Which UN demands did you have in mind?
Define ‘failure of diplomacy’.
The world disapproves of a war right now.
Let me be the first to apologize for the Cite Police. Sorry for the multipost pile on which was totally unnecessary. Of course, I had nothing to do with it.
Anyway, don’t ever assume that just because something is all over the news networks that you do not have to provide a cite, m’kay? 
I find listening to the World’s opinion about war to be impractical to the security of any state in this world. Why would world leaders sit on their asses knowing what they know, especially the USA who reputatedly has the most advanced Intelligence service of this earth. Knowing what they know, would they or should they defer to the will of the people whose information comes from opinion, conjecture, hypothesis, editorials, speculation and heresay? When it comes to the safety of the USA, we must defer to the man with the most information and that happens to be President GW Bush. If he is wrong, we can always vote him out of office next year.
I just wanted to pick up on the theme of vigilantism. I think this is a very appropriate depiction of our actions here. We believe we are doing something just, and in fact we may be, but we are doing it outside the bounds of the legal system. (Aside from quibbles about past resolutions-- if we thought they were really sufficient, we wouldn’t have bothered trying to get another.)
If the US was an individual, we’d be a danger-- you can’t have some guy going around blowing away everyone they think is a criminal.
People who are sanguine about our actions are optimists-- they consider that we will only go get the really bad guys. After all, we’re not one deranged vigilante… we have a political decision-making process, however well it may be functioning right now.
The pessimists among us fear that the vigilante spirit and the conviction of rightness will prevent us from ever seeing again when we are going too far.
Just a quick blurb id like to ask… Exactly what is our reason for going to war again? It seems that we are being told that this is a war on terrorism but does anyone really think that this will have any significant effect on preventing terrorism? Is the country of Iraq our main threat, and the fall of Iraq is going to make us so much safer? It seems more like a convenient reason which plays on our post 9/11 fear, than a real premise for war.
If anything, this is going to increase the likelihood of terrorism at least in the near future. Bush has confirmed this- in the midst of impending war, the terror alert has been raised and we are taking extra measures to protect ourselves… So exactly what is the reason/ reasons for this war? maybe we should re- evaluate? Are we going to spend all our future time and resources on battling potential threats- and would this leave us any better off than before?
Keep in mind that war means people WILL definetly die on both sides including innocent civilians- these are human lives and because they are not citizens of this country does not make them less valuable. We may very well kill more people in this war than may be victims of terrorism over the next 20 years- these are important things that nobody thinks about. You may classify yourself as american, but i think of myself as a human, not just some citizen of a country- associating yourself with groups can be dangerous, lets not forget to think for ourselves…
The Marine amphibious group that Clinton sent over there to begin troop buildup was for what exactly? If we actually take over the country’s rule, I’ll give you that one when it happens.
Sorry, I’m just not seeing a big difference in today’s actions and intent vs. those of a couple of years ago except in scale.
Good lord, you mean you honestly can’t see any difference in this between Clinton in the 90s and Bush now? That’s the silliest thing I’ve heard all day, in a day filled with silly things. I think it even tops the “Iraqis in US uniforms killing civilians” story Demise linked above.
AZCowboy, who ever said that the regimes didn’t have to do anything bad? It’s the ones that actually do terrible things to people that need to be taken down. It’s well know what governments brutalize and suppress their people to solidify their power.
Since these regimes exist solely because they have military superiority over the masses, I don’t consider their ruling position to have any particular validity. They rule because they are willing to kill all those who oppose them, and nobody strong enough to defeat them has the guts to do the right thing.
The sad fact is, if the Taliban hadn’t swatted the US’s nose, they’d still be in power. They would still be comitting atrocities, and we’d all still be whining about how awful they are. Thankfully, they are gone, and the Afghan people can try and rebuild their society.
The World prefers the hands off approach, though, allowing regimes like that to exist as long as they can stay in power. Can we really say that if the Taliban didn’t get involved in 9-11, that it would be preferable to have left them in power?
Incidentally, the 1998 troop buildup to which you refer increased our ground forces all the way to 24,000 (from roughty 20,000) in response to the weapons inspectors getting kicked out. 24,000 troops were never, under any circumstances, going to invade and conquer a damn thing, except maybe the Burger King in Kuwait City. The buildup was capped by the week-long bombing campaign of Operation Desert Fox, which was roundly denounced by many U.S. conservatives as “wagging the dog” in the middle of the impeachment farce.
If you want to compare then to now, perhaps you should ask those of use who oppose Persian Gulf II: Return of the Ugly American how they would feel about an air campaign intended to destroy Saddam’s NBC weapons capacity and the Republican Guard.
Demise, I took a look at those two cites you provided. The one about the uniforms seems to be a variation on a press release, citing the only source of the info as Jim Wilkinson, who works for Central Command in Tampa. And he won’t reveal how he knows that information.
As for the training camp story, here’s a quote from the article itself:
None of this is intended to defend Saddam as an otherwise OK kind of guy. He’s got plenty of blood on his hands. Just that if you’re going to make a case for the US to go in and ruin the country again, it would be better to use something that can actually be solidly backed up.
minty, the inspectors weren’t kicked out. They were withdrawn in preparation for US-run bombing raids.
So who is going to decide? Just the US? The coalition of the coerced and bought?
Who is to say that the brand of Islamic theocracy of the Taliban is “terrible things” (excluding 9-11 and harboring Al Qaeda). It’s their religion!
How about the oppressive regimes that are our friends? The royal family in Saudi Arabia? How about our experience in installing the Shah in Iran? What about Castro? Remember Tianamen Square?
You see, I have no problem with the US, the only remaining superpower, playing the world’s policeman. But I think it would behoove us to garner the necessary authority with a mandate of the international community. We can’t be the prosecutor, the judge, the jury, and the executioner, and still expect any sort of moral respect around the globe.
The comparison to vigilantism is unavoidable. Yet no one on the pro-war side seems willing to address it…
Sorry, I must have missed the part in 1998 when we said we’d invade Iraq if he didn’t get out. Our intent at the time was pretty well hidden.
And, your point? Last I checked, we avoided a nuclear war with Russia through diplomacy. Did you think that the threat of the Cuban Missile Crisis was that Castro would or would not be in power? Further, your point that Castro is still in power suggests that the dangers to us of leaving the “evil” in power may be being overblown.
To underscore, comparisons of the current situation to events of the past suffer from the fact that we know the outcome of the past. Such comparisons, if I might, are eminently dim-witted.
Scylla:
I disagree, and it is precisely on this point that my grave misgivings regarding the question revolve.
On the contrary, I fear that the so-called “Bush Doctrine,” (or, to be more accurate, the “Wolfowitz Doctrine”) does promote the view that the US government is within its rights to attack any country, merely on the basis that the country in question might be capable of inflicting damage on us. In fact, the doctrine implies that military force should be employed even when such a country might threaten US “interests.” That is the whole rationale behind the “preemptive strike” strategy – a strategy that flies in the face of all standard canons of international law, completely disregards the foundations of the nation-state system, and fundamentally contradicts the commitment of the US government to the UN Charter.
Your Canadian example is misleading, because at present the US and Canada do not suffer from a significant conflict of interests. But should such a significant conflict arise at some future point, then I argue the “Doctrine” would be deployed as a rationale for striking Canada preemptively in precisely the same manner it has been deployed by the administration in its propaganda against Iraq.
All those interested in the full ramifications of this issue should familiarize themselves with the material found at the Project for the New American Century web page. The Project is an organization that includes some of the most influential and conservative policy analysts/administrators in Washington – they refer to themselves as “neo-Reaganites” – and their views on US power make for interesting reading, to put it mildly. To summarize: Wolfowitz and his compatriots argue that the entire structure of world power has shifted over the last two decades – during the Cold War, we lived within a “bi-polar” framework, but with the fall of the Soviet Union the world has become “uni-polar.” The US now represents the single surviving world superpower; Wolfowitz sees this situation as a unique opportunity in world history, one that the US should seize, by force if necessary.
Many defense analysts felt that after the collapse of the Soviet Union the world had become a safer place, and that the US no longer needed spend so much money on its military. The neo-Reaganites disagree. Arguing in favor of what they call a “grand strategy,” they insists that America “should aim to preserve and extend this advantageous position [i.e., as the world’s only superpower] as far into the future as possible,” establishing what they refer to as a Pax Americana. This strategy requires that the US maintain a “globally preeminent military capability” with a capacity to simultaneously fight “a variety of theater wars around the world, against separate and distinct adversaries….” Rather than containing Soviet aggression/influence, this revamped US military would be employed primarily for the purposes of “maintaining U.S. preeminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests,” along with the performance of so-called “constabulary duties,” such as are associated “with shaping the security environment in critical regions.” The oil-rich Middle East is, of course, precisely such a critical region.
Anyway, the point is that in terms of the worldview Wolfowitz and his followers seem to share, any potential threat to US security or interests – however those interests may be defined – can be legitimately dealt with by means of preemptive US military action. Naturally, Wolfowitz doesn’t suggest that we invade Canada; but that’s only because the US does not view Canada as a potential threat to its interests, or as a potential great power rival. Nevertheless, the entire strategy turns on the idea that since the Cold War, the world has become less, rather than more, secure. In the face of this more insecure world, Wolfowitz argues that US decision makers have little choice; they must establish and defend US preeminence against all potential threats, until no credible threats are left. It is the logic of imperial conquest and dominance, couched in (or, perhaps, camouflaged by) the imperative of self-defense.
The effectiveness of this sort of reasoning is clearly demonstrated by the current situation, which is where your argument goes astray, IMO. Even you, level-headed as you often are, have been convinced by the administration’s rhetoric that Saddam represents a threat to the US – the analogical equivalent of a viscous dog in your next-door neighbor’s yard, threatening your daughter. I suppose Saddam is a threat as well, but a threat that is, for all intents and purposes, negligible. The US has a military superiority far beyond anything he is able to muster. According to the CIA World Factbook, for example, the US GDP last year was over 10 trillion dollars, and its military expenditures totaled 276.7 billion dollars. By comparison, Iraq expended 1.3 billion dollars on its military, which is the equivalent of .0047 % of total US expenditures. In fact, the entire Iraqi GDP – 59 billion, with a negative growth of –6% this last year – is only a fraction of US military expenditures, which are 4.6 times larger than it.
And yet this pitifully poor, backwards, tinpot dictatorship, with no connection to 9/11 whatsoever, has been transformed by the Bush administration into a credible threat to US security, requiring immediate military intervention “for the sake of world peace.” Pretty mind-boggling, when you think about it, and an excellent example of the dangers inherent in the Wolfowitz Doctrine.
Are you implying that your elected leaders aren’t paying attention to US public opinion about the war? The majority of people in the US support a war even without UN approval; the latest figures are around 66%.
Mr. Svinlesha’s post highlights how the analogy should be adjusted.
The community is used to having these issues handled by Animal Control, under the authority of the municipaility. But now, the largest landowner in the community uses his private security force to take out the dog. And does so after going to the established authorities first, asking permission, and getting rejected.
The staff and family of the largest landowner were heard to say, “Someone has to keep the peace…” Then they wonder why the community is unhappy with this development.
There is a new sheriff in town.
I think that analogy’s getting far more tortured than either the dog or the neighbors in the scenario.
Am I to take this to mean that you support the Taliban’s right to run Afghanistan as they saw fit? I suppose the Afghan people are royally pissed off that we meddled in their internal affairs, their religion, and they aren’t still ruled by the Taliban. Frankly, I don’t care the slightest little bit that it was their religion, I found their actions reprehensible, and am glad they’re gone.
I’d love to have international support, but you apparently don’t get that sort of support until the country ventures outside its borders to kill. That’s like saying it’s ok for a guy to beat his wife, as long as he keeps it on his own property.
Well, if the international community won’t enforce the law, what other option is there?
Make the case that “the international community won’t enforce the law.”
They enforced Resolution 678.
They won’t do it? Or just not in a timeline or manner that is acceptable to you?