It’s pretty clear at this point that Iraq does not have WMD and that WMD-related justifications for the war therefore have little credibility. Once it became apparent that WMD wouldn’t be turning up, the administration shifted gears a bit and started arguing that the brutality of Saddam Hussein’s regime was sufficient justification for invading and replacing the government. My question is, if liberating the Iraqi people had been the war’s justification from the beginning, would the war have more credibility today?
To put it another way, do we (as a nation or as people) have a moral responsibility to help the oppressed that supercedes the rights of state sovereignty?
Regardless of the answer to the previous question, would our actions be more credible if we were making more progress in Iraq?
“Look, Sadaam is more than disrespecting the war on terror: he is outright sabotaging the worlds’ efforts, by giving blood money to families of Palestinian suicide bombers, and giving outright moral support for al-Qaeda, if not financial. I say we put a boot up his butt to show him and others we mean business about leaning hard on countries supporting al-Qaeda and other terorist groups. If we don’t undertake this, the terrorists and their supporters wil think that our worldwide wrath is impotent.”
The war itself was wrong, morally and politically.
But aside from that, yes, it coud have been marketed much better. If my President and his team are going to take it upon themselves (and upon us, the nation that they ostensibly lead) to topple a sovereign nation’s current government, I expect them at an absolute minimum to finesse the international community into perceiving the act as conceivably excusable, as something other than an arrogant belligerency.
All through the late 60’s and early 70’s the world seemed practically blanketed in “Yankee Go Home” signs. A substantial portion of the earth’s folks seemed to view us as imperialist oppressors, destroyers, an Empire not remarkably less Evil than the USSR. But a lot of that was fading. I think maybe it was looking to political observers throughout the world that the United States had outgrown that naive “we are, by definition, On The Right Side” attitude and more of its own citizens and political leadership had developed a sensitivity to and consciousness of the possibility that a nation as powerful as ours could very well be guilty of throwing its weight around unjustly, and were accepting some measure of responsibility for standing against the possibility of that happening on our watch.
When the World Trade Center towers fell on 9/11/01, there were very few folks worldwide whose reaction was “Oh, good, Yankee Imperialist Jackbooted Thugs finally get some back, hooray!”. Almost everyone sympathized and cried for us.
If the terrorists hit us again in a comparably spectacular way, no one’s going to be saying “Everyone is an American today” and there will be loud cheers everywhere that people feel safe enough to cheer loudly.
This debacle has done us more damage than the CIA toppling of Allende, the Vietnam war, the propping up of the Shah of Iran, and our misbehaviors in El Salvador/Nicaragua put together, and I hold that asshole in the Oval Office personally responsible.
I think we caught both the international community and Saddam by surprise when we attacked. They probably both expected us to wait longer and try to rally for some support among other countries (and more of our own citizens). If we HAD waited longer and made the time of our attack more predictable, I believe the millions upon millions of dollars we found hidden away in Iraq would likely be in the hands of terrorists right now.
Iraq was relatively unprepared for the assault, and the official military and regime collapsed quickly. Things could have been much different had we teleported the attack and given them a chance to build-up arms.
As for the question in the OP, I definitely think we could have marketed the war better. Saddam’s multiple violations of the United Nations’ terms, his brutal dictatorship, our newfound dedication to fighting terrorism, and his various threats should have been sufficient to at least partially justify the war. Instead, the administration backed themselves into a corner by saying that Iraq had WMD’s in it’s posession. There’s almost no doubt in my mind that they were either funding or developing such weapons, but we gave them a good three months to clear up any trails. Using something that could be covered up so easily as the sole basis of our attack was short-sighted and foolish.
I’m not sure what you mean. Do you mean applying it at a personal level, disregarding the law for the sake of helping others? Or do you mean the government doing more to help the “oppressed” in our own country?
AHunter3, what, in your opinion, makes the war immoral? Would it have been more moral if the intent really had been to help the Iraqi people? If not, is it because obeying the law (respecting state sovereignty, in this case) is higher-priority than helping others? What if we were doing a much better job of improving the quality of life for the average Iraqi than we currently are?
I didn’t start this thread because I had a position I wanted to defend; rather, I’d like to hear some other viewpoints so I can begin to form my own. The war was clearly a horrendously bad move politically, but I’m stuck on the question of whether the possibility of helping the Iraqi people makes up for that at all. I don’t think we’re doing too good a job of helping anyone right now, but if we were, would it have been the right thing to do, despite political pressure to do nothing?
The great majority of the Arab world was firmly on the side of the US with regards to 9/11. I know it’s popular to think they’re all evil America-hating savages, but it’s not true.
No, it would have zero credibility. I hate to sound like a broken record, since this has been argued so many times, but unilateral invasions are expressly forbidden by the UN Charter, and regime change is NOT a valid justification for a unilateral invasion. I mean, if you think about it for just a second, there’s no other way it could be; if any nation could invade any other nation simply by declaring that their ruler is a tyrant, then we’d all have carte blanche to start wars any time we felt like it at a whim. No, the only internationally acceptable way to overthrow a tyrant would be via UN resolution. Some have argued that a previous decades-old UN resolution granted that authority, but the reasoning there is specious.
It’s obvious to all but the uber-partisan that the WMD angle was stressed precisely because the Bush Administration knew fully well what the UN Charter says. They HAD to use the WMD angle because regime change is not a valid justification. They are only trying to sell it in retrospect because that’s all they have now.
No. In fact, we have a moral responsibility NOT to. A world where the rule of law dictates that individual nations CANNOT just up and invade whoever they feel like would be far preferable to a world where that is allowed.
We will have more credibility when there isn’t so much contradictory information coming from multiple Bush Administration sources, when the Pentagon lists the names of the 10,000 women and men who have been wounded, sometimes critically, in non-combat situations in Iraq, when the Pentagon publishes a record on “enemy” dead, when the Prime Minister of Iraq doesn’t mispronounce the same words the same way the Bush mispronounces them, when our troops in Iraq know how long a tour of duty is going to be, and so on and so on…
What do you mean exactly with the word “credibility”?
Do you mean to say that there ever is something “credible” in invading a sovereign nation for no other reason then the wish to invade and occupy it because you want to get control over its natural resources for the benefit of your own nation’s economical future?
[quote]
Once it became apparent that WMD wouldn’t be turning up, the administration shifted gears a bit and started arguing that the brutality of Saddam Hussein’s regime was sufficient justification for invading and replacing the government.(/quote]
The “Saddam is evil” line was part of the rethoric all along. (The “He tried to kill my dad” line was the of all).
The thousands of dead Iraqi men, women and children are surely liberated from being terrorized by the “shock and awe” brought on them by the US Heros.
Where do you get the idea that the USA has any morality to rely on?
Invading and occupying sovereign nations is a standard for morality?
Killing thousands of citizens in a sovereign is a standard for morality?
Torturing cirvilians of an other nation is a standard for morality?
Abducting people from their homeland and locking them up like animals in cages with no charges, no trial, no acces to legal representation, violating the Geneva Convetions and International law is a standard for morality?
Founding and paying a terrorist organisation - known as the CIA - and using this terrorist organisation to interfere with the affairs of sovereign nations all over the world is a standard for morality?
Why do you think this so called morality of the USA is superior to the morality of other nations and other people?
Why do you think there would be any “responsibility” for the USA to impose its corrupt hypocritical “morality” on other nations and other people?
Is the USA some kind of Antichrist posing as God and thinking it gets away with it, or do I miss something?
Invading and occupying sovereign nations and murdering thousands of its citizens can not be made “credible” in no way and for no reason.
Salaam. A
Anyway, the only way that the administration’s credibility could have been salvaged was if they had listed whatever true motivation/justification they had for the Damn Fool War. Instead, they launched an obvious marketing campaign, milking the 9/11 sympathy, sorrow and anger for all it was worth. (Personally, I have a feeling that the true motives for the war were pretty vague in the first place.)
The “Iraq has WMD and will provide them to terrorists” angle was the only possible way to sell the war as some sort of pre-emptive self-defense, and self-defense is considered the only decent motive for warfare among a lot of people. Particularly in what Mr. Rumsfeld so tastefully labeled “Old Europe”. It was also the only way to tap into the US electorate’s fear and channel it into support for the war.
But as a justification, it lacked credibility. Where a lot of people (including myself) would have thought it possible that a limited WMD capability was still present in Iraq, the idea of Saddam Hussein letting terrorists get control of what would’ve been a strategic asset of the highest priority was rather silly.
I think you are naive if you believe Bush ‘shifted gears’ a bit after the war.
“A SECRET blueprint for US global domination reveals that President Bush and his cabinet were planning a premeditated attack on Iraq to secure ‘regime change’ even before he took power in January 2001.”
China has occupied Tibet for decades - has Bush called for the peaceful Buddhist population to get their freedom back?
Russia is engaged in a bitter violent struggle in Chechnya. (The latest appalling atrocity was the school children massacre.) Do you think Bush has got military plans ready to sort this region out?
Ethiopia and Eitrea have been fighting a stupid war over desert for years. Still no sign of US involvement.
“A senior United Nations humanitarian official warned today that without adequate funding the world body would not be able to meet the crisis festering in northern Uganda, where 1.6 million people have been displaced by the conflict with the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).
…
Only last week UNICEF said the continued kidnapping of youngsters by the LRA as soldiers and sex slaves remained a “cause for great distress.” Up to 12,000 children are estimated to have been abducted by the group since June 2002 alone”
I expect this appalling human catastrophe is constantly under consideration by Bush. Or not. :rolleyes:
Perhaps you will notice something all these situations have in common:
there’s no chance of tricking US voters that thinking Bush is pursuing the ‘War on Terror’
there’s no oil
So Bush is making ‘progress’ in Iraq.
US companies that contribute to the Republicans (Halliburton, Bechtel…) have got the oil contracts and the rebuilding money.
The US voters think Bush is strong on terrorism, because Saddam had ‘something to do with 9/11’.
You seem like a caring person. Why do you think Iraq had anything to do with morality?
I seen a number of people claim that, even if Iraq had been discovered to be holding large stockpiles of WMD, then Bush still lied.
So, no, with at least some people (especially on the SDMB) nothing whatever could justify Iraq in their eyes. There were even people who condemned the invasion of Afghanistan.
There is a certain class of person who is reflexively anti-American. Actually, that is probably reflexively anti-Bush - if Gore had been elected, and done everything Bush is doing, the opposition to the Iraqi invasion would have been much more muted. Similar to the reaction to Operation Wag the Dog in 1998.
I’ve just been feeling that this needs to be said.
What are my responsibilities if, I know I have something that is better than what you have and I want you to have it? Let’s say I have “Plan A” and you have “System G”. Now, I know that Plan A leads to a much better way of life than your System G. Also forget the fact that you believe the opposite to be true, because I’m morally right and your oppressed and I have bigger guns than you do. So I’m leading you into a Plan A situation whether you want it or not.
You do understand that you can’t give people what they don’t want you can only offer it to them. But what seems to be going on here is a case of well we know this is good for you so you’d better take your medicine. I mean grow up, if people don’t want what you’ve got why the f… try to force it upon them? Oh because it’s your moral responsibility.
Right!
Ever have a relative who lead a destructive life style? Did you learn that all you can really do to help them is to love them? Because you think it’s bad doesn’t mean everyone else agrees and if they do agree but still don’t want your help what them? Give them what they need with a bullet if that’s the only way they are going to understand?
Right! Shodan, I believe there are a lot more people who would have thought the war justified if there had of been WMD’s in Iraq. Hell I was 100% in support until I found out that some one lied about the whole thing. Now I had always thought that the office of the President of the United States of America would be filled by a person whose character would be a refelection of the nation. Now you’ve got a situation developing where plenty of people around the world keep seeing some snickering liar smiling and cracking jokes about finding WMD’s in all sorts of places, and you know what, people around the world are staring to believe a lying SOB is an absolute perfect reflection of the nation as a whole.
I marched against the war. I made the decision after a lot of soul-searching. I marched because there is documentary evidence, as well as a hell of a lot of hearsay, to suggest that the war was going to happen regardless of circumstances, and that 9/11 was a ‘convenient’ and rather lame pretext. Meanwhile in the UK, the 45 minute claim, the dodgy dossier, the crap about missiles threatening British tourists in Cyprus, were such transparent bellicose horse crap that Blair was obviously in thrall to a predetermined agenda.
If the second (or whateverth that the US government refers to) resolution had been adopted, then I would not have marched. Hell, I thought there’d be WMD found too. I felt the inspections and sanctions were containing them, and that continued inspection would have turned up confiscatable material. But the rush to attack, the screwing of the UN security council, and the misrepresentation of the French and German positions on a new resolution were the final straw.
I would have supported a war of regime change had Bush and Blair managed to persuade a truly multinational force - under joint, not US, leadership - to liberate the Iraqi people from a dictator, with reliance on manpower rather than technology - and a decent exit strategy. It’s not without precedent: East Timor shows that this sort of thing can happen under UN auspices.
It seems to me that if the Bush Administration was determined to take on Iraq, expropriate its oil resources and use the country as an American military and economic fire base in the Middle East then it would have been a real bad idea to say so.
By the same token justification based on saying that Saddam’s mouth was too big for his head and therefore needed to be slapped down would not have generated much support for the war or the authorization to use force in Congress and would have gotten a cool reception even among the allies the US managed to scrape together.
What was needed was an arguable proposition that Saddam and Iraq presented some sort of threat to the US. In the aftermath of 9/11 the scepticism about such a claim was reduced. In that atmosphere almost any information suggesting such a threat, even a conjectural threat, has considerable weight – even if that information was contradictory, questionable and unverified and coming from sources with a self interest. The country had been badly scared and was in a mood to shoot now and ask questions later. We are now in an ask questions mood but the shooting is still going on.
If the Bush Administration was intent on attacking Iraq for cynical and real politic objectives the grief and rage following 9/11 gave them the opening. Now however the Administration is reduced to defending the war on humanitarian grounds and insisting that Saddam was intent on doing America harm – some time, some place, some how. I doubt that the invasion would have happened if it was premised on Saddam as brutal dictator with ambitions. There needed to be some plausible claim that Iraq was a real threat to US security.