The point of the whole inspections business was to try to stop a U.S. invasion. Nobody can take this whole charade seriously who has an ounce of sense, or who isn’t a snivelling coward afraid that Saddam is going to launch an anthrax bomb from his cave underneath Baghdad right into his front yard.
Please.
Basically, this seemed the only chance the world had to keep the U.S. and its lapdog the U.K. from invading Iraq. Although God knows why the existence of Iraqi WMD would justify a war, if no weapons are found it at least gives the world a chance to avoid a catastrophic war.
It’s funny that the only people who are afraid of Saddam are Iraqis and Americans. What is it? Are Americans just cowardly by nature?
A bit of friendly advice, one that one of my law professors made very clear to us: never, ever consent to a search.
That’ll be the one time that the guy who changed your tire a couple of weeks ago had a roach in his top pocket, and accidentally dropped it into your trunk when he bent over to lift your spare tire out of there. You can protest to your heart’s content that you didn’t know anything about it, but since you consented to the search, you’re screwed.
Or, that’ll be the one time that the cop who pulled you over has decided he doesn’t like your looks, or maybe wants to seize your car to boost his department’s budget, and will miraculously “find” a vial of crack under your jumper cables.
If the police have probable cause to search your trunk, they’re going to do so with or without your consent, but the burden of proof is on them to demonstrate that the search was constitutionally legit.
It’s not dumb, it’s your right. At least as I understand it. Although I should think a modicum of respect would certainly not harm things.
The whole problem with letting government agents (local, state, federal or international) look into every corner of our lives is that it’s a total gateway to spying. It simply can’t be justified on the grounds of “I’m not doing anything wrong, what have I got to hide?”. Iraq complained that the inspectors there in the late 1990s were engaged in espionage to help the US more effectively prosecute the ensuing bombing - a charge that was later verified. This administration’s pursuit at home of broader use of wiretaps and a reduction in legal requirements thereon, coupled with this ridiculous pattern of mass arrests of Muslim and Middle Eastern immigrants, secret trials, and all other sorts of skullduggery makes me even less inclined to consent to any sort of searches - at some point, a government agency and I are likely to disagree on an item or activity’s legality (and I’m not talking about marijuana use), and I harbor no illusions as to who would win in such a situation. Nixon had COINTELPRO back in the 70s; I don’t doubt Bush & Co. are trying to do the same thing now.
Chumpsky, I disagree with you when you say that the UN inspections are a measure to stave off war in Iraq. War is inevitable whether the inspectors find WoMD or not - Bush has already called up reservists and the total number of troops expected to go in will top 300,000 (including troops from countries besides the US). The UN inspections actually serve to add legitimacy to the war effort - if they do find WoMD (a scenario I think highly unlikely), the war will commence; if they don’t, the US will holler “Iraq is lying, the dirty sandnigger bastards!” and the war will commence.
I dont see what for. We have WoMD. Everyone knows that. Heck, we’re the only nation that has ever used them. What do you need to inspect the US for? We got them, we invented them, we make lots of them. We’re not hiding that fact from anyone. and we can account for every one of them.
Iraq is not supposed to have them. They say they dont have them but are buying uranium for them. The have lots of dual uses machinery to make medicine but have a severe shortage of medicine. They say they have nothing to hide during the last inspection but we have spy videos of trucks moving away from a site that was to be inspected.
Why do you think they made such a big deal about the Iraq declaration and the deadline. The inspectors are not the means to an end necessarily, as the media makes them out. The means to an end is that the world knows that Saddam had WMD. And that he has lied and is lying to us about what he did with them. If the inspectors find WMD we will not go directly to war. But we will tell Saddam to dissarm them or we will do it for him. But we also want to know what he did with his proverbial guns. The onus is upon him to start or stop the war. The inspectors are just a tool to help keep him honest. Cus I don’t think anyonne in the world (except maybe Chumpsky) even flirts with the idea that Saddam is telling the truth. The Idea is that he is already in breach because we know he has them but he will not dissarm. Until he does, and proves it, we are building up for war.
I will say this much, either Bush is playing the biggest bluff and bluster game that I have ever heard of to make Saddam comply, or Saddam is about to get a major ass whuppin’.
I also forgot to add that Iraq’s “paperwork” only showed stuff that was either recycled from old news or copied from past inspections. If you watch the news, all of the UNSC and the Inspectors pretty much agree that the declaration was not the information that they asked for. They pretty much just listed the stuff we knew they destroyed or what we destroyed ourselves after '91. It’s not just the US, the entire UNSC wants to know what he did with the stuff he has had since, and Iraq is just saying they have nothing else when we know they did and probably still do.
Cite please ? I’ve read plenty of spin on this, but not yet an impartial evalutation by an uninterested party. Very few countries, much less the press, even have access to the documents yet.
I do, actually. Not that I give him any credit, but rather that I don’t assume everything he says is a lie. The only real source I’ve had about his behavior is the American government and their media lapdogs - a source that has a vested interest in discrediting him.
Given the shaky grounds on which the first gulf war was initiated (I get the impression Iraq was pressured into invading Kuwait purposely to create a war), I don’t automatically trust or discount anything Saddam does.
The fact that everyone else automatically assumes that Saddam is lying, despite (generally) having no source of information besides the American government, only reinforces my distrust.
Sorry, I don’t mean to sound like Chumpsky - I’m pretty reasonable most of the time.
We’re all well-aware of that, but the stonewalling has, to all appearances, stopped completely. Hell, they’re even letting members of the press come in on the heels of the U.N. inspectors to have a look around.
There’s absolutely no doubt that the Iraqis did have all sorts of nasty weapons programs back in the 1990s, which is why they played cat-and-mouse for so many years. What seems to be completely absent right now is any concrete evidence that they still do. The U.S. administration keeps saying, “Trust us, we’ve got the goods on them,” but hasn’t been particularly forthcoming.
Personally, I find it hard to believe that a regime like Saddam’s could actually swear off WoMD - in fact, I think I’d bet that they still do have plenty of forbidden development programs going on. But if we go charging in there in the absence of any tangible evidence, half the Islamic world is going to apply for Al-Qaeda membership. Not a comforting thought. That’s what makes me nervous right now - our government seems to be awfully trigger-happy, and that could bring us to some real grief.
Not exactly true. The US didn’t pressure Saddam into invading Kuwait, but they certainly gave him the impression that they weren’t going to do anything if he did. April Glaspie was the US ambassador to Iraq in 1990, and in the summer of that year she sat down for an extended interview with Saddam Hussein, the transcript of which is reproduced here. Here’s the relevant text:
Sure, lip service is paid to the hope that the issue can be solved through negotiation using mediators of one stripe or another, but it’s hardly a firm statement against a military solution. Certainly a large enough loophole for the Iraqi army to crawl through. If Glaspie had been instructed by Baker to state explicitly “Don’t invade Kuwait” and done so, the US would probably have a better pretext for the Gulf War (not that I would have supported it under those circumstances, either). The actions against Iraq over the whole decade have been on the flimsiest of pretexts.
I also believe they pressured the usually meek Kuwaiti royal family into slant drilling and stealing Iraqi oil. When the American media pronounced that Saddam claimed that Kuwait was stealing their oil, they pretty much rolled their eyes and said ‘yeah right’, but he actually, to my knowledge, was telling the truth.
Also, the US supported Iraq during the latter half of the Iran-Iraq war and promised aid to rebuild in order to push Iraq into a more commited attack. Once Iraq did as we wished, and then requested their aid, we suddenly decided we couldn’t be allies with Iraq due to their use of chemical weapons (we didn’t care before, of course, and I’m not even sure if they actually did or not - I haven’t researched that indepedently).
US Policy towards the middle east in the 80s seemed to be geared towards grinding down every powerful military (except Israel, of course) with the intent of achieving regional military dominance. When Iraq became too strong, we manufactured a war against them.
If Olentzero and SenorBeef are still around, I would be interested in reading more about the supposed pressure by the US to “manufacture” a war in the middle ease last time around…
:sigh: Olentzero, could you at least note that the transcript was provided by the Iraqi government?
Could you also note that Glaspie has denounced the transcript as “a fabrication,” though she does acknowledge that a “great deal” of it was accurate?
Could you also please note that Tarik Aziz, then Prime Minister of Iraq, has affirmed that Glaspie did not give Iraq a green light, and that Iraq expected the US to be, at the least, pissed? (From the same link above) “She just listened and made general comments,” he told USA Today [in 1992]. “We knew the United States would have a strong reaction.”
Had I actually known she’d done so (and I’d love to see the document or transcript where she actually says that, instead of just a report that she did) I would have mentioned it. But if it’s a fabrication, how can it be accurate? It’s like saying “They’re liars, but they told the truth”. And which parts of the transcript does Glaspie claim are fabricated?
When, and only when, the US can conclusively prove that Glaspie never said
will I concede the point that no green light was given.
Perhaps Duck Duck Goose’s analogy works better if the person stopped by the police is out on parole for armed robbery, and his parole officer tells him to turn out his pockets to see if he is carrying drugs or weapons.
Iraq doesn’t have the legal or moral right to refuse the inspections, or to fail to co-operate with them fully.
Not sure who you might consider an uninterested party, but according to Hans Blix, who is chairman of the UNMOVIC,
The same page has the reaction of the US ambassador to the UN.
You are talking on the phone to your aunt. You tell her, “My next door neighbor keeps stealing the apples off the tree on the boundary.” She tells you, “I don’t know anything about that.” So you break into his house, shoot his wife, and steal his DVD player. When the police arrive, you claim it was OK because your aunt said it was fine to do what you did.
Come on. That’s like justifying the Bay of Pigs by saying, “The Swiss didn’t say we couldn’t!”
You missed the key words - Glaspie did not say it was accurate, but that a “great deal” of it was accurate.
Anyway, it’s an easy two-step process, and indeed pretty much necessary to create a plausible fabrication:
(1) take an actual transcript of the meeting;
(2) change a few key words or sentences.
90% of the transcript remains accurate, the other 10% is false. Hence a fabrication (it is not the actual transcript) in which a “great deal” is accurate.
This beggars belief. Tarik Fucking Aziz states that Glaspie did not give Iraq the green light, that she only made general comments, and that Iraq expected the US to have a strong response to the invasion, and that’s not good enough for you?!!
The #2 man in the Iraqi government did not think Glaspie gave Iraq the green light, but you want more?! Isn’t the question of whether a green light was given determined by whether the recipient believed they got a green light?!!
Unreal.
If, even after reconsidering Aziz’s statement, you still think review of Glaspie’s testimony is necessary, let me know and I’ll try to track it down.
So what the hell is a “strong response”? The removal of our Ambassador? Canceling Madonna’s Baghdad tour? Stamping our foot and declaring “tut tut!” in no uncertain terms?
Clearly, war is a “strong response”, being just about the strongest. Did Ms. Glaspie state such? Did she do her very best Bugs Bunny impression and say “Of course you realize, this means war!” No, of course not, if she had, she would have said so.
The language of diplomacy is a shifty thing, as it is the science of keeping options open. Nonetheless, when the consequences of an action are that drastic, that severe, it needs to be stated.
Absent such a statement, a warning of “strong response” is just so much smoke and mirrors.
