Rumsfeld 'led Bush to war'? [Archive]

Malachi151

17th August 2003, 03:37 PM

I agree completely with it, when I wrote my paper on the war in Iraq, which was during the start of the war I wrote:

Once the Bush team was assembled in the mid to late 1990s a strategy for election was constructed. The entire agenda from the beginning was that it was essential to engage in war with Iraq and to use the war with Iraq as the springboard for American global preeminence and as a way to disrupt the European Union and weaken the role of the euro in international business.

I believe that the first major step towards the execution of the plan to win the White House and engage in war with Iraq was the prosecution of Bill Clinton in the Whitewater/ Monica Lewinsky scandal. As was previously stated, over $47 million dollars was spent on these investigations. At the time there was a lot of controversy about the investigation because it seemed so out of control, and in fact it was out of control and over blown.

The reason that this was done is because those backing the 2000 Bush administration and war on Iraq needed to make sure that George W. Bush would win the 2000 elections in order to execute the plan. The attacks on Clinton were used as a way to investigate Al Gore and other Democrats to try and dig up dirt on them to use in the 2000 campaigns, and as a way to harm the public image of the Democratic Party to help ensure a Republican victory in 2000, which would of course be Bush.

So even at this early stage, in 1998, proponents of war with Iraq were already involved in manipulating public opinion and using tax dollars to promote their private agenda of war on Iraq and American global preeminence; this was the beginning of the coup.

When Colin Powell was being asked why he would not run for president in 2000 he made the claim that he had personal reasons for not wanting to run for president even though many Americans wanted him to. I believe that the real reason that he did not run was because he was already part of the future Bush administration which at that time had the intention of going to war with Iraq. Powell simply could not disclose this information for obvious reasons so he made up personal reasons why he didn't want to run.

During the 2000 campaign George Bush received more money then any previous presidential candidate. Every effort was made to ensure that Bush would win the election, which is why his fund raising was so strong. This was more then just a typical presidential election; it was a critical step in advancing a large and complex plan for American global domination and the promotion of the special interests of a small number of wealthy individuals and corporations, and for mitigating the threat of the European Union to the American economy.

During Bush's presidential campaign Bush lied on numerous occasions and used deceptive tactics and statements, such as claiming credit for Texas' Patient's Bill of Rights, which he vetoed the first time it was sent to him and then he refused to sign the second bill that was sent to him, when it already had a veto proof majority backing it. That is just one small example of how he misrepresented himself in the campaign.

The real crime though took place on Election Day in Florida where George Bush's brother was governor. Jeb Bush is not only George Bush's brother, but he is also a signer of the PNAC statement of principles and thus was affiliated with plans to invade Iraq prior to the 2000 elections. This gives Jeb two motives, which are actually related to each other, for conspiring to affect the outcome of elections in the state of Florida; one in order to support his brother and the other to support plans for an invasion of Iraq.

What is actually most likely is that Bush was chosen to run for president because of the Bush family ties that would be able to be used to ensure his successful election through any means necessary; its not that Jeb helped his brother win because he was his brother, it is that George Bush was chosen as the best possible candidate to enable the plan to invade Iraq to take place because of his connections in the first place, including Jeb's influence in the state with the third largest number of electoral votes while George obviously already had influence in Texas, the state with the second largest number of electoral votes.

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/putting_it_all_together.htm

I've always contented that the administration formed first, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Libby, and Rumsfeld, and that they then chose Bush as their ticket to the White House.

asi_gonia

18th August 2003, 02:05 AM

My first question: who is Brady Kiesling?

He was anAmerican diplomat in Athens, Greece, who quit earlier this year (just before the war started) in protest of the Bush Administration's war in Iraq.

I have read couple of interviews with the man, and he is quite intelligent.

Apparently there were a number of senior diplomats all-over the world who quit in protest to this stupendous war.

Jon_in_london

18th August 2003, 02:31 AM

Originally posted by Ion
A side note about this:

is that the occupation of Iraq doesn't pay for itself now, but it drains the U.S. consummer economy with more than $77 billion spent, mainly from U.S. taxes.

Whoever decided for the war or supports it, are goofs.

Is that $77 billion already spent?

I thought that much would be the budjet for the whole kit'kaboodle.

Crossbow

18th August 2003, 08:12 AM

$ 77 Billion would make a pretty good down-payment, but that is just the beginning.

The war preperations alone cost nearly $ 70 billion,
the war itself about $ 20 billion,
current security is costing $ 4 billion per month, and

by the time it is all done, the whole war could wind up costing over $600 billion!

Michael Redman

18th August 2003, 08:53 AM

If we believe everything they said about the potential threat, then perhaps even a few hundred billion worth of prevention would still be a worthwhile investment. Still, is it possible to really believe that level of threat, and that the action taken will alleviate it (rather than increase it)?

On the other hand, the bebefits to the US oil industry will obviouly be a comparative drop in the bucket, and, contrary to world perception, the US isn't simply going to sieve the oil output of Iraq. So, it's a little hard for me to understand the true motivation.

davefoc

18th August 2003, 09:22 AM

I was one who felt that there was not enough information available publically to decide whether the war was necessary or not.

In the end I leaned slightly to the view the war was justified because I trusted the judgments of Colin Powell and Tony Blair.

My feeling (based on almost no facts) was that Rumsfeld had a juvenile enjoyment of the process of war and as such was a very dangerous individual. Wolfowitz also plays into the decision process for war, in ways I don't understand.

It appears now that MWD could not justify the war, so we are left with only a few other justifications:
1. Moral duty. After the first Bush made the apparently unilateral and immoral decision not to remove Hussein the first time, we had a duty to remove him because of his willingness to mass murder his people.
2. In the end, Hussein was such a wacko, that massive disaster was inevitable, because when given the chance he would rebuild his MWD and terrorize his neighbors and us or he would sponsor terrorism to attack us.

I don't know enough to defend any of the ideas above, but I would be interested in seeing what others thought about them.

Ion

18th August 2003, 09:38 AM

Originally posted by davefoc

...
It appears now that MWD could not justify the war, so we are left with only a few other justifications:
1. Moral duty. After the first Bush made the apparently unilateral and immoral decision not to remove Hussein the first time, we had a duty to remove him because of his willingness to mass murder his people.
...

Comparing how much Hussein killed in between 1992 and 2003, with how much Bush killed in four months in 2003, Bush is on top.

In fact, it would take Hussein 25 years of killing at the rate he displayed in between 1992 and 2003, to catch up with four months of Bush.
Originally posted by davefoc

...
2. In the end, Hussein was such a wacko, that massive disaster was inevitable, because when given the chance he would rebuild his MWD and terrorize his neighbors and us or he would sponsor terrorism to attack us.
...

Bush is wacko too.

I am in favor of U.N. monitoring wackos.

Regarding the $77 billion spent by Bush in the military economy, Iraq's war is not self-sufficient, it is draining taxes and jobs from the larger U.S. consummer economy, and the motive -oil looting- will not get peacefully settled down because of Iraq's guerilla.

The war is a Bush gamble and a miscalculation.

Malachi151

18th August 2003, 10:28 AM

Originally posted by Michael Redman
If we believe everything they said about the potential threat, then perhaps even a few hundred billion worth of prevention would still be a worthwhile investment. Still, is it possible to really believe that level of threat, and that the action taken will alleviate it (rather than increase it)?

On the other hand, the bebefits to the US oil industry will obviouly be a comparative drop in the bucket, and, contrary to world perception, the US isn't simply going to sieve the oil output of Iraq. So, it's a little hard for me to understand the true motivation.

Here is my take on it:

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/what_is_this_war_really_all_abou.htm

Now I certianly recognize that there are many good reasons to have gone to war with Iraq, however the Bush administration didn't talk about any of them, and still is not. While a lot of good COULD come from the war in Iraq I don't believe that it will due to the people in charge.

Jon_in_london

18th August 2003, 10:35 AM

IMO, the only way Iraq will come right is if the US throws about $100billion at it right now, like within the next month, along with 1000s of civillian engineers and other proffesionals and about 100,000 more troops to provide added security. This is not one inflamatory trollings, its what I belive honestly.

davefoc

18th August 2003, 11:06 AM

Ion, could you expand a little bit more on what you are saying about the number of deaths caused by Hussein and the number of deaths caused by the recent war in Iraq? Perhaps you could provide the source of your information?

Ion

18th August 2003, 04:53 PM

http://usinfo.state.gov/regional/nea/iraq/text2003/0331hmnrightsrpt.htm

shows:

In April the U.K.-based Guardian newspaper reported that Lieutenant Colonel Mohamad Daham al-Tikriti, a recent defector from the General Security Service, admitted that in February 150-200 civilians were killed "at random" on suspicion of conspiracy and buried in a mass grave near Baghdad as part of a larger effort in which 1,500 civilians were summarily executed in the first 2 months of the year.

which is 750 civilians killed per month, during an extraordinary measure (described as a larger effort), and it says:

The regime's motive for such high numbers of summary executions, estimated at more than 4,000 since 1997, may also be linked to reported efforts to intimidate the population.

and

In keeping with its long and established record of executing perceived or alleged political opponents, the regime committed numerous political and other extrajudicial killings throughout the reporting period.

This comes out at about 50 prisoners a month which would not really help intimidate the population if there was a multiple of that in civilians executed.
So it seems those 2 months with 750 killings were extraordinary, probably a last lashing out and to keep the population in line before the war.

So let's say he killed 100 people a month which makes 1,200 a year and compare that to the 30,000 people the US killed in four months (assumes they killed 3 times as many soldiers as civilians).

Hussein's number comes out as 3 killed per day.

Bush's number is about 60 innocent people killed per day, not per month, since September 11:

assuming 30,000 in Iraq (7,000 civilians + a reasonable estimate of 20,000+ conscripted soldiers) and 10,000 in Afganistan (4,000 civilians + an estimate of 6,000 Taliban who were not terrorists.

It looks like Hussein would have had to live another 25 years to kill as many Iraqis as Bush's U.S. did kill people since September 11.

Clancie

18th August 2003, 05:06 PM

Posted by davefoc

It appears now that MWD could not justify the war, so we are left with only a few other justifications:

1. Moral duty. After the first Bush made the apparently unilateral and immoral decision not to remove Hussein the first time, we had a duty to remove him because of his willingness to mass murder his people.

2. In the end, Hussein was such a wacko, that massive disaster was inevitable, because when given the chance he would rebuild his MWD and terrorize his neighbors and us or he would sponsor terrorism to attack us.
Well, here's another....

3. That the most avid war proponents (Rumsfeld-Bush-Cheney-Wolfowitz-Rice) wanted a war in order to deplete our existing weapons supply and therein justify a new wave of greater-than-ever military spending. (The huge government reconstruction contracts doled out in the process for "well connected companies" (yes, like Halliburton) are just a happy added bonus).

I really think the underlying motive of the war was to help justify redirecting economic priorities into weapons research and production. Seems to be working, too.....

Ziggurat

18th August 2003, 06:19 PM

I'm rather upset about some of the specific claims made in support of the war by the administration, but you anti-war people should also keep a few things in mind. Saddam wanted nukes, anyone who says differently is either stupid or a Saddam apologist. Given enough time, he WAS going to aquire them eventually. Sanctions couldn't keep him locked up forever, not when France, Russia, and China were quite willing to let them decay, and Iraq's neighors like Jordan couldn't be trusted to keep any border security - they were benefiting massively from smuggling. He was probably years away, but there might never be a moment when we could say "he's about to get nukes". And if he ever DID get nukes, there's no way in hell any of his neighbors would have been brave enough to oppose him. The only plausible way to keep him from getting nukes in the long term was to take him out of power. And the time to do that wasn't getting any better. The UN wasn't going to do anything serious about this either. Saddam could outwait any inspections before starting up his programs again, and we couldn't maintain serious inspections AND sanctions indefinitely. So if you oppose the war, here's a question: was there ANY other realistic way of making sure Saddam never got his hands on nukes?

I'm incredibly opposed to Bush on just about every concievable domestic issue. But there's a lot of knee-jerk reaction going on about this war on both sides - liberals who essentially defend the rights of a despotic tyrant because Bush is the one who wants to take him out, as well as conservatives who defend Bush's prevarications on the specifics of the conflict because he's their point man. Wake up, people. The world is complex, and your "side" isn't always right. The same sort of thinking fooled much of the arab world into supporting Saddam because they don't like us or Israel and he was hostile to both, even though Saddam killed many more Arabs and muslims than the US and Israel combined.

davefoc

18th August 2003, 06:45 PM

Ziggurat, did a nice job of describing what I think continues to be the best argument for the war and it is basically the reasoning that keeps me leaning slightly in favor of it.

There are so many unknowns here though, I remain firmly in the not too sure camp.

Clancie, put forth a new version of one of the various, Bush, et al, are evil folks and that's the reason we went to war arguments. For me, this is one of the most unlikely to be true of the arguments of that type. I suppose given my somewhat low opinion of Rumsfeld I can find a little plausibility in it, but mostly I don't see how the various players benefit by a large expenditure to replace military ordinance and even if they were in a position to benefit I think it is unlikely that anybody in the administration is remotely that evil.

Ion's link didn't work, but I wasn't sure I followed everything he wrote. Weren't there thousands of deaths attributed to gas attacks by Hussein against the Kurds in the North?

a_unique_person

18th August 2003, 07:29 PM

a_unique_person

18th August 2003, 07:32 PM

Originally posted by Jon_in_london
IMO, the only way Iraq will come right is if the US throws about $100billion at it right now, like within the next month, along with 1000s of civillian engineers and other proffesionals and about 100,000 more troops to provide added security. This is not one inflamatory trollings, its what I belive honestly.

Given that they cannot even supply enough water to their own troops, you aren't going to be able to fit in any more people in the long term. And who would work there now, anyway?

Ion

18th August 2003, 09:27 PM

Originally posted by davefoc
Ziggurat, did a nice job of describing what I think continues to be the best argument for the war and it is basically the reasoning that keeps me leaning slightly in favor of it.
...

Ziggurat doesn't convince me:

.) Bush's war is from a wacko, who takes $77 billion (and counting) -mostly by draining the U.S. consummer economy's taxes and jobs- in order to loot Iraq's oil, with lies and killings in excess of Hussein's killings (see my previous post);

Bush's war is not in self-defense, is not for liberation, thus is against democracy;

.) I am in favor of containing wackos like Hussein, but under a U.N. coalition of honest liberation, ensuring among many checkpoints that another wacko -Bush- is not outdoing Hussein.
Originally posted by davefoc

...
Ion's link didn't work, but I wasn't sure I followed everything he wrote. Weren't there thousands of deaths attributed to gas attacks by Hussein against the Kurds in the North?
The link works now.

The Kurds in the North were killed in 1988 during the Anfal campaign:

"The majority of the 16,496 cases known to the Special Rapporteur were persons of Kurdish origin who disappeared during the 1988 Anfal campaign."

and

"HRW and other organizations worked with various agencies to bring a genocide case at the International Court of Justice against the regime for its conduct of the Anfal campaign against the Kurds in 1988."

After the first Gulf war until now, which is in between 1992 and 2003, Hussein was more contained by U.N. than before 1992 (than in 1988 in Anfal for example), didn't threaten neighbors, and as a local despot killed less than 3 civilians per day.

See the calculation of this '3' in my previous post.

Since September 11, Bush killed 60 people per day in Afghanistan and Iraq.

See the calculation of this '60' in my previous post.

Again:

.) Hussein would have had to kill for 25 more years at the rate he was killing in between 1992 and 2003 when under U.N. containment, in order to match Bush's killing performance of less than two years, since September 11.

.) Bush is more of a killer in one year and a half than Hussein is since 1992 under U.N. containment.

Leif Roar

19th August 2003, 04:10 AM

Originally posted by Ziggurat
So if you oppose the war, here's a question: was there ANY other realistic way of making sure Saddam never got his hands on nukes?

Is there ANY other realistic way to make sure that the next government in Iraq will never get their hands on nukes? How about Saudi Arabia? Tanzania? Sweden? Brazil? Afghanistan? Indonesia? Columbia? How about Pakistan and India?

"Well, they might perhaps at some indeterminate point in the future have become a real threat again" isn't really a strong argument for agression against another state. It's a particularly weak argument when you consider the weak reaction from both the US and the rest of the world when India and Pakistan performed their first nuclear tests.

I suspect that USA's actions in Iraq might have made it more alluring for nations to get hold of nuclear weapons. How else to deter the US from putting military force to bear against them?

Ziggurat

19th August 2003, 07:45 AM

Originally posted by Leif Roar

Is there ANY other realistic way to make sure that the next government in Iraq will never get their hands on nukes? How about Saudi Arabia? Tanzania? Sweden? Brazil? Afghanistan? Indonesia? Columbia? How about Pakistan and India?

None of the countries you listed are run by despotic dictators who invade their neighbors. Oh, but you've forgiven Saddam for that, haven't you? Muslim on muslim violence is OK, as long as it stays in the family. I notice you didn't actually try to answer my question, either. Should I take that to mean you wouldn't mind seeing Saddam with a nuke?

"Well, they might perhaps at some indeterminate point in the future have become a real threat again" isn't really a strong argument for agression against another state. It's a particularly weak argument when you consider the weak reaction from both the US and the rest of the world when India and Pakistan performed their first nuclear tests.

Ah yes, Iraq was just like any other country. You've become a Saddam appologist. You have no moral authority anymore. I notice when you tallied up your casualty figures, you didn't include the 375,000 Iraqi's and 300,000 Iranians who died in the Iran-Iraq war. Oh, but that might make Saddam look like a bad guy. You're a tool.

I suspect that USA's actions in Iraq might have made it more alluring for nations to get hold of nuclear weapons. How else to deter the US from putting military force to bear against them?

North Korea is the only other country we need to worry about in this respect. But do you seriously believe they weren't completely intent on that already? Of course not. Rogue nations want weapons to threaten their neighbors, not just to defend against the US. And several factors make the invasion of Iraq a good thing for dealing with North Korea. For one thing, it shows them we mean business. For another thing, it means that North Korea can never sell a nuke to terrorists anywhere down the line, because we will know if a terrorist ever detonates a nuke, it must have come from North Korea, and we will wipe them out in response. If both Iraq and North Korea were possible sources for a terrorist nuke, we would be unable to respond. So now we have a great deterent for the long term. Why didn't we invade North Korea instead? Aside from the fact that it would have been much bloodier, there's also the fact that we have other means of applying pressure. Saddam could outwait us, his illegal oil trade and smuggling made it impossible to apply economic pressure to his regime. North Korea is dependent on foreign aid (including from the US) for its survival, that's a pretty big lever we have there.

You're trapped by your own ideological blinkers. Bush is a bad man (sure, I agree), therefore everything he does should be opposed. That's grade-school logic.

Diamond

19th August 2003, 08:12 AM

Originally posted by Crossbow
$ 77 Billion would make a pretty good down-payment, but that is just the beginning.

The war preperations alone cost nearly $ 70 billion,
the war itself about $ 20 billion,
current security is costing $ 4 billion per month, and

by the time it is all done, the whole war could wind up costing over $600 billion!

Yes, but don't you feel safer now all that money is being spent on your security?

Leif Roar

19th August 2003, 08:53 AM

Originally posted by Ziggurat

None of the countries you listed are run by despotic dictators who invade their neighbors. Oh, but you've forgiven Saddam for that, haven't you? Muslim on muslim violence is OK, as long as it stays in the family. I notice you didn't actually try to answer my question, either. Should I take that to mean you wouldn't mind seeing Saddam with a nuke?

I'm saying that there is a difference between a potential threat and an actual threat. The mere possibility of someone becoming a threat at some indefinite point in the future is not grounds for a preemptive strike.

Ah yes, Iraq was just like any other country. You've become a Saddam appologist. You have no moral authority anymore. I notice when you tallied up your casualty figures, you didn't include the 375,000 Iraqi's and 300,000 Iranians who died in the Iran-Iraq war. Oh, but that might make Saddam look like a bad guy. You're a tool.

You're confusing me with someone else. I haven't said anything about casualty figures. All I've said is that the "but he might try to get nuclear weapons at some point" argument doesn't hold water.

North Korea is the only other country we need to worry about in this respect.

I disagree. In addition to North Korea, we already have to worry about Pakistan and Iran. For the long term, the view gets even bleaker. I am seriously worried that USA's strong-arm way of handling the Iraq situation will result in other nations seeking to gain nuclear weapons to deter the super-powers from similar actions against them.

But do you seriously believe they weren't completely intent on that already? Of course not. Rogue nations want weapons to threaten their neighbors, not just to defend against the US.

I don't think that's the case. Nuclear weapons have a political value that far surpasses their military use - as the cold war showed, they are in many ways of limited military use precisely because of their political value. I think the reason why any nation would try to get hold of nuclear weapons is to act as a deterrence towards the super-powers to "meddle in our afairs" or as a direct deterrence towards their neighbours.

And several factors make the invasion of Iraq a good thing for dealing with
North Korea. For one thing, it shows them we mean business. For another thing, it means that North Korea can never sell a nuke to terrorists anywhere down the line, because we will know if a terrorist ever detonates a nuke, it must have come from North Korea,

Unless, of course, it comes from the ex-Soviet union, Iran, Pakistan or India.

and we will wipe them out in response. If both Iraq and North Korea were possible sources for a terrorist nuke, we would be unable to respond. So now we have a great deterent for the long term. Why didn't we invade North Korea instead? Aside from the fact that it would have been much bloodier, there's also the fact that we have other means of applying pressure. Saddam could outwait us, his illegal oil trade and smuggling made it impossible to apply economic pressure to his regime. North Korea is dependent on foreign aid (including from the US) for its survival, that's a pretty big lever we have there.

Cut off the foreign aid to North Korea and see how long it takes before they do something drastic? Doesn't sound like much of a plan to me.

You're trapped by your own ideological blinkers. Bush is a bad man (sure, I agree), therefore everything he does should be opposed. That's grade-school logic.

Eh, I have made no comment about Bush in this thread. I have enough opinions of my own, so there's really no need for you to give me more.

Ziggurat

19th August 2003, 09:19 AM

Originally posted by Leif Roar

I'm saying that there is a difference between a potential threat and an actual threat. The mere possibility of someone becoming a threat at some indefinite point in the future is not grounds for a preemptive strike.

It was not a possibility that Saddam would have obtained nukes. It was a certainty, it was only a question of time. And what you haven't addressed is how you could EVER take action in the future - once he has nukes it's too late, and you might never know that it was about to happen. There would never be a point where future threat turned into immediate threat until it was too late. That's something you still haven't addressed.

I don't think that's the case. Nuclear weapons have a political value that far surpasses their military use - as the cold war showed, they are in many ways of limited military use precisely because of their political value. I think the reason why any nation would try to get hold of nuclear weapons is to act as a deterrence towards the super-powers to "meddle in our afairs" or as a direct deterrence towards their neighbours.

The deterence idea works with rational oponnents. Saddam was not a rational man. He would not have used it merely for deterence, but as cover for more agressive action. He already displayed a willingness to invade his neighbors. If Saddam had nukes, and invaded Kuwait again, what would we have done? Not only is responding more difficult, but since Saddam is the sort of man who thinks nuclear weapons would provide him immunity to response (even if they didn't), he would be much more likely to attack his neighbors if he had a nuke, even if he didn't plan on using a nuke in that attack. Saddam had absolutely no concept of how the west operates (he evidently thought we were bluffing, or that France and Russia's support would save him), and there's no way to know or reason to think that deterence alone could contain him once he had nukes.

Unless, of course, it comes from the ex-Soviet union, Iran, Pakistan or India.

Iran's the only serious problem there, none of those other countries are hostile to us. And we're not going to sit still on Iran either, but we still have negotiating options with Iran that weren't available with Iraq.

Cut off the foreign aid to North Korea and see how long it takes before they do something drastic? Doesn't sound like much of a plan to me.

No, and that's not the plan. But when you have a serious threat you can bring to the table, you have bargaining power. We had absolutely no threat other than military power against Saddam. And he was pretty much ignoring that, hoping to call our bluff. But we weren't bluffing. Again, that helps us with North Korea - if they know we're willing to be serious, they're less likely to try to bring the situation to the brink.

On a slight tangent, I was posting too fast and confused you with Ion. I appologize. But I don't think you've answered the fundamental questions about what to do to prevent Saddam from getting nukes. You've essentially said that it wasn't a big problem, and that's not a proposition I can take seriously.

Ion

19th August 2003, 03:03 PM

I don't agree with this:
Originally posted by Ziggurat

It was not a possibility that Saddam would have obtained nukes. It was a certainty, it was only a question of time...
...

It was such "...a certainty..." that Bush broke with U.N. and its inspections, warred and killed in order to find his certain WMDs, but found nothing.

The reality of the weapons not found is that:

Hussein was being contained under U.N..

Ziggurat

19th August 2003, 03:52 PM

Originally posted by Ion

Hussein was being contained under U.N..

Yes, he was being contained. But do you honestly believe that was going to continue indefinitely? Not a chance, and you've provided no evidence or argument to suggest they could have. France, Russia, and China essentially all opposed the sanctions. Inspectors are only any use when they're on the ground, we couldn't keep them there forever, and Saddam could wait as long as it took for them to leave. Sanctions were also becoming a joke - Saddam was making billions in illegal oil trade through Syria and skimming off the top of the food for oil program, and the UN did nothing to stop it. The sanctions couldn't have stopped him long-term, they just slowed things down. So while Saddam was skimming food off the top and selling it to Syria and giving money to Palestinians to encourage suicide bombers, he starved his own people. And the world got mad at us for what HE was doing to his own people. He was a master propagandist, and otherwise sane people were falling over themselves to defend this tyrant from being ousted.

Yes, I'm upset that Bush twisted the evidence about the current state of Iraq's WMD program. I have no plans to vote for the man, and would love to see him replaced in 2004. But if you think for a second that Saddam didn't want to build nukes as soon as he could have, you're a fool. The UN was not going to stop him. He knew that. The UN was bluffing when it said there would be "serious consequences" for non-compliance (he was required to account for weapons we know he once possesed but never did). Saddam called them on it, and they did nothing. If they didn't do anything this time, why should Saddam, or anyone else, think they were going to ever do anything but pay lip service to the issue?

So you still haven't come up with any argument for what realistic alternatives there were to making sure Saddam never got nukes. That, for me, is the central question, and nobody on the anti-war side has really answered it yet.

Ion

19th August 2003, 04:03 PM

U.N. sanctions and inspections get results with Lybia which I see today in The San Diego Union Tribune, after Lybia attacked airplanes in 1988 and 1989.

Similarly, it was getting strong results with Hussein.

Better than the killing performance I point out that Bush gets with his 60 civilians murdered per day since September 11, 2001 in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Ziggurat

19th August 2003, 05:32 PM

Originally posted by Ion
U.N. sanctions and inspections get results with Lybia which I see today in The San Diego Union Tribune, after Lybia attacked airplanes in 1988 and 1989.

Similarly, it was getting strong results with Hussein.

Oh boy, that's rich. What "strong" results, exactly, did it get with Saddam? Did it get compliance? No, I don't think so. Did it get him to hand over everything he had about his nuclear weapons program? Nope, didn't do that either. Did it keep him from making billions off illegal oil sales? Nope, wrong again. Why, after more than ten years, do you think that Saddam would be at all interested in bowing to sanctions? He was doing perfectly fine with sanctions in place, since they weren't even working. So why on earth would anyone think that sanctions could possibly ensure that Saddam would never get the nukes we know he wanted? The only thing that EVER worked against Saddam was the credible threat of force. And the French and Russians were doing their damnest to undermine that threat through the UN. No wonder Saddam thought we were bluffing and tried to call us on it.

With Lybia, we could afford to wait. Other countries weren't trying actively to undermine the sanctions like what was happening with Iraq. That's an inconvenient little fact that the anti-war croud likes to ignore. And as far as we know Lybia never tried to get nukes. We know Saddam was, and have every reason to believe he would try to again. Lybia is not Iraq.

Earthborn

19th August 2003, 06:08 PM

ZigguratSaddam wanted nukes, anyone who says differently is either stupid or a Saddam apologist. Given enough time, he WAS going to aquire them eventually.Let's look into that for a moment...

How long has Saddam wanted nukes? 20-30 years?
One day long ago when the US wanted nukes, they were able to get them in, what 4-5 years? And they had to invent them first! They had much more primitive technology than Saddam can now buy in an electronics shop for a few bucks. Nobody even knew how to build such a thing. Now Saddam can download how to build a nuclear device from the internet. The americans had to invent ways to mine for uranium. Saddam could have bought some somewhere in Africa, he just didn't.

He had the time, the opportunity, the resources and the connections (France, Russia, US) to get nukes whenever he wanted.

Assuming he really wanted them, he must not have wanted them very badly...

Just a matter of time! :rolleyes:
The correct English expression for that is 'when pigs fly', although with recent advances in biochemistry that may sound a bit unrealistic. :)

Clancie:Well, here's another....

3. That the most avid war proponents (Rumsfeld-Bush-Cheney-Wolfowitz-Rice) wanted a war in order to deplete our existing weapons supply and therein justify a new wave of greater-than-ever military spending.I can think of another...

4. There simply was no rational reason. Not even one out of evil motives. Perhaps it was just fear of terrorism resulting in poorly thought out decisions.

I think that is the best explanation. After all, which war was ever started on a rational basis? I think that war is the failure of people thinking critically.

Ion:It looks like Hussein would have had to live another 25 years to kill as many Iraqis as Bush's U.S. did kill people since September 11.Look at it this way: every innocent Iraqi civilian costs 10 million US dollars to be killed. The ancient Romans may have been more brutal, but they were a heck of a lot more efficient.

I got my number for the Iraqi deathtoll here (http://www.iraqbodycount.net/background.htm)

Ziggurat

19th August 2003, 06:33 PM

Originally posted by Earthborn

He had the time, the opportunity, the resources and the connections (France, Russia, US) to get nukes whenever he wanted.

Assuming he really wanted them, he must not have wanted them very badly...

This shows a profound ignorance of what is necessary to create a nuclear weapon, not to mention a willful blindness towards evil. Yes, Saddam had the technology, and the raw materials. The hard part has always been, and will always be, refining the uranium till it is sufficiently enriched. That is a massive task requiring a lot of time and resources. Yes, the US did it back in the 40's, but we put in a HELL of a lot of resources to pull it off. And Saddam WAS engaged in plans to enrich uranium for a bomb before the first gulf war - or are you ignorant of that as well? He didn't manage to do it back then because he jumped the gun, invading Kuwait before he had a nuke ready. But given enough time he was going to restart his efforts, and eventually he would have succeeded. Come back when you actually know what you're talking about. You can't even get the basic facts straight.

Tricky

19th August 2003, 06:52 PM

Originally posted by Ziggurat

This shows a profound ignorance of what is necessary to create a nuclear weapon, not to mention a willful blindness towards evil. Yes, Saddam had the technology, and the raw materials. The hard part has always been, and will always be, refining the uranium till it is sufficiently enriched. That is a massive task requiring a lot of time and resources. Yes, the US did it back in the 40's, but we put in a HELL of a lot of resources to pull it off. And Saddam WAS engaged in plans to enrich uranium for a bomb before the first gulf war - or are you ignorant of that as well? He didn't manage to do it back then because he jumped the gun, invading Kuwait before he had a nuke ready.
The termination of Saddam's nuclear program had nothing to do with the invasion of Kuwait. It had a lot more to do with Israel bombing their research facility (http://www.wrmea.com/Washington-Report_org/www/backissues/0695/9506081.htm) back in 1981, nine years before the war. This was combined with the CIA's program to disrupt Saddam's program even before that. Other than a single part, buried in someone's garden for twelve years, There is no evidence that he has had any nuclear capabllity since. The administration has provided no evidence to the contrary. If you have some "facts" we haven't seen, please provide them, along with sources.

Originally posted by Ziggurat

But given enough time he was going to restart his efforts, and eventually he would have succeeded. Come back when you actually know what you're talking about. You can't even get the basic facts straight.
And if he had restarted, then we might have been justified in intervening again, but not because he had once done so. In spite of your proclaimed devotion to "the facts", there has been no evidence discovered either by the UN inspectors or the coalition that Saddam has had any nuclear capability in more than twenty years.

Ziggurat

19th August 2003, 07:49 PM

Originally posted by Tricky

If you have some "facts" we haven't seen, please provide them, along with sources.

Well, I have some facts you haven't mentioned. If you haven't seen them, then you haven't paid attention. Israel's bombing of their reactor stalled Iraq, it did not stop them. They had centrifuge refinement programs in the development stage during the period before the gulf war, and they tried to keep those going even after the gulf war.

Have a little read through the actual timeline of the inspections and see for yourself how Iraq continually tried to thwart the inspectors:

http://www.iaea.or.at/worldatom/Programmes/ActionTeam/chronology.html

In particular, check out (under 11 Apr 1996 date)
"IAEA's first consolidated report", which details some of the nuclear weapons development activity that occured before the first gulf war, including a centrifuge refinement program. Keep in mind that the IAEA report is information obtained directly from the Iraqis themselves. Here's two choice quote from the report (my comments in brackets):

"Iraq's nuclear weapons program, as planned in 1988, foresaw the production of the first weapon in 1991".

"However it is reasonable, based on statements made by the counterpart [ie, the Iraqi's], to suppose that the first device [nuclear weapon], produced from indigenous HEU [highly enriched uranium], would not have been available before late 1992."

In other words, you were wrong, the Iraqi's were working towards a bomb and would have gotten it (even if not as soon as they hoped), and this is all based on solid information the IAEA obtained from the Iraqi's. I'm not going to dig any more for you, you have the IAEA site now so you can dig for yourself if you want more info. Are these "facts" or are these facts? Will using quotes make them go away?

And if he had restarted, then we might have been justified in intervening again, but not because he had once done so. In spite of your proclaimed devotion to "the facts", there has been no evidence discovered either by the UN inspectors or the coalition that Saddam has had any nuclear capability in more than twenty years.

Well that all depends on how generous you want to be with the term "capability". See above. You're STILL ignoring the central challenge I posed. Saddam wanted nukes. You have provided no plausible plan to ensure he wouldn't obtain them, and seem to be in the dark as to what we know for certain he was actually up to prior to gulf war 1. You also provide no plausible mechanism to ensure that we would know if he restarted a nuclear program. Much of what we know was from defectors, critical information that inspectors failed to find. Without a smoking gun (which we cannot rely on seeing before he's got one), we'd be in the same position we were in before the invasion, facing the same arguments for why we shouldn't go in. The only time the anti-war argument might shift is when he's already GOT a bomb, but then it's too late.

Earthborn

19th August 2003, 09:12 PM

Ziggurat:This shows a profound ignorance of what is necessary to create a nuclear weaponOkay, maybe you are right. I will rephrase:
Assuming he really wanted them, he must not have wanted them very badly, or he could not get the resources to get them...

All we can be sure of is that he didn't have them, and doesn't seem to have had a very active program to get them.not to mention a willful blindness towards evil.I don't believe in evil. I believe in 'stupid' or 'dangerous', even 'I profoundly disagree with'.Yes, Saddam had the technology, and the raw materials.Well, hopefully someone finds them then.And Saddam WAS engaged in plans to enrich uraniumI could be too.for a bomb before the first gulf war - or are you ignorant of that as well?No, I heard about that. But I have no way to check it out to see for my self that it isn't propaganda.He didn't manage to do it back then because he jumped the gun, invading Kuwait before he had a nuke ready.If he was so interested in getting 'da bomb', why didn't he wait a little longer with his invasion until he got it?

And yes, that's a bit of a rhetorical question.But given enough time he was going to restart his efforts, and eventually he would have succeeded.Now since it is so difficult to obtain one, how long do you assume it might have taken him? 10 years? 20? 45 minutes? :p

Ion

19th August 2003, 10:36 PM

This is a fact:
Originally posted by Earthborn

...
All we can be sure of is that he didn't have them, and doesn't seem to have had a very active program to get them.
...

So what is Ziggurat bickering about?

Probably about Bush indoctrinating Ziggurat that Hussein -when contained by U.N.- "...is evil..."?

Even though the statistics of murders since September 11, 2001 make Bush appearing the new undisputed champion of evils worldwide...

Ziggurat

20th August 2003, 08:27 AM

Originally posted by Earthborn

All we can be sure of is that he didn't have them, and doesn't seem to have had a very active program to get them.

Again you display your ignorance on the subject. Look at my above response to Tricky. Follow the links to the IAEA report. Read the report. Then come back and explain why exactly you think the program he had in place prior to gulf war 1 wasn't an active program.

I don't believe in evil. I believe in 'stupid' or 'dangerous', even 'I profoundly disagree with'.

Then you're hopelessly naive. What, for example, would you call someone who enjoys torturing others? Is that just ignorance? Is that just stupidity? That is beyond these, and beyond merely dangerous. No, these words cannot explain the actions of some people.

Well, hopefully someone finds them then.

Hope is not a plan. That's simply not good enough when it comes to nuclear weapons.

No, I heard about that. But I have no way to check it out to see for my self that it isn't propaganda.

Yes you do, you're just not willing to educate yourself. Go read the IAEA reports, I linked to them above. Those reports are based on information given directly by the Iraqi's. If you think the IAEA reports are just propaganda, then you really are a Saddam appologist.

If he was so interested in getting 'da bomb', why didn't he wait a little longer with his invasion until he got it?

Because he's wreckless, he doesn't understand us, and he didn't think we'd try and stop him.

Now since it is so difficult to obtain one, how long do you assume it might have taken him? 10 years? 20? 45 minutes? :p

I would guess five to ten years. Which gets back to my earlier point: when, during any of that period, would we know it was the right time to take action? We could NOT depend on knowing how close he was during any of that period, and might never know until he actually had the bomb. What, then, could we use as a criterion for action that would ensure he never got a nuclear weapon? Nobody on this board has answered that question. Don't bother responding until you've got an answer.

Ziggurat

20th August 2003, 08:42 AM

Originally posted by Ion

Probably about Bush indoctrinating Ziggurat that Hussein -when contained by U.N.- "...is evil..."?

Ah yes, now we enter the personal attack phase, because you have no answer to the fundamental challenge I posed. You still present no workable plan to ensure that Saddam never aquired nukes.

Hussein was not going to remain contained by the UN. France, Russia, and China were all opposed to the sanctions, and illegal smuggling through Syria was making them a joke anyways. The inspectors only worked as far as the Iraqi's were willing to cooperate - which they only did with the US army parked next door (something we could not sustain indefinitely). Saddam never took UN threats of "serious consequences" seriously at all - and why should he, when three of the five security council permanent members showed no intention of backing up that threat? The UN was not going to keep him contained, and showed little interest in doing so.

Even though the statistics of murders since September 11, 2001 make Bush appearing the new undisputed champion of evils worldwide...

Back to the Saddam appologist mode, I see. If you want to tally lives, why do you drop the 350,000 Iraqis and 300,000 Iranians killed in the Iran-Iraq war? Or does that not count because it's muslim-on-muslim violence?

Bush is an ass, but you've got your head on completely backwards if you see him as a greater evil than Saddam. Come back when you clue in to reality. Come back when you actually know something about how the Baathist ideology worked. Come back when you understand the kind of person Saddam was, and what his hopes for the region really were. Until then, you contribute nothing to this debate but empty rhetoric.

Tricky

20th August 2003, 09:27 AM

Originally posted by Ziggurat
Have a little read through the actual timeline of the inspections and see for yourself how Iraq continually tried to thwart the inspectors:

http://www.iaea.or.at/worldatom/Programmes/ActionTeam/chronology.html
I've visited that site, and it contains a lot of information. It also has a lot of stuff in .pdf format that keeps freezing my computer, so please understand if my quotes are not perfect. I can't cut and paste them.

It has never been contested that Iraq was surly and uncooperative. In fact the thirteenth consolidated report points out that they have not been able to carry out their mission since Dec 1998.

I examined the fifth consolidated report (from 1998), and it states quite clearly that they had no evidence that Iraq had any nuclear facilities. Now perhaps they were hiding them, though that seems unlikely given the constant surveillance of Iraq.

So you still haven't provided any evidence that Iraq had nuclear capability, only that they were obstinate. So it appears that the UN plan was working. Even though Saddam may have desperately wanted nukes, he didn't have them and he wasn't close to getting them. I feel that makes the UN inspection plan cheaper, less deadly, and less harmful to American interests. In short, better.

Now as to this quote:
Originally posted by Ziggurat
Ah yes, now we enter the personal attack phase, because you have no answer to the fundamental challenge I posed.
may I remind the pot of this:
Originally posted by Ziggurat
You're a tool.
and this
Originally posted by Ziggurat
Come back when you actually know what you're talking about. You can't even get the basic facts straight.
and this
Originally posted by Ziggurat
Then you're hopelessly naive. What, for example, would you call someone who enjoys torturing others? Is that just ignorance? Is that just stupidity?
If you debate in such a confrontatory style, do not be surprised if people reply in kind.

Ziggurat

20th August 2003, 10:29 AM

Originally posted by Tricky
I examined the fifth consolidated report (from 1998), and it states quite clearly that they had no evidence that Iraq had any nuclear facilities. Now perhaps they were hiding them, though that seems unlikely given the constant surveillance of Iraq.

So you still haven't provided any evidence that Iraq had nuclear capability, only that they were obstinate.

There's a distinction here between what they had before the war and what they had after the war. Before the war they had a nuclear weapons program and facilities which were making progress towards enriching uranium - I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "capability", but I think that counts. After the war, the situation becomes much more complex, and certainly much of what they had was shut down. But the key point is that they still had the people there who ran the program before the war, and would have been able to restart the program in the future. Are you contesting that?

So it appears that the UN plan was working. Even though Saddam may have desperately wanted nukes, he didn't have them and he wasn't close to getting them. I feel that makes the UN inspection plan cheaper, less deadly, and less harmful to American interests. In short, better.

The UN inspections stopped completely after 1998. They only resumed because of the credible threat of US force. We could not maintain that threat indefinitely, because it required having much of our army stationed in the gulf. Saddam could outwait us. So I'm not sure why you say it WAS working - it worked (past tense), but it was falling apart. The UN had no intention of authorizing force (certainly not Russia or China, and not likely France either), and Saddam knew that.

If you debate in such a confrontatory style, do not be surprised if people reply in kind.

I'm not surprised at all. And I can take it as well as I dish it out. But my attacks have been based on what the people in question actually said - but seeing as how I didn't get the information I posted from Bush, that little accusation that I've been indoctrinated by him doesn't even make sense. If I have been too harsh, I can tone that down. But so far, I've been the one to actually provide the facts about Iraq's nuclear program, and the counterarguments have basically only consisted of wishful thinking about the UN's ability AND will to contain Saddam or conspiracy theories about right-wingers trying to take over the world. I'm a left-winger. But I've been paying attention. And the thought of Saddam with a nuclear weapon is a terrible thing indeed. The anti-war side never had a credible alternative to make sure that never happened. It was getting harder, not easier, to do the one thing we could do that would ensure Saddam never had nuclear weapons. Everything else was just a waiting game, and that simply isn't good enough.

Edit: P.S. the stupidity and ignorance labels were in reference to someone who enjoys torture, not to the poster. My point was that the poster's disbelief in the existence of evil (but only in stupid and ignorant people) was completely inadequate to comprehend the true horrors that some people commit. I was not being uncivil at all in that quote.

Tricky

20th August 2003, 11:02 AM

Originally posted by Ziggurat

There's a distinction here between what they had before the war and what they had after the war. Before the war they had a nuclear weapons program and facilities which were making progress towards enriching uranium - I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "capability", but I think that counts. After the war, the situation becomes much more complex, and certainly much of what they had was shut down. But the key point is that they still had the people there who ran the program before the war, and would have been able to restart the program in the future. Are you contesting that?
I don't get that at all from your links. I see where the INVO believed that Saddam had made some progress towards enriching uranium capabilities, but they admitted that they had no hard evidence for it. They think they could have found evidence had Saddam not been so obstinate. In light of what we now know, those beliefs were incorrect. If they had been correct, then INVO should have been able to steer us to said facilities once Saddam was out of the way.

Originally posted by Ziggurat
The UN inspections stopped completely after 1998. They only resumed because of the credible threat of US force. We could not maintain that threat indefinitely, because it required having much of our army stationed in the gulf. Saddam could outwait us. So I'm not sure why you say it WAS working - it worked (past tense), but it was falling apart. The UN had no intention of authorizing force (certainly not Russia or China, and not likely France either), and Saddam knew that.
The credible threat of US force had apparently been enough to deter them ever since Gulf War I, although the sanctions probably had something to do with it too. I don't see where it was "falling apart". I see no credible evidence of Saddam having any success in acquiring uranium, even if he was trying. I cannot find a single thing that indicates that the combined sanctions and inspections were not working. Of course, I didn't trust him either. All the more reason to keep a very close watch on him. Not enough reason for an invasion.

Originally posted by Ziggurat
But so far, I've been the one to actually provide the facts about Iraq's nuclear program, and the counterarguments have basically only consisted of wishful thinking about the UN's ability AND will to contain Saddam or conspiracy theories about right-wingers trying to take over the world
You have provided facts that we continued to distrust and look for WMDs. I thank you for providing that. But as your link indicates, the results of all of our searches has found virtually nothing, other than a recalcitrant dictator. That is a fact too.

The complete lack of any trace of WMDs is the strongest possible evididence that the plan in place was working. Every other scenario involves destroying vast weapon complexes, destroying all the uranium, killing or brainwashing every single person involved, and destroying all the documentation. And all this was done without a trace. I consider those scenarios unlikely.
Originally posted by Ziggurat
I'm not surprised at all. And I can take it as well as I dish it out. But my attacks have been based on what the people in question actually said - but seeing as how I didn't get the information I posted from Bush, that little accusation that I've been indoctrinated by him doesn't even make sense. If I have been too harsh, I can tone that down.
You reacted strongly to a very minor insinuation, while using a number of pejoratives against others (not all of whom were posters here). That doesn't speak highly of your ability to "take it". However my point is that if you wish others to engage in non-incendiary debate, then you must do so as well.

Heck, that's what Flame Wars is for. :p

Ziggurat

20th August 2003, 11:38 AM

Originally posted by Tricky
I don't get that at all from your links. I see where the INVO believed that Saddam had made some progress towards enriching uranium capabilities, but they admitted that they had no hard evidence for it. They think they could have found evidence had Saddam not been so obstinate. In light of what we now know, those beliefs were incorrect.

Then you're not digging deep enough. In light of what we know now, all of the information about Saddam's activity prior to gulf war 1 is still correct. What is still at issue is what progress he made AFTER the gulf war, and it now seems like little or no progress was made. But you're completely wrong that he was not making progress prior to the first gulf war.

If they had been correct, then INVO should have been able to steer us to said facilities once Saddam was out of the way.

We already know some of these facilities, and inspectors DID check them out. Does the name Al-Tuwaitha mean anything to you?

http://www.isis-online.org/publications/iraq/tuwaitha.html

You're confusing one issue (what Saddam may have done after gulf war 1) with a separate one (what we KNOW he did prior to gulf war 1). Note also that the IAEA was ignorant about the weapons program at Al Tuwaitha before the war - what they know they found out only after the war. Their ability to detect hidden weapons programs is weak, and cannot be relied upon.

The credible threat of US force had apparently been enough to deter them ever since Gulf War I, although the sanctions probably had something to do with it too.

Yes, the sanctions did have something to do with it. But they were slipping. And the credible threat of force, and even the use of that force, didn't keep them from halting cooperation with inspectors in 1998.

The complete lack of any trace of WMDs is the strongest possible evididence that the plan in place was working. Every other scenario involves destroying vast weapon complexes, destroying all the uranium, killing or brainwashing every single person involved, and destroying all the documentation. And all this was done without a trace. I consider those scenarios unlikely.

It had him stalled, but what about that makes you think he couldn't have restarted his program in the future? Saddam could just wait a year, halt cooperation with inspectors again, wait for us to build up another force to threated him, start complying again, and keep yanking our chain until we couldn't keep it up. He did it once, and France and Russia were opposed to actually taking action against him. They would continue to oppose any forceful action. So Saddam would continue to wait, not cooperating when no army was at his doorstep, then backing down when we moved troops into position. Sooner or later we would be unable to continue parking our troops on his front door (it costs a hell of a lot of money, and it puts a strain on the countries who host our troops), and at that point he could restart his program. Do you see any way out of that trap? Because again, we cannot rely on having solid information about the current state of his nuclear program without actually invading. So the choices are

1) invade and rid the world of a terrible tyrant who oppressed his own people, threatened his neighbors, and spread violence throughout the region,

2) let him keep yanking us around until we can't keep the pressure on him anymore, or

3) give up and hope that countries like Syria won't act in their own self-interest by smuggling prohibited goods to Saddam for enormous profit.

That's it. Those were the options. And only option 1 actually ensures Saddam never got a nuke. If you want to question the timing, well, what makes anyone think that any time in the future woud have been a better time for an invasion? His neighbors were becoming MORE reluctant to oppose him, we could not rely on intelligence information about the current state of his weapons program, so the timing was getting worse, not better.

Ion

20th August 2003, 12:12 PM

Ziggy, that's too naive for my intellect:
Originally posted by Ziggurat

Ah yes, now we enter the personal attack phase, because you have no answer to the fundamental challenge I posed. You still present no workable plan to ensure that Saddam never aquired nukes.
...

Did Hussein ever acquired?

So U.N. worked.
Originally posted by Ziggurat

...
Hussein was not going to remain contained by the UN. France, Russia, and China were all opposed to the sanctions, and illegal smuggling through Syria was making them a joke anyways. The inspectors only worked as far as the Iraqi's were willing to cooperate - which they only did with the US army parked next door (something we could not sustain indefinitely). Saddam never took UN threats of "serious consequences" seriously at all - and why should he, when three of the five security council permanent members showed no intention of backing up that threat? The UN was not going to keep him contained, and showed little interest in doing so.
...

The U.N. contained Hussein in:

1.) no WMDs;

2.) 3 civilians killed per day for 10 years, much less than 60 civilians killed per day by Bush in one and a half years.
Originally posted by Ziggurat

...
Back to the Saddam appologist mode, I see. If you want to tally lives, why do you drop the 350,000 Iraqis and 300,000 Iranians killed in the Iran-Iraq war? Or does that not count because it's muslim-on-muslim violence?

Bush is an ass, but you've got your head on completely backwards if you see him as a greater evil than Saddam. Come back when you clue in to reality. Come back when you actually know something about how the Baathist ideology worked. Come back when you understand the kind of person Saddam was, and what his hopes for the region really were. Until then, you contribute nothing to this debate but empty rhetoric.
.) The war between Iran and Iraq was in 1980, ain't that so?

.) U.N. contained Hussein since 1992, ain't that so?

Containment like in:

1.) no WMDs;

2.) 3 civilians killed per day for 10 years, much less than 60 civilians killed per day by Bush in one and a halh years.

So the U.N. containment of Hussein worked since 1992 at least better than the non-containment of Bush, ain't that so?

.) Looks like Bush is now the number one evil worldwide, ain't that so?

Because what I do read in today's The San Diego Union Tribune, is:

"Five consortia led by U.S. banks and one British bank are finalists to manage the new Trade Bank of Iraq, a lucrative job rebuilding Iraq's financial system. The consortia are led by Bank of America, Bank One, Citigroup, J.P. Morgan, Chase & Co. and Wachovia..."

See now?

The evil who kills 60 civilians per day to 'liberate' Iraq, has a special-interests plan for skinning Iraq, at work here.

Earthborn

20th August 2003, 12:56 PM

Then come back and explain why exactly you think the program he had in place prior to gulf war 1 wasn't an active program.Hey, I have absolutely no problem admitting that the program he had prior to Gulf War 1 was an active program. The issue for me is, whether it still was an active program at the start of 2003. Seems to me like it wasn't.Then you're hopelessly naive. What, for example, would you call someone who enjoys torturing others?I would call someone like that 'someone who thinks it is great fun to torture people'. And I profoundly disagree with that. I feel no need to assign vaguely defined metaphysical concepts such as 'evil' to such a person. Rather I would assume that this person has some sort of neurological damage, making such a person very dangerous.Hope is not a plan. That's simply not good enough when it comes to nuclear weapons.I meant that I hope, for your sake, that someone will find this 'technology' and these 'raw materials', showing that this war was good for something. If I were you, I wouldn't be so hopeful...If you think the IAEA reports are just propaganda, then you really are a Saddam appologist.Well, I apperently am not. I skimmed through it and it looks well researched and balanced. It also looks to me like Iraq was cooperating, reluctantly, sometimes ending cooperation to start it again a few months later. It looks to me like the IAEA had a pretty good idea what Iraq was up to with nuclear weapons and apperently Iraq could not maintain its nuclear weapons program with all these inspections going on. Some machines were discovered, some things were found to be suspect.

No active, functional nuclear weapons program was found in operation during these inspections! Now that the Iraqi regime is gone, such a thing is still not found. Maybe it didn't exist after 1991...Because he's wreckless, he doesn't understand us, and he didn't think we'd try and stop him.I can't see how Saddam could be mistaken for being wreckless. And I don't see why he should have expected the US to try to stop him in 1991.I would guess five to ten years.Basically from scratch under the scrutiny of the world? I thought you said it was difficult.What, then, could we use as a criterion for action that would ensure he never got a nuclear weapon?When the IAEA finds a factory actually capable of producing weapons, but just before it is in operation. Should be doable with satelites, aerial photography or inspections that are going in with a bit of threat.

A single bomb on that factory should do the trick. Human rights inspectors and lifting of sanctions shouldhelp the population.Don't bother responding until you've got an answer.There, you have what you asked for. I don't claim that it is the only or the best answer. IAEA or UN inspectors might have better ideas.They only resumed because of the credible threat of US force. We could not maintain that threat indefinitely, because it required having much of our army stationed in the gulf.So are you saying that the attack on Iraq was done because the US could not maintain that threat indefinitely and had to do something. Anything.

And if we assume you are right, could the US force have waited just a little longer to let poor old Blix (who was slowed down by lousy US intelligence) finish his job?The UN had no intention of authorizing force (certainly not Russia or China, and not likely France either), and Saddam knew that.Unless something was actually found.And the thought of Saddam with a nuclear weapon is a terrible thing indeed.Bush, with his famous diplomacy and his obvious respect for human life (he sleeps very well) with a nuclear weapon worries me a bit too.

And those people who think it is a good idea to develop smaller, more tactical nuclear weapons scare the bejesus out of me.The anti-war side never had a credible alternative to make sure that never happened.The credible alternative was in operation and seemed to be working (although not perfectly in part because of the US).My point was that the poster's disbelief in the existence of evil (but only in stupid and ignorant people) was completely inadequate to comprehend the true horrors that some people commit.This sound to me a bit like ID proponents claiming that something is so complex, it cannot be understood without assuming an 'intelligent designer'. I see no reason to assume some metaphysical stuff for either.

Perhaps though you have a compatabilist idea of what 'evil' means, and that it can include neurological damage or extreme environmental situations (like being the absolute ruler over a country) making people dangerous to others.

Ziggurat

20th August 2003, 12:56 PM

Originally posted by Ion

Did Hussein ever acquired?

So U.N. worked.

Are you not paying attention? Did you not read my posts describing why that containment was failing? Past tense does not equal future tense. You have no argument for why the UN could be expected to continue to contain him. All you have to offer is wishful thinking. Hope is not a plan.

The war between Iran and Iraq was in 1980, ain't that so?

Oh, then Saddam is forgiven, is that the idea? He's cured of his agression, he's reformed his ways, he'll never attack another neighbor again as long as he lives, cross his heart and hope to die. Just that once with Kuwait, but it won't happen again, he promises. So why won't I just leave the poor, innocent little dictator alone?

Looks like Bush is now the number one evil worldwide, ain't that so?

No, it ain't so. He's a right bastard, never said he wasn't. But you're blind to the true evil in the world if you think Bush is even near the top of the list. There are people out there who want to completely destroy the western world, who WANT to return the world to the middle ages, and who will commit any attrocity imaginable to try to bring that about. And yet Bush's crony capitalism is somehow the greatest threat to civilization that you've ever seen. Hell, even for run of the mill corruption it's not hard to beat Bush.

Hey, I hear there's a thread going on where someone was trying to defend Kim Jong Il. Maybe you want to jump over there and say how much worse Bush is than him too.

Ziggurat

20th August 2003, 01:43 PM

Originally posted by Earthborn
Hey, I have absolutely no problem admitting that the program he had prior to Gulf War 1 was an active program. The issue for me is, whether it still was an active program at the start of 2003. Seems to me like it wasn't.

That's a reasonable conclusion. But it's not reasonable to conclude from that that Saddam wouldn't restart it in the future. He was clearly not complying with UN mandates, and there's no reason to think he wasn't just waiting till he thought the time was right.

Well, I apperently am not. I skimmed through it and it looks well researched and balanced. It also looks to me like Iraq was cooperating, reluctantly, sometimes ending cooperation to start it again a few months later.

That last sentence is part of the key to the situation. He was continually testing the UN, seeing how far he could push them. And he could push them pretty far without France, Russia or China ever calling for the use of force. He only allowed inspectors back in because of the credible threat of US intervention. Here's what he probably thought was going to happen: he'd let them back in for a while (still without complete cooperation), let the French and Russians hold us back in the UN, wait for us to withdraw our troops (which we could not keep there indefinitely), then stop cooperating completely. Lather, rinse, repeat. He could count on the French, Russians, and Chinese to oppose military action as long as he backed down a little bit each time we moved into position. But we couldn't keep moving into position, and he knew that. So he thought by jerking our chain he could wear us out, and eventually he'd have freedom to act again. He just didn't realize we'd act now, because he doesn't really understand the west. Again, the issue is not what programs he currently had in place, the issue was what he would do in the future. And I think Iraq's continued non-compliance is a clear indication that they were looking for a way around the inspections, and I have no reason to think they wouldn't have achieved that.

A single bomb on that factory should do the trick.

What makes you think we'd know what factory to hit? The inspectors were oblivious to the weapons developments going on at Al-Tuwaitha before gulf war 1, they cannot be relied upon in the future to discover clandestine programs.

Human rights inspectors and lifting of sanctions should help the population.

But the sanctions were one of the few things slowing him down. Lifting them would make it easier to make nuclear weapons. Now we face another dilemma: it's bad for the Iraqi populous to keep the sanctions in place, but they're necessary if you have ANY hopes of containment (and even then not much, with the amount of smuggling going on through Syria). But if we invade now, we can lift the sanctions. As for human rights inspectors, that's not a credible idea. The few arms inspectors had a hard enough time, and they never did get full compliance. What credible threat would you back up human rights inspectors with? Why would Russia and China, for example, be at all interested in backing up human rights inspectors with any kind of muscle? The head of the UN human rights commission is (or was) Lybia, for crying out loud, the UN has no serious interest in enforcing human rights with force.

So are you saying that the attack on Iraq was done because the US could not maintain that threat indefinitely and had to do something. Anything.

Not anything, but something. And Iraq five years from now is going to be a much better place than it would be five years from now if we just decided to continue a waiting game with Saddam. Certainly there have been missteps along the way, and we face a learning curve regarding the occupation. But I think we were justified, and Iraq will be better off in the long term because of it.

And if we assume you are right, could the US force have waited just a little longer to let poor old Blix (who was slowed down by lousy US intelligence) finish his job?

What good would that have done? If Blix didn't find anything, we still would face the problem that Saddam was looking for a way to restart his nuke program. If we needed to invade, it's better to get it over with.

Bush, with his famous diplomacy and his obvious respect for human life (he sleeps very well) with a nuclear weapon worries me a bit too.

Hey, you'll get no argument from me that Bush is an ass, and I'm certainly not going to vote for him in '04. I'm quite upset about many of the specifics of how he went about the leadup to this war, and have criticised his misuse of intelligence in other threads on this board. And as I've said elsewhere, his motives for going to war may be very different from my motives to support it. But that doesn't change the fact that I think invading Iraq was the only realistic way of ensuring Saddam never got a nuke. And that was an imperative.

And those people who think it is a good idea to develop smaller, more tactical nuclear weapons scare the bejesus out of me.

I'll agree with that as well. Luckily I don't think it's just up to Bush, hopefully congress won't sign off on that. I'm not a Bush supporter, but I think a lot of people on the left were unnecessarily hostile to this war because they conflated support for it with support for Bush. But the two are not the same.

Perhaps though you have a compatabilist idea of what 'evil' means, and that it can include neurological damage or extreme environmental situations (like being the absolute ruler over a country) making people dangerous to others.

It's not really a religious notion of evil that I'm talking about. But ignorance, stupidity, and dangerousness are inadequate descriptions. You cannot educate this sort of pathology out of some people, you cannot treat it with therapy, it goes much deeper than that, and it can be virulent. If you want a non-religious term, maybe something along the lines of malignant sociopathy, but that's still not quite enough to describe the violent depravity people like Saddam and his sons.

Ion

20th August 2003, 02:36 PM

Originally posted by Ziggurat

Are you not paying attention? Did you not read my posts describing why that containment was failing? Past tense does not equal future tense. You have no argument for why the UN could be expected to continue to contain him. All you have to offer is wishful thinking. Hope is not a plan.
...

U.N. contained WMDs in Iraq, and contained the Hussein's rate of killings (relative to the higher rate of Bush's killings).

Works for me.
Originally posted by Ziggurat

...
Oh, then Saddam is forgiven, is that the idea? He's cured of his agression, he's reformed his ways, he'll never attack another neighbor again as long as he lives, cross his heart and hope to die. Just that once with Kuwait, but it won't happen again, he promises. So why won't I just leave the poor, innocent little dictator alone?
...

He was contained by U.N..

Works for me.

As opposed to Bush now.

Bush is not contained by anybody.
Originally posted by Ziggurat

...
No, it ain't so. He's a right bastard, never said he wasn't. But you're blind to the true evil in the world if you think Bush is even near the top of the list. There are people out there who want to completely destroy the western world, who WANT to return the world to the middle ages, and who will commit any attrocity imaginable to try to bring that about. And yet Bush's crony capitalism is somehow the greatest threat to civilization that you've ever seen. Hell, even for run of the mill corruption it's not hard to beat Bush.

Hey, I hear there's a thread going on where someone was trying to defend Kim Jong Il. Maybe you want to jump over there and say how much worse Bush is than him too.
It is obvious that:

"There are people out there who want to completely destroy the western world, who WANT to return the world to the middle ages, and who will commit any atrocity imaginable to try to bring that about."

The thing is to placate that under U.N., ensuring that a wacko like Bush doesn't break the democratic process and doesn't degrade Iraqi civilians for his special-interest agenda.

The cause of dealing with these people -including with Hussein- was hijacked by the wrong politician who kills civilians and breaks the democracy in order to achieve special-interests.

To use an anology, in order to cure a sick person (here, Hussein), one is not bringing in another sick person to do the treatment (here, Bush), but one brings a doctor (here, U.N.).

Ziggurat

20th August 2003, 03:36 PM

Originally posted by Ion
The thing is to placate that under U.N., ensuring that a wacko like Bush doesn't break the democratic process and doesn't degrade Iraqi civilians for his special-interest agenda.

What, are you calling the UN a democratic process? It's a dictator's club. Most members are not themselves functioning democracies, how can you possibly consider the UN as a whole to be democratic? That's almost like that supremely ironic quote from the head of the Arab league (which doesn't really have any true democracies as members) saying that the interim Iraqi leadership council doesn't have moral authority because it wasn't democratically elected.

To use an anology, in order to cure a sick person (here, Hussein), one is not bringing in another sick person to do the treatment (here, Bush), but one brings a doctor (here, U.N.).

The UN was impotent to do anything about Hussein, because it was unwilling to use military force to make him comply. He thumbed his nose at them for over a decade with his non-compliance, and they did nothing substantive about it except pass more resolutions. What makes you think the UN could have solved the problem? Sure, it would have been wondeful if the UN stepped up to the plate and handled the situation, but that wasn't happening, and France, Russia, and China made clear that they weren't going to let that happen. So if the UN is a doctor, it's a quack.

Ion

20th August 2003, 04:34 PM

Originally posted by Ziggurat

What, are you calling the UN a democratic process? It's a dictator's club. Most members are not themselves functioning democracies, how can you possibly consider the UN as a whole to be democratic? That's almost like that supremely ironic quote from the head of the Arab league (which doesn't really have any true democracies as members) saying that the interim Iraqi leadership council doesn't have moral authority because it wasn't democratically elected.
...

It's a democratic process because it has the U.N. Chart overseeing the international community.

If something doesn't work, then the channel to make it working is thru U.N..

Clearly, Bush is undemocratic to lie, get out of the U.N. and kill.
Originally posted by Ziggurat

...
The UN was impotent to do anything about Hussein, because it was unwilling to use military force to make him comply. He thumbed his nose at them for over a decade with his non-compliance, and they did nothing substantive about it except pass more resolutions. What makes you think the UN could have solved the problem? Sure, it would have been wondeful if the UN stepped up to the plate and handled the situation, but that wasn't happening, and France, Russia, and China made clear that they weren't going to let that happen. So if the UN is a doctor, it's a quack.
Well, it is in this quack that U.S. has to invest money and effort in order to improve the international community, rather than break with it, lie and kill like Bush did in a solo pointless to the world war.

Bush with 60 civilians per day killed since September 11, is more of a quack than Hussein, who is himself more of a quack than U.N..

U.N. is the way to work internationally, and there is no other way to work internationally, so if not happy, then improve U.N..

Ziggurat

20th August 2003, 08:10 PM

Originally posted by Ion
It's a democratic process because it has the U.N. Chart overseeing the international community.

You ignored my point completely. How can the UN be a democratic process when most of the member states are not democracies? Or is it democratic in the sense that every dictator gets a vote?

If something doesn't work, then the channel to make it working is thru U.N..

It would be nice if things worked that way. But the UN was not going to do anything substantive about Iraq. Are you suggesting that France and Russia actually would have authorized the use of force? Not a chance, and they made that clear. And Saddam was counting on that.

Well, it is in this quack that U.S. has to invest money and effort in order to improve the international community, rather than break with it, lie and kill like Bush did in a solo pointless to the world war.

It wasn't a pointless war. You STILL haven't advanced any alternative that was guaranteed to prevent Saddam from getting nuclear weapons. That was the point. And the whole world benefits greatly from that, even if only a few countries had the backbone to step forward and act.

U.N. is the way to work internationally, and there is no other way to work internationally, so if not happy, then improve U.N.

I'm all for improving the UN. But it has inherent limits, one of the most important being most of its member states are not democracies. And if the UN does not take effective action (which it was not doing, and had not been doing for the past decade, on Iraq), then I don't see why we need to risk the wait in the hope that maybe they'll improve. Hope is not a plan.

The UN has a terrible record when it comes to trying to enforce its will by force. The worst masacre in the Bosnia-Hercegovina conflict happened in UN-protected so-called "safe area":

http://www.hrw.org/summaries/s.bosnia9510.html

"The fall of the town of Srebrenica and its environs to Bosnian Serb forces in early July 1995 made a mockery of the international community’s professed commitment to safeguard regions it declared to be “safe areas” and placed under United Nations protection in 1993. United Nations peacekeeping officials were unwilling to heed requests for support from their own forces stationed within the enclave, thus allowing Bosnian Serb forces to easily overrun it and—without interference from U.N. soldiers—to carry out systematic, mass executions of hundreds, possibly thousands, of civilian men and boys and to terrorize, rape, beat, execute, rob and otherwise abuse civilians being deported from the area."

Do not look to the UN to protect you. They are impotent.

Ion

20th August 2003, 09:12 PM

I overlooked your post because it is fundamentally wrong:

Sweden for example doesn't have problems with U.N., but lying and killing Bush has grave problems with U.N..

"But it has inherent limits..." shouldn't even be uttered by somebody coming from the country of belligerent Bush:

when one comes from Bush's country, one looks at U.N. as a step up to what the Bush's country does.

In U.N. not every dictator gets a vote, the Security Council gets to vote on grave measures like war.

As for France and Russia from the Security Council not authorizing the use of force until all diplomatic options were exhausted, that's how it should have been followed by Bush too if he was an honest leader.

It works well in Lybia.

Ziggurat

20th August 2003, 09:22 PM

Originally posted by Ion
In U.N. not every dictator gets a vote, the Security Council gets to vote on grave measures like war.

Oh yes, Russia and China aren't exactly dictatorships. But they aren't really functioning democracies either, particularly China.

As for France and Russia from the Security Council not authorizing the use of force until all diplomatic options were exhausted, that's how it should have been followed by Bush too.

All diplomatic options were exhausted a long time ago - more than a decade of diplomacy, and Iraq still did not comply with UN security council demands. But the security council didn't have the will to back up its own demands. Do you think dimplomacy is what got inspectors back into Iraq? Do you think it was the threat of UN action that got Saddam to back down a little bit? How long were you willing to let the cat and mouse game continue before you concede that diplomacy wasn't working? Why do you think Saddam would ever yield to mere diplomacy?

You're blinded by your own hatred of Bush. You place your faith in an ineffective collection of politicians without the willpower to back up their own promises (need I remind you again of their failure to maintain security in promised safe areas in Yugoslavia?), and condemn the removal of a bloodthirsty tyrant from power because you don't like the man who made the decision to take him out. That's really all it comes down to. But that's not good enough.

Ion

20th August 2003, 09:27 PM

Originally posted by Ziggurat

...
All diplomatic options were exhausted a long time ago - more than a decade of diplomacy, and Iraq still did not comply with UN security council demands.
...

Bush's U.S. didn't comply with the U.N. Security Council either, when Bush went to war in Iraq.

So Bush's U.S. can not invoke in the Iraq's war the reason of abiding by U.N..

Diplomatic options were not exhausted:

.) since 1992, Hussein killed less than Bush does in one year and a half;

.) in 2003, Hussein doesn't have WMDs anylonger.

So the U.N. diplomatic options do work pretty good.

Ziggurat

20th August 2003, 10:07 PM

Originally posted by Ion

Diplomatic options were not exhausted:

.) Hussein killed less than Bush;

Now you're lying. Saddam killed 350,000 iraqi's and 300,000 Iranians in the Iran-Iraq war. He sent thousand more of his soldiers to die in the invasion of Kuwait - did you count them too? Did you count the 30,000 Shia's he killed in his brutal suppression of southern Iraq in 1991? Did you count the 180,000 Kurds he killed during the 80's, or the thousands more he would have killed without American-enforced no-fly zones? He was a continuing threat to his neighbors and his own people. And all you can do is rationalize his tyranny, and try to count up bodies in as skewed a manner as possible so this bloodthirsty dictator looks better than a democratically elected head of state. You're a Saddam appologist, you have no credibility to any kind of moral high ground.

.) Hussein didn't have WMDs anylonger.

So the U.N. diplomatic options work.

Then why did Saddam never fully comply with UN resolutions? You never answered that. You have no answer for that. And you STILL have no argument for how to prevent Saddam from getting nuclear weapons in the future.

If you cannot provide an argument beyond "Bush was worse" and "the UN is the final arbiter" then I have nothing else to say to you.

Earthborn

20th August 2003, 10:08 PM

But it's not reasonable to conclude from that that Saddam wouldn't restart it in the future.This is pure speculation. He might or might not continue his nuclear program. Both or equally reasonable. Is it okay to kill almost 8000 innocent civilians based on such speculation?He was continually testing the UN, seeing how far he could push them.As should have been expected. The US is constantly testing the UN as well, it can just get away with more.Here's what he probably thought was going to happen: he'd let them back in for a while (still without complete cooperation), let the French and Russians hold us back in the UN, wait for us to withdraw our troops (which we could not keep there indefinitely), then stop cooperating completely.Or maybe he didn't have a clue what was going to happen, and just tried what he could to prevent a US invasion. Sounds more likely to me.So he thought by jerking our chain he could wear us out, and eventually he'd have freedom to act again.That could be what he was hoping for, but I would imagine that he must have realised that it wasn't realistic hope.He just didn't realize we'd act now, because he doesn't really understand the west.Invading a country without provocation, out of fear of some sort of weapons. Western governments supporting the US on what was clearly propaganda. I don't understand the west either. Does the 'west' understand itself?Again, the issue is not what programs he currently had in place, the issue was what he would do in the future.So what was he going to do in the future, oh great oracle?What makes you think we'd know what factory to hit? The inspectors were oblivious to the weapons developments going on at Al-Tuwaitha before gulf war 1, they cannot be relied upon in the future to discover clandestine programs.Well, since then technology has improved quite a bit, so I imagine it is now easier to recognize a nuclear weapons factory than ever before. And if you can't recognize it in any way, you can always count on the fact that nuclear devices need to be tested too. Should be pretty obvious by then.What credible threat would you back up human rights inspectors with?Perhaps no threat at all, but rewards when a country is complying.

I could imagine a future in which the power in the UN depends on country's ability to honour human rights. Every country gets inspections, and those countries that follow the Universal Declaration of Human Rights most closely will get a bigger vote in the security council. And which country doesn't want to have a big say in world affairs?

The permanent members of the security council will likely be The Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland. The US with its death penalty and backwards social program will be somewhere between China and Russia. Civilocracy.
'They say I am a dreamer...' :)And Iraq five years from now is going to be a much better place than it would be five years from now if we just decided to continue a waiting game with Saddam.Don't set your hopes up too high. It took decades with Japan, and that is the most ethnically homogenous country in the world, had people already interested in America and who knew they were uttery defeated so had no choice anyway. Reforming Iraq may prove to be a bit more complex than that.What good would that have done? If Blix didn't find anything, we still would face the problem that Saddam was looking for a way to restart his nuke program.So the war was started because Blix wasn't going to find anything? Funny, I remember that it started because there was already no doubt there was something there and no time could be wasted.

It is always remarkable how quickly justifications for something can change.But that doesn't change the fact that I think invading Iraq was the only realistic way of ensuring Saddam never got a nuke.But he doesn't appear to have tried to get one anymore. Perhaps without an invasion, we could not be absolutely certain he wasn't going to get one. But since he didn't have an active nuclear program, it seems a reasonably safe bet he wasn't going to get one either. Is it worth cluster bombing children to get that little bit more certainty?If you want a non-religious term, maybe something along the lines of malignant sociopathy, but that's still not quite enough to describe the violent depravity people like Saddam and his sons.How about a really lousy childhood and far too much power for a human being to handle?Most members are not themselves functioning democracies, how can you possibly consider the UN as a whole to be democratic?It is true, the UN is not democratic. It doesn't have to be. It is a council of diplomats. The diplomats are selected for their diplomacy: the ability to suck up to other nations. They are not selected for their popularity with the people, and I'm am glad they aren't. Just imagine what the UN would be like if we voted for its officials and we get people like George ('bringing to justice' equals 'killing') Bush, Silvio ('I am above the law') Berlusconi or Ariel ('I ain't gonna sign no stinkin' peace treaty') Sharon to represent our nations. The world would not be a better place.

Ion

20th August 2003, 10:15 PM

Originally posted by Ziggurat

Now you're lying. Saddam killed 350,000 iraqi's and 300,000 Iranians in the Iran-Iraq war.
You are lying:

I posted repeatedly that the war between Iraq and Iran was in 1980, and that U.N. contains Hussein since 1992 with good results.

See my calculation of how much Hussein kills since 1992 against Bush since 2001.

It is in this thread, earlier, for you to read before posting lunacies:

Hussein kills 3 per day;

Bush kills 60 per day.

Ion

20th August 2003, 10:20 PM

Originally posted by Ziggurat

...
Then why did Saddam never fully comply with UN resolutions?
...

Hussein never fully complied with U.N. resolutions, just so that you Ziggy ask about it.

But, Bush, who according to my calculation earlier in this thread kills 60 per day since September 11, doesn't comply with the U.N. Chart in order to aggress Iraq, now that's awesome Ziggy, don't you think?

Ziggurat

20th August 2003, 11:03 PM

Originally posted by Earthborn
This is pure speculation. He might or might not continue his nuclear program. Both or equally reasonable.

No, only one is reasonable. We MUST assume that he would build nukes if able to. The consequences for thinking he would build a nuke and being wrong do not compare to the consequences of thinking he wouldn't build one and being wrong. And the evidence clearly points to him hoping to restart his program. How else to explain the fact that Iraq consistently refused to hand over all the documents on its nuclear weapons program? And remember the parts hidden under a rose bush? They may not have been much, but they were hidden specifically for the purpose of restarting the nuclear weapons program at some point in the future.

Is it okay to kill almost 8000 innocent civilians based on such speculation?

Stacked up against potentially millions, yes. I refuse to be paralyzed from acting against violent dictators out of fear of bloodying my own hands. The alternative (sanctions and inspections) wasn't working, and was probably killing even more civilians because Saddam gladly starved his own people.

Or maybe he didn't have a clue what was going to happen, and just tried what he could to prevent a US invasion. Sounds more likely to me.

There's plenty of things he could have done to stop an invasion, but chose not to do. Specific demands the UN made of him. For example, the UN weapons inspectors wanted to be able to remove Iraqi scientists AND their families from Iraq, so that they could be questioned without threat of reprisal. Saddam never let that happen, and mostly didn't even let them be quesioned without minders. Consequently, scientists were not free to answer questions honestly - they knew if they squeeled, he'd kill them and their families. Doesn't sound like a man who's trying to fully cooperate.

That could be what he was hoping for, but I would imagine that he must have realised that it wasn't realistic hope.

Saddam has little concept of how an open democracy works. But the French, Russian, and Chinese opposition to the use of force gave him plenty of hope that he could keep yanking our chain.

So what was he going to do in the future, oh great oracle?

Build a nuclear weapon. Use it for cover to continue aggression against his neighbors. Keep us from interfering while he wiped out the Kurds. This isn't rocket science, and I've already said this before. This is all stuff he was engaged in prior to his defeat in gulf war 1, it's not a secret. He was not a changed man.

Well, since then technology has improved quite a bit, so I imagine it is now easier to recognize a nuclear weapons factory than ever before.

Quite the reverse. It's getting easier to conceal a weapons factory.

And if you can't recognize it in any way, you can always count on the fact that nuclear devices need to be tested too. Should be pretty obvious by then.

Yes. Obviously too late. That means they already have one.

Perhaps no threat at all, but rewards when a country is complying.

What sort of rewards could you possibly offer a man like Saddam? He had plenty of money. He didn't care if his people were starving. What he wanted was domination over the middle east. Are you willing to offer him that? Because just like with Hitler, there is no point at which he will be satisfied. You cannot buy off a man like Saddam, and attempts to do so only strengthen his position.

I could imagine a future in which the power in the UN depends on country's ability to honour human rights. Every country gets inspections, and those countries that follow the Universal Declaration of Human Rights most closely will get a bigger vote in the security council. And which country doesn't want to have a big say in world affairs?

That would be a nice future indeed. But Saddam had no interest in being a part of such a world. There is nothing you can offer him to get him to join. And this kind of scheme is completely unworkable for any country that does not participate willingly.

Don't set your hopes up too high. It took decades with Japan,

Japan prior to WWII was in much better shape than Iraq. We won't be done with Iraq in five years, but things will certainly have improved from what they were like under Saddam.

So the war was started because Blix wasn't going to find anything? Funny, I remember that it started because there was already no doubt there was something there and no time could be wasted.

Ah, now we get to the distinction between why Bush claimed we needed to go to war and why I supported the war. The two are not the same, and Bush can and should be criticised for the specifics of the case he made. But the mistakes he made do nothing to counter the argument I have outlined. I don't need to agree with Bush to support the invasion. I don't toe his party line, I don't expect others to, but I do expect people to consider what the consequences of not invading actually were.

Blix wasn't going to find anything, regardless of what was there, because the Iraqi's were not cooperating. That non-cooperation was a more fundamental problem - it didn't tell us what Saddam was doing at the moment, but it was a clear indication that in the long term, Saddam had no intention of abiding by his promises not to restart his nuclear weapons program.

But he doesn't appear to have tried to get one anymore. Perhaps without an invasion, we could not be absolutely certain he wasn't going to get one. But since he didn't have an active nuclear program, it seems a reasonably safe bet he wasn't going to get one either.

No, it's not safe at all to bet that he wouldn't get one in the future. Do you think he was a changed man? Do you think his defeat in gulf war 1 reformed him from his blood-thirsty, power-hungry ways? Not in the least. He always viewed the fact that we didn't kick him out as a sign of weakness. All he was doing was biding his time, waiting until it was safe to restart his nuclear weapons program. That's the safe bet, and that's the one backed up by the evidence.

Is it worth cluster bombing children to get that little bit more certainty?

We're not getting a little more certainty. We're getting absolute certainty that Saddam will never get a nuclear weapon versus almost no certainty. That's worth risking a lot. And we took great pains to limit civilian casualties. Considering the scale of the invasion and the fact that the Fedayeen tried to wage a guerilla war, we did a pretty damn good job, too. Not perfect, of course, but there was no way of doing this perfectly. And considering the daily attrocities Saddam committed against his own people, including letting them starve while he and his cohorts lived the high life and sent money to encourage Palestinians to blow themselves up, I think long-term the Iraqi's themselves are going to end up better off for this invasion as well. And if a little blood is on our hands rather than a lot of blood on Saddam's hands, well, that will have to be OK.

Tricky

21st August 2003, 05:50 AM

Ziggy, you just can't invade countries base on what you think they might do, else you would be invading half the countries in the world. You have to catch them doing it. For us to act otherwise makes us as bad as them. That is not a goal to which I aspire.

Now what do you think of a country that:
Definately has nuclear weapons
Sells (or gives) nuclear weapons to other countries
Has used nuclear weapons in the past
Has the capability of producing biochemical toxins.
Has invaded other countries
Has killed many innocent civilians trying to get to a much smaller number of suspected enemies
Supports removing freedoms from his people for "security purposes"
Has a leader who believes he is guided by God

Does that sound to you like a prime target for invasion?

Ziggurat

21st August 2003, 08:32 AM

Originally posted by Tricky
Ziggy, you just can't invade countries base on what you think they might do, else you would be invading half the countries in the world. You have to catch them doing it. For us to act otherwise makes us as bad as them. That is not a goal to which I aspire.

It's not what we think he would do, it's what we know for certain he was going to try to do. I can't see how anyone can argue that Saddam wasn't going to try to get nuclear weapons. That's simply not a tennable position. And invading us doesn't make us as bad as him. Did Saddam try to limit civilian casualties when he invaded Kuwait? Did he try to repair infrastructure? Did he actually refrain from looting the place wholesale? Did we ever make civilians the direct, intended targets of our invasion of Iraq? No. Iraq will be better off because of our invasion, and the response you give is that it was against international law. Well, if international law hurts the people it's intended to help (Iraqi civilians) and cannot ensure global security, then there is no reason to abide by it. It's that simple.

You're grasping at straws, trying to justify why we didn't need to prevent Saddam from getting nukes. That's a position that I will never agree to. That's a position that does not place world stability as a priority, a position that could easily cost hundreds of thousands of lives. You present no plan for how to keep nukes out of Saddam's hands, you merely claim that we should do in the future what we have no reason to believe we would be capable of doing: knowing exactly when Saddam was building nukes. That's not a plan, and it's not good enough.

Governments are not people, they have no iherent rights. They only do exist when they have the power to exist, and they only should exist to the extent that they help their own citizens. Saddam's government should not have existed, it gave nothing to its people. We took away their power to exist, but their justification for existing vanished decades ago. Are you mourning their demise?

Ion

21st August 2003, 08:48 AM

Originally posted by Ziggurat

...
Stacked up against potentially millions, yes. I refuse to be paralyzed from acting against violent dictators out of fear of bloodying my own hands. The alternative (sanctions and inspections) wasn't working, and was probably killing even more civilians because Saddam gladly starved his own people.
...

Then Ziggy, "...refuse to be paralyzed..." in an imperialist U.S. country.

It is true to some degree, that people get the government they deserve, and you are an example of getting this from Bush's U.S..

As for the government that myself I do deserve, I do deserve a government that deals with wackos like Hussein by the democratic process in place at U.N., process that produces strong results allowing countries to live pracefully together in the world.

In the entire world, only a few countries run by abusers like Bush, have co-living problems within U.N.:

the majority of countries, like Sweden, don't have co-living problems within U.N..

Ion

21st August 2003, 08:54 AM

Originally posted by Ziggurat

It's not what we think he would do, it's what we know for certain he was going to try to do.
...

You know "...for certain he was going to try to do." from Bush.

Bush is not a reference.

Now if you knew "...for certain he was going to try to do." from U.N., that would be a reference.

Like knowing "...for certain he was going to try to do." from Hans Blix (Den.), and el Baradei (Egypt), professional U.N. inspectors, that is a reference.

Ziggurat

21st August 2003, 09:11 AM

Originally posted by Ion

It is true to some degree, that people get the government they deserve, and you are an example of getting this from Bush's U.S..

Then what kind of government did the Iraqi's deserve? What kind of government were the anti-war people workin to ensure they got? The anti-war people tried to make sure Iraq was stuck with a blood-thirsty oppressive dictator. So don't try to use that argument on me, it reaks of hypocracy.

As for the government that myself I do deserve, I do deserve a government that deals with wackos like Hussein by the democratic process in place at U.N., process that produces strong results allowing countries to live pracefully together in the world.

That's a joke. Saddam had absolutely no interest in living peacefully with the rest of the world. The UN's diplomacy was not producing strong results at all (despite your protestations, you've done nothing to demonstrate otherwise), only the threat of US muscle (which the UN refused to back up) ever produced any results, and even then not enough. You're essentially calling for the same sort of appeasement that let Hilter have free reign prior to WWII. How much better the world might have been had people realized earlier that he could not be appeased. The US realized that about Saddam, but France and Germany clung to the blind hope that maybe this time it would be different. And Russia and China didn't even really care, because it wasn't their problem. Most of the UN was not working for peace, they were working to try to maintain their own relevance, despite being completely impotent to do anything about the problem.

Ion

21st August 2003, 09:16 AM

Originally posted by Ziggurat

Then what kind of government did the Iraqi's deserve?
...

Hussein in Iraq was being contained pretty good by U.N. since 1992.

What kind of government does Bush's U.S. deserve?
Originally posted by Ziggurat

...
That's a joke. Saddam had absolutely no interest in living peacefully with the rest of the world.
...

And Bush does?

Look at what Bush has done to the U.N..

Why is it that countries like Sweden don't have problems with U.N., but gee, cheating Bush does have...

It must be Bush, I guess...

Ziggurat

21st August 2003, 09:19 AM

Originally posted by Ion

You know "...for certain he was going to try to do." from Bush.

Bush is not a reference.

I'm not getting this from Bush. I'm getting this from being able to put two and two together from publicly available and undisputed facts, something you seem completely incapable of doing. Saddam wanted to dominate the middle east. He attacked neighbors on multiple occasions to try increase his power. He oppressed his own citizens with violent force, including using chemical weapons to kill thousands of his own civilians. He was working on nuclear weapons prior to gulf war 1. He consistently obstructed UN weapons inspectors, and stopped them from working completely in 1998 when he thought the US was too preoccupied to respond effectively. He never fully complied with UN security council demands that he accepted as part of the end to the first gulf war. What do you THINK Saddam's plans for the future were? Get a clue. How obvious does something have to be before you can't deny it anymore?

Earthborn

21st August 2003, 09:20 AM

It's not what we think he would do, it's what we know for certain he was going to try to do.Claiming that you know for certain what he was going to do is trying to read his mind. You have no evidence that he was going to start his nuclear program again, and you have no evidence what he was going to do with a nuclear bomb once he had one.Did Saddam try to limit civilian casualties when he invaded Kuwait?I bet he did. He didn't invade Kuwait with the intention to kill people.Did he try to repair infrastructure?So you think Saddam prefers broken infrastructure?Did he actually refrain from looting the place wholesale?Please provide evidence of looting.Did we ever make civilians the direct, intended targets of our invasion of Iraq? No.Maybe not. But are the people who were cluster bombed in civilian areas going to believe that?Iraq will be better off because of our invasionThat remains to be seen. Viet Nam was supposed to be better off because of a US invasion, but in the end it wasn't.Well, if international law hurts the people it's intended to help (Iraqi civilians)International law didn't cluster bomb innocent civilians.That's a position that does not place world stability as a priority, a position that could easily cost hundreds of thousands of lives.That is a fallacious argument. First misconstrue your opponents opinion by assuming he doesn't place world stability as a priority, just because he thinks world stability is better served differently. Then you start an argument from adverse (and unproven!) consequences.You present no plan for how to keep nukes out of Saddam's handsBut I did. Any criticism on my plan is more than justified, but instead of giving criticism and suggestions that could improve my plan, you simply dismiss it and assume whatever is happening is the best course of action.

Perhaps it is the best course of action of what could be achieved right now, but I hope we will all learn a bit from this for some next time.you merely claim that we should do in the future what we have no reason to believe we would be capable of doing: knowing exactly when Saddam was building nukes.Read your own IAEA article. Looks to me like they knew very well what Saddam was up to, and he was not making any nukes.That's not a plan, and it's not good enough.Barging in, cluster bombing civilians, blowing up a few offices of the free press and then being surprised that the Iraqis are not welcoming them with open arms and flowers, doesn't look like much more of a plan to me. The promises of rebuilding Iraq, without presenting any plans or asking the local population isn't good enough either.

Shinytop

21st August 2003, 09:21 AM

We had plenty of reason to go after Hussein. I would have supported the war for him shooting at our planes. I would have supported the war for the violations of the UN resolutions. I would have supported the war for the attempted assassination of an ex American president. I would have supported the war because when the oil embargo was lifted Hussein would have funded anybody willing to attack the US.

But the reality of the situation is that Bush went after support for the war by telling the American people that there was an imminent danger of WMD's. He then used support by the people to get a resolution from Congress supporting a war and used than as an excuse to bypass the Constitutional authority for declaring war bestowed on Congress alone. Since the resolution was obtained under false circumstances and from lies it becomes invalid just as any contract coerced through threats and lies is invalid.

Bush then sent an honorable man, Colin Powell, to tell the nations of the world that we were under this threat. He expended much good will our country could use in order to spread his lie and gain support. He cheapened the value of the American soldiers' lives lost by expending them for a lie.

He further showed his contempt for the people of this country by lying to get his way. And now we have many people saying "So What, the result is all that matters." I cannot go along with that. If we allow leaders to lead through lies and to expend our money and the lives of our young men based on those lies we deserve to lose the freedoms that Bush and Ashcroft are eroding on a daily basis.

By the way, I was a big supporter of Bush until I realized he had lied. I do not accept lies from my coworkers, my family or my friends. I see no reason to accept them from Bush.

Ziggurat

21st August 2003, 09:26 AM

Originally posted by Shinytop

By the way, I was a big supporter of Bush until I realized he had lied. I do not accept lies from my coworkers, my family or my friends. I see no reason to accept them from Bush.

I see no reason to either. But I also see no reason to oppose a justified war because I hate the man in charge of it. I will gladly vote against Bush in '04. But supporting the war is not synonymous with supporting Bush. That's a mistake much of the anti-war croud is making. If there are sufficient reasons to go to war, then support it, even if those aren't the reasons Bush put forward. Criticism of Bush can stand independently of that, and I am more than willing to criticize the man for how he handled the details.

Ion

21st August 2003, 09:28 AM

Originally posted by Ziggurat

I'm not getting this from Bush. I'm getting this from being able to put two and two together from publicly available and undisputed facts, something you seem completely incapable of doing. Saddam wanted to dominate the middle east.
...

When U.N. says there is no WMDs reason to war in Iraq, then there is no WMDs reason to war in Iraq.

Unlike Bush.

"Saddam wanted to dominate the middle east.":

and Bush, the world, especially oil worldwide.

Shinytop

21st August 2003, 09:38 AM

It is every bit as ignorant to think the countries that vote in the UN do not have an agenda as it is to think the US does not have an agenda. Their votes, much like our own Congress, do not reflect what is right and just, but what is good for their self interests.

Ion

21st August 2003, 09:42 AM

Originally posted by Ziggurat

...
But supporting the war is not synonymous with supporting Bush. That's a mistake much of the anti-war croud is making.
...

In the case of Iraq's war, Bush fabricated the war, so the war is 100% Bush.

Right now, a sick (Hussein) is being treated by another sick (Bush).

I side with U.N. when not approving of Hussein, when containing Hussein since 1992, and when not approving of Bush's war against Hussein.

Hopefully a U.N. condemnation of Bush's war will come in a few years, when the opposition of Bush in U.N. gains more courage.

Ion

21st August 2003, 09:46 AM

Originally posted by Shinytop
It is every bit as ignorant to think the countries that vote in the UN do not have an agenda as it is to think the US does not have an agenda.
...

I don't think otherwise.

That's why the U.N. process has to contain lone wackos like Bush and Hussein, and more wackos to come in most countries.

Shinytop

21st August 2003, 09:50 AM

Originally posted by Ion

I don't think otherwise.

That's why U.N. process has to contain lone wackos like Bush, Hussein, and more wackos to come in most countries.

What you are missing is how can they contain wackos when they only contain people who are wacko enough for their definition today. Tomorrow they will vote today's wacko sane and declare another person a wacko. I do not understand you agreeing with what I said and then also saying the UN can control wackos.

But then your agenda has been pretty well defined by the posts you have made in this thread. Rest of world good, US bad.

Ziggurat

21st August 2003, 10:17 AM

Originally posted by Earthborn
You have no evidence that he was going to start his nuclear program again, and you have no evidence what he was going to do with a nuclear bomb once he had one.

You're kidding, right? We do have evidence. We have the fact that he kept plans and parts for a uranium enrichment centrifuge hidden from inspectors. That's proof he was hoping to restart his program. And are you seriously trying to claim that Saddam with a nuke was an acceptable risk? Sorry, but I don't buy that for a second. Yes, we don't know what he'd do - maybe he'd try to crush the Kurds first, or maybe he'd try to invade Kuwait again. Maybe he'd try to blackmail the Saudi's into giving him money to rebuild his army. But none of the possibilities are acceptable risks.

I bet he did. He didn't invade Kuwait with the intention to kill people.

Again, you've got to be kidding me. The man was a butcher. Killing civilians probably wasn't a primary objective (it was however in his campaign against the Kurds), but he certainly never carred about civilian casualtied, even among Iraqis.

So you think Saddam prefers broken infrastructure?

I'm saying he never gave a crap about the wellfare of Kuwaiti citizens. Is that not obvious? And if he couldn't have the infrastructure, then yes, he wanted it broken. Hence all the oil fires he started in Kuwait.

Please provide evidence of looting.

I'm surprised that this is the sort of thing you're contesting, but OK:
http://www.iraqfoundation.org/documents/pdf/index.html
There's planty more tales of the looting that went on in Kuwait, but this should be sufficient for starters.
Don't forget the oil fires he set, or the oil he dumped into the gulf either, just to spite the world.

But I did. Any criticism on my plan is more than justified, but instead of giving criticism and suggestions that could improve my plan, you simply dismiss it and assume whatever is happening is the best course of action.

Your plan relies on being able to know if Saddam was restarting a nuclear weapons program. I already indicated that this is not something we can depend on. You have never provided a counterargument.

Read your own IAEA article. Looks to me like they knew very well what Saddam was up to, and he was not making any nukes.

They knew what he was up only after the war. They were completely ignorant of his activities before the war, and much of what they know only came from the partial (never complete) cooperation the Iraqis provided. Saddam did not build his first program to hide it from inspectors, only from external surveilance, and it worked. The IAEA had no clue. Knowing that he must contend with inspectors, you can be sure he would take greater pains to conceal his efforts. In other words, we cannot depend on the IAEA discovering his plans. They weren't responsible for uncovering his plans last time, and cannot be relied upon to do so in the future.

As for making nukes, well, that's really trying to wiggle out of the essential problem. He was not at the manufacturing stage, that is correct. But he was actively working on creating the infrastructure needed to enrich uranium for a bomb. He may not have been "making" a bomb, but he was certainly working on one. The distinction does not avoid the problem. And that comes from the IAEA documents.

The promises of rebuilding Iraq, without presenting any plans or asking the local population isn't good enough either.

And how, exactly, would one go about asking the local population under Saddam's oppressive control actually work? That's not something we could have done. Shortcomings on the specifics of how we plan to rebuild Iraq are justified, but they are also not the same as criticism of the basic decision to invade.

Ironically enough, some Iraqi's actually did greet invading troops with flowers. Certainly not all, but I never expected that. But in terms of the resistance, keep in mind also what that consists of. The resistance WANTS to make life miserable for ordinary Iraqis. It is not representative of the will of the Iraqi people.