I've another article up on @political. It's kind of a rehash of some of the war claims and it makes a brief stab at debunking the "we can kill bad men" argument since there are so many that we support.
I'm actually thinking about writing a short series for them. It would cover Constitutional issues. I might start with the Second Amendment since it really doesn't say what a lot of people think it says -- and this is coming from someone who supports our right to own guns.
I think it's clear all along that Bush felt for the strategic good of the US, he needed a strong ally producing a lot of oil cheaply, to keep world and hence US prices down over the next decade. Saudi is wobbly, and could topple at any moment, Iran is impossible because of recent history, which leaves Iraq.
Iraq is good, there are outstanding UN violations, the regime is nasty, unpopular in the region, and worth removing, and best of all there is a huge supply of oil in the country that's not flowing onto the world market. Bush didn't really care about the morals of the story, he clearly just wanted the oil flowing.
Blair is in a worse position, he staked his reputation on the bogus claims of weapons of mass destruction. He dragged his own party against it better judgement, and eventually the whole country towards a messy war. Unlike the US, our armed forced are totally under strength and under equipped, and we have taken needless losses as a result. It's wrecked our reputation within Europe, and most recently destroyed good men in the BBC that supported journalist that tried to show people, the lies that Blair was spinning.
Re:It's worse of Blair
Ovid on 2004-02-13T20:46:23
This begs the question of what Blair expected to get out of this. Once he turned into Bush's loyal sidekick, I don't think he could back down, but I am hard-pressed to come up with any convincing reason why he would stake his political reputation on a pre-emptive attack. I suppose if he thought that Iraq actually had those weapons, he might have looked like a hero, but Britain was busy cribbing notes from students and overruling their own intel, so I'd be suprised if Blair was doing more than betting (unless we lied to him).
Do you have any ideas why he went along with this?
Re:It's worse of Blair
ajt on 2004-02-13T21:48:44
Personally I think Blair has his own short (hidden) personal agenda. Normally on most issues he bends to public opinion, saying one thing to one group and the oposite to another. In many ways he is the charismatic "president" not unlike Clinton, who ends up doing nothing...
I think it's quite clear that British military intelligence, like that of the US thought that Iraq posed no threat, though there was always the outide chance of somthing fishy going on. Blair either directly over emphasised, or indirectly made others over emphasise the risk, and used this to convince more rational members of his own government. The WMD were his only public justification.
Either he is a total idiot, or he had a plan but he misjudged the situation totally, and plan fell to pieces. I think he thought, he could be the US-EU bridge, and lead a vialiant multi-national coalition, with the US, to liberate a down-trodden country, and free up a lot of people and oil. He would be a hero in the US for being a loyal ally, and popular in Europe for forging a pan-European alliance, and popular in the Arab world for liberating Iraq.
He thoough this because:
- Original Kuwait war went well, and was an international sucess.
- The UK and France had recently deepened military ties.
- Good evidence of WMD, and brutality in Iraq
- Sucessful European operations in Kosovo
- UK doesn't suffer from Vietnam syndrome like the US does/did
The problems are:
- Europeans don't trust imperialistic US, and Bush in particular
- WMD evidence thin
- 11 September nothing to do with Iraq, and we all know it
- Most European countries have significant Arab population, and scared of internal problems
- Most Europeans think Palestine needs liberating first from tyranny
- We can't afford a war, have you looked at the economy recently?
Once Blair rolled the dice he was stuck, and he had to go through with things, even though our armed forces were ill-prepared. What is strange is that he didn't wriggle out of it like he has in the past when his plans failed - that would be more typical behaviour. What did Bush promise him?
Re:IMO what the Bush Administration is about
Ovid on 2004-02-13T16:40:51
That was awesome
:)
I seem to recall pudge pointing out repeatedly last year the matter of enforcing U.N. resolutions (1205, 1194, and more).
Of course, there's the matter of U.N. resolutions against Israel, but I like to get around that by claiming the U.N. is institutionally incapable of making an intelligent decision there.
Re:UM... NO
Ovid on 2004-02-13T16:18:33
The resolutions are an argument in favor of the war and I was considering bringing that up but it seemed such a weak argument that I decided to focus on the "bad man" argument. The UN issue is a curious one. The US often ignores World Court rulings, ignores treaties (in violation of the US Constitution, I might add) and harsh UN rulings against our allies are often vetoed by us. Thus, any argument that our country -- which repeatedly flouts the rule of international law and blocks its application against our allies -- engaged in action in Iraq because Iraq was an international lawbreaker seems a bit hollow.
Pointing out US hypocricy in this matter does not absolve Iraq, but pointing out how selectively the law condemns (much less applies) makes it less clear that Iraq was deserving of singular attention.
Re:UM... NO
chromatic on 2004-02-13T19:05:18
I still fail to see a problem. Sometimes the interests of the U.S. (ahh, metonymy) align with those of the U.N. Sometimes they don't. International sovereignty, blah blah, why does the U.S. get a vote if disagreement is bad, blah blah.
The "bad man argument" is just stupid. If I claimed that the 1993 Mogadishu action was just Clinton trying to impress a dumpy fat chick, it'd also be simplistic.
I do agree that the U.S. has supported a lot of terrible people and makes alliances with some really shady groups, but that's politics. I'm not sure if you'd prefer that the executive branch waits for perfect action, motives, and information before acting.
Am I drawing a false dilemma of your position though?
Re:UM... NO
Ovid on 2004-02-13T20:38:55
I'm not sure if you'd prefer that the executive branch waits for perfect action, motives, and information before acting.
No, I certainly don't think that's reasonable. However, I would argue that supporting blatantly immoral behavior while claiming a moral high ground can undermine support from the international community. While many nations routinely suffer from such hypocricy, to pre-emptively attack another country based upon it is a far more serious thing than condemning behavior while tacitly supporting it.
This raises another interesting question. If I refuse to kill my wife, that's good. However, if I hire a hit man to do it for me (or simply stand aside and allow it to be done), do I bear less responsibility for the crime, particurly when I have foreknowledge? Does the US have any responsibility for the crimes committed by governments that it installs and/or props up?
Believe it or not, I actually agree with your "it's politics" stance. Sometimes we have to support bad people. I reluctantly agree with our need to support Saudi Arabia and China, but where does that leave us in the case of Iraq? Even the Bush administration is admitting that the WMDs weren't there. The link with Al Qaeda apparently wasn't there (though it appears to be now.) The "bad man" argument is hypocritical and the international law argument is just as hypocritical. Are the dead Americans worth it? Are the dead Iraqis worth it? Is the rise in our deficit worth it? Is the loss of international good will worth it? Is the further alienation of our enemies worth it? If someone is going to argue that the war was in our national interest, could they please tell me how? If it's just about securing oil supplies or setting up a forward base in the Middle East, at least let's be honest about the motivations rather than lie to the American people. Some people might use a variation of the bad man argument and claim that the Iraqi people will be better off now. OK, but why do we give a damn about them when there are so many others whose oppression we actively support? It's not a moral issue. I just want the supporters of the war to at least be honest about motivations (though I suspect that many of them are not being deliberately dishonest). It's kind of tough to have reasonable discussion otherwise.
Re:UM... NO
pudge on 2004-02-18T00:27:09
In The West Wing a few seasons ago they had this thing where the US was supporting a regime that didn't respect women's rights, and the press secretary was complaining to the National Security Advisor (both of them women), and the NSA said, "it's a dangerous world, and everybody has guns, and I'm doing the best I can."
Pakistan has nukes, propped up the Taliban, probably has Bin Laden in its borders, and its government is the result of a military coup of the democratically elected government. And now we find out they sold nuclear technology to Libya, Iran, and North Korea (well, we knew before, but whatever). But we need Pakistan, because Musharaff is preventing large scale regional war.
It's not as simple as they are bad, they are good. Yes, a big part of it is that we took out Hussein because we could. Not that it's the only reason, there are plenty. But at the end of the day, we can't take out Mushraff or Kim Jong Il or the Saudi royal family (heh, do we even have enough bombs for all of them?;-) or other "bad guys" for damned good political and security reasons.
It's true that I stated the UN resolutions as justification for war, but I don't think I ever believed Iraq had WMD. My main reason for supporting war was -- and still is -- that Iraq prevented a modernization of the region, that it was standing between us and our war with the Islamist terrorists. No, that doesn't mean Iraq supported al Qaeda directly.
But read the letter the Pentagon released last week: the Islamists are focusing tremendous energy on bringing us down in Iraq for the same reason we focused tremendous energy to get into Iraq, because Iraq is central to the region, and transforming it into a modern, independent, democratic nation will do more to hurt the Islamists than bombs will.
Re:Lies and the public
Ovid on 2004-02-15T18:59:21
Clinton was impeached for lying under oath. This is perjury. While Bush may have lied, it certainly wasn't under oath (though I grant that the sweep of his lie is much larger). As a result, his lies about the war don't immediately appear to be a crime, though it might be a violation of his oath of office.
As for why there are no talks of impeachment, I would suggest that the Democratic party saw the Republican impeachment effort on Clinton backfire (though not that much, obviously), so they don't want to impeach Bush. Of course, the Democrats are also completely spineless and without direction, so even if they wanted to impeach, I can't imagine them having the courage to do so.
Re:Lies and the public
pudge on 2004-02-18T00:29:30
An impeachment, yes, would kill the Democrats. But also, let's be honest here: we do not know that Bush lied. OK, we can point out little things that may have implied things that weren't true, etc. But when Bush said that Iraq has WMD, we do not know what he knew. The question "what did he know, and when did he know it?" has not been answered.
Unfortunately, it looks like it won't be answered for some time.
