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Sebastian, I could agree with some of your argument if I felt that the goal of Al Queda, Hamas, the PLO, or any of the other Islamists terrorists organizations was to shape U.S. foreign policy. I feel their goal much broder than that, and has been entrenched into the “Arab Street” by a concerted thirty year effort through the religion, education, and healthcare social systems. Take them at their word, read the charter of Hamas (linked) or the most recent statements by UBL. See how they use schools, hospitals, and social welfare systems to indoctrinate the next generation of “jihad”. The goal is not to shape U.S. foreign policy, but to end our society. That is, after they remove the Zionists from Palestine.

It is interesting to note that not one of these events involved Iraq. So why is Iraq now the “Frontline in the war on terror”?

I agree that their ultimate goal is to destroy our society. Their medium term goal is to convince us to leave the Middle East alone long enough for them to persue their ultimate goal.

Al, I think you may be ignoring my mention of the 1991 Gulf War and you might be ignoring Saddam’s massive funding of the Palestinian terrorists.

Sebastian, it is so easy to forget the benefit of hindsight. During that chronological history provided, it was not known, and perhaps it could not be known, that all those attacks by differing organizations claiming responsibility had a common thread, ( a point which is still debateable) nor the influence Al-Queda had in these often seemingly unrelated events.

One of the great mistakes of historians is to judge the past by today’s information, biases, and conclusions which did not exist in the period of history being discussed.

I am confused by your last paragraph. Are you postulating that a lack of military action against Arabs and Arab nations from 1979 to 2000, presumeably a result of doves in the WhiteHouse and Congress are responsible for 9/11 for their lack of action? Pre-emptive war is a radical American concept and while History may judge it appropriate in Iraq, I am convinced such action prior to 9/11 would have resulted in revolt by the rest of the world as well as the majority of the population here at home.

I am judging the effect of our actions. They may or may not have seemed good ideas at the time, but that is irrelevant to the argument. Their effect was to embolden our enemies. The reason this effect occurred was because of the social characteristics of Arab societies which I mention.

“Pre-emptive war is a radical American concept and while History may judge it appropriate in Iraq, I am convinced such action prior to 9/11 would have resulted in revolt by the rest of the world as well as the majority of the population here at home.”

This sentence makes the same mistake you think I have made. Even if you are correct about the internal US reaction to such a war, that is a completely independent question from whether or not it would have restrained the terrorist organizations. The American public was almost certainly not in the mood to take action before 9-11. But that doesn’t address the question of whether or not it would have been effective. I suspect it would have been quite effective, but politically not possible.

Now that it is politically possible, we might as well start doing it.

Sebastian, I agree with your positions stated above from a logical position. But the implication left by your arguments follows the implication of stating that if Hitler had won WWII, we would likely have a whole lot more order and compliance with the law (dictates) of Hitler and his successors. Martial law is a great way to preserve order but it is hardly an appropriate way for societies to live if those societies believe in personal freedom from excesses of government power.

You state that now that it is politically possible, we might as well start doing it. Perhaps, if the means, ends, and consequences are justified. To restrain the terrorists and lose support of the international community, seems not to justify the ends nor the consequences. Just to be clear, the invasion of Afghanistan saw most the international community on our side. The invasion of Iraq, was the reverse.

However, as I read current news and commentary regarding Bush’s approach to Korea, Iran, and Syria, it is beginning to appear the President has learned something from the reaction to his Invasion of Iraq and he is changing his approach to the war on terrorists and the nations that host the threat of terrorism. This may restore some confidence in Americans who had doubts about Bush’s Iraq invasion.

But the implication left by your arguments follows the implication of stating that if Hitler had won WWII, we would likely have a whole lot more order and compliance with the law (dictates) of Hitler and his successors.

Moral relativism at its best.

When you make that statement the underlying assumption is the following: there are two value systems — Hitler’s and ours. These two value systems are on an equal footing. We have no right to judge which of the two is better/superior/just.

If in fact you do make a moral choice to support one of the two value systems, and indeed believe that it is the morally superior one, then you will understand the basis of its actions.

Sooner or later, you have to make a choice.

I made a choice in 1965, that choice is for peace unless all other measures to stop aggression leaves no other option, Vivek. The moral relativism so commonplace today is, we do this, and because we are on the side of right, we cannot err, and thus all that we do is right and correct. Now that is moral relativism and can be found on both sides of the political equation and at the heart of every imperialist nation in the history of mankind.

The Spanish Inquisition and the Hitlerian regime come to mind, as religious and secular examples. Doing great harm (war) can only be justified as a means of ending even greater harm and then, and only then, if all other options have been expended. The hawks in the Whitehouse completely fail this test of moral certainty.

Defensive postures are best, at least when one makes sure the response is swift, hard, and devastating. Let no one think they can strike us with impunity. That way, even if they feel capable, and are capable, they will nonetheless be deterred.

The key is not to answer outrageous behavior with outrageous, but instead to make it clear to those who obviously harbor terrorists that a first strike on us by state sponsored or harbored terrorists will be seen as an act of war, and that all who support it tacitly will have to entertain the nightmarish thought of the weight of American military power avalanching upon them coming down the trail of a terrorist who attacked us. What’s more, it’s a supportable doctrine, one which answers what is tantamount to an act of war with the real threat of war.

I believe that the current war, pre-emptive as it was, made the the problems of inadequate proof worse by putting a weight on the evidence that otherwise would not be there. If it weren’t for the fact that we struck first, we would never have had to face the questions of what happened to the WMDs and terrorist plots, and lose so much face over it. Next time, lets wait until they’re stupid enough to attack us or one of our allies. And lets make it clear that if some terrorist chucks a chemical or biological weapon at us, we might just consider a nuclear response to their host country.

Let them fear the wrath of a democracy awakened.

We can err, but you will not ever convince me that ridding the world of Saddam was an error, nor will you convince me that France would have ever gone along with us doing it. All other measures had been exhausted, but no action was going to be forthcoming from most quarters. So we acted. And I see no reason to apologize.

Sebastian, I agree that the removing of Saddam or any cruel and inhumane dictator can only be regarded as a positive and good event. I only disagree with the timing and costs involved. I am convinced Saddam could have been removed at a later time and in a manner that could have minimized costs to American life, limb, and capital. But, I have only speculation to support my position and your position has only his removal to defend the costs.

Ultimately, I see no resolution that would permit us to agree on some empirical proof that one view is correct and the other not. Such is the nature of the human mind capable of weighting and premising conclusions differently.

The question, and the problem posed by Saddam’s removal in the manner it occured is, whether we should continue in the same manner removing all leaders in all nations of Africa, Europe, Asia and the Americas who are cruel, despotic, and constitute a potential threat at some point in time to their neighboring countries or the U.S.?

That is a debate worth having and one that must take place as the elections approach, in my mind.

I guess I just don’t understand what you are proposing could have removed Saddam via the international process. We did everything the world community was willing to do, and more for 11 years and Saddam’s grip got stronger. What was going to change? What would you have done that had not already been done?

I would have preferred my government pursued and demanded the U.N. back up its resolution for inspections, and if rebuffed in any way by Hussein, press our allies and the U.N. for a joint military enforcement of the resolutions. If the concern over WMD or illicit materials crossing the borders constituted a threat, I believe we have the technology to have monitored much of that traffic and accumulate evidence to present to the security council.

I would like to have seen credible and verifiable evidence of imminent threat, credible evidence that WMD existed, much in the same way that JFK obtained photos of missiles in Cuba and presented that evidence to the U.N. I was a skeptic from the beginning that Hussein had WMD since I believed Hussein was a survivor and to have retained WMD in the face of inspections or invasion would have justified the inspectors and invaders and villified himself.

It was not in his self-interest to have maintained WMD, and he was a man who clearly acted out of self interest. It was just not obvious that he would have kept them in light of all the pressure that was bearing down on him. It was also not obvious without hard evidence to most of the U.N. representatives.

So, in short, I would have wanted Bush to wait for a large multinational force in which we provided sea and air power and less than half of the land forces, or, I would have wanted Bush to present his convincing evidence first, and then invade based on that convincing evidence, instead of invading first, and the rooting around to find the evidence. This is a democracy supposedly where evidence is obtained first, and then justice administered, not the other way around.

And I won’t accept that nation building and bringing democracy to the Iraqi people was the primary reason for invading Iraq. It was not the main justification the President and his staff used to convince the Congress and the American people to invade. If that had been his primary reason, I doubt Congress, and I am pretty dog gone sure the majority of the American people would not have back the expense in tax dollars, federal deficit, national debt, and loss of American lives for those those reasons.

Removing Saddam is only a good thing as long as the manner of removal doesn’t cause more harm than good. One can commit all kinds of errors in trying to do the right thing, and we should be conscious that there are circumstances in which the bad ideas and actions overwhelm our good intentions.

“It is interesting to note that not one of these events involved Iraq. So why is Iraq now the “Frontline in the war on terror”?”

This is probably semantics, but a number of the attacks in Beirut are generally attributed to Abu Nidal, Saddam’s personal terrorist. Interestingly enough, Nidal was taken out by Saddam’s thugs about 2 years ago, they claimed it was suicide except for one problem- there were 2 gunshot wounds to his head.

Why does Saddam shoot his personal terrorist?

Probably so they don’t tell things that could be embarassing.

The only problem with that is that if they were in a good relationship, they could have just tipped him off and let him scram out of there. Shooting him indicates there was no such understanding.

After Stephen’s question I decided to take a further look at Nidal and Hussein’s relationship.

Nidal had been booted from Baghdad in the mid-80’s to ensure U.S. aid to Iraq in their fight against Iran. He was a big fan of the Baathists so he moved to Syria until 1987, when they booted him and the training camps he had set up. He then moved to the Bekka Valley in Lebanon until 1998 when he came back to Baghdad. At some point in that timeline, he also set up shop in Libya. Pretty much every website did say, however, that Nidal stayed away from attacking Western targets after the late 80s.

I’m not saying this is what happened, but here’s an interesting article from August 2002 regarding his death:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/08/25/wnidal25.xml

Remember, this isn’t just a war between the US and Islamic fundamentalists. The US has a broad coalition of support because Western civilization is under attack. And the conflict between the West and parts of the Arab world started far longer than 20 years ago. Aggressive imperialism was clearly part of the initial problem. Hopefully it’ll be part of the solution too.

Nidal was hanging out in Baghdad, and you don’t just hang out there unless there was a relationship with Saddam. You can be his friend (or even relative) one day and his enemy/departed the next. That’s how Saddam is (soon to be was).

The invasion of Iraq is a logical and necessary step in “fixing the problem” of Islamic Extremism, and we are already seeing the positive results. The fall of Hamas might well be the turning point one day.

George, the news I am reading indicates Iraq has become a bit of a magnet for Islamist fundamentalists, and other news indicates the attacks in Iraq are primarily coming from Iraqi citizens and former Baathist’s.

In either case, Islamist fundamentalism is growing larger, not smaller from what I am reading with recruitments up, bin Laden still rallying, and the latest news implies we are hardly making a dent in the terrorist financial network.

News is attacks are now more frequent, casualties up, since the capture of Hussein, two attempts have been made on Pakistan’s head of state’s life, and Americans are spending themselves ever deeper and deeper into future tax increases called the National Debt just about at 7 Trillion Dollars. Bush’s 2005 budget was just announced in the NY Times coming in at about 450 Billion, that is almost another 1/2 trillion dollars debt in just one year.

I just don’t see the defensibility of the comment that Iraq was a necessary step in fixing Islamist extremism. Now all the terrorists have to do is increase their chatter to cause the U.S. to increase its tax spending in defensive buildup, halt corporate activity like airline flights. They don’t even have to strike anymore, they just say Boo! and we jump, spend more, posture defensively, and take extraordinary measures to defend against chatter.

This does not sound to me like we are winning anything, sounds to me like they are winning on a shoestring while we spend 100’s of billions reacting and attacking in places where the Boo! is not coming from.

The goal of terrorism is to frighten and while the American people in Times Square showed a total and heroic disregard for terrorist tactics on New Year’s Eve, our government leaders are reacting like rabbits, jumping and scrambling, with each episode of sudden and increased “chatter” coming from the bushes or behind a tree.

Looks to me like the terrorists have us right where they want us and we helped them, by choosing to allocate our 100’s of billions of dollars (before long to be 1,000 billion), our military and our focus on a place in Iraq, where the chatter that scares our leaders so much isn’t even coming from. It would almost be as funny as the keystone cops, if it were not so tragic in its consequences.

David. I certainly do not share your quite pessimistic view of the situation. I feel there has been significant progress made on a variety of fronts. We have removed a quite dangerous dictator who required us to spend billions of dollars protecting the home of terrorism (Saudi Arabia). The Royal Family is finally showing interest in meaningful reforms. We have leverage on Syria and Iran without having to rely on relations with brutal dictators. Pakistan and India have agreed to talks. We are putting significant pressure on the funding of terrorism, and have removed the rewards to suicide bombers courtesy of Uncle Saddam. Libya was a bonus. I think that the isolation of the PA, our show of determination to eradicate terrorism, and Israel’s unilateral problem solving (the fence) will force Arafat to risk his life and finally cut a deal on behalf of his people. Then maybe he will retire to his French mansion funded from years of American relief to Pallestine.

As for our government running scared, I say good for them. The tragedy of 9/11 should be avoided at all cost. If that means I get stripped searched on my way Liverpool next week then I’ll wear my best pair of boxers. These terrorist don’t just want to scare us David, they want to kill us, and as many as possible. There is no negotiation, and they are not bluffing. If they had a nuclear weapon right now it would be on its way to New York or Washington as we blog.

It is now time to stand firm and expose the lie that is radical Islam before it poisons another generation into believing that the way to God is to kill the infidels. This must stop now, and I am glad we have a President who is strong enough to stand firm.

George, I have no quibble on the President’s intention to stamp out terrorism regardless of whom perpretrates it. But, stamping out terrorism is absolutely impossible without the bulk of the world’s nations willing to assist us in a unified effort, with rules of engagement and rules of cooperation that will eliminate suspicions that the U.S. has hidden agendas which the war on terrorism is masking.

It is with the President’s methodology that has raised so much suspicion and questions as to his intent and motives that I criticize.

“We have removed a quite dangerous dictator who required us to spend billions of dollars protecting the home of terrorism (Saudi Arabia).”

I don’t seem to understand the comment above. If the home of terrorism is Saudi Arabia, then why did we spend billions of dollars protecting it? And why didn’t we invade Saudi Arabia instead of Iraq? I must be missing something in the translation.

Running scared is nothing less than a win for the terrorists and a reward for their methodology since fear and ineffective draining of our resources is their goal. We need leaders, not unwitting marianettes who bounce each time the “chatter” string is pulled. But, it is too early to tell if terrorism is being helped by this administration’s efforts or reduced.

These issues are not resolved in months, but, in years. Given the increases in the number of terrorist attacks in Afghanistan and Iraq of late, though, it gives me cause for concern and a definite desire to seek new leadership in November.

Exactly David, why did we have forces protecting Saudi Arabia? Well it was because the stability of the region depended on it, based upon a dictator who fired Scud-B missiles into their cities back in 1992 and who was hell bent on expanding his borders. As long as Saddam was in power, the threat against his neighbors was real and Iraq had to be contained. But this containment has its costs, one of which was that we ended up protecting the very people who ended up killing over 3,000 people in just a couple of hours.

Your argument is similar to the one The Nation makes on the U.S. “nurturing” Saddam during the 1980s. We had to ally our selves with a brutal dictator in order to pursue a course of containment against Iran. Or that we worked with the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, and we are still assisting Pakistan. And on and on and on.

The point is that to pursue a strategy of containment in this part of the world depends on dealing with some rather bad people, as that’s about all that is over there. And that’ why containment hasn’t worked; you stop one evil at the rescue of another. Without stability in the Middle East there is no oil, and the world economy, especially the Europeans would likely collapse. We can not allow this to happen

The problem has definitely risen to the level that it is time to start “fixing the problem” that is the Middle East. No other nation has the capability or the resolve to lead on this issue, and if that means we go it alone (well us and UK, Japan, Australia, Poland, and the 40 odd other countries) then so be it. But it must get done; the last thirty years of history certainly tells us there is no longer an alternative.

We should never have gone after Saddam this way. If we did not have information proving him to be the kind of threat Bush alleged him to be, we should have passed over Iraq in favor of more intensive administration and clearance of Afghanistan.

We should not be fighting unprovoked wars. We can defend Afghanistan, because in essence the attack on 9/11 was an act of war by proxy. Al-Quaeda was obviously camped within their borders, they obviously knew what Osama was up to. There is no such defense for Iraq, because it was all mostly speculation. There was no smoking gun, no definitive evidence of Saddam doing the same sort of War-by-proxy.

We should be able to demonstrate the rightness of whatever actions we take. Good intentions pave the road to hell if one is not careful.

“Good intentions pave the road to hell if one is not careful.”

We aren’t talking about socialism on this thread. ;)

It can be any system, along any dichotomy you choose. All you need is the unwillingness to compensate for the limits of one’s knowledge and perceptions, coupled with an unwillingness to acknowledge or perceive mistakes.

You may say, “but he’s not making any mistakes.” but you and I both know they’re fully capable. Bush and his underlings have made serious mistakes in the war. If they don’t acknowledge those mistakes, they may become a cancer on whatever victories we achieve.

I should start off by saying that I would characterize myself as a liberal, but I’m “slumming” over here on the Right. I have to admit that I’m really surprised to find such diverse, thoughtful discussions of the Iraq War (not all, but many). However, George, I can’t quite understand why you believe the invasion of Iraq to be a good start on “fixing” Islamic Extremism. Although Saddam was a ruthless dictator (do you think liberals think otherwise?), Saddam’s administration was (relatively) secular. If Bush wanted to fight Islamic Extremism, it’s hard to reconcile invading Iraq and simultaneously being buddies with the Saudis. It’s a disconnect.

I think Islamic Extremism takes many forms. Most Arabs have problems with Israel. (Some groups extend their problems to the U.S., its chief ally. But often it’s just Israel.) I don’t know what the solution is for Israel/Palestine, but it would be difficult for Palestinians not to have a problem. The British gave land (that wasn’t theirs to give) to establish a Jewish homeland (and make the Allied nations feel better about the Holocaust).

On a somewhat different topic (though I hope you see its relevance later), do you know who Mossadegh was? He was prime minister of Iran during early 1950’s. He “threatened” to nationalize the oil industry (in order to get more favorable contract rates w/ British and U.S. oil companies). The U.S. (CIA) got rid of him (coup) and brought back the Shah (our guy in Iran). Years later, Iranians rebelled, and we ended up w/ the Ayatollah Khomeini. The CIA actually has a term for this — it’s called “blowback.”

As a final note, George, don’t you find it to be just a bit ironic that the U.S. (via the CIA) trained and funded the mujahadeen in Afghanistan (who were fighting the big, bad Soviets)? I’m sure you realize that the mujahadeen morphed into Al Qaeda (the ultimate “blowback”).

George,

“The US has a broad coalition of support because Western civilization is under attack. And the conflict between the West and parts of the Arab world started far longer than 20 years ago. Aggressive imperialism was clearly part of the initial problem. Hopefully it’ll be part of the solution too.”

WHAT???

Bush does not have a “broad coalition of support”. He has ensured support from a number of -mostly irrelevant- governments eager to reap up benefits from the US later on.

My own Government (Spain’s) supported Mr Bush even though over 90% of the population was against the invasion. A recent European-wide poll showed an alarming result: most Europeans think Israel and the US are a threat to world peace (more so than North Korea or Iran…). In Spain and Italy, the US came up first, congratulations! In Britain, it was second to Israel. And these are Bush’s allies…

That is what Mr Bush has accomplished with his reckless warmongering.

And, come on, WE STARTED THE WAR with the Arab world by placing Israel in their midst. This is OUR FAULT, not theirs. WE have created all those radical groups, by unconditionally supporting Israel and their own Arab corrupt elites. It’s so easy to picture the world as a Good Guys / Bad Guys game. But that’s not what the world is like.

And frankly, can aggressive imperialism be considered a solution to anything at all?

Regards,

German, Madrid, Spain

British tried it, look where it got them? You can hardly find the sun on the British Empire anymore, given the fog and all.