Will the war in Iraq lead to reduced terrorism?

Great Debates
41

Sorry to assume about the Telegraph. It’s my understanding (I’m a Merkin too) that it’s something like the Fox News of Britain. Saying that Basra is not under British “control” is totally different than your original statement that Basra is fighting back hard. Your original statement makes it sound as if there is massive resistance in the city, lots of soldiers fighting the British; hell by saying that the city itself is fighting back, you make it sound as if there’s been a civilian uprising against the British, when in fact the only civilian uprising is against the Ba’ath. I cannot imagine that a city where the army was fighting back hard would be safe enough for thousands of civilians to pour into the streets, singing the praises of those the army was fighting back against. So, no, my cites do not bear out your claim that “Basra is fighting back hard.”

If you think this is difficult, I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on Normandy 1941.

42

The PLPF is even recognized by Amnesty International as being an active terrorist org- including just last year- which regularly sets off bombs in Isreal. It has bases in Syria. There was an Iraqi VP meeting with them, and expressing support for their terrorist activities against Isreal. What more do you want- Saddam himself on tape saying he supports terrorism? But no- I guess that’d be “faked by the CIA” :rolleyes:

Next both sites mention terrorist groups which act mostly within or close to Iraq. You seem to concede this- but you dismiss them, as you blithely raise the bar now to “international terrorism”, where you first said “ANY OTHER terrorist group”. “International” or no, they are terrorists.

Finally, we have this direct quote from my first cite: “Iraq has also supported the Islamic Hamas movement, AND (emphasis mine) channeled money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers”. Now you’re going to say that Hamas isn’t “international”? Or Terrorists?

Even if all Saddam has done is write checks to the families of Hamas suicide bombers, that is certainly “supporting terrorism”. If you don’t think so, ask an Isreali. But he has done far more.

You’re the only one I know, outside of the Islamic supporters themselves- that believes that SH doesn’t suppot terrorism. It is without doubt. The doubt is whether or not he supported Al Quada.

43

So what? I agree that they are terrorists. However, the U.S. government does not provide information that theyt are based in Iraq–only that some of Hussein’s people spoke well of them. The State Department page appears to be an attempt to talk about inactive groups with members in Iraq and other groups that are not in Iraq in the same paragraph, thereby leading to false inferences (successful in manipulating you) of who is actually supported by Iraq.

The statement regarding support of Hamas is made in the past tense. I find no government site that indicates any Iraq/Hamas connection in recent years. I find vaguely worded propaganda less than persuasive.

You continue to put words in my mouth. I am willing to consider evidence because he is certainly not a nice guy, but you continue to wave propaganda pieces (articles that are actually contradicted by other government statements) and proclaim this stuff as things that “everyone knows.” Ever heard of the Big Lie? I would just like to see some evidence.

44

I’ve been listening to Rush Limbaugh during lunch for his war coverage these last two weeks or so (he’s doing a good job on the war coverage, and some of his editorial comments have been thought provoking.)

Today he made an interesting hypothesis which he credited to a third party (though I forge the name.)

They hypothesis is that if you pay any attention to history it is clear that force governs. Two years ago a large amount of force was weilded against America. Up until that moment terorrism had been force weilded without serious consequence. Countries were not invaded or destroyed over terorrists. The governing force in the mideast and to a degree elsewhere was terorrism.

Since 9/11 that is changing. Force is now being wielded proactively rather than reactively (if at all,) against terorrism.

We cannot help in our actions but to create a new force generated governing paradigm. Whether or not that is to be a good thing is yet to be determined, but it should signal a shifting of power from terorrist related activity.

I thought that was an interesting analysis.

Rush’s opinion went a little bit further, and I’ll take a liberty with it.

What will fill the gap vacated by the power of terorrism is America and rather specifically, George Bush.

He said that many in our country may consider him simple, or stupid, a bumbling cowboy or a figure of ridicule. He will almost certainly not be regarded that way in the Middle East. He has done something rather powerful. Not long ago he said that Iraq will disarm or we will disarm it… …and he made it stick. He made it happen. And, he did it in relatively short order.

Like it or not, Dubya has demonstrated pretty incontrovertably that when he says something is going to happen, it’s going to happen. His words now carry weight and force.

On the one hand this is a good thing. Much of the Mideast had considered that we were without heart, a paper tiger, that we were soft and spoiled and did not have the will to follow through (and perhaps they felt this way not without good reason.)

That myth has been dispelled.

We do however have to be very careful about what myth it gets replaced with.

45

And of course I met 1944 in my earlier post, not 1941.

46

You think maybe they’ll lower the terror alert level down to “green” for the Victory Celebration? Kinda lighten up on the security for the White House tours and stuff? Well, why not? Iraq is a big step in the War on Terror, is it not? Well, then doesn’t that mean that the lever of terror has, by definition, gone down?

I, for one, am basking in the security of knowing I am quite perfectly safe from Saddam’s atomic bomb, and from his intercontinental drone aircraft armed with super-anthrax bombs.

47

Hakim: How about that Bush, huh, Abdul?
Abdul: Gets attacked by 20 Saudis, so he invades Iraq?

By what stretch of the imagination might one believe that invading Iraq is a “proactive” response to terrorism? As has been exhaustively documented, the guys who were cooking up this dandy little war have been stirring the pot for 10 years now, long before 9/11 was a gleam in Osama’s gimlet eye.

Post 9/11 we had the sympathy and cooperation of the world. There were candlelight vigils in countrys that don’t like us!. We had a golden opportunity to advance international cooperation and mutual trust in persuing an enemy everybody could get on board against.

And we pissed it away to be tough guys. Like the hammer that sees all problems as nails, we are trying to bomb this problem out of existence. Makes about as much sense as launching an artillery barrage on an incoming tide.

48

Um, just to stake out my own little piece of turf here, I can’t figure out how someone could dispute SH’s former terrorist ties (former because he’s now a bit, shall we say, out of action).
The Iraqi people themselves appear to have saved the day for us with their overwhelming demonstrations of joy at their liberation. Makes finding WMD beside the point, and it I’m sure is making the Syrian regime especially, which once razed an entire city in order to rid itself of some opposition, extremely nervous.
I once asked whether some long term diplomatic good could come out of this seeming debacle. Scylla has it right; the long term diplomatic good is playing out on our TV screens even now, with even the folks at Al Jazeera stunned at the reaction of the Iraqis. This is a quote from their lead story on their site, which of course is, shall we say, cautious on declaring a U.S. victory ( http//:english.aljazeera.net):

I can only imagine what’s being said on the streets of the Arab cities at this time.
Could it be the Bushistas were right about their democratic domino theory? For now, it appears they are. I certainly hope so, as it would mean that this would indeed reduce the threat of terrorism.
The follow-through is going to be all-important, both with regard to the interim administration of Iraq and with regard to Syria, especially.

49

Even assuming that Middle Eastern media outlets (at least in many countries) let its citizens see these pictures of grateful Iraqis, I’m still not seeing how it’ll reduce anti-American hatred or reduce terrorism one whit.

For one thing, why should fanatics (and many even many non-fanatics) care? In their view, this was still an illegal invasion by a Great Satanic country bent on conquering their region, taking their oil, and converting them to Christianity. How does the footage change that?

Secondly, their trust in us is already minimal. If so many people could think that we faked footage of 9/11, and that it didn’t really happen, why should they believe this?

And on the diplomatic front, it’s still the governments that make diplomacy, and we already know Saudi Arabia, for example, aids and abets terrorism. How does this make the situation any better? If anything, the two points I already made above help make it worse by giving those governments the popular support they need to fund more terrorism.

While there’s still the chance that the war won’t increase terrorism, I just don’t see how it’s going to decrease it one iota.

(I just wonder if people will still think the war is worth it when the first dirty bomb goes off in a major metropolitan area…)

50

Long term?

Does anyone remember the festivities at the fall of the Berlin Wall? How many of you have followed up on the “easy reconciliation” that followed it–and this in a country where the majority of the people and the majority of the money was already used to democratic principles and there were no ethnic or religious factions to contend with, where the economies on both sides of the border were solvent (although weak in the East) as opposed to being on the brink of disaster. (I heard a report, today, that the Iraqi oil income is already 90% allocated to the Oil For Food program and previous war reparations. Does anyone think that the country is going to magically mushroom into prosperity on 10% of its income when the estimates for rebuilding are in the tens of bllions of dollars? How long does good will last when people are stuck in poverty? (Look at Russia’s politics over the last ten years for an answwer.)

I’m sure that all the people we see rejoicing are, indeed, rejoicing. Baghdad has nearly 5 million people. I keep seeing pictures of hundreds of people in the streets. How many people are keeping their heads down and waiting to defy Bush when he attempts to impose his version of a democracy? How many are out rejoicing at the moment, but still want no part of a U.S. imposed puppet government?
(Mind you, I think the people who have claimed that the cheers are only because the populace wants to ingratiate themselves to the soldiers with guns are wrong. I would guess that most Iraqis definitely wanted to see Hussein and the Ba’ath party out.)

I am very glad that this has gone as well as it has. I really hope that the administration does not muck it up.

51

Oh, and to further show that cheering Iraqis isn’t some kind of magical diplomatic panacea, check out this CNN story. Just because we’re doing something the Middle East wanted doesn’t mean their suspicions about our motives vanish. In fact, a similar newspaper article I read pointed out that the fact that we rolled through so easily hurts Middle Eastern pride, since they couldn’t do it themselves. Now, this won’t necessarily make for more terrorists, but I think it just helps show that it’s foolish, or at least premature, to say that cheering Iraqis will make all their doubts and fears and suspicions suddenly go away.

52

Hardly. The number of Iraqis displaying such gratitude is relatively small compared to the overall population, and many of them are only saying ‘Thanks, but you can leave now’.

‘Small number’ is something that is easy to say when you haven’t lost anyone. Cluster bombing villages, as happened, is unlikely to invoke sympathies. As of yet, we do not even know how many people effectively will die. The hospitals are overcrowded and understocked, and being looted. And so far, there is precious little example of ‘excellent care’ from the allies except for a handful examples mostly by the British.

Attacking holy cities is your idea about respecting religion? A bunch of GIs barely avoided being lynched when they advanced on a holy site in Kerbela. Only putting on a friendly smile and retreating prevented the situation from going out of control.

Except that the US has already declared it intends to reap plenty of that oil in payment.

Hardly. Rather, the government will be seen as a US puppet, whether it is or not.

Hardly. Rather than strong horse, it will be seen as dick-swinging, heightening the desire to do some kicking in the naughty bits. I’d like to remind you that the 9/11 hijackers had precious little care about who the strong horse was and who was going to die.

53

Maybe so but these TV pictures no doubt went throughout the world. They can only help the US be more popular. Indicentally, note that Pipes deserves credit for predicting this reaction before the fact.

Americans have taken losses.

This charge interests me, because an anti-war friend of mine also mentioned “cluster-bombing” around a month ago. When challenged to back up the charge, she was unable to do so. I presume this is an untruth being spread by some anti-war parties. Could you please tell us where the cluster bombing story came from?

I have a great deal of sympathy for the Iraqi milatary casualties. Soldiers are still people. I would expect that many thousands of them are now being reated in Iraqi hospitals, which do indeed need more resources.

54

None for the Iraqi civilian casualties?

Sorry.

55

You’re only kidding yourself. Strong-arming the international community and bombing Iraq in a vain attempt to protect ourselves is only making the world revile us more.

56

British use of cluster bombs condemned

U.S., Britain Under Fire for Using Cluster Bombs

Conflict with Iraq: Cluster bombs ‘just like a minefield’

57

Thanks tomndebb for confirming that cluster bombs were not dropped on villages, as alleged, but only on military targets. (unless one considers the Iraqi sources credible.)

58

I’d hold off the warm fuzzy feelings until we get an independent report on Hilla. I hope we have not hit villages with cluster bombs, but since we insist on using them and no weapon is 100% accurate, I would not get too celebratory on the point, just yet.