Third Party & Independents: Archives

Let me take a shot at a couple of these:

1. “If we knew that very early in the Bush administration that a plan for the invasion of Iraq along with control over Iraqi oil was in the works would we have supported this war?” - Are people seriously bringing out this argument again? if we wanted Iraqi oil we could have lifted the sanctions, and had it for market rates that we are getting it at now, without all the expense of the war. What exactly does this “control” entail? Making sure it wasnt destroyed so that companies could buy it at market prices and the iraqis wouldnt have to waste money rebuilding the infrastructure? How siniter…

2. “Had we known then the truth that Bush had been hiding thousands of innocent Iraqis and hundreds of US soldiers would be alive today..” Do you honestly and truely think that Iraqis, as a group, are worse off because of our actions in Iraq? There are many reasons to oppose this war, but the wellfare of iraqis is hardly one of them, given who we knocked off…

3. “if you knew then what you know now about the cost of the Medicare drug benefit would you have supported it?”- I dont know any true conservatives who supported this deal when it was announced. The only onces who supported it where those who Bush has co-opted in his Clinton-esque cynical politics of issues and polls rather than principles. I dont think any so-called conservative who supported the biggest increase in medicare history would have stopped supporting it because it was even bigger. Those people were in Bush’s pocket already. I would like to point out that despite the huge-massive-incredibly large nature of the medicare bill, one which the AARP thought was big enough even before these new figures came out, democrats were STILL saying it wasnt enough and saying Bush had it in for seniors. This is really a strange day in American politics when so-called conservatives support the biggest medicare increase in history and so-called liberals try to block it…

Misha, the question is not whether they’re better off now. It’s whether they’ll stay that way. If we are unable to return sovereignty to Iraq and remove our forces without the nation collapsing on us, well, then, what good was this whole affair? If that goes, then it’s the last remnant of any redeeming value for this war. I won’t bore you with tedious repetition of the already evident deficits of Bush’s Case for war. Since Bush himself is admitting bad intelligence was at work (though little else), it’s more of a settled issue than ever.

The additional question is, who owns the oil. Who get the profits? If it’s American oil companies, then we don’t really have a defense against that charge, we only have spin.

As for the Medicare thing, it could be politics, but then again, the kind of Arthur Andersen accounting that is necessary to neglect over a hundred billion dollars in cost should be held up to comptempt no matter what the political party behind it is. I mean, we could probably fit the budgets of half the cabinet-level departments in our government in that accounting mistake!

It boggles the mind the way this administration spends money, especially a man from a party and a campaign that has time and time again ranted against government growth.

I hope that the next administration manages it’s finances by methods that don’t require appraisal during recreational drug use to make sense.

Misha, 10’s of thousands of chinese have disappeared into political prisons in China over the decades. Their regime is Communist, and their markets only tokenly free. Millions suffer from starvation. China threatens Taiwan, a Democratic state we have protected and done profitable business with for over 5 decades.

If the argument now touted as defense for invading Iraq are valid, why are they not valid for freeing the people of China? N. Korea? A dozen or so dictatorial African regimes?

Precisely because Americans do not, and would not, want to pay the price for such effort, that is why. Flynn is quite correct, had the arguments now used to defend Iraqi invasion based on humanitarian and democratic principles, and the cost of the war been revealed, Congress nor the people would have supported the invasion, for the same reason they would not now support invading N. Korea, China or the other places I mentioned. The Price to Americans is, was, and will be, too high.

The price I speak of is not just monetary, but also in international reputation and cooperation, and support, not to mention the personnel costs. Added together this price is too high to pay for the benefit of others when we have serious difficulties here at home that need addressing.

The price was not, isn’t, and will not be, too high to fight terrorism that directly threatens our security. Note however, the word directly. The only solution to end all potential terrorism now and in the future against the U.S. is global domination. A perspective Cheney implies by his public statements that this war on terrorism will take decades. That is double speak for world domination to the extent that we no longer have to fear people outside our borders. The eradication of that fear can only be found in a policy that establishes U.S. control over all the peoples who may at some point become a threat.

This is ‘1984’ stuff, through and through. Truth is we cannot and will not foot the bill for world domination.

David- The question was directed if I would still have supported the war if there were no WMDs- I thought they were, but I believed they possed no threat to us. Are we safer because Saddam is gone? Absolutely. Is that why I supported the war? Not at all. If we could take out china at the cost we took out Iraq, i would be COMPLETELY in support of that. Same with North Korea. The problem with that to take out china, it would take millions of lives, I believe. And to take out North Korea- who knows, after all, they already have nuclear weapons. And thats the thing- once a country already has weapons like that, we cant really do what we did with Iraq. Here was the situation: (1) he was a horrible dictator; (2) he did not have enough firepower to really make the war a bloodbath, as it would be with north korea and especially china; (3) he had directly breached agreements with us and numerous UN resolutions. Those were the three reasons i supported the war. I believe we have the moral right to take out dictators and thugs, prudence dictates if we do it any particular case. Given that Saddam was making us look like a joke my flouting agreements with us, throwing out weapon’s inspectors whenever he wanted, refusing to produce records of what he did with is elligal weapons stockpiles (dont forget, even France and Germany believed he had those weapons, based on their own intellegence- so you cant pretend Bush made this stuff up. Heck, even Clinton said he thought the weapons were there, and I doubt he likes Bush very much). I am really curious- do you guys really think Bush made up all the WMDs stuff to get oil? Do you honest beleive that? How could that possible be worth it for him politically, since he was extremely popular before teh war, and he had to know if no weapons were found it would look really bad for him, as it does now. He had to know that those clips would be played over and over again. And you can try to talk about how this proves he is a bad leader, cause he ended up being wrong, but there was no one who had knowledge of intelligence, even from our opponents, who were saying he did not have the weapons. I think what happend is that we had multiple reason for going to war, and most of them were pretty strong, and they were not pretextual, although I think Bush exagerated the centrality of WMDs in the final decision (i think the ultimate motive was to establish a democracy in the middle east- which I think is a rather noble goal). I personally didnt think the WMDs were a very reason because even if he had them, I didnt think they threatened us in any way, but to suggest that Bush made it up doesnt really make much sense given the political calculus.

I agree with you, and have always contended that the potential for WMD was there in Iraq. From before the war, however, it was clear to me that 1)Iraq’s WMD posed no near term threat to the U.S., and 2)it was unlikely that Hussein even kept the ones he once had.

I come from a background in psychology. Hussein had survived a host of threats during his reign in Iraq, which is why his personal security in Iraq screamed paranoia (look alikes everywhere, dozens of different residences and covert ways to move between them). Note also that this meant he was a shrewd paranoid, not a hallucinating schizophrenic paranoid out of touch with reality. Paranoids DO NOT take unnecessary risks, only calculated risks.

With the potential of WMD being discovered in Iraq by a host of means under the kind of scrutiny that was fostered by the U.S. and the U.N., and given that such discovery would be pretext for his removal, Hussein would logically not keep them around to be discovered. Being shrewd, he likely calculated that without direct evidence of WMD, invasion would not be tolerated by the International Community. A miscalculation, only in part, he was right about the international community.

If invasion took place, and WMD were not found, he was smart enough to have reasoned that all he had to do was hide out, until the absence of WMD was discovered, and then, he would not be murdered by the invading forces as such an act would only add to the discredit of the invaders in the eyes of the international community. Seriously, one only had to put themselves in his shoes prior to our invasion to realize based on his known historical past, that it was very unlikely that he would have kept the defense for his overthrow around for discovery either by satellite monitoring or by a greedy official willing to profit by the sale of the information outside Iraqi borders.

I am unsettled by those who argue from the position that the U.S. government is on high moral ground when it comes to judging other societies like China. Americans are the most self-absorbed biased people I know of on earth. We judge harshly China’s politburo decision to limit births to one child per family as abhorrent. Yet, in so doing, China insures that it will be able to more adequately feed the its population for decades out. My point is not to defend China’s actions in general or particular.

My point is that while judging evil other societies, our righteousness does not permit is to keep in mind at the same moment how decadent, and abusive, and intolerant, and uncaring the U.S. government is toward its own people. Black person’s being lynched for centuries and still today, the government allows the confederate flag to fly as a symbol that emboldens white’s to drag to death a blackman from behind a driven car. This government turned out its mentally ill to fend for themselves, homeless, disoriented, and incapable of self medicating themselves to health.

Our government refuses, despite being the wealthiest nation in the world, to provide health care to all its citizens, which is viewed by other societies as inexcuseable for such a wealthy nation.

And I could go on, but you get the point. We have no moral high ground based on being a more perfect government than others which are doing there very best to provide for, protect, and grow their own societies, as is the case with China. And yet, we act as if we do hold such high moral ground. To the peoples of France, Germany, China, and even Taiwan, this appears to be what it is, the height of arrogance and blindness to one’s own faults and misgivings.

I am not a Christian though I was raised a Methodist. I have been a Buddhist since 1969. But I will never forget some of the best of what Christianity taught, like, Judge not, lest ye be judged. And charity begins at home. And turn the other cheek, cast not the first stone, and blessed be the peacemakers. We are truly a nation of hypocrites and we elect individuals who cannot fathom how we appear to other peoples of the world, yet demand that the rest of the world follow our lead. It is truly an interesting time to be alive.

I appreciate all the well informed comments to this post. My goal here was not to necessarily debate the merits of the Iraq war or the Medicare drug benefit but to point out what I believe to be an alarming trend within the Bush Administration. How many times now have the American people (and the world) been presented with one set of facts during the decision making process only to be presented with a different and often contrary set of facts when all is said and done? This almost pathological deception by the Bush Administration stems from an arrogance bourn out of the idea that they are ruling by divine right. With such a mind set the Bush Administration feels justified in taking any action necessary to achieve their goals since they know best and when you have the will of God on your side the ends justify the means. The American people need to start realizing that in a democracy the ends almost never justify the means.

One side note on the whole issue of oil which is a pet peeve with me. For those of you that believe that this whole business in Iraq wasn’t just about oil from the get go I invite you to take a Saturday morning, pour yourself a nice hot cup of coffee, sit down at your computer, and on Google enter the search words “Iraq Oil Contracts”. You should have an interesting morning read. Make sure you page down to articles written before the Iraq war. In many ways those are the most interesting. As an example, check out the article written on November3, 2002 at the following link: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,825105,00.html At some point we have to accept the possibility that the urgency shown by the Bush Administration to invade Iraq was not because Saddam represented a threat but because Saddam didn’t. The UN inspectors where about to verify this and with sanctions lifted Bush and his oil buddies might have been left out in the cold.

Great post …. time and time again we see Bush re-writng history ….. Now he says he took the USA to war because Iraq had the capability to build weapons of mass desturction …. yet last year we went to war because of the immenent threat that the Iraqi’s weapons posed to the USA …. On the topic of 911 … immediately after that terrible day Bush & Ruce said they had no prior knowledge of any attacks … yet now the story is .. they had no knowledge of planes being used to attack biuldings … I.E they had knowedge of something before heading off on their Summer holidays ….. Rice refuses to terstify under oath and in public to the 911 commission, and Bush says he will not testify to the commision he has set up to look at the Iraqi iteligence …… Time to vote him out!

OK, let’s look at it this way:

Country A invades Country B on the basis of country B having weapons of mass destruction…

… Despite the fact that Country B’s GDP is less than 0,5% that of Country A.
… Despite the fact that Country B’s army was obliterated in a previous war.
… Despite the fact that a decade-long sanctions regime imposed by the UN had reduced Country B to complete poverty
… Despite the fact that the United Nations could not certify the existence of those WMD, and asked for more time for its inspectors to do their job
… Despite the fact that Country A DOES HAVE the biggest stockpile of WMD on the planet (!) Note: Country A, not B
… Despite the fact that Country A’s own intelligence reports contained a number of caveats and expressed doubt on their own reliability

And now, when it seems clear that those ready-to-deploy, menacing WMD have been finally found… to be bogus; that the decision to attack Iraq had been seriously considered even before the 9/11 attacks; that a despicable but unrelated terrorist attack on Country A was shamelessly used as an additional pretext for the invasion by citing improbable links between Country B and the terrorists, still unproved; that the President of Country A was caught lying about the whole issue more than once; and that in any case, it seemed obvious to everyone not watching FOX that such a destitute country (B, of course) could never be a menace to anyone anyway, no matter what the President of Country A said…

…I have the following questions:

1.- Why should anyone be surprised that the rest of the world is mad at Country A?

2.- Why are the citizens of Country A still slandering countries F anf G, which refused to play the farce?

3.- What does the President of Country A deserve?

a) Reelection, followed by b) four years and God knows how many “pre-emptive” strikes later

b) Peaceful retirement in his property South of Country A, enjoying lifetime favours from his friends, who profiteered from the invasion of Country B, which incidentally sits on lots of oil

c) Trial at The Hague for crimes against humanity

My advice: try substituting random country names for “Country A” and “Country B”. It’s a great game!

Note: Nice little town, The Hague is, Mr. President, you would just love it!

Regards,

Germán
Madrid, Spain

I am so dumbfounded- Whatever you think of the war, you think that a president who got rid of one of the most brutal tyrants of the second half of the 20th century deserves to go to the Hague for crimes against humanity? Also, I love how the same people who oppose the war so much also get all upsett about the sanctions. So lets see- you dont want sanctions or military action, right? So what do you want to do about a tyrant about Saddam who murders his own people- do you want to give him a hug? Put down your anti-Bush hatred glasses for a second and think about what options a statesman has when dealing with a rouge thug that flouts not only UN resolutions but all standards of humanity by repeatedly murdering his own people. You are against sanctions, you are against military actions- so what exactly are you for? I have yet to get a direct answer from anyone who holds that position, so I want someone on this board to give me one. Not what you would do about his weapons, but what you would do about the bloody regime he has. And, by the way, I dont remember a single country before the war saying that Saddam did not have weapons of mass destruction- they just said inspectors were the best way to stop him.

Mark Edwards, does it strike you odd, as it did me, that Bush did not want to extend the 9/11 Commission to complete its work, then under pressure, he responds to their request for two additional months (until July of this year) by granting them an extension into 2005 with the proviso that they release no findings until 2005?

What is he trying to hide from the electorate?

Dear Misha,

I am against sanctions? Wow, it’s now my turn to be dumbfounded! You got into my mind and read it or something? You must have read it backwards anyway, because I was and I am for sanctions. Actually I am for any MULTILATERAL action that is JUSTIFIED, including war. This little oilfield adventure of Mr Bush was neither. My so-called anti-Bush “hatred” STEMS from this despicable action of his and his schoolyard-bully neocon advisors. (Although I don’t like the rest of his record, either, I have to admit)

You seem to be so concerned about the terrible actions of THIS particular dictator that you seem to forget the terrible actions of those dictators INSTALLED in power by the US. Can you explain the double standard to me? By the way, the US happened to help this one too, and supported him all through his MOST TERRIBLE deed: the unprovoked invasion of Iran, sparking a war that killed over 1 million people.

A brutal dictator is not a casus belli. You cannot declare war on a country on the basis of it having a brutal dictator. For God’s sake how many brutal dictators are there? So who’s next, Robert Mugabe maybe? Would you like me to give you a list of all dictators in power right now? We could even wager who’s next. Is it going to be the Saudi King? Oh, no, that’s OUR guy! Not yet anyway! Let’s wait until he strays from the path like Noriega!

Israel has flouted over 60 UN resolutions since 1955. At least 30 more have been vetoed by the US. Israel is in violation of the NPT: it has not only chemical and biological weapons, but NUKES as well. Israel is occupying and slowly annexing a foreign country. Ariel, run for cover, you might be next!

Oh, and by the way, since I am European and I have just criticised Israel, I am an anti-semite!! I am not allowed to express an opinion based on facts, because of what Germans did two generations ago (CAUTIONARY NOTE: I’m Spanish, not German. Germán is just my NAME!)

And lastly, who exactly defines which regimes should be changed and which ones shouldn’t? The US? Based on what International Law? According to the International Law we DO have, Mr Bush declared an unwarranted war and could therefore be indicted for war crimes. Of course, that’s not going to happen, since might is right in this world of ours.

Regards,

Germán
Madrid, Spain.

(I’m Spanish, living in Spain, long time friend and admirer of the US, 2nd-best nation on Earth. CAN’T YOU SEE WHAT THIS GUY IS DOING? It’s your FRIENDS you’re alienating!)

hmm.. how did I know you were against sanctions.. let me see…. “Despite the fact that a decade-long sanctions regime imposed by the UN had reduced Country B to complete poverty”

There are two options I take from that quote: (1) you are against sanctions; (2) you are for reducing counties to complete poverty. I dont know of anyone who is for option (2), so I used my powers to logic to say you must believe (1) (which, I do as well, by the way).

As for multilateralism, I lost all respect for the UN when I read “We Would Like to Inform You That Tommorow We Will Be Killed With Our Families”. Have you read that book? it is an account of how, while a million people were being murdered in Rwanda, the UN debated if this was really “genocide”, until it was too late. If the UN did not have countries like China with an absolute veto, did nto have mudering thugs like Lybia on the HUMAN RIGHTS COUNSEL, did not have countries who have now been discovered as having gotten special deals with Saddam for his oil in order to stop support for the war (see my blog for my post entitle “No War-Outcry for Oil), then, yes, you might have a point about multilaterialism.

As for what the United States did in the past. yes, some of it was very wrong; some of it was justified in the context of the cold war; and some of it I do not know enough about to make a judgement on. I cant change what happends in the past, I did not have a vote then. I have a vote now, and I support my government taking out thugs, regardless of it countries who have special oil deals with Saddam support us or not. Sometimes you cant take out the thugs- sometimes, they have nuclear weapons (china), but with Saddam we could and I support it as a result. If the president had proposed that we take out a different thug- equally murderous and with equal cost, I can promise you I would have supported that action too. that is not to say that Saddam was the worst guy in the world (heck, I would probably rather see North Korea liberated), but he was bad enough to garner my support for taking him out. That is my right as a citizen- to support the action of my government that I consider morally justified. And the mass graves dug up in Iraq more than morally justify this war- and to say that Bush deserves to go to the Hague for that is rather disturbing in my opinion.

“A brutal dictator is not a casus belli. You cannot declare war on a country on the basis of it having a brutal dictator.”

So if you were president of say, America, in the 1940s. And say hitler decided not to invade any nations but to simply kill off all the jews in the country, and other nations were too timid from the WWI experience to do anything about it, you would have sat on yours hands? You would have said, “eh, too bad, brutal or not, thats not a casus belli”. If you have a moral sense, I doubt you would have.

Finally, you should not try to argue a straw man position that I somehow support all the U.S.’s previous actions because I support this one. I think the United States has many flaws. I think every day we allow unborn children to be murdered because mothers find it convinient. I think we treat people who do drugs that harm no one but themselves terribly wrong, throwing them in jail for 10 year mandatory sentences for wanting to bring some joy into their own lives. But I was faced with a decision on the Iraq war- i saw a man who I though we messed up terribly 12 years ago in not taking out- a mistake I was sickened by then. My president came and said he wanted to take him out, and I support the action for that reason, and for that reason alone. It is one of the few things Bush has done that I have liked, and I am proud that our country took that action.

> There are two options I take from that quote:
> (1) you are against sanctions; (2) you are for > reducing counties to complete poverty.

Misha, please play fair and give the guy the benefit of the doubt. Your logic leaves out another option, and because you are a smart person I can only imagine that you left it out because you wanted to paint his perspective as hypocritical and illogical.

His view may, in fact, be similar to mine: the exacerbated poverty in Iraq was, in the big picture, the best and most fair price for the whole world to pay for keeping the dictator Saddam in check. The sanctions hurt the Iraqi people (perhaps more perhaps less than the invasion did, who knows?)… but to those of us who opposed the war, the suffering of the Iraqi people was preferable to the state of chaos and international instability that has been unleashed on the world by our nearly-unilateral invasion.

There are indeed people who opposed both the war and the sanctions, but they are about as numerous as those on your side of the spectrum who advocate invading Syria Saudi Arabia. In other words, they are a fringe group. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are not a fringe nut, and hopefully you’ll do the same for us.

-Cf

Thats interesting, I havent actually met someone who was against the war but in favor of sanctions. I apologize that I misunderstood you guys, and I withdraw my comment.

It’s understandable, given the coverage of anti-Iraq war dissent. It’s easy to lump all the varieties of dissent together into a silly and hypocritical single perspective. Howard Dean, for example, was almost without exception refered to in the news as the candidate who “opposes the War on Terrorism”.

If you watched the news coverage of the anti-Iraq war protests you would understandably have gotten the impression that in general the crowds also advocated the destruction of Israel and the impeachment of Bush on charges of war crimes.

Also, because many Third World and Arab nations opposed both the sanctions and the war (under the justification that the USA should just butt out), their perspective was also inevitably conflated with those of us in the USA who advocate a practical and reasoned approach to Iraq policy. It’s sort of like if you’re not with us, you’re against us.

-Cf

Misha,

So you are proud Bush decided to take out the ruler of a foreign country? I would be ashamed. Actually I AM ashamed because my Prime Minister supported Bush. So you support your country removing anyone-you-define-as-a-thug. That makes you a thug, doesn’t it?

Misha, stating a fact does not mean endorsing it. I was only stating the following: how could a dirt-poor country be a threat to the US? Your powers of logic failed you this time. Just a slightly hurried conclusion, I’m sure.

The UN lacks the executive, decision-making mechanisms to avert massacres during crisis such as Kosovo’s and Rwanda’s. That’s a fact. So what? Does that mean it’s not valid as a discussion forum? The UN does not have the means to enforce its own resolutions anyway, but it is a source of legitimacy. Flaws and all, it’s the only thing we have.

Oh, and this is not a case of China vetoing something. This is a case of 3 out of 5 permanent members and 8 out of 10 non permanent members (that’s 11/15) of the SC being against this war. Doesn’t that mean anything to you? It sounds like international consensus to me.

As for the other 4, it was Britain, the US, Poland and, well, Spain, despite the public being over 85% AGAINST the invasion, you see. Actually, in all countries bar the US, the public opinion was against. Yes, even in Britain. Fox-free countries!

As for the humanitarian-intervention-WWII-allegory, come on Misha, Saddam was not presently killing masses. He HAD killed lots of people, undoubtedly (basically three despicable episodes). But the US did not intervene to stop any massacre, that’s a complete fallacy. Why didn’t it intervene back in 1980, when Saddam invaded Iran, then? That was the MASSACRE, man, 1 million, no less. Reagan -and Rumsfeld- chose to support him instead.

Special deals with Saddam? Cheney had special deals with Saddam. Post-sanctions, of course. By Cheney I mean Halliburton. Did he lose any credibility or something? By the way, shouldn’t you guys stop the slander against France? They could have profiteered enormously from supporting the war, but they chose to oppose it instead. TOTAL is one of the biggest oil companies in the world. Vinci is the world’s biggest public works contractor, as is Bouygues. Heavy Equipment? Alsthom. Transportation? Utilities? You name it. Some of the best companies in the world, all left out of the feast. And they still opposed the war out of self-interest? Someone please explain me the rationale of that.

I never suggested you support previous actions of the US. I’m just telling you the US cannot claim the high moral ground necessary for “taking out thugs” all over the world. And what do you exactly mean by “in the past”? In the past few hours? The US continues to support “evil” (as my friend George would say) regimes all over the place EVEN TODAY. Thugs, you might say. Are your thugs better or something?

let me try to get a couple of these:
“So you support your country removing anyone-you-define-as-a-thug. That makes you a thug, doesn’t it?”

No, a thug is one who rules by force a fear rather than by consent of his own people. Follow me here. Say a person takes over a village, using a bunch of guns- we call him a mob boss and take him out. Now say this same person gets a LOT of guns, taking over a large portion of the world called a “country”- suddently its wrong to take him out? I think someone who rules only because he has more weapons than anyone in his own country, and has no attempt to rule by consent or establish a government by the people is nothing more than a common thug, and should be treated as such. Say an individual assisinated Kim Jong Il, I would consider that person a hero, not a thug. no matter if every person in Spain thought he was wrong. So if my country does the functional equivalent, they are not “thugs”, they are doing something heroic (in this particular case).

“how could a dirt-poor country be a threat to the US?”

Name me one place where I have ever said that iraq was a threat to the U.S. In fact, I said the exact opposite, several times (i believe on this thread, in fact)

“As for the humanitarian-intervention-WWII-allegory, come on Misha, Saddam was not presently killing masses.”

this answer and the ones you said above it misses my point, so I will restate it. I am arguing principles here, and the principle I am putting foward is this: “When there are issues of mass murders by a tyrant at stake, the fact that the majority of countries in the world is unwilling to take action does not change the morally rightness of intervention.” This principle is based upon the understanding, which I should hope you would agree with, that what is right is right no matter how unpopular. Now if you really want to turn this into a debate about how bad Saddam was, I am pretty sure you will lose that one. And as long as you conceed that he was a terrible, muderous tyrant, then we can apply the principle i stated above. As I see it the real objections to the war can come from people who think it wasnt PRACTICAL- as far as the justice of the war, I think that is hardly questionable based upon the multilaterialism objection that I just laid out.

” I’m just telling you the US cannot claim the high moral ground necessary for “taking out thugs” all over the world”

I was ashamed when my country did nothing in Rwanda, as you should have been ashamed of your country. I was ashamed that my country let those people who rose up against Saddam be murdered in 1991, and I was proud that we retified some of that mistake by conducting this war. We have the moral high ground in this war- that is why i supported it. I dont support the U.S. on every issue- when we are wrong, I will not support them. If we have a war against north korea, I will support that, if I think the resources are there for us to lead the war to success. if we decide to take out some regime that is democratically elected, I will oppose that. Just because the US is wrong on some issues, does not mean they are estopped from ever taking a moraly justified action unilaterially. For example, had we stepped into Rwanda, I should hope you would not have opposed that, no matter how unilateral our action.

Misha,

OK, you define “thug”. A thug is who you deem to be one. Nursultan Nazarbayev IS one, or is he?

You know what? We had a “thug” here, General Franco. He died in 1975. But it was a thug very dear to the US government, despite being a WWII style Fascist. And you know what? Maybe the US should have carpet-bombed him out of power. But you know what? One of the bombs could have hit my grannie’s home, killing my father. And I wouldn’t be here debating, because I wouldn’t have been born! I don’t think it would have made the US very popular here.

Right is right, and wrong is wrong? A war of choice is always wrong.

“Name me one place where I have ever said that iraq was a threat to the U.S.”

I never said you did. I was reviewing Bush’s rationale for war, not yours.

“When there are issues of mass murders by a tyrant at stake, the fact that the majority of countries in the world is unwilling to take action does not change the morally rightness of intervention”

We were not “unwilling” to do anything. We were more than willing back in ‘91. We opposed the war because WE THOUGHT IT WAS MORALLY WRONG. Anyway, “unwilling”? Are you calling us lazy or something? I supported NATO’s intervention in Kosovo. And I would have supported one in Rwanda, probably.

“what is right is right no matter how unpopular”

Based on what set of principles exactly? Not democracy, obviously! Your starting point is a conclusion, a moral judgment. And an absolute one.

Invading a poor, unarmed (!), country where no humanitarian crisis is in sight, citing fallacious reasons is right? I beg to differ. Right may be right, but who are you to decide what is right and what is wrong? If you are too arrogant to hear other people’s own moral judgments, how can you be so sure of what is indeed right? There ARE conflicting viewpoints.

And anyway, may we assume the Bush administration does not share your conviction on your high moral ground, since they felt compelled to lie and distort (WMD, links with Al Qaeda) in order to obtain support for the war?

“I was ashamed that my country let those people who rose up against Saddam be murdered in 1991, and I was proud that we retified some of that mistake by conducting this war”

Well, those people want you guys out, and they want you out now! And they weren’t exactly calling for a war! And war as a means of shaking off guilt? Two wrongs don’t make a right.

Why is it that the government in the U.S.A. thinks that its sense of morality is so much stronger than the rest of the worlds? All past instanses of conflict aside, the war in Iraq was globally without support. More people protested this war than any other in history, a majority of people simply did not think that there should be any invasion in Iraq. Do we know something here in America that the rest of the world doesn’t? Do we need to invade another country just because a bad guy is running the show? If so, we have our work cut out for us.

So many say we have bettered Iraq, but in reality, we have killed as many as we have saved, and one life lost is too many. I wrote this just as the war was begun:

It’s been a chaotic three weeks since the deadline came to a tragic end, and the bombs plummeted towards the demise of the Iraqi nation. I am torn over this war.
I support my troops, our troops. I applaud their valor and integrity. They risk their lives to protect our country. They die for people whom they have never met. They protect me, my family, and everything I hold precious; they are our guardians. I anticipate the minute I become one of them.
However I strongly am unsupportive of this war. Bush seems to believe that our way of life should be everyone’s way of life. This war is inappropriately named “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” How do you ‘free’ a nation by wreaking havoc and destruction on them? The only thing we seem to being freeing them from is their lives, as hundreds of dead bodies are found among the several buildings that were “strategically targeted” in the mishap of the Shock and Awe campaign; you never hear this on the news. The government claims to want to help the people of Iraq and free them from the tyrannical rule of Saddam Hussein and disarm them from the nuclear weapons that they are reported to have. However, who is our government to reprimand a nation who is in possession of nuclear weapons, when we too have an abundant amount of these destructive bombs. Bush is sending the clear hypocritical message that children receive from their parents of “do as I say, not as I do.” Hussein is a madman who will stop at nothing to seize absolute power. However, at this very moment I feel the same about Bush. He has proven that he will go to any means necessary to be an influential governing power of the Iraqi nation and the Iraqi oil. At this point, I invest the same fear in Bush’s access to nuclear bombs as Saddam’s.
This war absolutely terrifies me; it brings me to sharp realization of the power that this country has. We have ignored the United Nation’s advice. We plunged into this war with hardly any support from other country’s governments and even less support from the world population. Hundreds of men, women, and children are dieing in vain. The Iraqi people who we are supposed to be freeing from tyrannical power are revolting against the US because they too are fed up with the destruction of their country and the deaths of their loved ones. The rage that so many people have against this country is escalating daily as this war progresses. By continuing this war, we are breeding more bin Ladens, more Husseins; we are creating more anti-American terrorism. I am afraid that the results of this war will cause more bad than good, and once the last bomb had dropped, the dust has cleared, and the bodies have been identified and counted, we will have created more problems that what we started with.
However, even though I may not support the government’s decision, I will always support my country. And if I was called upon to fight this war, I would.

Fa,

Great posting.

But you shouldn’t go to this war. Your country is not threatened in any way, and you would do it a better service by expressing dissent and refusing to go (remember the Israeli fighter pilots?).

Regards,

Germán

Mr Remer…

…Unfortunately it does not strike me as odd …. it leads me to the conclusion that the Bush knew an attack was going to happen … may be not the exact details … but something was going to happen. They let it happen inorder to initiate the “war on terror” which is the smoke screen now being used to increase US miltary presence in key oil producing area of the world.

Dick Cheny’s Energy Policey was little more than a military proposal to control by what ever means overseas oil production ….remember that DIck Cheny has also refused to hand over key documents from his closed door sessions with the likes of Enron and co…. )

The strategy now is to delay the 911 report .. to delay the uncovering of documents and memo’s which show that this adinistration was repeatidly warned that an attack was going to happen. The delay is required inorder for Bush and Co to win the next election and re-write history by subtle changes in their story .. from “we did not know anything” to “we did not know planes would be used in that way” … He will attempt to re-write history in exactly the same way as he is re-writing hstory about the Iraq war. Prior to the start of the war he stated war was required because of the “immenant threat of weapons of mass destruction” … he now says he took the US to war because of their ability to develop weapons of mass destruction” … !!!

Don’t wait for the 911 report to make up your minds … vote them out this coming November

An interesting link to support the above..

Um, we DID know then what we know now, at least with respect to Iraq not having WMDs. The fact that the US had no evidence was clear from the date that Colin Powell went before the UN, which was approximately one year ago.

But somehow the vast majority of the population allowed themselves to believe what the President and his advisors was saying must be true despite what they should have known logically based on the observed facts.