Well, maybe that is because he did. As has been explained to you in other threads to no avail, the whole train of reasoning we were fed was chock full of lies, deception, and poor logic. For example, the connections between Al Qaeda and Saddam, let alone 9/11 and Saddam. Or, the likelihood that Saddam would give WMDs to terrorists, contradicted by the CIA’s own analysis as well as simple logic.
In fact, many of us argued before the war that we would not be surprised if Saddam did have some WMD but that the case had not been made that this constituted a threat to us and could not be better dealt with by a combination of containment and inspections. The fact that no WMD stockpiles have been found is just “icing on the cake” for our point-of-view. It makes the whole deception by BushCo so blatant that it ought to make any intelligent person realize just how pathetic our justifications for the invasion were. But, some people seem to be beyond reason.
And, as some of us have noted, it is sure as hell lucky that Saddam didn’t have stockpiles of WMD since we apparently did such a poor job securing sites with nuclear materials and potential WMD sites that our invasion likely would have greatly increased the chance of WMDs falling into the hands of terrorists if said WMDs had existed.
The whole train of contortions one has to go through in order to justify the BushCo invasion, especially in light of the absence of WMD, is such that Bush has either totally rewritten history as in this quote from July 14, 2003:
Or, more recently (in this August 5, 2004 speech), he has been forced to acknowledge that actually the inspectors did go into Iraq but nonetheless still misleads and spins:
Okay, so ignoring for a moment whether this factual recounting has much basis in reality, I’d like to focus on that last sentence: What he seems to be saying is that Saddam deceived the inspectors in order to try to hide weapons that we thought he had but we are ow pretty much sure he didn’t have? That is one sneaky fellow we were up against…I mean, any run-of-the-mill dictator might try to hide his weapons that exist but only a really really sneaky one will try to hide his weapons that don’t exist!
No, you are misunderstanding it. He is simply saying that at the time Saddam was hiding what little capacity for creating weapons he still had. And that, again, at the time, this hiding activity was what we were afraid of. Specifically, if he had weapons this hiding activity made it very risky to continue the inspection regime. Simply ad another had in there and it might make more sense.
“Because he wanted to reconstitute a weapons program. He wanted to make sure he had the capacity to make weapons. And if he had had any, like we thought he did, he didn’t want anybody to find them.”
He is talking about the effort Saddam insisted on putting forth to prevent full and open disclosure.
The war would have been justified if Iraq posed an immediate threat to the US. It did not. No amount of marketing would have made it justified without the existence of that immediate threat.
I respectfully disagree. Take a step back and look at the question: justified to who?
Your position is correct in my view, providing your target ajudicators are the evidence-minded and critical folks of the SMDB.
However such folks are a negligble consideration in US politics. Why sweat and groan trying to reach them? Most of the electorate is neither sophisticated nor much interested in reasons. It is good enough for them that the US
was attacked; and
subsequently attacked somewhere else.
To that broad, immobile swathe of America this whole business of requiring carefully balanced reasons and consideration of the UN Charter is no more than further evidence of the biased Liberal Media our President must endure to protect our god given rights.
In fact, even in this I may crediting them with too much critical acumen. It is likely, that it was enough that our President, a christian, said so. End of question.
if there was an actual reason to invade, then perhaps we would’ve been justified. my impressions before the invasion was that saddam was an impotent loudmouth, trying to hang onto what little piece of wealth he had left. that was further cemented when we refused to let the inspections continue, once we found out they were able to continue freely.
an interesting thing about this quote from gwb:
it was actually american intelligence sending the inspectors on wild goose chases. bush’s statements don’t seem to be corroborated by the inspectors themselves, as noted here:
so, no matter what the reason given was, there was no reason to go to war, so it would never have been credible.
Well, I know your job on the SDMB is to be the chief interpreter for BushCo, converting their craziness into a plausible reality. But, I still argue you cannot make the logic of that sentence in the context of those before it make sense. Even your reconstructed sentence has problems. First off, it is a bizarre hypothetical. Maybe it is true that if he had had weapons, he would have done that…Certainly, it is plausible. However, I could also claim with equal validity that if he had had the weapons, he would have given them to the inspectors with wrapped in gift wrap from Tiffany’s. At any rate, this does not constitute an explanation for “Why?” “he was deceiving them.” You can make up all sort of explanations for why he would be doing this but explanations that rely on assuming things that apparently weren’t true are less convincing.
Really, the only way to reconstruct it to make sense is to argue that Bush was arguing that we surmised that the reason that he might be deceiving the inspectors is that he had weapons and was trying to hide them. This doesn’t seem to me to be particularly close to what he said but it at least has the virtue of making some logical sense. The reason I think he wanted to avoid saying this directly is that it admits that we were basing our supposition on beliefs that turned out to be false. And, then it opens up a whole can-of-worms in leading to the question, “Well, how was he deceiving the inspectors?” And, when you get right down to it, I think the most pronounced claim was that he was deceiving them by not showing them the weapons that we knew he had, which makes the reasoning sort of circular.
And, of course, this whole reckoning of events hides the fact that Hans Blix says that he was telling the Administration that their intelligence on WMDs didn’t seem to be panning out and that he would have to make this fact public. (I forget whether he did in fact do so in his final report before the war.) Of course, in the mind of the Administration engaged in circular reasoning, this was just taken as further evidence of how diabolically clever Saddam was being at hiding things from the inspectors.
Well, I think it would likely be in the hands of Saddam or his cronies or used to build one of his many ostentatious palaces. The thing that differentiates the SDMB from other message boards is that we are usually supposed to back up our beliefs with evidence or facts. Do you have evidence, for example, that the money to fund the 9/11 attacks traces back to Iraq or does it trace back to places like Saudi Arabia?
Last I checked, there was a period of about 3 or 4 years between when inspectors were last in and when they were in again. (And, in terms of arms that were not forbidden, there had been more than 10 years since the Iraq war.) What exactly were they waiting for?
And, you base this opinion on what exactly? Certainly if this had been the case, don’t you think we would have heard about it by now? After all, they have had the chance now to interview scientists that they wanted to interview back before the war, without threat of reprisal from Saddam.
As near as I can tell, your entire post is based on supposition that is baseless and for which you present no support whatsoever.
I don’t. I asked whether the war would have been more justifiable if it had been motivated by a legitimate desire to help others.
I agree completely that the war as it has been fought has been a needless waste of lives, resources, and international goodwill. I also agree that some kind of international framework (such as the UN) is necessary to promote stability. I suppose I just find it frustrating that sometimes the only acceptable course of action when dealing with a government that is a threat only to its own people is to wait it out and hope that things fix themselves.
I think part of the problem is that I asked two different things.
If the war had been marketed differently, would it have been more accepted?
If we had the capacity to improve the lives of others but would have to violate international law to do so, would it be the right thing to do?
The second question is hypothetical and ignores the reality of what has actually happened in Iraq. In other words, I’m not proposing that what happened at Abu Ghraib is justifiable as working towards a “greater good,” or that George Bush has the best interests of the Iraqi people in mind.
In fact, I think the problem with your question is that it is too hypothetical. I.e., I think one of the reasons why it is so hard to justify a war in such a case is that wars are such terrible things…which is why they should always be only the last resort in trying to do what you were suggesting.
And, that was partly what some of us were trying to argue beforehand when these humanitarian reasons were brought up. Admittedly, we did not foresee Abu Ghraib and just how horribly this operation would be done from a humanitarian perspective. But, we had an inkling that it wouldn’t turn out all that well.
Note also that it is hard enough to do good from a humanitarian perspective in a war even if that is your primary and overriding goal. When that is in fact not your primary goal, then I would argue that you are pretty much guaranteed not to have this work out very well…because, inevitably you will be forced to make decisions between that goal and the other goals. For example, true democracy in Iraq might not be very compatible with having a pliant U.S.-friendly state that is a strategic geopolitical ally and a reliable supply of cheap oil.
Whoa nelly. Equal validity? Surely you mean equally logical or equally syntactically correct. Are you actually arguing that Saddam was equally likely to give any WMD he may have had to naughty people as he was to give them to the US gift wrapped? I’m sure I have misunderstood you.
In hindsight, no. But again at the time, it did seem to be one of the reasons why he might be hiding his WMD programs. It is not nearly as circular as you like to claim. Because the argument is not that he was hiding weapons and that’s why he was hiding weapons. The argument was that he was hiding activities designed to allow him to develop WMD. And that he was doing this to hide those programs and that at the time we also thought he was hiding his programs in order to hide the weapos we thought he had.
Possibly. But the fact is that he was hiding programs which we needed him to reveal. Just because we were wrong about all of the programs he was hiding does not mean that none of them existed. Now, in your judgement the programs he was hiding were, in fact, not worth worrying about. Or at least not worth going to war over. That’s fair. Others may not have wanted to trust Saddam to that extent.
I know it does not seem to be close to what he said to you, that is why I suggested that you misunderstood.
Well, now who is attributing motives without evidence? Isn’t it much more simple to say that this is just the way he talks? I’m not sure why a lawyers comb has to be applied to each of the motives for each of the sentences he utters.
Again, no. He was decieving the inspectors by insisting on limitations on their activities and demanding concessions for thier perogatives. Once again, I assume it is your judgement that his demands were not unreasonable. Others disagree.
I’m sorry, you don’t understand what sort of threat Saddam Hussein with a nebulous WMD program posed? Come now, your just being obtuse.
I hate to think that my fellow countrymen are that gullible but events seem to be proving you right, sevastopo. Remember we also think the right beer, shampoo, mouthwash, underarm deodorant, tooth paste, toilet bowl cleaner or automobile can fix all the problems in our miserable and under achieving lives. I’m still looking for some product or ambitious politician who will promise me the head of hair I had during the Johnson Administration.
Right, I chose “validity” not “equal plausibility”. My point is that when you make a counterfactual statement (“If the moon were made of green cheese, then X”) then it is valid no matter what X is. I.e., since the first part is false, the second part can say anything and there is no way to say it is not true.
Well, actually, all that it has been claimed he was hiding was “WMD program-related activities,” whatever the hell that means. And, we didn’t have to trust him. We had him well-contained in various ways plus we had these very intrusive inspections going on. Plus, we didn’t really have any scenarios that the intelligence services deemed likely whereby the WMD that we thought he could have would pose a significant danger to us.
Fine…We can go back to that old phrase, “Mendacity or incompetence? We report, you decide.” It might be that he just speaks this way. But, I would note that this was apparently a prepared speech, not off-the-cuff remarks or an answer to a question. And, given Bush’s history on this, and his administration’s history, it is really hard to believe that there is no mendacity involved. I mean, take the quote I gave you from the summary of 2003…Do you think he really forgot that the inspectors actually were in Iraq? Or that he could really misspeak that severely. Of course, on other issues like taxes and the environment, we already know he and his administration have used deception as one of their major tools in selling the policies. (I say “one of the…” only to hedge my bets…I can’t think of a more major tool they’ve used.)
But, at any rate, I admit that we can’t rule out incompetence. Of course, we also can’t rule out that Saddam Hussein would have presented his WMDs to the inspectors in Tiffany gift wrap if he had had any to present.
I’m not saying that it wasn’t the inspector’s job to hold Saddam’s feet to the fire and try to get him to be as compliant as they could and to point out the ways in which they felt he was still holding out on them. But, the fact is that it took a lot of jumping to conclusions to claim that any lack of complete openness and compliance on Saddam’s part necessarily meant he was hiding any dramatic stuff. And, in fact, we now know it was wrong. He was probably hiding some rather little things…what is referred to as his “WMD-program-related activities” which, as near as I can tell, amounts to not completely burning his bridges on the eventuality of making some WMDs in the future but little else.
Well, yeah, I don’t really understand because a realistic case for the threat was never really presented to us, especially for the more difficult-to-detect chemical and biological programs. (The nuclear program was the one that they could ascertain with by far the most confidence.)
But, I will also remind you that your sentence was: “Specifically, if he had weapons this hiding activity made it very risky to continue the inspection regime.” And, here, I think the argument for riskiness is weak indeed. Perhaps there was a danger if we ended the inspections regime…and particularly if we then relaxed the sanctions on military or dual use equipment and such. But, as long as inspections were going on, I don’t see how there was any significant danger at all.
I mean, look, there are lots of dangers in the world. A couple hundred billion dollars would buy lots of protection from terrorists for us here at home. And, to look at something totally different, it would buy us a hell of a lot of protection against climate change, for example, a threat where it seems that the administration still believes things are so uncertain that it isn’t even worth making investments that would be very cheap…or maybe even pay for themselves…but would not make some of the GOP’s big campaign contributors very happy.
Instead, we have thrown this money down the sewer and have, I would argue, made us less safe at least so far…And, barring a major turnaround there, I think less safe period.
What would you think [hypothetically speaking] if the rest of the world made a preemptive strike against the USA? I would not support such an action - just as I didn’t support the war in Iraq.
But just think for a moment of how you would feel if the shoe was on the other foot?
This seems like an odd definition of ‘valid’. Are you really saying that anystatement which cannot be falsified is therefore valid? I can’t quite wrap my head around the possibility that you are.
But let’s return to the point for a second. If you are claiming that the logical validity of a belief that Saddam might give WMD to terrorists is equal to the logical validity of a belief that Saddam might give WMD to America in gift wrap, then I might ask you to define a few terms, but I can accept that. Unfortunately I’m not entirely sure I see the relevance. Surely you are not saying that no action by an administration is acceptable unless it is completely logically justified? What I’m asking is that you do recognize the necessity to base decisions on plausibility, right?
Three things to say here. 1st, WMD programs are simply activities or goods that Saddam was hiding which could have been used to help in reconstituting WMD development programs. 2nd, We did have to trust him. There was ample evidence that the inspections were continually finding things they did not expect. This in and of itself is evidence that Saddam was either hiding WMD assets or did not know he had them. In either case he presents a threat. 3rd the likelyhood of particular scenarios and the significance of particular dangers are value judgements. You may have been comfortable with what we knew about Saddam back in 2002. Others were not.
I love how you drop the middle with this old canard. Really, its endearing. The fact is, however, that what I was talking about was a value judgement. A given risk is only significant in relation to other risks you are willing to tollerate. It seems perfectly reasonable that you and I could disagree on the significance of a particular risk without either of us accusing the other of mendacity or incompetence.
I think he simply meant that Saddam was continuing to disrupt the inspecor’s efforts.
Ok, but now you go even beyond logical validity. You really do seem to be saying that it is equally plausible that Saddam would provide any WMDs to America in gift wrap. Your sure this is not a ‘not-lie’?
No, it doesn’t. Unless you are saying that the only reason you can see any justification at all would be missles on the pad ready to launch, it does not take any sort of leap at all to conclude that Saddam’s continued reluctance to cooperate fully and unreservedly is in and of itself a danger. You don’t have to postulate any large cache of weapons.
Well, this in and of itself seems like pretty dramatic stuff to me.
Really? you don’t understan at all what threat Saddam Hussein might have posed if he had some amount of WMD? I realize you want to turn this question back to the evidence for the existence of such WMD. That’s a fair criticism. But try and answer the question. If Saddam had WMD you really cannot see what threat he posed?
Ok, but then you have to answer how much military force would be needed to keep the inspectors working to your satisfaction. If the situation had reverted to the situation in 97 would you still be claiming that we should try inspections longer?
Yes, or even a lot of protection for us abroad.
This is part of the argument that I find odd. Are you guys (anyone who agrees please feel free to respond) really saying that putting Saddam back in power*, keeping large numbers of US troops in Saudi Arabia, continuing the regular attacks and counter atacks on and from Iraq, continuing the food for oil and other sanction programs, really would make us safer than we are today? I understand the notion that the Iraq war is a good recruiting tool for AQ. But I reject the notion that it is totally new. The inspection regime itself was a pretty good recruiting tool, no?
A different rationale would have made the war less credible, not more. At least in the only forums it mattered. On WMD*, and only on WMD, could the administration get authorization for the invasion of Iraq.
*with a side of terrorism
There you go again, Shodan. To be anti-Bush is to be anti-American in your view? I don’t know how old you are, but I see you as one of the old Viet Nam era “America - Love It Or Leave It” crowd. The message from you is “my way or the highway.” “True” Americans agree with you. Those who don’t agree are disloyal. Can you stick to the debate and offer some evidence, rather than villifying those who differ from you? You are entitled to your opinion, but please offer it as that, and not “the” American position.
IF. There’s no reason to believe that Gore would have done the same thing. Even if he did, I think the reaction at home would be as negative as it is now. BushsCo has managed to get over 1000 Americans killed, tens of thousands of Iraqis killed (at least some of whom were probably not terrorists :rolleyes: ), create far more Jihadists than existed before the war and make it more likely than ever that we will be attacked again in our own country. How less credible could Bush be?
Americans decide unilaterally to fight a successful war against tyranny. There is certainly help from allies such as Poland (whose contribution should not be ignored or denigrated), but the hard-won freedom is paid for mostly with American blood. The people, now free to determine their own destiny, appreciate that sacrifice and prove themselves worthy by defending their freedom against all who would threaten it.
Then two-hundred-plus years later, they invade and occupy a sovereign nation in an attempt to impose their own way of life on its people. (You see what I did there? I made you think I was talking about the war in Iraq, when I was really talking about the American Revolution! Admit it, I gotcha ya, didn’t I? Ain’t I a stinker?)
Anyway, the point is that Americans made the decision that they weren’t free enough, wanted to be more free, and fought a war of their own choice, spilling their own blood, and buying freedom for their posterity. Americans did it. So on a very deep level, Americans are invested in their freedom. We feel responsible for it. We want to deserve it.
Iraqis, on the other hand, had no choice in the matter. Americans decided Iraq had to be liberated. And Americans decided the appropriate price for Iraqis’ freedom was going to be some American blood, and a lot of Iraqi blood. Considering this, how closely do you think Iraqis identify with the government that’s rising up from the ashes of their country? Do they feel the same kind of pride Americans have felt for hundreds of years? Or do they feel like a people conquered by a foreign power?
In America, France, and other places around the world, people rose up and overthrew tyrannical governments, often at the cost of their own lives. Shouldn’t it have been the Iraqis’ responsibility to get the ball rolling on their own freedom? If they weren’t willing to die in large numbers to get rid of Saddam Hussein, why should we have been?
