All right, fuck it: Iraq!

[Gordon C. Landis]

There's actually some very very good reasons for why Iraq.

It's because Iraq is right in the middle of Bush's dartboard.

LAUGH!  Thanks for that.  Though - you credit Bush with more dart-skill than I would've expected.  Unless maybe the "middle" of his dartboard is bigger than normal . . .

Gordon

[montag]

Sorry Ralph, have to disagree with you there. There may be some additional background you didn't add to the post, but as it stands the reasons you cited only make sense on the surface IMHO:

1) test armed forces in land invasion
works up to a point, though it's questionable how much you can generalise from Iraq to other terrains. The real stumbling block however is, "want to test how good your armed forces are if they've got to do peacekeeping which they aren't trained for and work in a country without enough capable translators". Which, in my book, is a pretty stupid test, since you've got major negative factors against you when going in, which (a) makes it difficult to assess peak performance and (b) clutters the data with interactions you could easily have avoided.
2) test hardware and theorems
again, the carry-over effect is dubious, precisely because there is no real danger
3) test allies
Well, if you needed to actually test whether you can pull the wool over everybody's eyes in the first place, you know a lot less than you should know as the POTUS. If you needed to find out whether people get pissed off when you try to push them around or send Rummsfeld to do it, then again, you've got far bigger problems than this question. And if you think a war without good justification is a decent test case, then again, it seems  that hubris might be a more interesting object of study
4) message to the bad boys
You mean the ones you've decided not to attack because you are not sure, if your army, your hardware and your alliances are up to them? The ones who note that half your armed forced are tied up in the occupation of Iraq and that you'll have to invest heavily in that country for some time down the road? The ones who know you won't attack them because they've got nukes? And the ones who know that regardless who 's in office, the American people are not going to be keen on another war soon?

On balance, I'd say one and two make some remote sense, but then again the poor postwar planning seems in direct contradiction to these stated goals. Reasons three and four seem like major cases of sloppy thinking to me.
Frankly, "I'm not convinced" ;)

[Anonymous]

There's actually some very very good reasons for why Iraq.  But I don't think the general populace would find them very paletteable.

Well, you're right there, but because these arguments stem from a military analysis about which many people are profoundly suspicious and unsympathetic:

First, if one is looking to undergo the first major land invasion since the armed services got some notable doctrinal and organizational overhauls following Desert Storm, you don't go pick a fight with the biggest baddest threat in the neighborhood.  

Granted, but this demonstrates that the rhetoric of humanitarianism is indeed only rhetoric, as many claimed.  So this concedes the central challenge to the war on Iraq.

You want to test out your fancy new hardware, you want to test out your fancy new operational theorems...so you pick a target that's enough of a threat to be a good test bed, but not enough of a threat to actually be dangerous.  Iraq fits that bill nicely.  North Korea and Pakistan do not.

... because they have nukes, as has been repeatedly pointed out.  And indeed, this raises the interesting prospect that Iraq was selected precisely because it was known NOT to have WMD.  So firstly this is a highly cynical exercise in killing people and initiating a war for 'testing' purposes, and secondly completely destroys any alleged humanitarian intention as the 'test bed' is clearly intended to suffer.

Second, you want to test out you allies, quite honestly.  You don't want to committ to a major confrontation with a major enemy without knowing if the old cold war alliances will make the transition to a new strategic objective.  Again.  You pick an enemy you know you can defeat alone if you have to.

Sure; and your allies tested you, and found you wanting.  Because entry into an alliance does not make us a client state obliged to send auxiliaries for whatever colonial adventure you may decide upon.  this is especially galling when your allies do come along, and have extensive experience in urban pacification, and this experience is ignored and overruled.  Do you want allies, or just human shields?

Third, you want to send a message to the world.  No the message isn't the one that people like to promote about.  The message isn't to those people.  The message is to the people who will understand it.  It is the simplest message of all.  Fuck with us and we have the power to crush you and dismantle your government.

This is problematic for several reasons: firstly becuase your enemies are relatively unlikely to have a government, and secondly because nobody is in any doubt as to the US's readiness to inflict violence: thats how this situation began.  US subsidies purchase US weapons which are used against Palestinians daily; the US engages in nearly one foreign intervention per year; it spends the highest quantity and IIRC the highest proportion of GDP on arms of any country on the planet; it has the worlds largest nuclear arsenal and holds it in an aggressive stance ready to use a first strike.

Absolutely nobody is in any doubt about the US's capacity and willingness to resort to force.

My experience with friends at various levels of the DoD, Pentagon, and various think tanks indicate to me that THESE are the sorts of questions that were far more important in the decision making process than WMDs or the like.

Cool.  All the more reason to say: "shoot generals, not soldiers".

[Valamir]

Granted, but this demonstrates that the rhetoric of humanitarianism is indeed only rhetoric, as many claimed. So this concedes the central challenge to the war on Iraq.

Not in any way.  At all, actually.  It may be rhetoric.  But nothing at all is conceded.  Christopher K was absolutely right when he pointed out that this discussion has less to do with Iraq, and more to do with statecraft and how its practiced.

You seem to think that the governments actions were wrong.  I, however, firmly believe that they were right.  They represent precisely how effective government is supposed to work (although unfortuneately rather ineptly executed).  


The fact that Saddam is gone, there is a prototype constitution in place, and elections will be held is 100% proof positive that going in was the absolute right thing to do.

Makes no difference if this was the primary reason, or even A reason.

A tyrant has been removed, a people freed who will soon be in a position to choose their own course, and its been done with an astonishingly limited loss of life.  That's right regardless.

And since it is, in my book, irrefutably right to have gone, that proves that all arguements against going were erroneous.  Which, in my book, means it makes little difference what spins, hyperboles, or overstatements were necessary to get us there.  And even less difference what the true motivation behind it was.  This to me is the part and parcel of the very definition of statecraft.  

Its the way governments, American or European, have always operated.  It represents the right way for them to operate.  Anyone who is aghast or horrified at that notion is simply now seeing being the curtain of statecraft for the first time thanks to modern news coverage, and Bush's awkward inability to handle the business of state invisibly.

Those who understand that this is exactly how government is supposed to function (again, ideally with more skillful execution), simply look up, yawn, wonder what the hub bub is about and then, go back to whatever we were doing because there really is "nothing to see here".  Its business as usual for Washington or any developed nation capital the world over.


That's the bottom line.  It doesn't need to be any more complicated or convolulted than that.  All of the accusations that have been leveled...heck they may be completely true; but ultimately, so what.  They are not and cannot be reasons for why it was wrong to go.  Because it wasn't wrong to go.  They are merely ammunition for people who were going to snipe at Bush anyway.

Personally, I think he's provided more than enough targets for sniping without going after the one thing he's got right so far.

[montag]

A tyrant has been removed, a people freed who will soon be in a position to choose their own course, and its been done with an astonishingly limited loss of life. That's right regardless.
And since it is, in my book, irrefutably right to have gone, that proves that all arguements against going were erroneous.

I agree on the first part, and I doubt you will find anyone here or elsewhere who disagrees. It's a great thing Saddam 's gone.
But .. (there's actually two of them) for one, the ends do not always justify the means. You may be a cynic (I'm reading your post that way. Please don't hesitate to correct me there, I don't want to put words into your mouth) when it comes to government and I share some of that. However, that "(the 1st rule of journalism is that) governments lie. All governments lie." is no reason not to demand that they don't. Basically, the ends sometimes do justify the means, sometimes they don't, and I find your personal cynicism (or disillusionment, see the note above) about government insufficient as an argument (it may or may not suffice for you personally) why in this case the ends justify the means.
.. the second, much larger but is: opportunity costs.
Taking Saddam down had a price in money, time, international relationships, intel-to-government relationship, unity of the nation etc. Saying "the end result is good" is simplistic IMO, because it suggests there's only a good and a bad way of acting, and since the good one was chosen everything is fine.
Meanwhile, in the real world, the US has several thousand options for doing good, saving lives and freeing people. And every action must be judged not according to whether it was good in principle (there's few government actions for which it is impossible to argue they're good in some way), but rather whether they were an effective use of resources. It may have been right to go into Iraq 'til we're all blue in the face, if tying down the forces there permits North-Korea to build a nice arsenal of nukes and wipe South Korea off the planet. And all the joy at the liberation of the Iraqi people won't matter anything when the relationship between government and intelligence services is damaged so badly in the process that the next terrorist attack can not be prevented because people are not talking to each other. The freedom of the Iraqi people will mean little to the next victims of genocide somewhere around the globe, which aren't getting help and protection because the US and its allies are still estranged.
So yes, great, absolutely fabulous thing that Saddam 's gone. No doubt at all. But there's some solid reasons why the decision was bad nonetheless.

[joshua neff]

I guess if you believe the ends justify the means, Ralph, then I could see how you could say the situation in Iraq is okay. (Although the current situation is anything but stable, & it looks as if things are just going to get messier.)

I, however, do not believe the ends justify the means. If the Bush Administration wanted to invade Iraq to invade Iraq to test new weaponry, that's the case they needed to present to the American government & the UN. If they wanted to invade Iraq to "test out their allies"...well, I personally wouldn't put up with chickenshit behavior like that in my personal relationships & I don't think it's any better at the global-political level. If they wanted to invade Iraq to "send a message to other countries" (& the message is..."Don't mess with Texas"?), I'm sure the dead Iraqis & dead US soldiers (& dead soldiers from other "Coalition" nations) would be thrilled to know that they died so we could send a message.

But essentially, if any of those reasons were the real reason for invading Iraq, that's what the Bush Administration should have said all along. Otherwise, they lied to the US people & to the world. And you know what? The President doesn't get to decide if we invade a country. The President doesn't get to decide if we go to war. The President doesn't get to try out his new toys whenever he feels like it. The US doesn't get to invade countries whenever it feels like it, to try out new toys or send a message to other countries. Those are lame-ass reasons for committing soldiers to a military action. Those are lame-ass reasons for dead soldiers (Iraqi, American, British, etc).

I know I'm being naive, but I don't believe the ends justify the means. I don't believe winning justifies whatever you did to win. I don't agree with Dick Cheney, who said, "Principles are fine, but principles don't do you any good if you don't win." If your reasons are the reasons we went to into Iraq, then we did a bad thing.

Am I glad Hussein is out of power? Sure. He was a bad man. (Not any worse than Kim Jong Il. Not any worse than any number of dictators the US has & continues to support.) Are things better now? Not that I've seen. Are they getting better? Not that I've seen. Have we stabilized the region? Doesn't look like it.

Not only do I not think Bush & Co got this right, I think it's just one of the many mistakes & nefarious actions this secretive, controlling, power-hungry, intolerant-of-dissent administration has done.

[Nicolas Crost]

Third, you want to send a message to the world.  No the message isn't the one that people like to promote about.  The message isn't to those people.  The message is to the people who will understand it.  It is the simplest message of all.  Fuck with us and we have the power to crush you and dismantle your government.

Well, I see a problem with that message. Because that is not the message the Attack on Iraq is sending out to the world.

Look at yor own qoute here:

2) Those people who believe in handing the riegns of world government over to the UN (including many Americans) who are furious that we dared finally give up on their ineffectiveness and do it ourselves.

So what is the message? It simply is:

Might makes right. Democracy (=UN) sucks.

Great. That is not the message I want all the dictatorial governements out there to hear. Especially since it translates to:
Well, we´ll be tied up here for a few years now, so you better be fast in developing nuclear weapons, because if you don´t we´ll come for you! So hurry up there!

So Saddam may be gone, but we are going to pay dearly for the damage do to the system of international rights and for the developement initiated by the attack in the future.

[clehrich]

The fact that Saddam is gone, there is a prototype constitution in place, and elections will be held is 100% proof positive that going in was the absolute right thing to do.

And will certainly result in a country whose people deeply hate us, instead of a country with a sick leader who hates us.  Wonderful.

A tyrant has been removed, a people freed who will soon be in a position to choose their own course, and its been done with an astonishingly limited loss of life.  That's right regardless.

If you believe in this as a good thing, I'm hoping someone will calmly go and assassinate our president and vice president.  Two down (small loss of life -- if you can call it life anyway) and a real possibility of positive change (it could hardly be worse).

Its the way governments, American or European, have always operated.  It represents the right way for them to operate.  Anyone who is aghast or horrified at that notion is simply now seeing being the curtain of statecraft for the first time thanks to modern news coverage, and Bush's awkward inability to handle the business of state invisibly.

Deceiving the populace has indeed always been a tool of statecraft, but I don't think it needs to be defended on that basis.  But invading other countries because you happen to feel like it and then lying about the reasons has not.  Hitler used to do that, and we can all think of others, but not "normal statecraft" by any means.

In essence, this government decided it wanted to invade Iraq because they thought it would be popular and get a bunch of oil, as well as some fat contracts for Halliburton.  They then lied in order to get the Congress and Senate to allow the invasion.  If it's so important to take out vicious, dangerous leaders, we should of course start by shooting Bush and Cheney.  But after that, aren't we supposed to take out a bunch of the other governments in the world?  I mean, why aren't we invading the Sudan?  They actually do support Al Qaeda, which would add to the justification.  Why aren't we invading Saudi Arabia?  And what about chunks of the old Soviet Union?  Those guys might even have nukes, you know, and they really are dangerous and threatening.

Frankly, all this "It's okay to lie about everything and kill anyone you like because that's what governments always do" is more than a little disturbing.  Remember Watergate?  Nobody said, "Hey, it's okay that they lied and cheated and stole, and erased tapes and records, because that's what governments always do."  Nobody said, "Hey, if they think it's important for America that the Republicans stay in office, any means are justified."  No, they impeached Nixon and threw him out.  Here we've got, "Well, we lied about 9/11, we lied about Al Qaeda, we lied about WMD's, Iraq is now a seething hotbed of Shi'ite discontent, and we cut in Halliburton for as much money as possible.  But isn't that okay with you?"  And dittoheads all over America say, "Goddamn, it's just unpatriotic not to agree with that."

They are merely ammunition for people who were going to snipe at Bush anyway.

Cynically, I think it's probably true that far too many people are unwilling to be convinced by the grossest evidence that Bush is not a good thing.  More positively, however, I do think that the tide of public opinion may finally be changing.  With luck, maybe we'll have learned enough that the pendulum will start swinging away from the right wing for a while.  God knows I'm tired of my country's being the laughingstock of the civilized world -- only we're not, because it's too sad and scary to laugh about.

Incidentally, speaking of the lies of the right, has anyone noticed the thing about the Founding Fathers being big on America the religious?  I can almost-quote John Adams for you:

"It is my hope that in this new country, Christianity will be quietly euthanized."

Let's hope the rich right wing gets to breathe that euthanizing gas as well.

[Paul Watson]

The fact that Saddam is gone, there is a prototype constitution in place, and elections will be held is 100% proof positive that going in was the absolute right thing to do.

And if the rapidly rising civil unrest continues to rise, and develops into at least a three-way civil war, a war that would almost certainly kill an appalling number of people, and almost certainly spill over the border of our NATO ally, Turkey, would you revise your opinion?

Ok, Saddam was a bad man who did bad things to Iraqis. Now he's gone, thanks to America.

Why aren't the American forces being greeted as liberators? Because the Iraqi people haven't forgotten that it was America which was instrumental in the Baathis rise to power. They haven't forgotten that the butcher who brualized them was America's special friend.

Most American's may not realize that the Secretary of Defence in the current administration server an earlier Bush administration as Special Envoy to Iraq, and that he was aware of Saddam's butchery. He knew, for example, that Saddam gassed about 10,000 civillians (chemical weapons built, by the way, with components supplied by America). Rumsfeld "expressed concern" over this. Then America gave Saddam more money. Most American's may not be aware of all this, but the Iraqi citizens are.

Now, the counter-argument often goes along the lines of "That was then, this is now." First, I doubt that impresses most Iraqis, especially since now America is still doing the same things it did then. For example, cozying up to yet another brutal tyrant, President Karimov of Uzbekistan. Uzebekistan is geographically very close to Iraq; this is going on right in their neighbourhood, and they are aware of it.

And perhaps you'll simply call this all "statecraft", business as usual for governments. The administration needs to cozy up to a brutal tyrant in its war on terror. Well, the fruits of similar "statecraft" were harvested on September 11, 2001, and it wouldn't surprise me to see this continuance of that "statecraft" bear similar fruit. Karimov is ramping up the brutality. Yes, he was brutal before, but now his brutality is associated with the country that is giving him hundreds of millions of dollars, America. Now, he's being brutal in the name of America's war on terror. How long before before some Uzbek who's loved one was boiled alive by Karimov steps onto a subway in New York carrying a rather bulky backpack?

[montag]

Woa Chris (Lehrich, just to show you i can spell it right ;).
There I was thinking you're some mild mannered, bespectacled gentleman humming away quietly to himself behind the gates of horn and ivory, oblivious to the world, and only occasionally throwing some ritualistic bread-crumbs to the masses.
Boy was I wrong.
Frankly, I find your expressed desire to see bodily harm inflicted on people you disagree with a bit disturbing. Sorry, but while we may think them guilty as hell, I believe the minimum they deserve is a fair trial ... and I don't think the available evidence actually calls for that. IMHO this is a case of confusing ones own speculations about other's intentions with actual facts.
And please leave Hitler out of this, ok?



And since this is off-topic already, I'd like to use the opportunity to assure Ralph that the harshness which I now perceive to have crept into my next-to-last post/response to him was directed at the arguments he referred, not at him personally. Shouldn't be necessary to state such stuff, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. ;)

[Valamir]

Markus, 100% in agreement with everything you just said.  The ends DON'T always justify the means.  But sometimes they do.  Government does not and cannot have the luxury of catering either to the basest instincts of man nor to the noblest.  Either road, too base, or too noble, will end in disastor.

On opportunity costs.  Absolutely.  That is exactly the level of evaluation that the action of states needs to be measured in.  So we're in agreement there also.  The only question between us then is where the balance winds up in the final analysis.  Was the end worth the cost?  Or was the cost more expensive than the end?  I'm gathering from your posts thus far that you feel the costs are too expensive.  For my part, I don't think that will necessarily be the case when looked back on through the lens of history (which is ultimately how all of these efforts must be measured).  So I would say our disagreement is mainly one of degree rather than fundamental principal.

edited to note:  On cynicism, perhaps, its not so much that I mistrust our politicians.  Rather I trust them implicitly to be exactly what they are...politicians.  I actually find the fact that the behavior of politicians is so predictably self serving to be rather conforting.  Its the revolutionary loonies that I worry about.  I prefer pragmatism myself.

Oh, and no worry about the "harshness" of your response.  I'm operating on the hopefully reliable assumption, that "what happens in the Birthday Forum, stays in the Birthday Forum"



Joshua, "The ends justify the means" is really an over simplification.  Sometimes they do.  Sometimes they don't.  I wouldn't put up with that behavior in my personal relationship either.  But there are different rules for governments; and quite frankly, that's a good thing, even when it makes us cringe.


Nicolas:  I find your equating "democracy" with the "UN" to pretty unfathomable.  The UN is not and should not be used as a form of "world government".  They excell as a forum for keeping the channels of communications open between nations.  That's what they do, that's what they are good at.  Their track record at expanding beyond that role is highly questionable.  It was the UN who was in charge of managing the Oil for Food program.  They did a pretty abysmal job at that.   It's the UN who on paper is supposed to take a leading roll in promoting humanitarian issues.  I don't see a whole lot of successes from them on that front either.  The UN is a forum for communication.  Leadership will never come out of the UN because it is far too divided a body (as it should be).


Chris, I won't engage with you on issues of assassinating our own President.  That's pretty ludicrous even for his harshest critics.  But I am infinitely amused by your hope that the pendulum will swing to the left...as if the left doesn't engage in exactly the same kind of behavior.  Kerry's principals are no better than Bush's...he's just more adept at lieing and schmoozing.  In fact, that's been Bush's biggest weakness all along.  If he had Slick Willy's skill at being slick...there'd be hardly any of this outrage going on.

Left and Right, Democrats and Republicans.  There is absolutely zero difference between them except who gets paid in the back room.  Neither has any sort of "moral high ground" nor have they ever.  They both engage fully, completely, and willingingly in exactly the sort of behavior that folks are claiming to find so reprehesible (and so do the principal political parties of every other nation in the developed world).

The only questions are 1) whether or not you will continue to find the behavior reprehensible when its being used to support a cause you agree with and 2) whether you will find it easier to look the other way when the reprehensible behavior is contained within a nice slick Media Savvy package.

[joshua neff]

Joshua, "The ends justify the means" is really an over simplification.  Sometimes they do.  Sometimes they don't.  I wouldn't put up with that behavior in my personal relationship either.  But there are different rules for governments; and quite frankly, that's a good thing, even when it makes us cringe.

If pressed on the issue, I would probably agree that giving governments leeway when you wouldn't for individuals is...necessary.

However, I still think the reasons you listed for invading Iraq are horrible reasons for committing troops & killing people. Invading a country to send a message to other countries is...idiotic & horrible. Invading a country to test out weaponry is juvenile. Invading a country to see who your real friends are is pathetic.

And considering what a mess Iraq has become, even if the ends do justify the means, the ends are looking pretty damn shoddy right now.

Nope, I still see no justification for the invasion of Iraq, especially since the Bush administration outright lied about why they wanted to invade Iraq, & especially since we've bungled it so badly. This was a bad thing done for bad reasons.

[Christopher Weeks]

I wanted to grab on to this bit because I disagree so strongly with everything else Ralph has said in this thread.  I like having found something with which to agree.

Left and Right, Democrats and Republicans.  There is absolutely zero difference between them except who gets paid in the back room.  Neither has any sort of "moral high ground" nor have they ever.  They both engage fully, completely, and willingingly in exactly the sort of behavior that folks are claiming to find so reprehesible (and so do the principal political parties of every other nation in the developed world).

Yes.  Yes!  A thousand times yes!  The Republicans and the Democrats are very nearly identical.  Mainstream American politics makes huge deals out of tiny little differences.  I find this endlessly frustrating as a true radical.  If Lehrich is put off by these "conservatives" and Ralph (though I may be assuming too much) is put off by Clintonian "liberalism" then you all ought to be scared to death of the real extremists.  I have wildly more conservative and liberal (both!) views than these clowns do.

The only questions are 1) whether or not you will continue to find the behavior reprehensible when its being used to support a cause you agree with and 2) whether you will find it easier to look the other way when the reprehensible behavior is contained within a nice slick Media Savvy package.

I find these behaviors reprehensible because they are conducted at all.  By anyone.  In any name.  I think, for instance, that the US Constitution (particularly as extended by my understanding of the thinkers of the times) is a beautiful thing.  But even self-preservation is inadequate to justify trampling or suspending the very thing you're trying to save.  I was more worried at one time than I am today about Bush and Ashcroft attempting to limit our civil liberties in the name of homeland security.  I would prefer to sacrifice security to ensure our liberty than vice versa.

Also, I've heard a bunch of Bush supporters assert that I and others dislike him because he's less charismatic than Clinton (the antichrist!).  Well, I guess I agree that he's less charismatic but I'm offended by the claim that I would go along with immorality in a slick package.  (Not that you'd know this, but these yahoos at work should remember, I thought Clinton sucked too!)

Chris

[clehrich]

No, I wasn't actually saying that assassinating our current leading politicians would be a good thing.  What I meant was that from the perspective of a lot of other places, this would be a rather cleaner version of what Ralph's defending in Iraq.  I simply don't see why it's perfectly okay to invade a country, kill its leaders, and stir up what appears to be heading for civil war, but it's not okay for someone to consider that sort of activity grounds for a reprisal of the same act.

I mean, by that logic, you could read 9/11 as a failed attempt to oust a vicious, criminal government.  I'm sure that's at least part of Osama's justification, after all.  And don't tell me that the difference is that our government was democratically elected, because it wasn't.  Is Osama's action horrible and terrorist simply because he doesn't have the letters USA attached to him?  If we go and commit unilateral violence on another country, without any real reasons except that we don't like the leadership, why can't they do this to us?

I do believe that in effect, Bush and Cheney are working hard to justify terrorist actions.  And when you go and say, "It's okay, because the end effect is going to be a good thing some day," you really do end up saying that terrorism against states you don't like is okay.  But what I think is supposed to divide it is that we're Americans and they're not.  And I think that's worthless crap.  Hell, doesn't it seem relevant here that the Bushies are against the war crimes court because they don't think Americans should ever be prosecuted by it?  In effect, they're saying that Americans cannot, by definition, ever commit war crimes.  Isn't that convenient.

As to liberalism and the left and right, a couple points.

1. You're right that electing Kerry isn't going to produce peaceful ideals or anything like it.  But at least we have no reason to think that he's in favor of the US perpetrating world terrorism.

2. I have to say that I think Kerry and Clinton are pretty right-wing; they are emblematic of the pendulum shift to the right.  If you define the poles of current "acceptable" public debate by the Democrats and the Republicans, then the center is pretty damn far right; the far left is considered obviously crazy and doesn't have to be dealt with at all.  What I'd like to see is a pendulum swing back towards the left, where the "acceptable" range of discourse is centered to the left of Kerry and Clinton; this would put Bush and Cheney and Rove outside of what's considered reasonable, which sounds about right to me.

It's just amazing to me that we have shifted in 35 years from "criminal behavior by US governments is totally unacceptable" to "criminal behavior by US governments is ordinary and not a big deal."  And in that time, we've also had a strong shift to the right in mainstream politics and discourse.  Do I think the right wing inherently criminal?  Well, yes, but regardless I think that the right is now so powerful that they really think they can get away with anything, and I think the argument that invading a country because its leader is currently annoying (where before he was our great pal) is acceptable politics shows that the right is indeed getting away with murder.  Literally.  

How come they don't think the Geneva Convention applies to the treatment of Saddam?  Remember how livid Fox News and everyone was when the Iraqis showed some really not terribly disturbing photos of captured American troops -- arguably contrary to the Geneva Conventions -- but everyone thought it was just great when we showed Saddam getting oral probes?

You know, Eisenhower refused to wear a military uniform while in office as president.  Presidents dressing up as generals is something we see a lot in creepy leaders we generally pretend not to like -- like Saddam, for example.  And Bush, who sleazed his way out of reserve service, dresses up in uniform to announce "mission accomplished" on a carrier deck, and people think that shows how tough he is.  When did everyone get so stupid?

P.S. As to the "imminent threat" thing, check this out.

[joshua neff]

The problem with the "ends justifies the means...sometimes...for governments" is--who decides? Who decides the ends are "good" & the means are "justified"? I mean, you can say all you want that what we did in Iraq is a good thing, but good for who? Good for me? Not as far as I can see--it's done nothing to change my life personally. It's certainly made travelling to the Middle East a whole hell of a lot more problematic for me. Has it made life better for George W Bush & Dick Cheney? Certainly. Halliburton has gotten all kinds of contracts out of this. Cheney's definitely profitting from this, if not directly, then indirectly. Have the Iraqi people benefitted from this? A lot of them don't seem to think so.

In a democratic republic, it's up to the people to decide if an action taken by the government is justified or not. I don't think Bush & Co's actions are justified, regardless of the result. And so, I will continue to make noise & do my best to take them to task for it. Because they serve in their positions at the discretion of the American people. Bush's position as President, & Cheney's as Vice-President, is not a *right*, it's a *privilege*, & one that can be taken away from them at any time. Bush & Cheney serve *me*, not the other way around.