The progress of this thread well demonstrates my basic premise: we don’t know. Adamant advocates of this war are insistent of certainty, they will admit of no doubt. Yet counter posters have demonstrated the existence of doubt, to say the least.
Myself, as I said, I don’t know. I do not accept the premise that finding them at this late date will place a stamp of legitimacy on an illegitimate enterprise. If they exist, that doesn’t make us right, but if they don’t, we are really really wrong.
What troubles me more is the question of intelligence as it relates to this issue. Our leaders state flatly, without a quiver or quibble, that they know those weapons exist. But how does this intelligence come about?
If it were a human source, a snitch, as it were, then said source would not only know that they existed, but where they were. But our leaders insist that they know that they exist, but cannot say where.
Imagine it, if you will. Hakkim Ratout calls the CIA. “Saddams got 10,000 liters of VX” “Cool, where is it?” “I don’t know”.
Does that strike anyone else as faintly odd? How does it come about that one knows that something like that exists but doesn’t know where?
When this suspicion is coupled with such intelligence failures as we are already well aware (though some of you are rather more forgiving in this regard than am I…very, very forgiving) one has to wonder. And if you don’t wonder, why not? What faith, surpassing all understanding, forms the foundation of your assurance?
Please keep in mind, I really don’t have a formed opinion. It is, to my mind, equally plausible that Saddam has these weapons as that he hasn’t. What concerns me is that Our Leader is so utterly certain and yet will not, or cannot, say why or how. Despite this, he is entirely willing to proceed to war.
And now we control the greater part of the country. Can anyone doubt, either here or there, than anyone who can point out the location of these dreadful weapons will curry enormous favor witht the coming administration? And none has come forth? Did Saddam bury them in the desert all by himself, and told no one?
Are they all in Baghdad? The most populous city in the country? Do we keep ours in New York? San Francisco? And does it strike no one else as interesting that as time goes on, and we still haven’t found anything, the emphasis is shifting to our noble aspirations for the Iraqi people? What was originally sold to us as absolutely essential war for our own securtiy is now a selfless excercise in nation building?
Was it Thoreau said something like “The more he talked about his integirty, the faster we counted the silverware.”?
Always interested in intelligent discource, Mandelstam
Perhaps, in relation to how to deal with Saddam, a lot hinges on how we view 9/11. I am willing to accept that the mooted theory of a new paradigm became a reality on 9/11; that ‘terrorism’ in relation to US policy in the Middle-east had moved on from the era when disaffected youths waved AK 47’s on hijacked planes (that they’d later blow up on a desert airstrip) to middle-class, educated professional family men undergoing months of training and planning before killing themselves and thousands others. It really is, for me, a different type of threat; in my view, the west, and the US in particular, is in most serious bother once the Islamic middle-classes become pro-active dissenters.
And, of course, we have no evidence of Saddam’s involvement in 9/11. But he represents a potential facilitator (aka ‘State-sponsored terrorism’) – like Gaddafi with various organizations in the late ‘70’s and 80’s. Except Gaddaif supplied the disaffected with conventional weaponry.
Actually, I do see US foreign policy differently. I do accept that some hawks see this as an opportunity to impose their own brand of capitalist ideology on the world; for example, that Iraq represents the dominant market player (US.Inc) acquiring a valuable asset, etc. – this is Cheney’s free-market, amoral, unfettered, ‘the market is right’ philosophy and he, genuinely, sees nothing wrong with acquiring Iraq. That is, if you will, the new (capitalist-global market) ‘hyper-power’ paradigm.
But, also, you don’t mention that important and more conventional formulator of US foreign policy, Israel. The US does not act to the detriment of Israel. Period. Indeed, one might argue the US only acts to the benefit of Israel, IMHO, whether to the personal cost (in policy terms) of the US or not –no new ideology there, just old-fashioned, highly influencial self-interest.
So I acknowledge there are influences on this particular US foreign policy that don’t bode well for anything approaching ‘moral’ or ‘ethical’ developments. Having said that, what are we to make of the new “Middle-East road map” ? Is it more of the same (20-30 years of disillusionment and US lies) or is Bush going to continue to surprise with his naïve yet robust style (damn, that was polite !) ?
Could it actually be that (in relation to Blair) he is a man of his word and that, because of the (apparent) demise of Arafat, a new era could unfold ?
” ‘The biggest of Israel’s enemies’, they call him [Tony Blair] with a certain self-conscious exaggeration at the prime minister’s office. Blair is an enemy because he is pressuring President Bush to publish the road map as a signed, final act, the opposite of Sharon’s conception, who sees the road map as a preliminary draft, an aspiration.”
I think without question, the price of Blair’s support is this ‘road map’. The question then becomes, how much does Bush want to repay his debt to Blair; is he willing to face down Israeli self-interests, maybe Israel can buy into the new Palestinian leadership, what of US/UK relations if Bush repeats his fathers mistakes (shafting support in the interests of Israel) and what of that given that the UK is the fig leaf hiding the blushes of the US from (otherwise) demonstrable naked Isolationism ?
And finally, can the US consider leaving Saudi with a ‘sympathetic’ Iraqi regime in place – how will that pan out, does it necessarily have to be worse (from an Islamic perspective). Ain’t no Medina or Mecca in Iraq !
The US less reliant on Saudi, a Palestinian road map on the table, the bad Muslim Saddam not oppressing Muslims … how much is that starting to look like something OBL and the boys could see as progress ?
Any thoughts, can Blair move a Palestinain state any nearer, am I as naive as he is … ?
Actually, I wanted to mention (in the above post) something about the consequences of ‘Gulf War – the second half’ for International Law and even the UN as a credible org … but I guess I’ll wait and see how any responses are framed …. :eek:
luci, old cock. We both think the WOMD is Spielberg, Sam Stone’s not here to tell us otherwise (presumably in the garden building a tin-foil lined bomb shelter), so let’s talk about something else ?
How about our top ten disco favourites … or, shirley, I could just respond to dear old mandi 's inquiry ?
I know the beginning of this is off the OP, so ignore it if you must.
Is this all Catch-22 for the war/anti-war argument? For example, nothing constitutes saying factually they have WMD unless someone actually finds them, or finds a ‘smoking gun’ that shows they were producing them after X date, etc.
And as soon as that happened, the argument would become “well now that we are finding them, we don’t need to start a war, so let the inspectors work”.
In other words, nothing framed around some of these arguments could lead to war, so Iraq had nothing to lose by continuing to pursue WMD. Iraq capitalized on this working catch-22 for years.
Yes, the US had to play the UN game framed around finding WMD and pursue it that way, when the real issue was that they were working off reasonable conclusions based on alot of intelligence information and also what is considered general knowledge in the international community.
So to tie it back to the OP somehow: it doesn’t matter a lick whether Iraq had WMD or not. If there were numerous found bunkers, fresh lab work and other “proof” that they had/pursued WMD, we still would not have a new UNSC Res. authorizing force.
Heck, “inspections are working” arguments would ring through and that would squelch any agreement for use of force.
So, while you can hint that the pro-war folks need to substantiate factually where the WMP are, the pro-war folks can tell you they don’t give a rat’s ass where they are, because if Blix would have fell into them coming off his plane, there still would be no justification for a war since - argh!- “inspections are working”.
Where are they? Here -shoving your face into them- they are right here. Now can we destroy the regime? NO!? Why not? Because inspections work!
Well, what’s the end goal here? Is our objective to disarm Iraq and destroy whatever WMDs they have? Or is our objective to overthrow the Saddam Hussein government (none of this “regime change” euphemism, I’m sick of it) because the United States dislikes it?
Because George W. Bush has used both arguments (along with others) as his justification for war. And the fact that you’ve stumbled across is that they’re incompatable goals.
If what you really want is to disarm Iraq, then inspections should be allowed to continue, so long as they produce results that lead to disarmament. You ultimately will end up with a WMD-free Iraq with Hussein as ruler, but that’s okay, because ousting Saddam wasn’t the point.
And if what you really want is to overthrow Saddam Hussein, then citing WMDs and disarmament and UN resolutions is just so much bullstuff, because none of those things involve tossing out the mustachio’d bum. But then, you’d have to admit on a world stage that you’re a superpowered bully, who targets foreign leaders on a whim.
The Bush Administration, in a case of self-inflicted stupidity, tried to have it both ways – they wanted to use #1 as an excuse for conducting #2. But since Iraq hasn’t been resistant to Hans Blix’s inspections, the UN refused to play along, and a pissed-off Dubya decided to have #2 anyway. Which explains why the situation we’re in today is one big sh*tpile…
Right. I thought these points were ‘givens’ in any argument about “where are the WMD?”.
It’s not about WMD. It’s about taking down Saddam and stabilizing a key area…while we still can and while we still can piggy-back it politically off of some UN crap about WMD and Iraq’s games.
Now, in the end, I actually think this war will help the region and I understand Bush and Rumsfeld and others have Christian beliefs that pushed it to happen. It’s not about WMD, and it’s silly for any conservative to argue and justify that weapons exist someplace down to the hard, cold truth/proof/fact level.
I also understand that Human Rights issues are ignored elsewhere, but there isn’t an iota of chance that we can crank up a war effort against other regimes unless we have some maleable excuse to offer the public.
Philster, thanks for reframing and excluding the black/white dichotomy. I am even comfortable with “the real issue was that they were working off reasonable conclusions based on alot of intelligence information and also what is considered general knowledge in the international community”.
I would be tempted to point out the fallacy of assuming our intelligence information is beyond question. I would be tempted to talk about the international law equivalent of due process thresholds "beyond a reasonable doubt. But I won’t.
However, it is not fair to suggest, “it doesn’t matter a lick whether Iraq had WMD or not. If there were numerous found bunkers, fresh lab work and other “proof” that they had/pursued WMD, we still would not have a new UNSC Res. authorizing force.” - Your catch-22 issue.
I can only answer such a hypothetical with a hypothetical, so I am only offering a perspective IMHO, and do not wish to debate it. But I thought you deserved a response.
IMO, assuming nothing would justify an authorization for the use of force by the UNSC is untenable. I would assume that if Blix and Co. ran across two rotting barrels of anthrax buried twenty feet under the sand 100 yards from where the Iraqi had claimed it was buried, that the UNSC would not find it a material breach, but poor surveying or record keeping.
On the other hand, if Blix and company came across an active clandestine underground lab currently producing BW, with vats still bubbling, and fermenters still fermenting, that simply cooperating with the destruction would not have been sufficient. I believe such evidence would have generated a unanimous UNSC authorization for the use of force to disarm Iraq. For the US, this process would have met their needs, because it would be the equivalent to regime change (I do not think Saddam would allow US/UN troops to occupy his country without fighting).
So, that said, I find your catch-22 scenario as a fallacy of the false dilemma.
What I find most interesting from your comments in your last two posts is that you seem to agree that the whole issue related to WoMD is a red herring.
Now, I’ll put forward another theory. The most of the anti-war folks, myself included, really hope that WoMD are found, as I think it will go a long way toward tempering anti-American sentiments generated by our recent actions.
But I put forward that it is the pro-war crowd that REALLY needs for WoMD to be found, to assuage their conscience for supporting the POTUS on the justification he presented. As evidence for this theory, I’ll note the threads on this board related to the premature reports of these “found” violations. Read the threads, and see which side seems more anxious to believe these reports were real. Wishful thinking at the time, but indicative of the underlying anxiety.
If not, then why has the Administration been framing it as such?
(Actually, I continue to maintain that it’s all about oil, but I know the chances of the Administration admitting that are right up there with O.J. Simpson admitting he killed Nicole Brown Simpson. But that’s a different topic.)
So you don’t have a problem with the President of the United States lying to the citizens and to the rest of the world? :eek:
A belief that’s contradicted by numerous experts in Middle Eastern politics, and by a classified State Department study.
I am happy to for the argument to be shed of the bullshit as well. Getting right down to it, you suggest that it is about getting rid of Hussein and stabilizing a key area. I know that you acknowledge other areas where abuses of human rights are occuring, but there are other areas where greater instability is occuring, largely distinct from human rights abuses. In fact, there is one country that is much more involved in instability in the middle east than Iraq has been in more than a decade, but the Bush approach to Israel was explicitly to leave its hands off (thus tolerating a staggering increase in regional instability). Greater instability reigns between Pakistan and India. Greater instability is now the case in North Korea. So I am left believing that this will do nothing to make a meaningful difference in the stability of that region, and wouldn’t have been job one on the world-stabilizing list to begin with. (Nor, BTW, were they number one on the human rights abuses AT PRESENT in the first place).
So if we are shed of that aspect of fallacy as well, we are left with only the element of Get Saddam. This, in my opinion, is a fine end indeed. The means we are using, however, are wholly inappropriate, and are going to do much to worsen world stability rather than improve it. Finally, I think that our excuse in this case was far too maleable - those who are buying it now would probably have supported Get Saddam without it. Most people aren’t.
WMD’s are a sideshow, really. The overarching rationale we have been sold for this war is that Saddam is not only an evil bastard but represents a serious and imminent threat to the security of the US and the world. A few barrels of juice rotting in the desert, even if they exist, would not materially affect the substance of that rationale. The nuke-in-six-months part of the argument isn’t even seriously suggested anymore except by the aluminum-tube fetishists, and even those who are absolutely the bio and chem weapons exist seem to acknowledge that they’re being held for defensive use against an invader.
I’d even bet that they do exist, and do not even have to be planted, although it wouldn’t surprise me. But something will be found, and not only to defuse a major theme of criticism of Bush - the many people who have bought the Bush rationale have their own psychological need to believe they have made the right decision. Even if Bush refrains from the told-you-so’s when the rotting barrels are found, the chorus will jump on it for their own self-vindication, the way many of them jumped on Clinton’s blowjob as vindication for their earlier “knowledge” about other things that turned out to be fantasies.
Meanwhile, the argument that “We just know it’s there, it’s just obviously in the less than half of the country we haven’t searched yet” argument is no better than a tautology, and is getting more risible every day. At some point the entire country will have been searched, and the argument will shift to “He just smuggled it into Syria before we got there, or maybe gave it to ‘an Al Qaeda-type organization’ (Bush’s words).” Bets?
I grant you those points AZ, rjung, Hentor. But we are trying to get at what they in power believe and what their motivations are.
Sure, how could you talk about instability in regions without talking about Isreal, Pakistan/India, Koreas, and so on! I know, but as for the general public, they’ll accept the administration’s fodder. The admin is getting 70% or more to swallow the fodder.
Now that we are in it, I want us to do it right, win outright and improve the damn country. As a conservative, I don’t like the antiwar rhetoric during the war, but I won’t squelch those doing it. I just don’t like it, because it ‘might’ result in some limited result, when the best result at this point is just a complete turnaround for Iraq and some good PR.
As for the whole plan for dealing with the middle east, that’s for another day. Too many ethnic and religious factors for me to even offer a suggestion.
Where are the WMD? It’s a moot point, unless you are a conservative whose logical debating life depends on it.
Originally posted by Philster
I also understand that Human Rights issues are ignored elsewhere, but there isn’t an iota of chance that we can crank up a war effort against other regimes unless we have some maleable excuse to offer the public.
Doesn’t this make anyone else (who is not living in the U.S ) very very nervous? I mean, is it really OK for the US to decide who is a BAD GUY, and then go pound the shit out of them, as long as American public opinion can be convinced? Is this REALLY a reasonable way to conduct foreign policy?
