Powell begins his presentation with the following passages:
Powell concludes his presentation with the following passages:
You write:
As if the Council was unaware of Iraq’s intransigence in cooperating with the inspections? Provide evidence for this assertion beyond your mere opinion. You may note from the outset that both the introduction and conclusion of Powell’s presentation gainsay your appraisal.
The Secretary of State presents a report before the entire world community. He prefaces it by stating that the “people have risked their lives” to supply this information to US intelligence agencies. Further down, he asserts:
Funny that he fails to mention that at least some of the information was actually stolen from a 12-year-old grad thesis. Or does Powell consider publishing a grad thesis on the net a life-threatening endeavor, these days?
But I wonder what exquisite form of double-think would allow you to look these facts in the face and then somehow turn them around to support your thesis. Didn’t the right-wingers here at the SDMB chase Chumpsky right out of here for committing precisely the same act? But no – when Powell does it in front of the whole world, you somehow twist the facts to – in some mysterious way – support your assertion that Powell was only trying to convince his listeners of Iraq’s violations of 1441 – as if they didn’t also know about those as well.
The entire point of Kay’s article is to assert that the US fell into a trap by trying to locate a “smoking gun” prior to the Iraqi invasion. Kay meant that the attempt was akin to trying to find a needle in a haystack. But Kay never questioned for a moment the assertion that the needle really was in the haystack, even though he hadn’t seen it himself.
As far as I can see, it has nothing whatsoever to do with Powell’s presentation, with the possible exception that Powell tried to build his case without a “smoking gun” as well.
Why on earth would you have trouble taking that seriously, when there’s so much evidence that this is precisely what happened?
I can accept that you might approach the question skeptically, especially if you support Bush, but I do think you should at least take it seriously and look into it. I’ll be glad to discuss/debate it with you if you wish, and present you with some of the reasons why I think it is worth taking seriously.
In the interest of full disclosure, it wasn’t exactly a “right-winger” who originally denounced Chumpky’s plagiarism. I should know, for it was I who brought it up and I’ve been accused of being many things, but being a “right-winger” is not one of them.
In fact, my primary motivating reason was none other than upholding what I percieve to be one of the SDMB’s greatest asset: integrity. Ironic, is it not, in light of the continued – albeit, thanks to threads such as this one, dwindling down to the very core – support expressed by The Usual Righteous Suspects to the pack of demonstrable misrepresenations and outright lies used to “justify” the Iraq invasion.
That said, this thread is yet another sterling effort by you, Mr S, in combating The Locksteppers. Not sure where you get your patience and impeccable manners, but in the slight hope that they are chemically induced would you please give me the name of the product? 'cause I’d buy it by the caseload – or by the pound, as the case may be.
Although I don’t know that it makes a bit of difference when dealing with ideologues. Correct me if you think I am wrong, but that is what your dealing with.
I do indeed remember that it was you, a most decidedly non-right-wing participant on this board, who originally (and correctly) charged Chumpsky with plaigarisim. I also agree with you that the requirements of integrity dictated that you do so, even if it meant exposing someone with whom you (and I) might otherwise have shared a modicum of political sympathy.
Thus, to clarify, what I meant when I wrote that “right-wingers” chased Chumpsky out of here due to his plaigarism was that many on the right, who had been severly tried by the Chump’s extremely left-wing views, exploited your revelation by throwing it into his face at every opportunity. They were pretty hard on him. But, so be it – he brought it on himself, even if there was some method in his protestations of innocence, at least in some cases – it hardly makes sense to plaigarize from texts you simultaneously link to, and encourage all of your readers to review (I know, I know, it went further than that). Wierdly self-destructive almost – or maybe he simply didn’t know about proper citation and reference? Seems far-fetched….
Anyway, his debating opponents were never going to let him forget his trespasses after that. Which is what I meant when I wrote that he was “chased off by right-wingers,” although in hindsight, I concede it isn’t the whole story.
I doubt you could get your hands on any Old Tennessee Skunkweed, but anyway, I haven’t touched the stuff myself in years. I can recommend it, though, for those wishing to explore the various emotional facets of the infamous “mellow disposition.”
I do this because it is my primary means of participating in the democratic process – really, my only means, since I don’t have a Representative or Senator over here in Mooseland, and can only vote once every fourth year. Exposing this crap for what it is is like a catharsis for me. And if I can persuade the occassional reader (like whuckfistle) to start thinking a bit on his/her own, well, so much the better. After all, not everyone can see through all the leaps of faulty logic, rhetorical sleighs-of-hand, and so forth, that the right must employ to maintain this farce. So, in a way, it’s kind of like a public service – my contribution to a political discourse that otherwise risks collapsing in on itself in pile post-modern relativistic contradictions.
The Ideologues are the only one’s arguing against me at the moment, you may notice, because virtually anyone with a lick of sense has given up the ghost. But just that is a great exercise in the deconstruction of misleading rhetoric, etc.
Thanks for the kind words, Mr. Fury, and Heja España!! May your team kick ass in Portugal this year!
I have sense enough to ignore complaining about idealogues from somebody called “Red Fury.”
Non-compliance and international obligations were central themes of Powell’s three or four speeches. That’s just fact, you provided an example. WMD issues were another one, but think of the UNSC forum…why are we there? If we’d determined that Iraq was a imminent threat to the US, based entirely on WMD possibilities then why bother with the Security Council of all things, if there’s any doubt at all as to international support? We’ve rarely gone that route even when there’s no question of a threat, as in Kosovo, and we’ve been acting “unilaterally” in Iraq for years with the UK, as in babysitting two-thirds of Iraq.
You skipped some things when you quoted his 2/5/03 speech:
He actually said: “The material I will present to you comes from a variety of sources. Some are U.S. sources and some are those of other countries. Some are the sources are technical, such as intercepted telephone conversations and photos taken by satellites. Other sources are people who have risked their lives to let the world know what Saddam Hussein is really up to.”
I don’t know the exact nature of what was plagiarized, do you? I’d like to know before I dismiss this doctoral thesis like a romance novel.
Anyway, Powell is an internationalist, probably one of the few in the administration who really gives a damn about the state of multilateral organizations. (He did then, not sure about today.) He practically begged the UN to recognize that Iraq was thwarting the controls placed on it and to come up with a plan of action, which they didn’t really. So he failed, but the better part of his speeches dealing with Iraq’s obligations (for a change) shouldn’t be cancelled out or ignored because we didn’t find anthrax in Iraq.
It can’t be “precisely what happened” and it’s the oddest thing to worry about anyway. I live here, I know of all the individuals and church groups and political groups who opposed the war - they’d have felt differently if they thought a biological attack was imminent I’m sure. Then on the other side, people like me who supported the war weren’t doing so in fear of our own lives. Maybe in a roundabout way, as with terrorism, you wouldn’t swear it was impossible but that would be ignoring the humanitarian issues that did sway people to one side. That’s how successful the fearmongering campaign was if it existed - there was no fear.
And we’re still left with intelligence officials being surprised to find out how off the intelligence was, including Kay. There is more to it all than pressure from the administration…Pollack did address some of it. Being pressured is an excuse.
This isn’t about adjusting trade policies, or refusing diplomatic niceties. This is about war, about slaughter and death, visited, inevitably, on the innocent. A shrug and an “oopsy!” simply won’t do. It is an insult to the victims, it is an insult to our soldiers, and it is an insult to our nation. We were not threatened, and we lied about it. We attacked a country that did not, indeed, could not, attack us. And now, after the fact, we try to pretend we were intent on a noble cause of liberation. We have disgraced ourselves.
Even if, by some happy miracle, all of this turns for the good, that will not change. We didn’t know what the fuck we were doing, and we did it anyway. How can a patriot not be ashamed?
“I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just” - Thomas Jefferson
Tee, it’s not hard to find. The dossier wasn’t just “sexed up”, it was plagiarized from a 12-year-old doctoral thesis:
Again, this “info” was 12 years old.
As to Powell’s principles themselves, that’s another thing we used to think we know about but don’t anymore.
And let’s remember, people, the war wasn’t really sold primarily on the basis of WMD’s, WMDPRA’s, or even humanitarian reasons, but by insinuations that it was “an integral part of the war on terrorism”, as in blaming 9/11 on Saddam.
So it is, old cock. But it’s also about not taking the soft option; it’s not about saying “I’m anti-war” and not proposing alternatives to Isolationism, it’s about saying “I’m pro-peace and this is what we can do instead”
And just as much, it’s not about celebrating inertia, which is what I tend to see between the lines of much of the current anti-war celebratory rhetoric. Present company excluded, of course.
As you may recall, when push came to shove I decided the removal of Saddam was better – for a whole basket of reasons, none of them coinciding with Bush’s – than leaving the whole damn mess with the UN and, more exactly, for Saddam to continue pushing wedges between UN Security Council members as he’d successfully done for a decade. The whole damn organisation was suffering white mans, Christian, Capitalist, Industrialised world, self-serving rigamortis.
I guess my point is that, in celebrating the ‘wrongness’ of ‘war’ and the moral correctness of not pursing war, there is a moral imperative, imho, to provide other, real world solutions.
And not just pie-in-the-sky John Lennon dream sequences; realpolitik is double edged jiggery-pokery, as I’m sure you know.
That’s the difficult part; like understanding that Saddam had successfully made the UN part of the problem, instead of part of the solution.
So when you all calm down and you’re tired of playing the ‘Free Nelson Mandella’ CD, please someone, anyone, help me out with what the “anti-war” crowd would have done instead – besides, perhaps, celebrate Middle East inertia and UN rigamortis ?
I quite take your point, Wolfman, with one proviso: if I see you soak your lap in lighter fluid and reach for the matches, I am obliged to action. I don’t see any particular urgency to suggesting you consider bowling instead, or go shag a stoat. I do not necessarily concede the point that the action was woefully ill-advised.
But your challenge for an alternative brings up an interesting point, one I had not had brought up for lack of relevance.
Your take on the UN is valid enough, though salted with needless sarcasm. The UN, you rightly point out, is a poor enough thing, powerless, toothless, and crippled by contention. One might be reminded of a loose confederation of self-described “states”, mutually suspicious and ideologically fractured…you remember, they used to be yours. I agree that it ain’t much, I submit it has potential. Even the merest debating society has its purpose, when attended by sincere participants. “Jaw, jaw is better than waw, waw” as one of your more influential alcoholics put it.
As you yourself have made note of, an economic “community” already exists, of a sort, rather like the occupants of a stingy boarding house, elbowing each other for viands. Some sort of political community, however formal and lacking in sovereignty, is a necessity as a result. It is not so much the entity that enforces the rules as the place we go to agree as to what those rules are. Probably foremost amongst them is this: one does not attack another nation save in plausible self-defense.
GeeDubya was authorized by Congress with certain war powers and discretion. I deeply regret that insufficient oversight was included. However, certain of the men who cast their vote, and echoed in the statements of Wesley Clark, is this theme: we voted for the President to have the power and capacity to proceed on a course of increasing pressure to the end of disarming Iraq. As it turns out, a fools errand.
I am not convinced that Saddam was a madman bent on suicidal defiance. Evidence abounds to support that contention, not least of which these: one, that Saddam was actually dismantling missiles that were in technical violation, according the dictates of the UN, the day before the invasion began! Numero two-o, as I’m sure you’re aware, Saddam sent a last-minute peace offer, by way of Mr. Perle, in which he offered virtual abject surrender.
Hence, it is clear to me that all options had not been exhausted short of war. Common decency demands nothing less.
An alternative? Why not continue the pressure and insist on further inspection, and yet hold actual direct military action in abeyance until authorized by the Security Council? Since, as it turns out, there was no substantial threat to begin with, what could have been lost but the dignity of the UN (which you hold to be such small coin)?
Civilized men do not wage war on “maybe”. And we are arrived at a point in history where we are either civilized men, or dead ones.
First off, apologies for the delay in my reply. Real world events are encroaching on my spare time.
Your employment of rhetorical questioning doesn’t bolster your case. You know quite plainly why “we” were there: we were there to convince the UNSC that Saddam constituted a serious threat to regional, possibly world peace, and as such, required immediate military action. Either present evidence that supports your position or admit that you are mistaken.
And please stop playing word games with me. I have not mentioned the “imminence” of Saddam’s threat at all. I’ve simply stated that in his Feb. 5 presentation before the UN Colin Powell strove to accomplish two goals: 1) demonstrate that Hussein was purposefully resisting compliance with 1441, and 2) demonstrate that Saddam possessed “WMDs” such that could only be construed as a potential threat. I argue that Powell wove these two accusations together in his speech so that goal 1) often shaded over into goal 2): that is to say, evidence of non-compliance was rhetorically employed by Powell as evidence of “WMDs,” when, in fact, they were quite plainly two different issues. This point is clearly demonstrated in the NY Times article elucidator cited above (# 208), and that article in turn merely reiterates many of the same arguments that I presented in an in-depth analysis of portions of Powell’s speech much earlier, posted here at the SDMB on a couple of occasions.
Now, in post # 214 you stated rather categorically:
That statement is incorrect. You are arbitrarily downplaying what was, in fact, absolutely central to Powell’s presentation: namely, that Iraq represented a very serious “cumulative” threat to other countries. In fact, the opposite of your statement is closer to the truth: Powell employed the evidence of about the “deceptive practices of the regime and its unwillingness to comply” to bolster his claims that it was a threat. His reasoning went along the lines of “See, Iraq is hiding something. Therefore, it must be ‘WMDs’!” He attempted to exploit Iraq’s intransigence as a means of convincing other members of the UNSC that Iraq was a threat. That was the central thrust of his entire presentation.
In a recent interview in the Washington Post, Powell was quite clear on this point. Asked, “If CIA Director George Tenet had said a year ago today, if U.S. weapons inspector David Kay had said, that there are no stockpiles, would you still have recommended the invasion?” Powell replied:
The formula he is referring to, by the way, is intent + capability, the two elements of his argument I’ve been stressing all along. Even by Powell’s own admission his presentation was designed to demonstrate that those two elements, taken together, made Iraq into a credible threat, so it doesn’t do to simply pretend that one of the elements somehow “doesn’t count.”
There are clear geopolitical reasons behind US attempts to garner support for its actions in Iraq. But first, regarding Kosovo, you are again incorrect: the US did indeed attempt to acquire a UNSC resolution against Kosovo before beginning that campaign, but was thwarted by Russia. When it was realized that the UNSC was completely constrained by the Russian veto, the US and other European allies took a detour through NATO instead.
Anyway, to begin with, the problem with Iraq had been a matter of international concern for well over a decade prior to the invasion. The US was itself relying on UN resolutions to help support its case for war, you may remember, arguing that Iraq’s non-compliance with those resolutions was one of its primary reasons for advocating a military intervention. It would be strange indeed, under such circumstances, to not even attempt to gain UN backing for the invasion! (However, it is worth noting that the US proclaimed its right to act unilaterally “if necessary,” long before it sought UN support. So as far as I can tell the entire charade was really little more that an act for the galleries – that is to say, an attempt to win propaganda points and garner legitimacy for an exercise that had been decided upon long before the presentation was ever made.)
What other functions did Powell’s presentation serve? Well, it had a domestic purpose: it effectively convinced many in the pro-war crowd that their arguments were air-tight, for example. Review some of the statements in the OP to see what I mean. It provided a pretense of legitimacy; the US could say, in effect, “Well, we went to the UN with our airtight case, and they rejected it; what more can we do?” Furthermore, it seems natural that in launching an unprovoked invasion of another sovereign state, the aggressor state (in this case, clearly, the US) should explain its purposes before the UN. As it happens, this was a rather spectacular case, with a lot of media coverage, in which the US found itself in an adversarial relationship with a number of former allies. Pressure from France, Germany, Russia and China also pushed the US into the position of making a formal declaration. There are probably other forces at work as well.
I’m fully aware of what he actually said. You may note, however, that in his list of items, he leaves out, “some of our sources are plagiarized, 12 year old doctoral theses readily available on the internet.” However:
…is a good question. And I grant now, in hindsight, that I might be overstating my case in this particular instance, since it was not Powell, his staff, nor US intelligence that was responsible for the plagiarization. Rather, the document in question was first made public on Feb. 3 – two days before Powell’s presentation – by the British government.
Four British “information officers” were responsible for the contents of the dossier; none were intelligence officials. They copied more or less word-for-word a number of open source documents, including a piece from the Middle Eastern Review of International Affairs, by one Ibrahim Al-Marashi (published in 2002), and three articles from Jane’s Intelligence Review. (You can find a copy of Al-Marashi’s original paper here.) Al-Marashi’s paper was based in part on documents originally captured during the first Gulf War, hence the accusation that the information was “12 years old;” but MERIA insists that the paper had been “updated” to account for more recent “power shifts,” etc. (Perversely, the editorial board of the journal is almost proud of the fact that its material is being plagiarized by the British government.)
Powell himself did not employ any of material from the dossier, but merely advocated it in passing:
So I withdraw my accusation that Powell (or his staff) was responsible for the plagiarization. In my defense all that I can say is that in the media flood of distortions, spin, propaganda, misleading generalizations, deceitful rhetoric, outright lies and so on produced by this administration in the run up to the war, I’ve not had the opportunity to investigate every small scrap in detail, yet.
The UN was not categorically opposed to military action. Those states who hesitated did so, at least in part, because there was little solid evidence that Iraq actually had any “WMD” capacity of note. That was the purpose of 1441 – to put into place an inspections routine that could confirm or disconfirm what intelligence experts suspected. The longer that inspections routine continued, the shakier the case for war began to appear, because the inspectors failed to find anything. In February and March of 2003 both UNSCOM and the IAEA presented the results of their inspections – we found nothing, they said. The US responded, essentially, “That’s only because the Iraqis have gotten so good at hiding things, which further reveals how useless the inspections really are.” Continued inspections were a plan of action. And, as I pointed out earlier, had humanitarian issues been the administration’s central concern, it could have invoked the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
I don’t know what you mean by this.
Why on earth not?
Look, Tee, the accusation is that the Bush administration pressured the intelligence community and utilized a submissive media to lie to you and send your country to war. It has cost the lives of many American servicemen and untold Iraqi citizens. It has cost the US taxpayer billions of dollars that could have been spent on other, more pressing necessities. Should the accusations be true (and they probably are), it reveals the president and his staff to be little more than a lying pack of weasels. Why do think it’s “odd” to worry about something like that?
That’s at least true for me.
Could you expound upon this a bit more? I was given to believe that a big reason behind the support for the war was that many Americans mistakenly believed there was a connection between Iraq and 9/11.
Anyway, I’m not all that interested in what your average “Joe on the street” thought: my focus has been what the US government claimed, compared to the actual facts on the ground. Naturally, I assume that what the government claimed influenced what Joe thought, but I haven’t really considered that question at depth.
Kay is an administration lackey. There have simply been too many reports in the media, and too many assertions of pressure being applied made by too many players coming from too many different sources to dismiss all of them with a hand wave.
I’ve made this point two or three times myself, already: the intelligence community did overestimate the threat from Iraq, apparently. That doesn’t excuse the administration from pressuring them to exaggerate that threat even more, or from taking their statements out of context, dropping the caveats and so on, and presenting speculation as fact.
luci old girl, I can’t quite grasp the points you’re making so, in case you’ve caught the diseases I tend to associate with the left on the issue of Iraq (the ‘wishy-washy’ disease and the ‘woolly-thinking’ disease), let me see if you recognise these arguments; the Left seemed to rely on three arguments in opposing the so-called ‘war’ against Iraq – two related to Iraq itself, one concerned with the internal shenanigans within the US:
[ul]
[li]The moral argument in relation to Iraq[/li]
[li]The (International) Law argument in relation to Iraq[/li]
[li]Huffing and Puffing about the US Constitution and media manipulation or abuse by the Administration[/li]
[/ul]
in my view, both of the arguments in relation to Iraq itself had as much merit as Bush’s WMD argument i.e. they were false constructs badly designed to serve a predetermined agenda (anti-Bush at any price and regardless of the cogency of the arguments).
In other words, Bush’s WMD claims and the ‘anti-war’ claims of the moral high ground and International Law (on its side) were equally disingenuous and contrived. We know why Bush’s claims were false – and I was the longest and possibly the loudest opponent of the WMD argument on this board, this is why the Left’s arguments were bullshit, imo;
The moral argument – any moral approach to Iraq had to replace the pre-existing morality of the UN in relation to Iraq. That is, the UN had imposed sanctions against ‘Iraq’ and killed hundreds of thousands of innocents, and was continuing to do so – that’s the morality of the UN as it existed prior to the removal of Saddam, and the morality the ‘anti-war’ crowd supported – God bless the ‘International community’. Or fuck ‘em, more like. As already said, the International community had long been paralysed by Saddam’s skill at splitting UN SC members into factions.
The legal argument – there is no such thing as ‘International Law’ as best I understand; instead, there are precedents and UN Resolutions; both of those are bought by a permanent member who wishes to pursue its national interest and, so, hands out a few baubles to the poor people (a trade deal here, an interest free loan there) e.g. to the rotating, non-permanent members of the Security Council to get the self-serving Resolution passed. Those precedents and Resolutions that supposedly comprise ‘International Law’ are the residue of bribery and self-serving white man’s bidding. ‘International Law’ remains one of the great misnomers of this age.
Thus, International Law, the ‘law’ the ‘anti-war’ crowd believed was the just legal basis for opposing the ‘war’, was never ‘law’ in the first place – it’s the result of bribery and corruption on a grand scale by permanent members of the UN security Council, and primarily the US.
Beyond that, every other legal and moral argument I ever saw (argued in relation to Iraq) was actually connected to US and/or UK constitutional mechanisms and media manipulation i.e. nothing to do with Iraq itself and was all “How dare they do this in a democracy” stuff. Fair points, but inward looking rather than dealing directly with the ‘anti-war’ arguments, at least as I saw them. That’s where I saw most woolly thinking.
So, for what it’s worth, I see this current triumphalism of the Left as empty as was Bush’s stroll on the deck of the carrier with ‘Mission Accomplished’ as a backdrop.
And if that was all the wishy-washy, woolly-thinking Left ever had, I’m still glad I sided with the (detestable) Bush WMD crowd when I really believed it was about free enterprise, baby! The removal of Saddam to enable the capitalist acquisition of Iraq’s natural resources.
London_Calling, did you learn to type standing on your head or does that come naturally? Let’s cut through your contortions: The issue of burden of proof is simple: It rests on the people advocating a war, not on those opposed to it. The anti-war case did not have to be any more detailed or coherent than to point out that the case for it was inadequate. But somehow you’ve made the war the default case. That is not how a civilized society operates.
First and foremost, your stinging critique of the Left is based on a fundamental fallacy: there is no such thing as “the Left”. Analysing “their” theories and behavior is similar to polling the political leanings of invisible pink unicorns, there ain’t no such thing. You present arguments that you attribute to this mythical construct, and then demolish them, an endeavor that, in a younger and more vigorous man, might be considered masturbatory. ( A “wanger”, I believe you call it…)
I consider the moral considerations of first importance, common decency demands that we approach matters of war with grave reluctance. If we cannot engage on this basis, I doubt we can engage at all, a realpolitik devoid of any moral concept is nothing more than a conspiracy of assassins. “Do unto others, preferably from ambush” is not a precept I will admire. If this thinking be “wooly”, so be it. We will be civilized men, or we will be dead men. There is no third option.
We will live together, or we will perish. What’s your plan?
You’ve stated the obvious without actually considering it. Be as outward looking as you want, this still doesn’t change those niceties of international dealings or those requirements of democratic societies. No friggin’ “antiwar argument” is required in the absense of an accepted casus belli. Period.
“We need to liberate commodity X from a guy we’ve barred from the market” is a risible -and morally contemptible- reason which, for the sake of the very thing you so passionately defend, “free enterprise” in the global economy, must be rejected and repudiated by the world community.
Ah. So nice of you to come out of the closet. I see now that the nickname Werewolf is well-earned; and by a matter of strange coincidence, it just happens to be a full moon tonight up here in beautiful Mooseland.
Well, if you are referring to me, then:[ul]
[li]I have consistently tried to be as fair-minded in these debates as I possibly can, and categorically reject that my position constitutes some sort of “anti-Bush at any price” platform. If I agreed with Bush’s policies, I would support them; since I disagree, I oppose them. Why should I give a shit about Bush?[/li]
In addition, I am astounded that you would throw such an accusation in my face (and the faces of many others here on the board), after we have so patiently and rationally argued against people who’s positions have often clearly been “pro-Bush at any price.”
[li]I’m flabbergasted that you find my arguments “disingenuous and contrived.” To accuse them of being “disingenuous” would seem to imply that you think I’m attempting to be purposefully misleading; and by “contrived,” I assume you mean they are hollow and carry no real serious weight. I’d like to see you develop that line of reasoning further, or support it with examples.[/ul][/li][QUOTE]
The moral argument – any moral approach to Iraq had to replace the pre-existing morality of the UN in relation to Iraq. That is, the UN had imposed sanctions against ‘Iraq’ and killed hundreds of thousands of innocents, and was continuing to do so – that’s the morality of the UN as it existed prior to the removal of Saddam, and the morality the ‘anti-war’ crowd supported – God bless the ‘International community’. Or fuck ‘em, more like.*
[/QUOTE]
In my view, as I’ve stated on numerous occasions, the “humanitarian argument” was the strongest argument for intervening in Iraq. But it seems strange to lay the entire blame for the Iraqi sanctions entirely on the “international community,” and thereby absolve Saddam Hussein of all responsibility for the situation. I agree with you that the sanctions were not a very good solution, but the world is not always a pleasant place and the tools one has for improving it are often quite limited.
That said, if you supported the invasion on humanitarian grounds, well, more power to you. I have a good deal of sympathy for that perspective, and had things worked out differently at the UN, I might also have found myself taking a similar position. Yet to my recollection few people on these boards argued strenuously for intervention in Iraq due to Hussein’s shitty human rights records. With a couple of exceptions (of note, a particularly good discussion with Scylla) virtually every argument focussed on the threat Saddam posed to the world because of his “WMDs.”
It is disingenuous, after the invasion and the subsequently discovered lack of “WMDs,” to backtrack and claim that the whole thing was about “liberating” the Iraqi people. Sorry if I find it disturbingly hypocritical for a person, or an administration, to hide behind a false cloak of humanitarian concern while lining their pockets – or, as you so quaintly put it, enabling “the capitalist acquisition of Iraq’s natural resources.”
I’ve gone a bit back and forth on this one myself. First, I simply assumed there was something called “international law,” because I had heard of it so often. However, in debates here it was pointed out to me that one cannot refer to the standards of international relations as “law,” technically, because the system lacks any sort of organ for adjudication and/or enforcement (although in point of fact this isn’t wholly correct either, since there is the ICJ). So I went from there to simply understanding references to “international law” as a kind of shorthand for treaties and other sorts of international agreements. To say that the US was “violating international law” was simply one way of saying that the US was failing to meet its treaty obligations, and in particular the limitations to use of force imposed by the UN Charter, to which the US is a willing signatory.
But that was wrong as well. There is something called “international law,” I’ve discovered, a body of theory and practices in which the ins and outs of interstate relations are meticulously hashed out. (You can read a short review of the legality of the Iraq war here.)
That’s simply not true, at least as far as I know.
You’re glad you sided with the “Bush WMD crowd” to promote “the capitalist acquisition of Iraq’s natural resources,” even though you found them “detestable,” while simultaneously accusing others of “wooly-thinking?” How much sense does that make, Wolfman?
Look:
Even a man who is pure at heart
And says his prayers by night,
Can turn to a wolf
When the wolfbane blooms
And the moon is full and bright.
You might be a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but you’re not pulling the wool over my eyes.
First of all, I’m sorry but I don’t have the time to argue with all of you at once.
Secondly, I’m actually just interested in flushing out what exactly it was the ‘anti-war’ crowd did support, besides that regional inertia and rigamortis I outlined above; just to repeat, it’s all very well saying ‘no’ to something, but in situations like these, I believe there is a moral imperative to propose something else, something better.
And doing nothing wasn’t better because the UN sanctions were killing thousands.
So, on that, I’m still looking for something constructive from those who thought they had ascended the moral high ground, and have been patting themselves on the back for the past few months: What is it that you would have done that would have been a better result – and how, and why, do you define ‘better’ ?
As many brief points as I have time for:
Elvis – Are there rules to this game of which I’m not aware; “A burden of proof” ? a quaint concept in international affairs but not one I recall as being applicable, I don’t see its constitutional or political relevance ?
In my understanding, it’s a democracy; first the leader convinces his party, then the Executive, then the Parliament/Houses, then the people – if he does that, as events have proven, he has a mandate from his people . . . . Maybe there’s an implicit burden of proof at each of those stages but otherwise . . .
And, of course, he pays the price if found to be lying or things don’t otherwise work out, but that’s another matter. We all hope to be learning more about how that works over the next few months . . . Luci - ‘Left’ is, of course, a term of convenience; try ‘anti-war’ if you wish, though I never quite bought into this ever being a ‘war’, felt like a provocative term of art rather than a reality.
As it turns out, the press-ganged troops of the dictator did indeed fall away at the first opportunity; can there even be a ‘war’ without organised opposition – an ‘action’ maybe ? an ‘overthrow’, perhaps ?
‘War’ somehow implies organised opposition of another nation – Saddam managed to field a few hundred/thousands of loyal political party members. But that was a force of politcal ideologues, everyone else ran away at the first opportunity.
Aside from that, I can only refer you back to the opening paragraphs of this post; I see no greater morality in the position of the anti-war (UN sanction supporting) inertia than I do in the WMD lies of Bush.
Mr Svinlesha – No, I wasn’t talking to you in particular. I’m actually addressing what I perceive to be the celebratory tone of the anti-war crowd and trying to understand what it is they think they got so right in opposing the removal of Saddam.
I’ll try to get back to you whan I have some time. Thanks for your comments.
Why do you treat those positions (anti-war & pro-sanction) as codependent? This is certainly not true for many who opposed the invasion, and I’d be very surprised if even a simple majority of those who actually protested this idiocy were cognizant of the real effects of the sanctions on the Iraqi people. The question was not are the sanctions morally defensible, it was is invasion justified, and those are unequivocably (morally and logically) separate issues.
Your perception seems to be faulty. WTF do we have to celebrate? Vindication of our ability to spot bullshit? Cold fucking comfort.
Damn, London, if you don’t know or care about the significance of warfare to civilization then we’re all wasting our time with you.
Your understanding of the working of democracy being top-down only is also extremely odd. The government is hired by, and works for, the people, not the reverse … aw, hell, this is so basic it’s useless too.
But try this, just for thought: The anti-war position, after studying and rebutting the case for war, seemed diffuse and incoherent because the arguments it was rebutting were diffuse and incoherent. Subsequent events have exposed almost every damn one of them as such. The proper place to put the blame for that seems pretty fucking obvious to anyone who isn’t twisted in knots trying to avoid admitting having so totally supported something so totally immoral.
Nobody is fucking celebrating all these deaths, asshole. Cut that shit out right now. The best feeling I have about it is that we’re not getting lied to nearly as much by the warmongers and their supporters as before - many of them have since been able to recognize realitiy when it’s rubbed into their faces. But you have no excuse left.
It’s a true pity that, with so much of the world desperately trying to create or get into a civilized democracy, that it’s benefits can be bestowed simply by birth on amoral tossers like yourself.
I note that Mr. Svinlesha has already mentioned Powell’s comments to the Washington Post. However, I think that the true significance of those comments needs to be explained to our slower participants.
Ever since it became painfully obvious to even the clowns in the Bush administration that there were no WMDs in Iraq, like for almost a year now, they’ve been trying to say that WMDs weren’t the sole or the primary motivation. “Freedom” was the real goal, or “democracy” or something like that.
Then Powell was asked whether he would’ve pushed for war if he knew that there were no WMDs to begin with. Powell answers: “No”.
There’s the admission that humanitarian concerns weren’t sufficient justification, and if you think about it, it’s obvious that a humanitarian approach to the UN wouldn’t have worked anyway. The “mass graves” and “shredder” stuff wouldn’t really have persuaded anyone. Proof would have been asked for. And proof would not have been forthcoming, because the mass graves were from previous wars, and the shredder story looks like it was faked by the Kuwaitis.
We already knew that the CIA didn’t think that the WMDs, even if they did exist, were sufficient justification either.
This was the PNAC/neocon war that was fought for no sensible reason whatsoever. They may have thought that there was some strategic benefit, some brilliant oil related thing, but they’ve shown themselves to be:
a) liars
b) idiots
c) con-men
d) people who are completely unable to examine real evidence and formulate commeasurate plans
So even if they (or their hangers-on) still think there’s some brilliant underlying strategy in this, I’m quite prepared to call bullshit. Nothing they’ve done has worked out well so far, and there’s no reason whatsoever why any of the shit they’re still doing is going to turn out any better.
I don’t think it is odd at all: In theory, the government is hired by and works for the people. In practise however, we’ve got hierarchical pyramid structures all around. I fear that the politicians at the top don’t understand that the government should be there to ensure a smooth life for everyone, but instead regard the population as just something that provides tax money, which then can be spent at their leisure.
I’ll spare you my whole foam-covered-mouth rant about how the influence of the bureaucracy needs to be reduced and why there should be job requirements for politicians.
As for my “better” solution to the Iraq War: If we follow the path to overthrow inconvenient governments now, then there need to be strict guidelines to follow. A multinational army would need to oversee things and everyone should be held to those guidelines. Even if that means the United Earth Armed Forces are going to be invading Washington tomorrow, Paris the day after and perhaps London on the coming weekend.
Since nationalistic delusions of grandeur won’t permit working together on common goals though, the above solution wouldn’t work. The next best thing would have been George W. Bush declaring war on Iraq, resigning and handing over the operation to a neutral country, which could oversee that his intention really is altruistic and not a political / economical move.
I don’t believe him to be that honest though and therefore a solution that doesn’t involve the Bush administration forging evidence, manipulating the general population and going to war is highly unlikely. You may suggest more realistic and better scenarios, but they would have all been waved away, since the Bush administration had decided on what to do a long time ago.
Just so L_C knows, I don’t concur with friend Elvis that you’re an amoral tosser, or even an “asshole” (on an SDMB scale of posting assholes, that is ). I’m in vehement disagreement with your support of the outmoded model of hegemony through Empire, and your apparent belief that this ongoing military liberation of resources somehow advances the fortunes of the Emprialists in North America and that little island off the left coast of Europe.
But neither your delu-- er, beliefs, nor my disagreements with them make you a bad person. (As I’m sure Elvis will admit when he’s had a good sleep and hot cuppa…)
). I’m in vehement disagreement with your support of the outmoded model of hegemony through Empire, and your apparent belief that this ongoing military liberation of resources somehow advances the fortunes of the Emprialists in North America and that little island off the left coast of Europe.