources poured $400,000 into Ritter’s (failed)
documentary”
IIRC Ritter claims , quite plausibly , that most of that money went into production costs. Besides 400,000 is a pittance for someone who could probably have made more money by becoming a regular commentator/public speaker on the conservative circuit on a hot issue like Iraq.

“Of course, another possibility is that he is just nuts.”
What’s this: the geo-political equivalent of the “nuts and sluts” routine? Ritter may be “conflicted” about what to do with Iraq; that’s rather a far cry from being insane.

I take it from your silence that you haven’t read Ritter’s book. Before calling someone a “flat-out liar” don’t you have an obligation to examine his defense in detail?

139

ElJeffe’s analysis of North Korea is incorrect. Even without nukes, the U.S. has little credible deterrent against North Korea, for two simple reasons - the majority of the South Korean population, as well as its industry and infrastructure, is within range of North Korean artillery, and North Korea has considerably more troops than South Korea. Well before the U.S. could get enough troops to South Korea to stop a N. Korean attack, much less attack N. Korea itself, N. Korea would have the ability to kill and/or drive from their homes into likely starvation a truly massive number of South Korean civilians.

Sua

140

SuaSponte:

My mention of North Korea may have been overly simplistic, for the sake of illustration, but I hardly think it can be called incorrect. True, right now, today, even if NK didn’t have nukes, it would diplomatically impossible to attack them. Of primary relevance, SK would be strongly against it. However, if NK spent a few years poking SK with the milataristic equivalent of a sharp stick, SK may change its mind. Last I checked, we still maintained troops in SK, and I would think in an emergency, we could get a reasonable army there pretty darned fast, while the existing troops held the NKs back as much as possible. Further, we could likely threaten NK’s complete destruction, and they would balk long enough for us to prepare a more weighty response - as Iraq does currently. However, none of these threats are as credible while NK is in possession of nuclear weapons. The only thing that trumps a nuke is another nuke, and we would be incredibly unlikely to seriously threaten the nuclear annihilation of NK in any but the most dire of circumstances.

Granted, if NK said to hell with it, and decided they were just going to flatten SK with no regard for its own continued existence, there would be little we could do, nukes or no nukes. However, that scenario is implausible enough to disregard, I believe. Even irrational megalomaniacal dictators aren’t that crazy, as a rule.
Jeff