Ummmm, did I miss the part of the thread where Stinkpalm and Weirddave and their small-minded compatriots recanted the “neener neener neener” stuff? What with the WMDs not being WMDs after all, I mean?
Or did I blink and missed it?
You are the one insisting on using the unilateral term, which is wrong, and promoting the majority of “world” opinion while slamming the majority of US opinion as misinformed or whatever, and I’m supposed to just deal. OK.
But anyway, there was a lot of agreement within the Security Council on some basic facts: having to disarm Iraq, and that Saddam probably wouldn’t cooperate no matter what was on the table, and that getting rid of him might be necessary. It’s not like we suddenly decided to annex Canada - this has been ongoing. Then suddenly we had France saying in effect: nothing justifies military action. And: more time is needed for inspections. That’s good - give him more time not to cooperate without fear of interference? No, it’s not good, it’s an empty course of action, designed to please the folks back home. It does little to address what Blix is saying right in front of them - Iraq could do more to cooperate, patterns of deception, etc. Oh well. So the US and the UK went ahead with plan A to cries of “it’s illegal!” - when France’s influence particularly would have made it a unanimous vote, maybe, and thus “legal.” And “world opinion is against this!” when the UN approval would have obviously swayed that view.
So yes, I have a problem with what some people consider “diplomacy” and what I consider “bullshit” but I agree there’s no point in discussion. 200 Polish troops in the face of this is a strong vote of confidence, btw, which I appreciate.
Tee: “You are the one insisting on using the unilateral term, which is wrong, and promoting the majority of “world” opinion while slamming the majority of US opinion as misinformed or whatever, and I’m supposed to just deal. OK.”
Actually, I modified another poster’s use of the term unilateral–and I stand by that modfied use. And I’m not “slamming the majority of US opinion as misinformed or whatever.” I said that there’s plenty of dissent here in the States though, like most people, Americans will tend to rally around their president/troops in time of war. As to the administration’s misinformation with respect to 9/11: that has been well-documented on these boards.
" It’s not like we suddenly decided to annex Canada - this has been ongoing. Then suddenly we had France saying in effect: nothing justifies military action."
Incorrect. France had an offer on the table just days before the war which featured a timetable for disarmament and, failing that, force within 30-60 days.
“So the US and the UK went ahead with plan A to cries of “it’s illegal!” - when France’s influence particularly would have made it a unanimous vote, maybe, and thus “legal.””
Well, then perhaps the US and the UK should have averted such cries by accepting the compromise–or suggesting a different one. The Chileans also trying to broker a compromise, one that, IIRC, was supported by Mexico and a few other non-permanent members. A compromise would have been win-win, in my view. The war might have been delayed for a few months–perhaps averted entirely. But the gains for the US would have been enormous.
“So yes, I have a problem with what some people consider “diplomacy” and what I consider “bullshit” but I agree there’s no point in discussion.”
Well, to be honest, I have a problem with the selectivity of your memory on the facts at hand. Which, for me, is the main reason I don’t want to discuss it further.
Weirddave, thanks for your explanation. I didn’t feel ignored though (none of us has time to answer every single post).
Eater, my reply was partly serious–not just about your (funny) typo. I really don’t think pre-emptive striking–by that or any other name 
– is a sound policy. I think it’s a dangerous precedent.
Do you have a cite for this, please?
Tee, you’re ignoring the vetos from Russia and China, as well as the No votes from the non-permanent members who turned down the bribes. Why are you blaming France, other than for the fun of having a scapegoat?
Get your “in effect”'s right, too - they were all going to vote against a resolution making invasion automatic, not with a SC vote.
The “inspections” have certainly been more intensive since the start of the war, wouldn’t you say? What have they found so far? What fact leads one to conclude that continuing the UN inspections would have been an empty, feel-good gesture?
Or maybe they’re just not there in dangerous amounts and conditions. Maybe Saddam’s regime did not, after all, represent a direct threat to the US, and Bush was simply spinning/lying us into a war. Could you cope with that? Yet that is what the state of the facts as we have them points to, isn’t it?
And here’s how it would go. SH is given another 60 days, and on the 57th day he gives us some minor concession (U2 overflights, inspectors can use helicopters, etc), and then people say “gee look it’s working, we just need 60 more days now”. Repeat over 12 years. Is that so hard to grasp?
I almost wish Bush had said “ok, fuck that, you got 30 days, thats it, no debate”, just to shut everyone the fuck up.
Look at South Africa, Saddam could have avoided the whole thing by taking a page out of that book.
**
I agree, it’s dangerous, and I’m against it, but it appears to be a reality of the 21st century.
You said earlier: “It’s not immaterial if what you are arguing is consistancy in U.S. foreign policy.” I replied: “I wasn’t.” So the answer there is No.
What I’m arguing is not consistency, but prioritizing - because there are only so many major goals you’re likely to be able to move the world on at all.
In my view, it’s not a matter of doing B as well as A to be consistent, so much as being aware that if you do A first, you might never get to B. That’s fine if B is less important or urgent than A, but if not, then you’ve screwed up.
I don’t know, and even Human Rights Watch can’t be very specific about the extent of human rights abuses in NK due to the closed nature of the society. But torture and killing for political reasons happens there. As does widespread starvation.
See above.
No, I’m quite cognizant of that, thanks. ‘Consistency’ is a sign you’ve hung on me, rather than something I’ve been arguing here.
Well then I’m still not understanding your arguement. To go back to the cop on the beat analogy. The cop arrested one criminal. You seem to be saying “But you should have arrested the other guy!” Maybe. What I don’t understand is your insistance that “If you didn’t arrest the other guy, then you shouldn’t have arrested anybody”.
That’s because I’m not saying that. I’m saying, “if you didn’t try to intervene in the knifing, then you blew it, whether you get the guy in the B&E or not.”
I think if we had all the resources in the world, and the international community had the time and energy to deal with several issues of this magnitude every year, then dealing with Saddam wouldn’t be a waste of time - because we could deal with him and the proliferation problem both.
But we’re not going to, at least not very well. We’ve already gone into full-court press mode over Iraq, and if we want to try to rally the world over nukes generally and/or North Korea particularly, it’s going to be hard to do that very fast; nations have their own problems and issues to deal with, and we’ve already used up a good deal of the attention they’re willing to pay to our issues in a short time.
And we can’t go it alone with North Korea. To get leverage on NK, however we approach this, we’ll need to bring China around, no matter how grudgingly. And to do that, we’ll need a broad base of support around the world. To say we’ve hurt ourselves there is an understatement, but even if we’d gathered as successful a coalition against Iraq as Daddy Bush did in 1991, the world would still be slower to rally to our side for a second big cause in one year. That’s just the way it is.
No. I didn’t bring up in the narrow focus of this thread that Saddam has been at war with us for well over a decade, common knowledge. His choice. Saying the things he says to his people in speeches and calling for jihad (fact), being involved so publicly in another country’s conflict (Palestinian bombers - fact), firing on our airplanes (fact), slaughtering those within his country who dissent (fact), continuing to amass weapons whether or not they were WMD and despite humanitarian crises in the population. Still a member of good standing in the international community though, apparently because calling for death to America raises no eyebrows anymore. Those issues I believe has been singularly ignored by the UN because…why, again? Because he’s not bothering anyone? Mind you I don’t care what makes Bush happy, I just wanted to see a regime change. I do, to this day, believe that had France agreed that there was a need for a hard line against Iraq we would have seen a regime change but not necessarily a war.
Why France? Probably because China and Russia may not have approved, but they weren’t saying they would veto either. They might have abstained. The French opposed any measure “authorizing the use of force” so I question just what the 30-60 day thing was about. Remarks here from 3/14.
Now I see your point, but the reason it dosen’t resonate with me is that I personally don’t think there is a thing we can do against NK. They have nukes, they don’t depend on trade for their economy, their leader is a meglomanic and I can’t think of a single thing we could do that would persuade China to abandon NK in our favor. China wants NK occuping the U.S.’ attention. If Saddam had dropped dead of a stroke last year and the Iraqi people had created a true western style democracy and elected Ralph Nadar president, if Osama hadn’t attacked on 9/11, if NK was saber ratteling loudly…we STILL couldn’t do much against them.
So, to refine your analogy, what we have is the cop and one guy breaking and entering and another standing there with a knife. The guy with the knife might cause more problems down the road, but for the moment the B&E needs to be dealt with.
Not that I would ever credit the Bush administration to think of this, but perhaps since NK is the more obvious, clear cut problem, squandering most of our good will on Iraq was a better move?
The world seems far move divided over Iraq, not NK.
Cop analogy:
Drunk driver gets DUI, gets probation. Breaks probation. Cops don’t arrest him. Breaks probation. Cops don’t arrest him. New prosecutor comes into office. Tells cops to lock him up or he will make a citizens arrest to protect the people on the streets.
I know it’s flawed, but I read Tars that
.
Well the years of political inconsistancy were the years between the end of GW1 and the present. If we had more vigorously prosecuted the breeches of UN resolutions by Iraq earlier, maybe this thing wouldn’t have come to such a head. I think 12 years of “more DUIs” should have been plenty, no?
And as to the “neer neer neers”. There will be plenty either way.
If some WMD had found their way onto US soil, it would have been “Bush did nothing to stop this NEER NEER NEER”. Oh wait…that already happened.
Now if WMD find their way onto US soil…“Bush caused this NEER NEER NEER”.
It’s a lose-lose situation, but it would appear that the terrorists of the world already hated us, had already declared war on the US. The fact that we were going to make some more of them mad was unavoidable IMO.
I still think back to the speech Bush the Younger made in the aftermath of 9-11. We will go after terrorists and we will go after the countries who harbor them. Didn’t really sound like he was trying to make friends with the terrorists.
Must have missed the UN SC telling him he couldn’t do that.
Must have missed the people telling him that these terrorists* hadn’t actually committed any acts of terror, and to go after them would be an unprecedented pre-emptive strike against terrorism.
Is Saddam a terrorist? Israel was so perturbed about his French nuclear reactors they blew them up. Sure…he sits on more energy than just about any leader in the world. He needed nuclear energy.
Will all the so-called WMDs turn out to be fertilizer?? You bet. Just like those reactors were for power.
Would he have used them on the US?? Probably not. Just hand them off to som jihad-crazed extremists and set back and grin. The Godfather doesn’t pull the trigger.
*Terrorists yet to be named, not the 9-11 variety.
Since withholding the truth is the same as a lie, I will reveal the following message revealed to me in a private message from Stinkpalm:
I made a mistake, but I don’t dare admit it. Why oh why did I say “neener neener neener”? I try not to be an asshole, but can’t seem to help it. Do people think I’m stupid, or merely lacking in intelligence? I’m so ashamed. Please forgive me…
A fitting end to this thread (I wish).
Well, while people will say that email, IM, BBS postings etc are in the public domain (and I agree), posting a private message from another member strikes me as being petty and assholish.
Especially since the only reason for the posting seems to be to belittle the poster.
I am glad this doesn’t happen much here. I can find many members posts on other MB’s, but I wouldn’t use them for attacks here. Just seems chickenshit to me.
Ok, I got whooshed…never mind
I find it interesting–but not at all surprising–that so many people are unaware of the French offer. It was reported in, I think, two articles in the New York Times (one of which may have been an AP article). And neither of those was given headline status. I wouldn’t be surprised if it hadn’t been mentioned at all on some of the networks. Considering that just prior to the war a majority of Americans were still hoping for UN support, I think that’s pretty telling.
In any case I can’t actually provide a link for you b/c the story is now archived and you’ll have to pay a couple of bucks to read it. But if you want to it was published on 3/17 and the headline was “France Seeks Compromise to Prevent UN Rupture.”
To be precise Tee, the French opposed any second resolution to be offered that Friday (just prior to the war’s begininning) which would authorize the use force. The French position was never that they would not, under any circumstances, use force. (Here the French differed from the Germans who simply opposed war, seemingly under any circumstances, but who were not threatening to veto anything that might France might agree to, so far as I know.) The French persistently said they wanted to give the inspections more time, exhaust all possiblities for peaceful disarmament prior to war as a last resort. Originally they were open-ended about how long that deadline might be but the 3/17 compromise specifically proposed a timetable for disarmament and, if its terms were not men, would involve the use of force within 30 or 60 days. I don’t know the details of what would trigger the 30 or 60 days, or what would constitute disarmament, or how force was defined, because none of these things were reported in detail. But it was a timetable for disarmament–are you listening World Eater?–which means that a certain deadline is given after which a specified consequence (here force) would be faced.
Bear in mind too that this was a compromise put on the table in the 11th hour. The US could have gone to the negotiating table to iron out any details it wished. IMO had Bush gone ahead with this approach and hammered out a compromise it would have been thought a great foreign policy coup for him. But instead it refused even to consider. Bush was, IIRC, already “summiting” with himself and Blair and had made up his mind. As I said before, he had his eye on the weather and didn’t–and still doesn’t–care about world opinion anyway.
Can someone post a link to the articles showing that the missiles were not infact WMD? You know, the ones I was talking about back on FUCKING PAGE 2 when I said, and I quote:
I think it is funny how eveyrone in this thread is focusing on the barrels of Sarin and totally ignoring the FUCKING MISSILES.
The shit about the barrels doesn’t suprise me. I never said anything specific about them so stop acting like I did you fucking toolbox.
Can I get a cite for where I ever said “neener neener neener”. If you can’t produce one, I suggest you retract your statement that I did, otherwise I’m going to have to wonder if you’re making a habbit of atributing things to me that I never said.
Now you bring up an interesting point with Frances’ 11th hour proposal. There are a couple of reasons why I think it didn’t work. First, I think that a competent diplomat, which Bush certainly isn’t, would never have gotten to that point. A UN resolution authorizing force should have been on the table, ratified and in place by the beginning of this year. Bush, with his instutional arrogance couldn’t achieve that and we all know what happened. What I think is often overlooked in all of this is that France failed miserably at reading the situation as well, it’s own diplomacy was hardly any better. France forgot that they were dealing with the Shrub and not Slick Willie. When Bush put forth that he was going to go eventually, with or without the UN’s approval, he meant that, and I don’t think France believed him. ( I am dealing specifically with France here, Germany, Russia and China had/have different motivations ) France assumed that they could go about business as usual, the causes of which are rooted deeply in the French psyche. France has always has a Gallic arrogance.( Many of you are going to put this down to France bashing, it’s not. It’s an analysis of some of the attitudes of the French government and culture. All cultures have them, rooted in their history. We Americans can be as arrogant as anyone, witness how our Government has gone about this whole diplomacy thing. Ours tends to be unfettered, because we have succeeded in becoming the only Super Power of the 21st century and have been lucky enough that nothing has seriously threatened our country in centuries. Germans have a great deal of pride as well, theirs is tempered by the fact that the Third Reich committed horrible atrocities. Britain did rule much of the world at one point, they manage to draw back from that while still exerting a great deal of influence in their former colonies. Russia has been invaded and bled repeatedly over the centuries, they have a need for absolute security mixed with almost a century of Communist rule where the attitude was that they would eventually triumph over capitalism and rule the world. Knowing where countries and cultures come from is key to understanding where they are coming from when dealing with them. Anyhow, back to France) They believe that they are the industrial, cultural and political heart of a Europe which should follow their lead. Unfortunately, they haven’t been terribly successful in the political and military arena for the last couple of hundred years. The French Revolution, so promising at the start, degraded into torture and backstabbing, Napoleon rescued them from this and catapulted them to within a frog’s hair of total domination of Eurasia ( he had his setbacks along the way, not many people remember that he abandoned an army in the Middle East early on. Ahh, the Mid-East, graveyard of Western Imperialism ) , but was eventually defeated by Wellington. They were quite simply bitch slapped by Germany in the 1870s, and their eventual victory in WWI bled them white. They entered WWII with an army larger than Germany and a fortified border that was never breached, only overwhelmed from behind because they neglected to plug a big hole in it(!!), that’s where the Germans came through. Honestly, they couldn’t have done worse on the battlefield in WWII if McClellan had been their commander. After the war, France was granted equal status in the UN with China, Great Britain, The Soviet Union and The United States, even though they hadn’t earned it on the battlefield. ( I am NOT denigrating the valor and sacrifices made by the French resistance, but can anyone tell me that they would have freed France from Germany without England, the U.S and the U.S.S.R. with a straight face?) They picked up where they left off, trying to reestablish the old fashioned colonial system in Indonesia, a system that was being abandoned by everyone except The Soviet Union. That didn’t turn out too well either, while at home the realities of Cold War brinkmanship let to a Western Europe where a resurgent West Germany, coupled with a multitude of strong, independent states made them merely first among equals, not unquestionably dominant.
My, I do run on, don’t I? That’s the problem when you get a historian going. Anyhow, the point of this little history lesson is that France relates to the rest of the world with a burning need to occupy a position in the forefront of any international action, reaffirming for themselves their dominant position in world politics. Usually this isn’t a problem, what allies do is squabble among themselves to agree on a joint course of action. When you apply this to the current situation in Iraq, coupled with an industrial base that occupies a much more prominent position in determining foreign policy ( Remember, France is more socialist than The United States ), you get what happened: France opposes “unilateral” action by the US and the UK because they want more influence over what’s decided and a bigger slice of the pie for French companies. If they can derail the whole resolution to use force and at the same time have French companies profit, so much the better. ( Remember, French companies hold/held billions of Francs worth of contracts with SH’s regime )From their POV everything’s perfect. They would have checked the US and made a buck at the same time. I don’t think that France ever doubted that this war would come, and that they would participate in the liberation of Iraq. They were simply trying to exert the maximum amount of control over the form that it would take.
The wildcard that they didn’t count on was Bush’s gunboat diplomacy. They were counting on business as usual, and Bush took his ball and went home. When they made that final proposal, I think it was with a sudden realization: “Holy shit, he’s actually going to do this without us! That’s not how the game is played! We gotta offer the US an olive branch!” It was a last minute bid to get involved again. Look at how they’ve reacted since the war started, now their cries are for multinational ( meaning “with French participation” ) cooperation in the rebuilding of Iraq.
Should Bush have taken them up on it? I won’t say yes, but I won’t say no, either. As I mentioned earlier, a competent diplomat would have brought the French to that point much earlier in the game. On one hand, doing this with full UN support would have been the proper way to go about it. On the other, The United States was bearing the brunt of the cost of forward deployment of it’s forces and the political fallout at home. These things cost France nothing. We’ve been through 12 years of SH stonewalling, what’s to say the French wouldn’t have pointed to cosmetic offers by Iraq as an excuse to delay for another month or two or ten? That’s an option that Bush could not, with his worldview, embrace.
In any event, I see this war as inevitable. Full US cooperation with the UN would simply have meant that SH would have X more months or years to continue to terrorize the Iraqi people. It was coming one way or the other. The pressing issue now is what happens after, and that’s something I have little confidence in. My greatest fear is that the war hawks, emboldened by our success here, will push for war on Iran or Syria or North Korea. That’s something I can not, and will not, support without extremely compelling evidence in it’s favor.