I have heard everyones debates and opinions about the war in Iraq. Some say it was wrong of Bush et al, some say it was justified. Everyone has there own opinion on it.
What I want to know is this though;
If what Bush et al did was so wrong, then what would you have done, knowing the facts as they are now. What I mean is, knowing about the mass graves, the torture chambers, the celebrating Iraqis, and all the rest, knowing all of that, what is your opinion on what should have been done in the first place. Should we have allowed SH and friends to exist ad infinitum, or should we have placed more sanctions on them, or should we have sent snipers to take him out, or what. This is more pointed to the Bush Bahsers and friends who think the war was unjust. PLEASE do not bring WMD’s into the debate, as I have heard enough about them lately and since we are talking hypothetically, there is no reason to even bring them up.
So, what would you have done different? Would you be ok with doing nothing knowing the truth about what was going on? Would your concieous allow you to sit back and do nothing about SH knowing how he treated and killed his people?
a) do nothing, which would mean continuing traditional American policy towards evil dictators and their horrid mistreatment of their people; or
b) make my first incursions against evil despotic dictatorships in places where by no reasonable stretch of the imagination did our country have a self-serving interest, even of the most hypothetical nature, and, once having toppled the evil dictator du jour, would assemble an international coalition to help rebuild and orchestrate democratic elections
AND in the case of b), I would be very open about the fact that I was invading because Nation X was a cruel dictatorship in which its own civilians were being horribly mistreated.
Frankly, I don’t think there’s any way of going with option B. The world as a whole has no reason to respect my judgment or that of the US as a nation. Well, then there’s option C, but it takes an actual attention span and a vision:
c) I would leverage my nation’s economic and military hegemony over the course of several years so as to pick off from positions of stratetic importance any UN leadership personnel whose politics I found reprehensible, and carefully stack the important positions with people whose political thinking was acceptable to the US, then I would throw all of the political and economic weight of the US behind a global campaign to surrender national military sovereignty to the UN as the global new world order, on behalf of peace and stability and worlwide democracy and a real end to terrorism.
Then, 15-20 years later, the UN, in its role as world government, plays option b.
WOW! Man, I find that very interesting. You would be willing to give up US soverignty (sp?) to the a geopolitical organization that has Libya as it Human Rights head, and may not ever again have the US in its best interest?
Slanting the OP quite a bit there, aren’t you, MegaDave? Because I certainly don’t remember the Bushistas gnashing their teeth and wailing about the atrocities in Iraq two years ago, five years ago, or ten years ago. Heck, I don’t see any of those folks gnashing their teeth and wailing about the atrocities that are currently going on in other nations around the world, either. All this blustering over “those po’ Iraqis” only started popping up when those stockpiles if WMDs didn’t.
Now, if I really and sincerely wanted to turn the United States into a champion of human rights worldwide, I’d start off by cleaning up our own messes, and then try to work multilaterally with the rest of the world (coughahemUnitedNations*cough) towards getting some new policies with teeth in place. But that would require (1) lots of time and (2) lots of diplomacy, neither of which would be conductive to the kind of gung-ho full-on invasion which you apparently still covet.
First, nothing I have said should indicate that I covet some gung-ho full-on invasion.
Second, no, I am not slanting the op. You are able to use the information that we now have to make an informed decision. Though I hate to show my complete hand to anyone, I was at some point thinking along the lines that Bush did not have that conveinince (sp?).
But, you are basically saying that since we cannot solve all of the worlds problems, then we should not try to solve ANY of the worlds problems.
The UN may have its imperfections but it is the best hope for international peace and cooperation and disqualifying the UN on the grounds that it has something you don’t like is like disqualifying the entire US government on the grounds that some cops killed a guy who pointed a cell phone at them.
The US should always work within the framework of the UN which is the best hope for international cooperation. Becoming a rogue nation is not what the US should do.
So, the UN could not do anything about Iraq, and every single resolution it ever produced was ignored completly by Iraq, which would prompt a new resolution, which would be ignored, which would prompt… you see where I am going.
So if the UN is so great, what have they done in say the last 10 years that did not involve MAJOR cooperation by the US (to the point where we pretty much did most of the work).
If I were the US president, I would be by necessity looking after US requirements, exclusive to any others. So Iraq would have to be taken over in order to control Middle Eastern Oil supplies.
I would ensure that Iraq had WMD before attacking them (they would be supplied by the US through secure channels if necessary), if that was somehow impossible, then such WMD could easily be planted after the attack was in full swing. This would allow the taking over of Iraqs oil supplies and production with the minimum of international difficulty. It would also be ‘proven’ that Hans Blicks (sp?) was being duped by the old Iraqi regime, or maybe was in their pay. This would lead to calls for a stronger WMD detection role for the UN, which would be supplied primarily from US and US allies and would be required to investigate Lybia and Iran (I don’t see much point in taking over North Korea). Once sufficient ‘evidence’ is gathered against Lybia and Iran, a change in their governments to more democratic (I mean pro USA) parties will be made unavoidable. There would be a big show of ceacking down on terrorism in the region, but the terrorist organisations would be left intact as they are an ideal source for reasons to suppress or attack other nations. Weakness shown by the UN in dealing with the Iraq situation would be used in order to strengthen the UN and remove descenting voices (France off the veto, replaced by Japan) and otherwise increasing UN’s accountability to the ‘free world’ (US allies).
OK so I would be an evil bastard President, but you get the idea I think.
If Bush is so bad/evil why havn’t WMD’s turned up?
I would support him. Move to have the UN sanctions dropped. Fully aid social programs and education and see to it that he could protect himself against the likes of Iran and Israel. Work with the Iraqi government to insure that Iraq becomes the Islamic “Israel” of the Middle East. By doing so, it would improve our image in the region and in the eyes of the Islamic world. It would also make the case to the Islamic world that Israel is not the only interest in the ME.
As for his human rights violations, I would not bother to lift a finger. Any action would become hypocritical before it was even thought of. Plus, after supporting and seeing implemented the various social programs, human rights violations would drop off due to increased standards of living and education. Happy people don’t need to be tortured and killed.
Did you dream up the op to practice defending your view?
Anyway, about the UN, how do you expect that the UN would have any power in the situation being that its most powerful member (the US) basically bailed on them? Not only bailed on them, but blatantly ignored them.
I am not saying that Bush was behind this forsaking, being that Clinton also refused to pay our debt to the UN, but of course, we still kept out veto power. Maybe the UN should put forth new rules that state, you don’t pay, you don’t play, but oh sucks, we would veto that one too.
The reason why the UN did not work in the Iraq situation is because we (the US) did not want it to work. If it did work, we would not be in Iraq now.
For one, I would have increased the number of inspectors, and back them up with the threat of military action. This could have two results. One, Iraq would be swarming with inspectors, ensuring that no WMDs got produced, and perhaps cutting Saddam’s authority enough for a coup. Or, he could reject a fully supported UN resolution (which he never did in the final days) which would allow for a UN backed invasion.
If the real story were repression (which it isn’t) I would put this to the American people. Would there be support for a war to topple a dictator, remembering that we’d have to be very clear on how to decide which dicators to invade and which not to invade? This would be a very different strategy from our’s today, and it is only right to make it explicit. I think this would not be supported, and Bush knew it, which was one of the reasons he lied. I don’t know what the real reason for the invasion was, but if it was human rights, I wonder when the first troops will arrive in the Congo.
Very simple: Wait out the inspectors while supporting them with the threat of force. That worked quite well betwen December and March, during which time UNSCOM had virtually no complaints about Iraqi cooperation.
If the inspectors turn up Bad Shit, assemble a coalition, acquire Security Council authorization, and let loose the dogs of war. If the inspectors turn up nothing, renew and reinforce the moratorium on selling Iraq the means to create Bad Shit, then let the international sanctions expire, conditioned on some sort of wink-wink human rights concessions. Then just work to unilaterally undermine the regime just like we do with any other tinpot dictatorship that double-crosses us. Life goes on.
I might have waited the few extra months for the rest of the UNSC to get on board. I mean, they offered.
As to the efficacy of the UNSC resolutions every resolution that the US has decided to support and enforce has had some effect. Notably, the ones against Israel’s actions are left toothless. December was kind enough to provide a cite from the evidence that Iraq had illicit weapons programs that showed that Iraq was not willing to actually produce the illegal weapons until after the inspections were done and sanctions had been lifted.
The OP assumes there is only one right answer to a given problem and that answer is what the USA says and, so, if the USA does not get its way it is justified in using brute force against the rest of the world. I disagree with this. The ends do not justify the means internationally any more than they do nationally.
The OP is the international equivalent of justifying a coup d’etat when what you consider the only legitimate outcome is not what the political process is producing. It is barbaric and uncivilized whether the context is national or international.
Well, I’ll offer my opinion, as someone who is (and was) anti-War in Iraq. I’ll disagree with what rjung, a fellow anti-War guy, said – I think we should be the world’s policeman. I would have loved for Dubya to have said, “We’re not going to tolerate your murderous regime anymore, Saddam. We helped you get there, and it was our mistake, so now we’re going to fix it. Then, we’re cleaning up Rwanda, the Congo, North Korea, and so on. If you haven’t gotten your shit together by the time we get there, you can expect military action. Kim Jong II, if you want to start being nice to your people before we get there, alls the better. Diplomacy will always be the first option… but military action will be just as viable an option, if you spurn peace.”
I desperately want my President to be a Good Guy. I want my nation to use its resources, its clout, its diplomacy, and (if necessary) its military to benefit the vast majority of humanity. What I did not want was for my President to get up there and lie to me – tell me that Saddam presented a direct threat to me personally, based on what has been revealed to be bullshit and misinterpreted bullshit.
If I believed for one measly second that our Fearless Leader had the plight of the oppressed people as #1 Reason on his List of Doing Anything, I’d support him more whole-heartedly than december does. But he doesn’t. That’s just spin, MegaDave, and you swallowed it whole. You let your President lie to you, and then worse – you let him believe that he was moral, right, and good in doing so. Shame on you.
I´d would have aknowledged, supported and enforced the ICC; then sent Human Rights inspectors, dug some holes to find all the mass graves, trial Saddam and his regime for crimes against humanity… what? you dont want to come to the Hague? Off it goes the war machine to pick his sorry ass from wherever he´s hiding. And so forth with other regimes/dictators comminting crimes against humanity. Sooner or later any dictator-wannabe would realize that he wont get away with it; maybe then the world will be a better place.