And, of course, it’s the left that are lowering the standards of discourse on this board :rolleyes:
Good thing I didn’t present it as one, then, isn’t it?
I’m sorry, I don’t understand. I was talking about the United States of America where it is possible to protest without getting killed. Yes, it is suggestive of a good thing when our government is being open about what they’re doing, because that way we can discuss it, and that way we can vote about it.
Does it matter to whom? To me? Yes. I voted against this president. To other countries? Well… it matters. I wonder if there will be any sanctions…
Perhaps you misunderstand. I’m not trying to suggest anything is ‘right’.
I’m not looking to revisit arguments against the war when I am already against the war, in general, so it is a totally moot point.
I am saying exactly what I said.
Fine. I’m not asking you to push out a barrel chest or reflect fondly on a picture of the president, but if it made you feel better, great.
glee, I think you may need to re-read the “finding a happy mushroom in a pile of cow dung” line of the OP again. erislover is not cheering the war; if I’m understanding his point correctly, he’s just saying something to the effect of “at least we’re having this conversation, and are able to do so.” (Please correct me if I’m wrong.)
This is a very interesting question. However, it’s a question about a trend, and so far we have only one data point. Are there previous U.S. military actions which you think fare more poorly by this metric? I haven’t been paying attention to U.S. political discourse for long enough myself to really judge.
Erislover,
sorry if I misunderstood you.
(Your thread title and phrases like ‘in some ways this war is a mixed blessing’ and ‘the actual overthrow of a government is something that should not be frowned upon a priori’ somewhat misled me. :o )
I appreciate the point you make about the US being open to discussion about going to war, but sadly (as you know) the reason for this conflict was bogus.
Is it not the case that a significant proportion of the US population think that Saddam was involved in terrorism, particularly 9/11? This is not good.
Regime change is illegal under the UN. It’s not something that should just be ‘frowned on’.
One of the most worrying things to me as a Brit is how the US has squandered the international support it so fully deserved after 9/11. Afghanistan was a correct decision, and there was a real coalition in support. Depressingly, Iraq was about propaganda and oil.
If the US wants to be concerned about human rights, it needs to close Guantanamo Bay and sign up to the International War Crimes tribunal.
We democratic nations need to stand together.
Well… the thing is, we tried that several times already, and it just didn’t work out very well, usually resulting in a lot of revolutionaries dying. Then, we also never identified someone to take over in Saddam’s place. Funding the Kurds isn’t really an option, they would never take all of Iraq. Look at what happened after GW1, for instance. We made a choice to leave Saddam in power, and abandoned the resistence groups we had encouraged previously.
Basically, because we’re assholes.
There is a point not discussed yet I think…
What good is there being an open discussion about invading **AFTER ** the invasion… since once committed to the task it “has” to be taken to the end. Not much good having a open society where you debate things afterwards.
No doubt because I am an ingenuous SMDB lefty, I have to join the chorus of mild disagreement with the OP. I agree that these issues are best out in the open and subject to debate. But. . .
I disagree that before the invasion there was much open about the process - the promised path which the US would follow with respect to deciding to go to war was ignored as soon as it was inconvenient. There certainly was no serious debate with respect to casus belli, likely costs, probable outcomes, short and long term diplomatic repercussions. The discussion was framed by the administration as a narrow question, which could end up going either way at Iraq’s decision. What came to pass had little to do with the authorization asked for and received by the administration.
I suppose now that we are in, we can debate the issue openly, although we still cannot agree on what the facts are, let alone the issues (or vice versa).
In many secession threads the theoretical right or not for a group to voluntarily relinquish association with another group is debated with great energy. WHich is fine, as long as one realizes that these theoretical secessions have little to do with the course of events from 1861-1865. Similiarly I think that openness and debate about the great issues of our time and what actions we as a nation should take are key, but I don’t think that the runup to Iraq is an ideal case study.
I do see one advantage of the openness - there have too often been cases where the covert actions of our government have been secret only to us - the victims and bystanders in the target country know all to well what is going on and who is responsible while those of us responsible for the responsible parties remain blissfully ignorant of the actions taken nominally on our behalf. So in that sense, yes, we are now acting in an open manner suitable for debate.
:eek: There were months of debate. Within days of 9/11, there were pundits asking if Iraq was involved and asking if the US would finally do something about Iraq. Bush announced regime change in Iraq as a policy goal in January 2002. There were endless debates all the things you list, on these boards and elsewhere. And there *was *serious discussion about the non-WMD reasons for US actions at the outset; it was shelved because it was thought better politically to give one reason (WMD) than describe it as a nexus of 4 or 5 reasons.
I guess your last sentence is why I feel the way I do. There were a vast number of debatable/discussed propositions, but the path followed veered away from those to a single narrow, rather uncontroversial point, effectively preempting discussion of costs/benefits in other areas. Of course Saddam cannot be allowed nuclear weapons. Of course the president must be allowed a big stick to back up our policies and positions. The rationale was settled on to preclude debate, because the probability of getting authorization for regime change was very low (before the fact anyways). Once that authorization (to deal with WMD noncompliance issues in an appropriate manner and framework) was obtained the die was cast, regardless of the result of inspections, UN actions, etc.
The administration made clear that all data and voices not in agreement with its notions were either politically biased or “focus groups”. The administration ignored the original intelligence reports from the CIA and pretty much all intelligence and advice from the state department, DOE, etc. Hearings on/investigations into the question of how the administration used the available intelligence to get us into Iraq were deferred until after the elections. Whether they will be taken up now I have not heard.
Further, I do not consider the fact that people were yelling Iraq delenda est as meaning that there was debate. How many of those pundits seriously and publicly entertained the possibility of no connection or hammered the idea that our best knowledge (from all sources not related to Chalabi or Feith) was that there was no such connection.