http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34847-2002Sep3.html
I thought this was a well-reasoned and thoughtful take on the subject.
A brief intervention. My project calls.
Yeah, in the wet dreams of the right wing comic books, as in the case of prior predictions (I refer to the above author’s confident relaying of his favorite sources’ claims the Arabs were going to fall in line on each of the Cheney et al diplo-tours. Rather clearly the reverse has happened).
Magical wish-fulfillment thinking.
Let me expand, to alleviate your chronic if not endemic ignorance on this matter. Save your caps:
(a) Kuwait is not very fucking popular in the Arab world. Kuwait long has had a bad rep in the Arab world - the reticence in re the invasion came from the shitty pre and post invasion treatment of the gaestarbeiters (muslims be they Ps, or not).
(b) It is widely expected the Al Sabaah family will slavishly go along with US desires. Popular opinion in Kuwait rather is less clear and not terribly enthusiastic to the best sources I have followed.
© The remainder of the Gulf region has become steadily more vocal in re their displeasure regarding US policy in re Iraq and the I-P issue.
[quote]
France has been backing off its anti-war stance.
[quote]
France has hardly ‘backed off’ per se. Some ambiguous statements by Chirac in the context of rather strenuous overall opposition to a unilateral assault on Iraq. Otherwise, those of us who actually have some connection and literacy in this area, just for the novelty value, find that while the French have modified their position slightly, it is remains that the UN must approve, in other words France is not rhetorically supportive of Sadaam, but is not supportive of Cowboyism.
In other words, the evolution is negative.
Tony Blair indeed is beating the War Drum – as opposition to the general tack of American policy has continued in most quarters, follow for example the negative commentary in the Economist, FT etc. in the past week or two.
Aw, Collounsbury, I thought you could do better than that. You didn’t actually refute a thing I said, and you missed the entire point of what I was saying. I wasn’t trying to pass a value judgement about the relative merits of what these people were doing. I was merely noting that they were doing it. To me, it signifies a ratcheting up of the rhetorical heat, which would tend to be a prelude to some form of action.
But I’ll give you a 9 for vitriol. I could just sense the spittle flying when you typed that. Good show.
Every time I hear the phrase “weapons of mass destruction”, I cringe.
This phrase smacks of propaganda, intended to instill fear in the masses to justify a possible attack.
Many, many countries (not all of them stable) have WMD’s and it’s only a matter of time (in some cases, a lot of time) before every country has some kind of arsenal, whether it be traditional, nuclear, or biological.
I think the West’s decision that Iraq should not be allowed to develop such weapons is right, and yet unfair.
I don’t want them to have nukes, but what evidence is there that they warrant them less than Pakistan or India, or China?
I do not think possession of a weapon is grounds to be tried as a murderer. Let them strike first, then we’ll crush them like ants.
But until Iraq actually uses a “weapon of mass destruction”, the desire to remove Saddam Hussein can only be judged in my view as a personal beef between the Houses of Bush and Hussein.
I’d rather have a world where a “baddie” does something bad and is justly punished, than a world where the “goodies” can go around dictating to the “baddies” as they see fit.
I see a few references to WWII and Hitler’s threat in the mid 30’s leading up to the start of the war. Personally, the only world leader who reminds me of Hitler at the moment is, ironically, Ariel Sharon. Saddam is dangerous and vehemently anti-American, but in actuality he hasn’t done a damn thing since the end of the Gulf War except mock and defy the US agenda: not a crime.
I also believe that a ground invasion of Iraq would make Vietnam look like a minor mishap. And without broad-based international (i.e. Security Council) approval any action against Iraq will only hurt the US.
The US needs friends AND enemies. Attacking Iraq before they actually do anything will, at the end of the day, lose them many friends and one enemy.
Each according to its wants, needs, merits.
Your analytical skills leave more than a little to be desired Sammie old man.
I point you to your editorial use of CAPS – perhaps you are unaware given the comic book character of your news sources of the concept of slant, selection bias.
Refutation was on the context of Kuwait, the absense of context and the indeed non-mentioning of developments (e.g. Qatari statements contra war, etc.)
You were spinning.
No my contempt for your “analyses” is cold.
Holy crow! Someone high up in the military just sacrificed their career to expose Rumsfeld.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/04/september11/main520830.shtml
Someone has truly fucked their career. Well, and truly.
However leaked, presuming the notes are real (regardless of accuracy) has balls. You have to acknowledge that.
On Sept. 11, nobody knew who had attacked us. It was excellent leadership to begin preparing contingency plans in case Iraq was the perp. After all, plans don’t commit one to action, but they do enable better decisions to be made. My admiration for Rumsfeld has gone up a notch.
The leaker has thrown away his career for* nothing.*
Correct, read the reportage however in re the substance. Not that this will impact your interpretation of course, insensible as it is to input.
See above advice.
Indeed, what a surprise. Why is it I get the feeling no matter what is reported, your “admiration” will go up a notch.
Nothing, however, particularly startling in the notes.
Probably, however the notes, if authenticated, do give a possibly interesting and useful weapon to those arguing that the Iraq policy is an unproductive, a priori obsession with certain members of the Administration to the exclusion of rational policy making.
Robert Wright has a, IMO, brilliant piece on why our war on terror is all wrong. This is required reading for this thread:
http://slate.msn.com//?id=2070210&&entry=2070212
In particular, I’d like to hear from you, Collunsbury. Is R.W. on point? Do you agree that our overt anti-terror operations are counterproductive in the extreme?
I read that quickly. I did not note “in the extreme” – his prose was unclear so perhaps I missed that.
If the argument is that US diplomacy (including domestic discussion) has to be less self-indulgent and more focused in order to get long and medium returns, this seems reasonable.
If it’s a namby pamby understand their pain argument - I do not think it is on that quick read - then I think it’s stupid.
Having read the article, I’m having a hard time seeing what the fuss is about.
Look: There is still evidence that pointed to Iraq after the first WTC attack. Saddam tried to kill Bush I. When a large coordinated attack hit the United States, everyone knew there were two likely culprits: Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden.
And we don’t know what kind of intelligence Rumsfeld was receiving. In the heat of ‘battle’, things get confusing. There were probably reports flying in right and left, some right, some wrong. There was probably brainstorming going on along the lines of, “Who did this, and why, and what are they going to do now?”
Saddam is in charge of a fairly powerful state. If he WAS involved, minutes count in case he’s about to release, say, 100 drones full of chemical or biological weapons.
Then there’s this fact: The U.S. DIDN’T attack Saddam. Maybe there’s a later memo where Rumsfeld says, “Let’s back off a bit here - the newest evidence we are receiving is not pointing at Saddam anymore.”
In other words, I think you guys are really reaching here. Also, I think some of you don’t realize just how aggressive Saddam has been in the last few years, and why that might lead the administration to be more concerned about him than are people who don’t follow the day-to-day events around Iraq.
For example, if your job is to regularly peruse defense briefing like this,, don’t be surprised if ‘Iraq’ is the first thing to spring to mind when the U.S. is attacked.
Then again, this may in fact be a sign of complete Paranoia by Rumsfeld. There’s just not enough evidence to draw any sort of conclusion.
He seems to have started a fad of startling revelations.
Unsurprising.
Fine, unarguable. The text of the released notes, again I am certain there is seleciton bias so I am being quite cautious as to the substantive conclusions drawable, rather suggests that Rumsfeld et al reaction included a strong component of a priori reaction. Understandable, but the phrasing plays into underlying suspicions as to the Beat the Iraq drum crowd’s rationality. (Remember your own statements in re Anthrax, etc Sammie boy?)
Well… yes however let’s not be ridiculous. Saddam isn’t capable of doing much more than whacking his neighbors in something marginally more than a symbolic manner in the near time.
Now this is the most substantive and important note you’ve made. And absolutely correct. Contra that, of course is the Fall through present torturing of facts, evidence and supposition to manufacture a pretext to attack Iraq asap.
No suprise there, I recall my cocktail convo with his sidekick frightened me many years ago with his justif. for the eradactionist wing in Algerie.
Those of us who have followed Saddam, and can actually pronounce his name properly, also know of his rather large adherence to the principalsof self-preservation (ex stupid miscalcs like Kuwait…)
The end issue is not the facts then, it is the image. These notes, in all liklihood not entirely fairly, contribute to the image that Rumsfeld et al are leveraging al-qaeda for an essentially unrelated attack on Iraq.
OK. Lets just suppose Saddam has all the bomb parts just sitting around. Got the plutonium, got the fancy ass imploding detonators. Got a bunch of guys who say they can assemble a working nasty without accidentally leaving a glowing hole in the middle of the Godforsaken Desert.
How’s he going to test it? Without alerting all of us nuclear armed nervous nellies? And only a drooling moron would deploy a weapon that may not work. Thats way past “Ooopsy!”.
Saddams got the bomb? Who the hell doesn’t? Upper Volta?
As to the Rumsfeld matter, I am largely props of Collouns, with the minor scold that his ability to pronounce Saddams name correctly is of no relevence.
Lots of people do not have the bomb. Saddam’s efforts are non-trivial.
At the same time, that does not make the current war-fever – and much worse its moronicly amateurish execution including the recent painfully transparent volte-face – any more rational.
Clumsy, short-sighted and stupid.
BTW, in the earlier post I was unnecessarily cavalier in re Saddam’s capacity to do damage to his neighbors, esp. in re disrupting commerce – near term damage at least.
Again, self preservation has always been our Saddam’s main characteristic.
Goes to indicating I actually know something substantive. Symbolic flourish, compensating myself for having to read bullshit.
Saddam indeed has a great capacity for self-preservation. But he also has gigantic balls, to the point of insanity. There have been almost daily missile strikes in Iraq because Saddam continues to attempt to shoot down American airplanes. And there have been a number of serious incidents such as when Saddam mobilized his military and lined up on the Kuwait border.
In 1998, a lucky hit by a U.S. bomber blew the roof off a hanger in Iraq, and exposed 8 drone aircraft designed to carry chemical or biological weapons. That’s one hangar. How many more of those are there?
And the bottom line is that Saddam has been willing to forego billions of dollars in revenue for the sole reason of keeping weapons inspectors out of the country. That’s not the act of someone with nothing to hide.
If you haven’t read the Iraq accounts in the link I posted earlier, you should. By the time you get to the end of all the various attacks and manoevers, the picture of Saddam that you’re left with is as a caged tiger, pacing back and forth just trying to find a way to break out.
That’s the context under which Rumsfeld was thinking of Iraq when suddenly the U.S. was hit by four major coordinated attacks. Of course Rumsfeld’s Iraq alarm went off. It pretty much had to. The important question is how the dilemma was eventually resolved without the U.S. firing a shot until it knew exactly who was responsible.
A caged tiger. Exactly, Sam. The cage has worked very well for over a decade. So why do you want to open the tiger’s cage, even from the outside?
Well, this might be one reason…
Another thing that isn’t really clear right now is just how secure the cage has been, although I’ll be the first to say that the evidence presented by the Wall Street Journal is completely circumstantial.
I’m still conflicted about attacking Iraq. On the one hand, the world would be a lot better off if Saddam were in a pine box. There’s no doubt about that. It’s also clear that Saddam poses a grave long-term threat to the U.S., and a grave short or medium term threat to Israel.
But overthrowing Iraq is not like taking out Afghanistan, nor will it be like Gulf War I. There will likely be a lot of ‘blowback’ in the area, and if Saddam manages hold hold the loyalty of his soldiers in the city, there will be a lot of very ugly urban warfare in the process, which will kill a lot of civilians and drag this war out for a long time.
One thing I think you, me, and Collounsbury could agree on is that IF the U.S. invades Iraq, it must be with the approval of the Congress, and the support of at least the major US allies (i.e. NATO).
Yes, we agree on that, certainly - as long as it’s real consultation, listening included, and not patronization; and real, not coerced, approval.
Ultimately I think we also agree that it’s a cost/risk/benefit analysis, and even that so far the probable upside is greatly outweighed by the probable downside.