I suspect this thread will burn brighter than any thread we could produce on religion or sodomy, but what the hell....

Ralph wrote:

What we basically had is a vile tyrannical dictator who attempts genocide on his own people. He'd had WMDs before, he'd demonstrated he's willing to use them, he'd demonstrated that he continued to try an obtain them, he had ties to terrorist organizations that he certainly would have provided them to and who would certainly have used them.

Whether he had any at the particular moment of invasion is entirely irrelevant and a complete and utter red herring put out by those with ulterior agendas.

There was a time when we propped him up as the lessor of two evils against the Ayatollah. Mistake? Maybe, maybe not. No telling where Iran would have gone if they hadn't been stymied by Iraq for years.

There's 3 groups of people who are leading the rabble rousing against Iraq.

1) Those European Powers who stood to make a ton of money off of their relationships with Saddam and didn't want to see those arrangements threatened.

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.

3) And those Europeans who felt the opportunity to throw their weight around and score points by being as vocal as possible about "not following the U.S". For these people the issue had nothing to do with Iraq or WMDs or anything. It was completely a question of demonstrating their independence from us by going left when we asked them to go right.


All the rest about what the intelligence agencies did or didn't know, or whether Bush did or didn't exaggerate is just a bunch of stuff and nonsense put out by the above 3 groups to conceal their real motives for being upset.

What's wrong with sodomy?

*****

Ok, some little bits to add.

If the Bush administration was really dishonest enough to lie about WDM, then they would've just planted some in Iraq. I mean, we are occupying it, shouldn't be that hard to keep up the ruse. Hell, we sold 'em a lot of US equipment when they were our little pawns against Iran (USSR backed, IIRC) during the cold war, so, ya know, we should have some stuff that matches. That leads towards the ignorance conclusion. Conquering a whole nation because of ignorance ain't exactly flattering.

Ok, Saddam was a bad man. Yeah, I buy it. But why this particular bad man? Why didn't we march into, say, any number of places in Africa. They've got terrorists, people attempting genocide, all sorts of bad men to deal with. Why this one? There is obviously another reason. A US interest. It bothers me that the adminstration tries to shroud what they are doing in 'evil doers', 'terrorists', 'WDM', and what not. Come out with it, those are swell reasons and all, but they ain't why you picked this particular bad man over the others.

Don't want the evil doers to have evil weapons? This just pisses me off. We've got the largest stockpile of 'evil weapons' in the world. That's just manipulating the public. Their weapons are 'evil', ours are a 'holy sword' or some shit. We can have them, but they can't? Do as I say, not as I do.

Ok, so we've got 'preemptive strike'. Gee that sounds smart. You think that guy is going to punch you, so you hit him first. Hmmm, yep, that's the smart thing to do. Too bad it isn't the right thing to do. Guilty until proven innocent? Huh, I didn't think that's what the USA was supposed to stand for.

*****

Flame on Iraq thread. Flame on.

The easiest way to disabuse yourself of the comfortable and comforting delusion that opponents of the occupation of Iraq fit into such alleged "easy categories" would be to go on a demo. Just walk around and talk to people and you will find a huge mix of opinions and reasons.

But its an easy sort of slanderous attack that, in fact, depends on the audiences ignorance of the issues and circumstances; its equally appallingly cynical, as its the line peddled by those who supported Saddam while he was a Western ally, gassing Kurds and so forth. Suddenly the hypocrites discover their bed-partner to be unsavoury and overcome by overdue faux-concern, ride to the rescue.

What apologists for this illegal and immoral war fail to address are the real reasons for opposing the war. It was widely and correctly poredicted that this would raise the risks of terrorism, but this was ignored: becuase for the imperialists, human life means nothing, on either side. A few of our dead citizens is a small prioce to pay for the immense wealth that Halliburton and their White House chronies gain from reconstruction, or the geopolitical security that comes from being able to obviate Opec.

All this humanitarian rhetoric is merely cover, merely the propaganda of the gas-masked rapist and the babies torn from incubators, the lies produced by Gulf 1, or more accurately, the Second Oil War (this present being the Third).

Unsurprisingly, the above post was mine. Dunno how it appeared as a 'guest' post.

I support military intervention for humanitarian purposes.

So, uhm, North Korea and Burma, which one first? Anyone?

*looks around at the now-silent hawks*

Yeah.

yrs--
--Ben

P.S. Congo, Haiti (now), Tibet, Indonesia, etc... This is a lifetime's work.

just one little nitpick:

b) he sold the war saying, "the threat from Iraq to the United States was "imminent," (as Rumself himself said on the air a little over a year ago),

Perhaps, but thats not the whole story. On this side of the pond, major papers splashed with "45 minutes from doom" headlines on the basis of ther claim made several times in the Dodgy Dossier - repeated several times in the PM's foreword alone. The subsequent articles made clear that the papers understood this to refer to weapons that could threaten Britain.

The government argues that they never actually said that. When asked why they did not correct the papers misunderstanding, they respond that this would be an endless and futile task (and yet pilloried the BBC).

It is not adequate to excuse this mess by saying they didn't actually say 'imminently'; they clearly implied this, and allowed everything to contribute to this impression. Fundamentally, such a semantic argument is pretty puerile in serious politics, because if "words just meant what they meant" we probably would not have politics at all. Thats what they are in the business of doing, they can't just hold up their hands and plead incompetence on a matter which means life and death.

First, um, I don't think I'm really "rabble," and it's sort of a desperate ploy to discount the opposition as meaningless mind-wasters.

But the larger point, "All the rest about what the intelligence agencies did or didn't know, or whether Bush did or didn't exaggerate is just a bunch of stuff and nonsense..." is simply terrifying.

It's clearly not "just" a bunch of stuff and nonsense. There are officials from the intelligence agencies, the pentagon and the adminstration all making it clear the truth was bent to the will of the administration to get us into a war in Iraq no matter what.

If the President of the United States is making a case to go to war, and is using specious or deceptive arguements to make the case, then something's gone wrong.

That doesn't change the fact that when Bush and his administration were making their arguments not one of the glowing points you brought up was used as an argument.

Bush never made these points, because he knew that would simply not sell the war.

If he tried to sell the war with these points, we'd also have to invade, at least, North Korea and Pakistan. Because those points are just as valid for these nations. And, lo, we didn't.

b) he sold the war saying, "the threat from Iraq to the United States was "imminent," (as Rumself himself said on the air a little over a year ago),

1) If the points you've raised were valid reasons for going to war, why were these not the points argued?

2) If the points that were raised valid, why have all of them collapsed under revelation of officials through the government and revelations of the situation in Iraq.

And 3) How is it just a red herring to ask why the sitting president made his case to go to war never mentoining all these spiff, newly revealed really good reasons for having gone to war, while all the reasons he sold the war on turned out to be either fabrications or an almost willful ignorance. I mean, you might reply, "Well, people wouldn't have wanted to go to war if the reasons were he was a bad man, who might in a decade or two have WMD again, who harmed his own people, so we had to make it more of an immediate threat to the US and payback for 9-11." That's the *best* case I can put forward -- and I still think it's shit.

Ben Lehman:

I support military intervention for humanitarian purposes.

Sorry. "Guest" is me.

Valamir wrote:
There's a HUGE volume of literature questioning what FDR did and didn't know about Pearl Harbor before using it to drag us into WWII. Point being this sort of thing goes on ALL the time.

What I regret most is that we live in a time where that's even necessary. What should have happened is "Hey Saddam's got to go, why? Cuz he's killing is own people, letting them live in poverty while he lives in luxury and builds up his army, and his crazy sons are torturing dissidents. After that there's a couple more bad guys who need to be dealt with."

Unfortuneately the Western World doesn't really give a rats ass about how bad off other places have it...As long as it doesn't directly effect the lives of soccer moms taking kids to school we aren't going to care about the fate of the Kurds. We've had 10 years to prove that, not that there was any doubt.

So Bush, targeted something that WOULD get us fired up. The threat of bad stuff happening to us here. And in order to get us fired up about it, maybe he engaged in a little hyperbole.

The only wrong thing there is that we've become such a self centered society that the only way we'd support a war against a tyrant is if that tyrant was directly able to target us...otherwise...oh well.

Hell no. But he's doing something. And you know. No one in history has really made a habit out of going after dictators where they live, kicking them out, putting in democratic governments and rebuilding their economy except us. Its been 60 years since the last time we tried this on a major scale. Rough parts are to be expected.

So he did what he had to do, to get done what needed to be done. Seems to be he had the balls to put his career and reputation at risk in order to make something happen that needed to happen, that wouldn't have happened any other way.

Yup. Hopefully we do. There's a lot of governments in the world that need to go.

Hey, if Clinton can get away with debating the definition of "is"; I think we can get equal mileage out of debating the definition of "imminent".

I mean exactly how short a time does it need to be before its ok to react to it? Should we really have to wait until the WMDs are delivered to the terrorists who are going to use them before intervening. No, I don't think you'd suggest that. So then, wheres the line?

Personally, nailing the bad guys BEFORE they get the weapons seems like a pretty good idea to me.

You've already answered that yourself. Because no one would care.

Check history. This is how the game has worked since...well, pretty much Washington left office. The only difference is now we have the
media telling us about it as it happens.

To me the only sane response to such outrage is "ummm....yeah...why would you possibly expect otherwise...thats what they do. Its what they all do."

Let me make sure I've got this straight:

The fact that people have always lied makes lying okay.

If that's what you're saying, then I wish to go on record as disagreeing.

I'm against the war in Iraq, and have been from the beginning. My reasons are pretty standard: we are getting lots of Americans and Iraqis killed and permanently crippled, for the sake of a decrease in America's power and goodwill throughout the world, a decrease in respect for the sovereignty of nations and international law, an increase in worldwide terrorism, an increase in worldwide military expenditure, and somewhere between minimal gain and total humanitarian disaster for the people of the middle east.

In other words, I'm against the war because I believe there are few benefits and great costs, the least of which are the budget-busting financial ones. This is an empirical prediction I made when we went to war. So far, I consider myself vindicated. If things turn out differently, I will admit that I was wrong.

I'm going to have to "ditto" Sean's remarks heavily.

Invading Iraq is cool if American was willing to deal with the consequences. However, we're not. No way, shape, or form. Have people ignored the fact that most other nations in the world have many good reasons to hate us? They did even before we started invading other countries just because we didn't like their governments. America is the world's only superpower these days, and that's dangerous because no one can check potential abuses and tell us when we're just flat-out wrong about something.

If you think the checks and balances in the American system of government are important, consider the fact that the current world government consists of America as an authoritarian dictator, with the UN and other countries as a powerless legislature that complains a lot. Only countries with nukes get to vote (which is why we don't start wars with China, North Korea, or Pakistan). It's disenfranchisement, pure and symple.

The world right now is very much like the current Chinese system of government. It's an odd metaphor, but follow me on this one:

1. Capitalism is everywhere, with minimal controls in place to prevent abuses.

2. Everyone pay lip service to the ideology of the founders (in this case, Democracy instead of Communism), but that doesn't really reflect how stuff really gets done. More often, it's power and money instead of the votes of the people.

3. There is an authoritarian power that tries to govern everything by making choices that are in the best interests of the greater whole. It relies on the moral judgement of this power to make sure that these choices are good.

4. Dissenting voices are acknowledged, but not really repected or dealt with in a concerned fashion. Instead of attempting to build consensus and gain the support of others, choices are made quickly in the hopes that success (which they expect will be quick in coming) will prove all dissenters wrong. If success is not quick in coming, it's obviously the fault of the dissenters.

Now, the Chinese government system works pretty well, at least, in the past few decades. But many people have serious issues with the way the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) enacts policy, especially in the United States. I find this, ironically, very amusing, considering the United States acts just like the CCP, except on a global basis.

Hi Guys,

Ralph, thanks for the replies. I do understand your point of view now. I find it wrongheaded to the extreme. However, *explaining* why would be a long, multi-threaded debate. We're no longer arguing the facts of the war and the adminstration, but statecraft itself -- which I believe could produce an entire website itself. And, as noted in other posts, I'm simply out of time for a lot of web posting these days.

We're also arguing if the beliefs and interests of the american people are "correct." Most americans believe in defending their nation, but not going out to pick fights. Whether or not anyone believes the nonsense that Pearl Harbor was a "set up" -- after the attack, it was time to go to war, no matter what. So, what is the role of the US in stepping into fights all around the globe? Again, another multi-theaded topic all on its own.

(In both cases, I mean multi-threaded website to imply it would take a lot of work to untangle the issues and then put them back together into something new -- not that I *only* have a knee-jerk reaction to what you've proposed ("Lying to the US people is the only way to use our nation's might for good.") I *do* have a knee-jerk reaction against that -- but, again, the disucussion would have to be nuanced, subtle, frustrating in its lack of moral clarity and more... It would be a tough haul. But my short hand version is: no, thanks. I'll take the facts and make my own decision, thank you.)

Next,

I would like to spike Montag's dare. Here you go:

http://hgrm.ctsg.com/index.asp?Phrase=immediate+threat

It's a great web site.

I understand that the above link has nothing to do with your concerns, Ralph. However, the efforts of such people as Waxman mean a great deal to *me* -- and here's why:

What this is about for me is administration officials going on the air these days and blatantly contradicting their own words time and time again, simply, baldly lying about what they said, what others have said, and expecting to get away with it -- even though the facts are on public record. I think they behave this way because for two years they *were* able to lie baldly and no one in the the large media outlets ever did catch them on it. *I* heard them lying all the time -- and was amazed no one called them on it.

When O'Neill's book came out, I remember hearing, "No one writes 'tell-tale' books about about a sitting president. It just isn't done." I checked, and it was true. The kiss-and-tells are usually published after an adminstration leaves. I thought: "well, either O'Neil is the freak the Bush administration is painting him to be.... or things are so fucked up in the White House this will be the start of something really bad for them."

I believe the second case is occurring. I believe it will only get worse from here on in. When you've got career civil servents and career soldiers going on record every two weeks saying, "This is how this administration is screwing up the [econonomy, war on terrorism, the middle-east policy...] I think something *huge* is happening. It's only all confirming what I suspected for two and a half years by putting together clues on my own... But it's alwasy nice to know I'm right.

The reason this checking of facts matters is because a lot of time the Administration uses lies and exagerations to trash other people critical of the adminatration -- and let me be clear here Ralph -- it is NOT the media that's doing this. The media may be making noise about these lies and distortions, but the lies and distortions are ONLY there because folks with decades in civil service and the military are stepping forward and saying, "Something is wrong here." Many of them. THAT's the story. That's not the media. That's just people worried about the future of a nation they love.

Thus, everyone's favorite whipping boy, "the media," is off the table for this one.

And now, back to work...

(raising glass) Happy birthday all! But I gotta get up early in the morning.

Christopher

Oh goody! I can rant now...wrote this up last night in response to the post on the "religion" thread.

"Smoke and mirrors by people with ulterior agendas"? The irrefutable fact of the matter is that Bush lied to the American people about there being an "imminent threat" from Iraq, distorted facts about the ties it held to terrorist organizations, and promised us that he had unquestionable evidence that Iraq had and/or was developing WMDs. We went into war based on falsehoods used to whip up hysteria and fear, not to liberate Iraq or its people from a brutal regime.

Oh, and Markus, sorry, but a simple web search turned up quotes showing when and who used that and similar phrases ("imminent" ie: immediate, soon, near-by, coming down the pipe, etc). Regardless, the whole "oh, he didn't say imminent" argument is a dodge of the real issues, anyways, an attempt to put a distracting spin on the issue via a semantical smokescreen. Because, all things considered, whatever exact words the president or his administration used, he made a case that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that could be used against America at any time, through the hands of terrorists, and that we needed to perform a pre-emptive strike to prevent that from occurring. (Unless you'd now like to argue that the Bush administration never called this action a pre-emptive strike?)

I pointed out the problems with the "evidence" when it was all first going down, and I can repeat it now in light of advisors crawling out of the woodwork with said evidence of manipulation of intelligence by the president's office, with the addendum, "I bloody told you so."

Ulterior motives? You bet! As one of those "rabble rousers" villified in your defense of the action taken, I don't like the abuse of power displayed by our current administration in pursuit of it's personal goals.

I can't belive Bush isn't answering to a Congressional tribunal right now, especially given we had to listen endlessly to crap about Clinton SCREWING AN INTERN! I mean, seriously, what gives? Manipulating intelligence to coerce the country into war is less of an offense than adultery, which only affects a couple people's private lives?

So, yeah, I have an ulterior motive: accountability.

Red herring? I don't think so.

Yes, the world's better off without Hussein. Yes, the man was a vile dictator committing terrible atrocities against his own people. Yes, he would have sooner seen America burn than not.

But before I allow anyone to make that argument in defense of the war, I point out that 1) that wasn't the reason we were given for going to war 2) if that's the case, we'd damn well better invade North Korea, liberate Tibet, and take out Cuba NOW. Among a half-a-dozen other actions we should take if we're going to play world-liberator. Seriously, those saying how it is a "moral" issue because Hussein was evil and posed a threat to the world order had best just put their dicks on the chopping block, push for a massive military campaign against all the evils of the world, or shut up about it.

Plus, I'm with Ethan: "He lied, but everyone in office does, and we don't do much about it usually, so that makes it ok" is also a pile of steaming dog crap.

I also have to laugh at the ridiculous idea that because you elect someone into office, it's OK for them to lie, steal, distort facts, and otherwise behave dishonorably because they were elected! (And BTW, I didn't vote for him, so I have every right to complain about his behavior in office.)

And you only mention the American casulaties of the war. Very sad.

Finally, I don't like the fact that we're spending gobs of money on this situation we've created overseas when our own economy has been in a nose-dive for the past couple of years, and I don't see any damn aid packages for Americans being rushed through Congress.

First Christopher Kubasik wrote: b) he sold the war saying, "the threat from Iraq to the United States was "imminent," (as Rumself himself said on the air a little over a year ago)

Then Christopher Kubasik wrote: I would like to spike Montag's dare. Here you go:http://hgrm.ctsg.com/index.asp?Phrase=immediate+threat

I really couldn't disagree with Ralph more.

I think That Man (Bush, not Ralph) should be dragged out onto Pennsylvania Avenue by the hair and stoned to death.

But I'm not picking on That Man. I think that's true of every president we've had while I was alive, and maybe every president. For whatever reason, presidents are bad men.

What we basically had is a vile tyrannical dictator who attempts genocide on his own people. He'd had WMDs before, he'd demonstrated he's willing to use them, he'd demonstrated that he continued to try an obtain them, he had ties to terrorist organizations that he certainly would have provided them to and who would certainly have used them.

Hi Markus,

You'll have to forgive my addled brain. Please spell out the difference for me.

Better yet, if you're willing, let's take "imminent" off the table if you wish.

Rumsfeld said two years ago, Iraq was an "immediate threat" -- which clearly implies the US was in danger NOW. Exactly what is being argued here? I'm at a loss.

With respect,

Christopher

PS Just checked out your link. Good site -- however, I'm not arguing the technicalities of imminent. My concern has been about the "selling" of the war. Rumsfeld's language in the quote I offered makes it clear that the biggest threat to the US came from Sadam... Clearly not true. The biggest threat came from nationless terrorist organizations based in Afganistan... You know, the ones who launched a successful attack on our nation. We can mire down into thesaurus debates, but that's not my point. My point is, how did the administration frame the need to go to war through the press and to the people. "Immediate threat" may technically not be "imminent" but when when people need to know their leaders are doing something to protect their kids, its more than enough to confound the meaning in the imaginations of most people. Polls showed conclusively, and still do -- that a majority of Americans think Sadam had ties to the 9-11 attacks. There was a lot of confusion rushing out of the media outlets and the administration (which is why I laugh whenver I hear about the "liberal media." It was Rush and Co. who helped simply peddle lies for the adminstration, and they're media, too. So, again, you want to take imminent off the table. Fine. Rumself said Sadam was the biggest immediate threat. This was either a lie or self-willed ignorance -- or a terrifying incompetence. On all counts, bad news.

Christopher,

I think Markus is talking about the legal terminology--international law apparently treats "imminent" as a technical term that, if I'm reading Markus right, would have allowed the U.S. to make a claim that the invasion was legal under U.N. law.

Markus, tell me if I'm right on this.

So you're not really arguing about anything, I think, except that you're using "imminent" in it's non-technical sense, as a synonym of "immediate," while Markus is really focused on the legal implications tied to the technical usage of "imminent threat."

Rich

Rich,

I typed up my PS when you were posting.

Yes, I think your right about this.

He's talking law. I'm talking PR. Both are vital elements of statecraft. But we are talking different things.

Thanks,

Christopher

"Now, transport yourself forward a year, two years, or a week, or a month, and if Saddam Hussein were to take his weapons of mass destruction and transfer them, either use them himself or transfer them to Al-Qaeda, and somehow the Al-Quaeda were to engage in an attack on the United States, or an attack on US forces overseas, with a weapon of mass destruction you're not talking about 300 or 3000 people dead, but 30000, or 100000... human beings."

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies and against us."

"The Iraqui regime is a threat of unique urgency.... t has developed weapons of mass death."

Messrs Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush.

"A week...", "unique urgency...", "no doubt". Just like Blair was lying to us, your guys were lying to you.

Now, you guys are lucky - cos you didn't vote for him the first time. We at least have to shoulder some responsibility for the way our PM is acting.

As long as we're indulging, here's an absurd connection that I consider telling, even though it's absurd: remember the last days of the 2000 election? Remember the (not actually important and almost certainly timed-for-effect) "revelation" of Mr. Bush's drunk driving arrest? Remember his EXPLANATION for why he hadn't revealed it? He didn't want to set a bad example for his daughters. He thought they'd be better off not knowing that daddy was arrested.

Yes, it's a huge stretch. To tell you the truth, I'm not a big fan of judging a politician based on what you can glean of his or her "moral character" - look at the issues, see where they stand, compare to your stance, and vote accordingly. But . . .

Bush is a man who believes it's OK to lie if that lie serves a greater good. More importantly (since I can imagine instances of "lie" and "greater good" in which I agree with that belief), his judgement about the lies that are OK and the greater goods that justify 'em is WAY off of how I'd see it. Going into Iraq virtually unilaterally, and using questionable tactics to convince enough of the American public that unilateral action is OK - the man, and his administration, have done more damage in those acts than can be justified by the obvious good of removing Saddam.

As a confession - I have buddies in Iraq right now. One of my oldest friends was going to be home in January, but will now be there for another year (mostly voluntarily, best as I can tell from his email). I've got mixed feelings on what we do now - how to "finish the job," or disengage, or begin sharing the load . . . very mixed feelings.

But the manner in which we got to where we're at seems to me an entirely worthy subject of inquiry, and the people who went about bringing us here are quite reasonable targets of scrutiny. And I don't like what I see, not one little bit.

Gordon

@Chris
it's not entirely about law, though that is a major part of it. Rich's got it right, in that "imminent threat" is sufficient grounds for pre-emptive* war, the kind of war you are allowed to start if your enemy is moving his troops to your border. Pre-ventive* war OTOH, which is based on the assumption that the enemy might attack is insufficient grounds for starting a war (by int. law, that is; not that people have spent much time pondering these distinctions in the past ;) *e.g. this link (sorry, couldn't find a better source in a hurry)
IIRC it was John Kerry (some Dem anyway) who first introduced the phrase "imminent threat" into the debate, while the Bush admin had gone to great lengths to avoid the particular phrase. Since a lot of people came to believe Bush & Co. actually used that phrase and I believe in speaking up even on behalf of the scoundrel when he is wronged I've tried to set the record straight on that one.
Now, for the larger question of intent. This is kind of hard for me, since I believe the Bush admin is guilty as hell of lying to the American people and the world. Anyway, here's the positive side, as best as I can argue it: Bush & Co. repeatedly stressed that – in this new situation with 9-11 and all that – that the traditional doctrine of preemption=good, prevention=bad did no longer work. They said, yes, that guy is not threatening us right now, but he got the WMD (an intel fuckup which in turn can be argued endlessly about, but suffice it to say that the Bush admin very probably wasn't the only part in this which failed the American people) and sooner or later we will have to deal with him. They did not say "the threat is upon us" (i.e. imminent) but said "this threat is the kind of threat that passes right through the imminent phase, the kind of threat that goes from a vague possibility on the radar screens of the CIA to catastrophe quicker than we can stop it" ... "and this is why we need to do something about it now". So, from that perspective, the _absence_ of "imminence" is actually the crucial element in the admin's case for war.
This argument, about "what to do about rogue states which might hand WMD to terrorists" has IMHO not yet been addressed by the international community, and while I'm not a fan of the approach Bush and the Neoconservatives favour, I have to admit it beats sitting around and waiting (FWIW, clear guidelines have been suggested by some int. strategy org., don't remember which one that was right now. best solution IMO). Anyway, claiming Bush et al. spoke of an "imminent threat" kind of sidesteps this issue, could be said to deliberately miss their point and attributes hidden meaning to their words which (a) doesn't sit quite so well with their other words and deeds and (b) is mindreading, i.e. entails the claim that one is able to accurately infer what Bush et al. "really" meant. The later is fine for private opinion, but unsuitable for any other debate except the one about whose mindreading-fu is better. ;)
Hope that clears it up a bit.

Hi Markus,

Thanks.

As stated, I've taken "imminent" off the table. Doesn't matter to me as a word. Really doesn't.

Look at the Rumsfeld quote I linked to. Look at a couple of the quotes a Guest posted three posts up. For those US citizens who watch Meet the Press, read newspapers, watch clips on the evening news, talk to co-workers at the water coolers... such words speak as if Iraq was a problem that had to be dealth with immediately, because Sadam a) had the resources, b) wanted to use them against us, c) could use them at any second and well might, d) might well be selling his stuff to Al Quida. In the court of public opinion, not the court of law, this mean, this guys ass had to be put on the spike *now.*

None of these points was true. (More than a "fuck up," by the way, though it did cut across agencies and people. Driving it was very much a systematic distortion of intel by White House officials who broke protocol and created new chanels of gaining and interpretting information within the Pentagon and the CIA as they searched for info that would support a war against Iraq and ignored intel that didn't serve their agenda.)

I understand your point about the absence of imminence being a reason to go to war with Iraq -- since we didnt' want to get caught off guard in this "new"world of danger. And if: Sadam's infrastructure hadn't been destroyed by ten years of bombing and sanctions, if he actually had a weapons program in place, if there was a shred of real eveidence he had such systems in place, if the adminstration had let the inspectors finish their job instead of forcing them out by means of war so the question was left hanging in the air, if Sadam and bin Ladin would have been anything but enemies, if Sadam could have delivered such weapons to the US, if Sadam had one frickin' reason to bring down the rain of US might on his head! -- the war might make sense. But, of course, not one of those ifs bears any resemblence to reality.

The truth is, as O'Neil, Clark as well as folks from the Pentagon, intelligence agencies and others have noted, Bush had a jones for Iraq even before 9-11.

And here's my big, big problem. There were threats out there that had to be dealth with in a new way. There really are. Al Quida's not going to be bringing grievences to the UN before launching another attack against us!

But Bush's response in attacking Iraq -- usless to dealing with the actual problems facing this nation, threatening our stakes in the middle east, tossing resources away from the real issues at hand, built on arguments that are specious at best -- completely ignored these real problems.

So, please, let's let the scoundral defend himself. In a world full of threats right now, shouldn't he be going after the one that matters most? And if Iraq wasn't the one that mattered most, what in god's name are we doing there instead of going after the actual threats?

Christopher

Hi Christopher
(I hope you don't mind me continuing this debate, I love that stuff)

I'm right with you as far as the court of public opinion is concerned, but as the advocatus diaboli I have to point out what the right usually points out on this matter, namely that e.g. Kerry's (I know, I really should check who it was) use of the phrase "imminent threat" and warnings against the Iraqi threat by e.g. Clinton, Gore etc. did certainly cement that impression. IIRC, before the inspectors went in, lots of people had good reason to expect "bad stuff" from Saddam and between that and the point where a retreat would have made the US "loose face" (a stupid, but unfortunately not irrelevant aspect in int. politics) there wasn't really a lot of room.

On the intel stuff I tend to agree with you, but I think it was a bad case of Groupthink (roughly: faulty decision making based on valuing group coherence (i.e. the neoconservatives and the "old guard") over incongruent or contradictory evidence/opinions).

As to "why Iraq", and "does it make a sensible first step in the WoT", I find myself nodding in agreement with you and would like to add the over a decade old dream of "remaking the middle east" and the issue of "finding a new – territorial – enemy after the fall of the Soviet Union" to the list of reasons.
At this point, I'm thinking Iraq was simply the best response they could come up with, domino theory of democracy sounds cool on paper and heck, if it works out after all it will be a major accomplishment. That doesn't make it a good policy in my book, but looking at the whole thing, I see (i) spin, but a plausible line of reasoning (the "imminent" stuff I talked about above) (ii) incompetence in managing intel, might call it bad management (iii) an admin that choose to do what is easy and easily sold instead of doing the hard stuff, like tackle Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, North Korea. Points one and three are par for the course of every administration I'm aware of, worldwide (doesn't excuse it of course). Point two is hard to tell and IMO the best ground for calling this admin "unfit for office", but really, all I see are "stupid white men" (damn that serial liar Moore for coming up with such an apt phrase).

As to "why Iraq", and "does it make a sensible first step in the WoT", I find myself nodding in agreement with you and would like to add the over a decade old dream of "remaking the middle east" and the issue of "finding a new – territorial – enemy after the fall of the Soviet Union" to the list of reasons.

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

I know that I already got my chance to spout off earlier, but I think the reasons for "why Iraq" are pretty clear, pretty different from what has so far been expressed, and pretty logical. But evil as hell.

We spent lots of time and money building up the Iraqi army to doink with the Iranian army. Over decades, we twisted their entire structure of governance into a military-machine. It was to our "advantage" because of the "danger" presented by Iran. (Imagine their gall to nationalize the British oil resources in their country!) In 1988 the Iran-Iraq war finally drew to a close and Iraq had an army capable of destablizing American interests across the Middle East. So our guys looked for a good way to downsize them. And our wish came true when Hussein asked the US for permission to invade Kuwait. Once we gave him the green light, he moved on them and like a crazed weasle, we turned on him. We downsized his army. A decade of inhumane sanctions later, after deciding that the Iraqi military remains a menace, we've decided to downsize it more effectively.

I mean, really, if we were so opposed to Saddam Hussein, the man, why wouldn't we have assassinated him in '91?

We opened Pandora's Box and this was the only way to close it quickly. And yeah, like Ralph pointed out...it's only 600 Americans dead...no biggie. Oh, and countless thousands of Iraqis...I mean, if you count them as people.

Chris

Valamir wrote: I don't have to guess what most posters to this thread will think of them as reasons.

quozl wrote:

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

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

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" ;)

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Valamir wrote: 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 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.

Valamir wrote: 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.

Valamir wrote: 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.

Valamir wrote: 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.

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.

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.

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

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

Valamir wrote: 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.

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. ;)

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.

Valamir wrote: 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.

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.

Valamir wrote: 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).

Valamir wrote: 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.

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.

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.

The problem with a democracy is that anyone who actually wants to run for a position of power probably shouldn't be in that position because of the nature of obtaining that position of power.

I think determining our government by random lottery would be a much better method.

I actually think the vote keeps anyone particularly good or bad out of the office. I mean, it's sure that Pat Buchanan and David Duke will never win, but the price is that we're saddled with crud like Bush and Clinton.

I guess I'd be willing to give the lottery idea a playtest.

Chris

Absolutely right Josh. The only thing I'd add is that there is far too much government going on publically these days. On the surface that sounds like a good thing, greater transparency leads to a voting public better able to make sound decisions on who to vote for.

Unfortuneately the reality of it is that its a horrible way to run a country. Politicians spend way too much time worrying about image and spin control and not enough time being willing to actually attend to the business of government.

The country would be far better off with much more of the daily operations of government occuring behind closed doors where decisions can be made that need to be made.

In this way politicians can be judged on the net outcome of those decisions rather than being prejudged on the presumed outcome by people ripping into the process to serve their own agendas.

I mean look at how many people believe that Iraq is a mess. That's nonsense. My cousin just got back from a tour over there with the engineers. He reports no shots fired by him or at him. An all around completely boring tour. In his words, the only notable difference being stationed in Iraq from his usual base in Germany was worse food, and worse weather. He found the whole thing rather anti climactic. He also reports that this was the pretty much the same for most everyone over there he met with save those units specifically stationed in known hot spots.

The stories the media puts out about Iraq are completely biased. "5 soldiers come under attack by rocket grenades" is an interesting headline. "109,995 soldiers report 'all is well, nothing of note going on" is not.

Iraq is NOT a chaotic nightmarish mess. It's not entirely smooth sailing, but its not utter chaos on the brink of civil war. The fact that people can actually say things like that and believe it just demonstrates how in control of public opinion the popular media outlets are. And that's exactly why I say there is too much government going on publically then is good for us.

I just think there's too much government going on.

Valamir wrote: Absolutely right Josh. The only thing I'd add is that there is far too much government going on publically these days.

Christopher Weeks wrote: I just think there's too much government going on.

Christopher Weeks wrote: I just think there's too much government going on.

Valamir wrote: Nicolas: I find your equating "democracy" with the "UN" to pretty unfathomable.

Valamir wrote: I mean look at how many people believe that Iraq is a mess. That's nonsense. My cousin just got back from a tour over there with the engineers. He reports no shots fired by him or at him. An all around completely boring tour. In his words, the only notable difference being stationed in Iraq from his usual base in Germany was worse food, and worse weather. He found the whole thing rather anti climactic. He also reports that this was the pretty much the same for most everyone over there he met with save those units specifically stationed in known hot spots.

Maybe "only" 600 or so soldiers have died, but thousands of soldiers have been injured or wounded.

Attempting an end run around the "ends and means" stuff . . . the way in which we went can matter. It doesn't have to, and/or it it doesn't have to matter as MUCH as the fact that we went and acheived whatever result we did - but it CAN. In this case, I believe very strongly that it did. I believe that it is POSSIBLE (not inevitable, and not even likely - but all-too possible) that what history will show is that the overthrow of Saddam was the begining of the end of American leadership in world affairs. It'll take a long time, if it does play out that way.

But the risk that that - or a number of other negative outcomes - will occur as a result of the overthrow is far too great to support the possible positive results. The chance of anything as rosy as the PNAC-envisioned "true middle-eastern democracy" flourishing in Iraq and spreading are far too slim to place our nation's resources and reputation on the line over.

What bothers me is not that real politik is behind the Iraq war. What bothers me is that foolish idealism of the PNAC-stripe is behind it.

Gordon

That's 3% folks...in over a year. That's just counting the 110,000 number of total deployed. Include the total number of people who've served over there (not just serving currently. i.e. went in, came home) and the %age is even lower.

In a YEAR. These are NOT significant numbers (except of course to the people who suffered them and their families. Its always hard to not sound callous when discussing casualty figures).

But starting last July, units are being rotated in an out for 1 year tours. That means, the total number of servicemen/women who've served any time in Iraq is much higher than the number stationed there at any given time. If you figure that after 1 year 75% of the troops have turned over, that's less than 2% casualties.

I'm not saying that's nothing. But I am saying: let's keep some perspective. 3490 troops who are wounded means 180,000+ who are not.

Gordon, 100% in agreement. That is certainly a possibility. As you say, only time will tell.

What I take umbrage at is the broohaha that basically paints disastor today based on very overblown media coverage which, given that this is an election year, is very carefully designed to cast things in the worst possible light for the incumbant.

Every single bad piece of news that comes out of Iraq through a major media outlet should carry with it the following notice:

"Warning: Entering Full Spin Zone. This news is being presented in an election year by people who plan to vote against Bush. "

Valamir wrote: These are NOT significant numbers (except of course to the people who suffered them and their families. Its always hard to not sound callous when discussing casualty figures).

We do keep a large pool of reservists. I was one of them (Wisconsin Army National Guard, actually). Many of them are over in Iraq right now. But the issue isn't one of reserves. You could just ask the members of the standing army to volunteer, and only send those members. But that ignores the reality of the fact that the military is organized in units, and that creating new units is not something done in short order. Even when the reserves are activated, they train up and go as units.

In any case, when you join the military, you do not join half-assedly. You take an oath to do what you're told. If you don't like the politics of a decision, then you can always exercise your right to vote for the other guy. If you don't like that idea, well, the military is voluntary...if you feel that way, don't join. If there are hyporcrites out there who joined the military expecting to benefit from the job, but not expecting to have to fight in wars, then they're seriously deluded, and wrong. Nobody tells you when you go in that you get to only fight in the wars that you think are "right."

The military cannot be allowed to have a political mind. This is why the commander in chief is a civilian in the US. The military must be a tool of the democracy. The president is the executive of the democracy, and, in theory, is acting on it's behalf.

If you don't like the executive having the powers that it does, then what you want to do it get the "War Powers" act repealed, which would then require again an act of congress to declare war. If you don't like that congress can just follow the president, then enact legislation that would handle it differently (I dunno, referendum?). But that aspect of the military cannot change. As soon as militaries become politicized is the moment that they seize control.

And we don't want that, do we?

Mike

Ralph,

Well, I'm not convinced that "the media" is carefully spinning things anti-Bush - but if folks DON'T take election-year politics into account when they look at what the various news outlets say, that would be a huge mistake. Just like not taking the post-9/11 shock and "free pass for our guys" attitude into account would have been (and was, for many folks I know) a huge mistake when considering the coverage of the buildup to war.

It may be there's some over-correction happening here - that "the media" is attempting to compensate for an overly-generous previous coverage by being overly-negative now. But the fact of the matter is (IMO) there ARE real negatives - and there are real positives. I think the real negatives greatly outweigh the real positives, but pretending that either doesn't exist (which is what a simplistic, black & white campaign process would like to do) is, I'll agree, a mistake.

Gordon

Well, I'm not convinced that "the media" is carefully spinning things anti-Bush

“Like every other institution, the Washington and political press corps operate with a good number of biases and predilections. They include, but are not limited to, a near-universal shared sense that liberal political positions on social issues like gun control, homosexuality, abortion, and religion are the default, while more conservative positions are ‘conservative positions.’...”
“The press, by and large, does not accept President Bush’s justifications for the Iraq war....It does not accept the proposition that the Bush tax cuts helped the economy....It remains fixated on the unemployment rate....”
“The worldview of the dominant media can be seen in every frame of video and every print word choice that is currently being produced about the presidential race....On the strength of all the negative coverage of the President and all his own positive coverage, Senator Kerry heads into today’s twin primaries on a roll. “

So, Ralph, as long as it happens behind closed doors, you're ok with it? That a government doesn't have to obey laws, standards, or act according to a set of principles, as long as it achieves what it "needs" to?

You're describing what I can only call a "democratic dictatorship" -- where the people have no real say in what their government does, except in electing figureheads they can try to push around at election time.

And guess what, that doesn't work because of the lack of accountability it creates, and the inability to try anyone in the government for their behavior while in office.

Don't even try to argue you are not seriously suggesting "no accountability" for the government, because your suggestion only works smoothly when the accountability government officials have is removed, and their actions are not open to public debate.

Sorry, that isn't democracy, and definitely isn't American democracy -- by which I mean the principles this country was founded on bonded to the democratic method.

Your biggest problem is treating the government as some sort of seperate, sovereign entity, when it isn't and shouldn't be. This isn't the middle ages, or China.

Frankly, that's the down-right scariest thing you've ever suggested: back-room, hidden government -- there's enough governmental abuse of power today without providing more room and shadows to move around in, to say nothing of legitimizing it.

In the end, it's just another riff on "the ends, by any means."

So, Ralph, as long as it happens behind closed doors, you're ok with it? That a government doesn't have to obey laws, standards, or act according to a set of principles, as long as it achieves what it "needs" to?

You're describing what I can only call a "democratic dictatorship" -- where the people have no real say in what their government does, except in electing figureheads they can try to push around at election time.

Ralph,

Well, now we're on a new topic (But no new thread! Ain't birthdays grand?), and I'll just say that IMO liberal social agendas in the major news organizations are often more than compensated for by their essentially politically conservative corporate ownership.

Which may not be a bad thing. A "check and balance," of a kind. Liberal-minded news organizations whoose very existence is controlled by a conservative-minded corporation - that (historically) needs the news organization to be seen as "credibly independent" in order to succede.

Your "liberal bias" claims strike me as over-reaching, but not entirely irrelevant. IMO, the smart observer takes all this into account when digesting the news, and I'd only object to you attempting to make it a "simple" case of ant-Bush spin rather than a complex interplay that sometimes involves anti-Bush spin.

Gordon

Quite honestly, taking a stand to defend President Bush's innocence is like taking a stand to defend OJ Simpson's innocence.

There are a couple of news sources out there that spin to the right...most notably Rush and O'Reilly. But the vast majority of major newspapers, and broadcast news outlets are spun permanently to the left.

Valamir wrote: That's 3% folks...in over a year. That's just counting the 110,000 number of total deployed. Include the total number of people who've served over there (not just serving currently. i.e. went in, came home) and the %age is even lower.

In a YEAR. These are NOT significant numbers (except of course to the people who suffered them and their families. Its always hard to not sound callous when discussing casualty figures).

In World War I about one in 15 U.S. troops was killed or wounded; in World War II it was one in 14. The rate climbed to one in 12 in Korea and fell back to one in 16 during Vietnam.

The rates have been going down ever since, with only one soldier in 760 killed or wounded in the first Persian Gulf war. There were no U.S. combat fatalities in Bosnia or Kosovo and to date only 66 in Afghanistan, including two killed Saturday. The Defense Department has not released statistics on the numbers of wounded in those conflicts."

I poop on 'the end sometimes justifies the means'. I poop all over it. The end does not justify the means, because the means are what you are actually willing to do. Right and wrong are not 'ends', they are actions, they are means.

And as for the Clinton administration... Poor, poor Bush administration, they aren't as good at spin. You know what else they suck at in comparison? Economics (Clinton said he would eliminate the deficit and he did. Bush made sure to fix that though.); Diplomacy (The Israel situation was actually starting to improve. Couldn't have that.); and military action (US Bosnia casualties were less than 300, mostly from land-mines. That's half the Iraq casualties, and on a smaller military budget.). You don't like that Clinton banged an internal, fine he's an awful letch. But the Clinton administration kept the country and foreign affairs in better running order than any incarnation of the Reagan administration, especially this one, ever has.

Oh, and the government does not deserve more leeway than the individual. The government exists to serve the people, that's the Social Contract. It doesn't get to do what it wants because it doesn't have rights that aren't gifted to it by the people.

And... Smaller government isn't exactly a good thing. 'Big Government' is what keeps the big guy from stepping on the little guy. Socialist programs, like I dunno, public schools, improve the lifestyle of everybody in the society by creating a middle class.

"The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities."
- Lord Acton

Those are the same numbers I've looked at John. But in order to compare apples to apples you have to compare wounded to the total number of troops who served in Iraq. I don't haven't seen numbers for that, but I'd estimate it to be around 170-200K based on initial deployment figures of about 110K and the planned rotation of men.

At that rate you're looking at 1 per 49 to 1 per 57, which isn't 1/2 of Viet Nam. Its less than 1/3.

Plus, I don't know how levels of support troops stack up. I know the people to ask if you really want to know. But I suspect that there were more non combat personel per combat soldier in Viet Nam then there are in Iraq just based on how much leaner we run the military these days.

It would skew the numbers considerably if the denomenator in Viet Nam's numbers consisted of a significantly higher ratio of rear area troops.

Valamir wrote: And yet the job got done, America remained free, and democracy was preserved, wasn't it?

Valamir wrote: Did FDR have to put up with the public second guessing his every decision because the reporters had it on the news 5 hours later? Did Wilson? Did Kennedy?

Yet those Presidents managed to lead the country through some pretty hectic and dangerous times didn't they?

And they did it largely behind closed doors didn't they?

And they didn't have to deal with news media nearly at the level or scope that presidents today have to did they? (hell, half of America didn't even know FDR was in a wheel chair for crying out loud)

cruciel wrote: Socialist programs, like I dunno, public schools, improve the lifestyle of everybody in the society by creating a middle class.

Christopher Weeks wrote:

cruciel wrote: Socialist programs, like I dunno, public schools, improve the lifestyle of everybody in the society by creating a middle class.

The idea of public schools is valid, but I think that our implementation is so horribly astray that we would be better off without them. That's my primary motivation for supporting educational privatisation.

John Kim wrote: The first Gulf War was excellently handled, I thought, and it stood up to public scrutiny.

quozl wrote:

Valamir wrote: And yet the job got done, America remained free, and democracy was preserved, wasn't it?

I disagree with this as written. Put your qualifiers in when you mention "done", "free", and "democracy", and then maybe I can agree with you.

For example, President Polk was grilled by congressman Abraham Lincoln for his behavior in the Mexican War.

But when that intelligence is publically used as justification for going to open war, then it passes into the realm of public scrutiny.

For example, our aid given to Saddam Hussein and to Osama bin Laden was done behind closed doors. If that had been subject to public debate, things might have turned out better.

I'm sorry if my vehemence in my last post touched a nerve, Ralph, but that's exactly how I view your statements about closed door government. I meant no insult, and did not twist anything...those are the fruits I see of what you suggest.

In fact, I do see right where you're coming from, and I agree about the problems, but I disagree that that is the solution. Your comments about "it worked before" strike me as stubborn insistence that just because "we never looked both ways crossing the street before and haven't been hit" means that it's safe and dandy to do so.

I think we're damn lucky to have come through as a country without the public oversight currently emerging in our culture. Gods only know what sorts of scandals and questionable behaviors went on in previous administrations, without public knowledge or consent.

The media plays an important role in keeping people honest, in bringing problems and behaviors to light.

Consider, before it was revealed for public awareness by the media, domestic violence was a quiet problem plaguing many women.

While certain individuals like to claim, for political reasons, it has been rising since it was first reported (you know, since this stuff never happened in "the good ol' days"), we know that it was happening far more frequently before it started being reported openly due to victim mentality and social pressures to simply stay quiet.

Now, women can feel safe(r) in reporting their husband or boyfriend for this behavior, because they know they aren't alone, it isn't their fault, and society tells them that, yes, it is wrong for their loved one to do this to them. We're better off as a society now that this piece of dirty laundry was aired by the media as a problem, and no longer happening quietly in good ol' Hometown USA.

I see the same benefits in media exposure of the inner workings of political offices. All things being equal, the dirty crap we are seeing now exposed by the media in our elected officials is likely less in amount than what used to occur before scrutiny was turned upon them.

Hence, I leave my statements standing as my opinion on such a policy, with the addendum: it isn't the press or media that needs to change, but the politicians -- they need to be less political, and start doing their jobs. Damn the "consequences."

There one huge crucial makes all the difference in the world difference between media and domestic violoence and media and international policy.

It is possible and desireable for the media to collect all possible data about domestic violence and report it to the public for their analysis.

It is neither possible nor desireable for the media to collect all possible data relative to sensitive intelligence information or international negotiations. Therefor it is impossible for the public to analyse anything well enough to understand what they are talking about. They don't have a complete picture, they have only the picture the media chooses to paint for them.

I agree. However, since I'm for more public oversight of government processes and information, the release of sensitive intelligence data to the public is ultimately a good thing in my opinion. You can disagree all you want, point out the dangers and etc. but I'm still for it.

Stop sending our teenagers--especially our poor, disadvantaged teenagers--off to die.

Todays Iraq body count:
Max: 10,677
Min: 8827

Some incidents:
k051 10 Mar PM Basra taxi carrying women laundry-workers gunfire 2 2 AP 11 Mar
CSM 24 Mar

k047 15 Mar - Kirkuk car carrying councillor and bodyguard gunfire 2 2 AP 16 Mar

k046 09 Mar 8:00 PM Abu Gharaq, near Karbala car carrying Americans and Iraqi translator gunfire 1 1 AFP 11 Mar
UPI 11 Mar
AP 12 Mar

k039 08 Mar - Kirkuk three hit by 'stray bullets' gunfire 3 3 Times 09 Mar
BBC 09 Mar

k044 09 Mar PM Nasiriyah police killed rescuing civilians held by militia gunfire 4 4 AP 10 Mar
NYT 11 Mar

k041 08 Mar - Ejba, near Mosul 'hostile forces', round fell short, killing one mortar round 1 1 AP 10 Mar
MEO 10 Mar

This is our allegedly 'stable' situation. An anecdotal report by an individual stationed in a country as large as Iraq is hardly definitive.

Ralph wrote:

I don't disagree with that. But in my view the truely unfortuneate thing is not that intelligence was used to stir up public opinion, but that the political situation in this country has become such that such tactics are almost required.

I'm hesitant to second guess the decisions of prior administrations on subjects like that since we do not have anywhere near the information they did when they made the decision.

An underlying premise of the arguments of many apologists for government is that there is information that must be kept secret from the the people.

Why?

Chris

Valamir wrote: Did America suddenly slide into the grips of tyranny following FDR when no one was looking?