Would you have been willing to die just to get rid of saddam? Other Americans did. Is it ok with you that they were sent to die under false pretenses? It’s not Ok with me.
Cynic, you seem to have redeemed yourself after quite a sad period in a public bath.
Wow. There’s a pretty big divide here, and a really good debate. Maybe we should draw up teams and play Intraweb Age of Empires, Age of Kings® enhancement pack? I call dibs on Turks.
…please, I’m sorry for the hamstering. My wife just pointed out we are flying far afield of a constructive forum. Is it possible to return to a pro forma debate? This rhetoric is most distressing.
Zenster, thanks for this informative and interesting post. Could you provide a cite? It’s not that I doubt your word - I just like studying the history of nuclear strategy and suchlike, and was hoping you could recommend some good books.
But by your definition, then, the bombing of Dresden was a terrorist act.
And none of this nonsense about how we can’t judge anything that happened before I hit puberty, because it’s not the question at hand. The question is, has anyone given a definition of “terrorism” which doesn’t include Dresden? (This raises another question, incidentally- how far away is the moral horizon? 5 years? 10? We’ve already heard 20 years described as being beyond our reach.)
To draw an analogy, you can argue that slavery in the American South cannot be judged by modern standards of morality- but no sane person would claim that magically it wasn’t slavery. Similarly, if you want to claim that we can’t judge the terrorism of the 1940’s by modern standards, fine- admit that back then, people thought that terrorism was a legitimate tool of a military. But if you want to claim that it wasn’t actually terrorism, I expect a legitimate definition of terrorism which excludes what the U.S. did.
OK, here’s the deal. I also believe that we should engage in military interventions, here and there, for humanitarian purposes.
But that’s not why Bush told the UN we wanted to invade Iraq, it’s not why Bush told the American people we had to invade Iraq, and it’s not why Bush & Co. actually invaded Iraq - because if that had been their purpose, they might’ve actually taken some time to plan what they were going to do with Iraq once they’d kicked Saddam’s butt.
The absence of any sort of decent plan put at risk, and continues to put at risk, whether or not our intervention will actually wind up improving the lives of average Iraqis. And if you don’t make things any better for the people of Iraq, then you’ve violated another nation’s sovereignty for: nothing. That’s serious shit.
And this is the problem for people like you who think, “regardless of Bush’s motives, the main thing is that Iraqis are free of Saddam.” They may or may not wind up better off as a result, and it’s nearly certain that having done this will hinder our ability to do good elsewhere in the world, whether it’s dealing with the political and military risks of Iran, or attempting humanitarian interventions in less geopolitically important places such as the Congo.
If humanitarian motives are what moves us, here’s what we might have done instead:
- Take another year to show what we could do to improve the lives of Afghanis.
- Involve our NATO friends (the UN probably wouldn’t be the right group) in a discussion of when the lives of citizens of a country are so hellish due to internal causes (whether due to dictators, breakdown of order, or whatever) that Western military intervention is called for, and what needs to be done afterward to make sure the military intervention results in a better life for the people the intervention is supposed to benefit.
- Make a list, in conjunction with NATO, of the nastiest half-dozen or so countries to live in.
- Pick one, and plan how the rescue is going to work over time, to make sure it goes as right as it possibly can. You want there to be more rescues, you want the first one to work at least halfway well.
Obviously, there are some situations where we’d have to make a very fast decision on whether to jump in (the Congo now, Rwanda back in the mid-90s) because to wait even a few months puts us too late to prevent the worst of the carnage. But this’ll do for the places that are changing slowly (Burma, Iraq, etc.).
Bringing us back to topic, I notice that none of your excellent speech bore in any way on the subject of appeasement. I’ll say something about that in small words: as a liberal, I’d like to see the US do some good in the world. But I’ve seen enough attempts to do good actually make things worse. If being skeptical and asking questions to find out whether or not the present instance might be one of those times (and getting back no good answers) constitutes ‘appeasement’, then you’ve got a funny dictionary.
To take a word with as many different possible interpretations as ‘globalization’ has, and to say something like that about it, is just plain stupid. Whatever sort of globalization it is that you favor, there are no guarantees that that’s what globalization will ultimately turn out to mean.
While I’m asking for book recommendations, Mtgman, could you recommend a good book on the American Revolution? I’ve always wanted to read a better history of it than the stuff I got in school. (Which was typically the familiar “The British lost because they were tea-drinking pansies” stuff.)
Hi Ben,
Might I recommend one to you and Dopers in general: The People’s History of The United States: 1492 to Present. I’ve also heard the author, Howard Zinn, speak on it – it is a really interesting view of the US. Has yielded a little insight into this very debate.
Another that has more to do with the OP is The Iron Triangle: Inside the Secret World of the Carlyle Group.
Show you are helping America in the war on terrorism. = America leaves us alone.
This is a simple problem with a simple solution. If you can’t come out against nut crazed religious terrorist killings, you are a world government that should cease to exist. And president Bush will see to it.
I don’t know is this is news to you or not, Beat, but to a lot of people, and I do mean a lot of people, groups we call “terrorist” (i.e., Hezbollah, or any of a number of Palestinian groups) have enormous sympathy and support in the Middle East and beyond. To thier way of thinking, these groups are no more illegitimate than our own Sons of Liberty.
I make no claim as to the validity of thier belief, merely that it is so.
There are no doubt groups within Iran who offer support and sympathy to such as these. To presume that such support from Iran is a “state policy” is to presume a unification of purpose for the Iranian government that is probably illusory, given what we know about the internal dissension within Iran.
I disagree. It’s completely relevant, whether or not you brought it up. If the U.S.A. were to construct a nice, big hospital right next to Andrews AFB, what would be wrong with that? Nothing.
We are living in a world where national sovereignty is taken very seriously - too seriously, in some ways (I’ve never understood the logic of more or less forcing Africa to live with the European colonial borders, for instance), but seriously enough that no nation need reckon its borders and sovereignty in jeopardy, except under the most extreme provocation.
If an invading nation is going to make up provocations, the invaded nation is hardly responsible for the casualties inflicted, regardless of the placement of its assets.
I looked up the Sons Of Liberty on the internet I saw no mention of commiting terroists acts on muslim countries.
You can find problems but you have no soultions Elucidator
. Here is a solution that will work. If you want to plot to kill americans be prepared for America to come visit you and hunt you down or have people who side with americans hunt you down and take power. We have no other choice. We are not going to be victims of further terrorist attacks. To just say well it’s too complex to do anything about it and say we deserve it because we supported the shaw isn’t going to cut it. Understand this, we are not going to let these people kill us.
When did Saddam plot to kill Americans?
He plotted to kill george Bush senior. That is reason enough. It is known saddam gave money to terrorist groups. Without the money terrorist groups wouldn’t be near the threat. If Saddam was to help the usa with the war on terror he would still be in power.
BeatenMan said
I forget. Was it Artie or George Bernard we supported? 
Not ten years later, it isn’t. The USA has plotted to kill a lot of leaders in recent decades. Sounds to me like another case of “we’re big enough to get away with it, and they’re not.”
BTW, can you provide a link to an account of the assassination plot on GHWB? I’m not contesting that such plans were made, but I honestly don’t remember hearing anything about it at the time. And it’s been bandied about a lot on this board since GWB started saber-rattling at Iraq, without any details that I’ve seen.
Wasn’t that just about the funds to the surviving relatives of suicide bombers? While that’s still a bad thing, it doesn’t make the bombings possible.
I have read, and have posted regarding, other viewpoints as to the alleged “plot” to assassinate George I. Boiled down, it comes to accepting the word of Kuwaiti intelligence, a leap of faith I am reluctant to make. Very reluctant. For more on this, look up Seymour Hersh’s article in the New Yorker from a couple months back. That the Bushistas take the word of the Kuwaitis as though it came from a burning bush is not surprising.
As to the payments, Arty has it right: Saddam was making a gesture of solidarity in order to enhance his standing in the Middle East as one who was deeply concerned with the plight of the Palestinians. Oddly, it seems likely it didn’t fool them, but it worked on us.
BeatenMan said
quote:
To just say well it’s too complex to do anything about it and say we deserve it because we supported the shaw isn’t going to cut it.
I am from Texas, Shaw of Iran is correct just ask George W. Bush
Texas, huh? Sure that’s not the P’shaw?
Angel in the Whirlwind by Benson Bobrick. A very nice overview of the Revolution, and highly readable.