A SIMPLE ANSWER

36 comments on “A SIMPLE ANSWER”

1. Unfortunately, that sounds all too plausible. I wish cynicism wasn’t the most likely path to truth.

2. Come on. Of course it’s political. Bush doesn’t know what to do *besides* go after Iraq.

   Lets face it. 9/11 was the best thing that could have happened for G.W. It gave him something he could do and not look like an idiot (not that things wouldn’t have played out any different with Gore)

   But without his whole anti-terrorisim, get Saddam rhetoric what is there for him?

   He has no idea what to do with the economy, no idea what to do on education, no idea what to about the enviornment… Like his dad the only thing he *can* have going for him is a war. Without it he has nothing else to offer.

3. I believe if they haven’t “got” Saddam by election time, it will be dropped for another two years until whoever is elected next feels the campaign pressure.

4. I’ve got a simple solution for those in goverment who bang the drums of war just so that people will vote for them– Bring back the draft, and make everybody’s child eligable to be called up for military service.

   Let GWB stop and ask himself if this war is really worth the lives of his daughters. And maybe he’d see this in terms like my family does- Is this really worth the life of my sister or her husband?

5. The problem with the Iraq issue is that it’s OBVIOUS that Bush is substituting Iraq for Bin Laden, but at the same time we DO need to get Hussein. It’s misdirection, but it’s hard to argue, because the thing we’re being misdirected to is ALSO a legitimate target.

   Going after Bin Laden and Al Quaeda has been a failure. Al Quaeda still exists, and is still conducting terrorists acts. Our troops are only in the capital city of Kabul, and nowhere else. The outlying areas are still controlled by warlords, which is outrageous, and no one is saying anything about it. We should drive out any warlords and encourage the people to hold democratic elections and write a constitution that provides civil rights for all citizens, including women.

   We need to draw a line in the sand with our ALLIES who are responsible for terrorism. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan are our allies, but THEY are the ones who fund and support (directly or indirectly) the terrorists. The madrassas in Pakistan MUST BE SHUT DOWN. It is THERE that the war on terrorism must be brought, now that the Taliban is no longer in control of Kabul. We must improve relations with Pakistan, which is on the brink of civil war, whose people (who once viewed the U.S. favorably) hate us because of the lopsided support we give their enemy, India, and who have the bomb.

   The problem with Iraq is that yeah, Bush is substituting it for Bin Laden, but yeah, doens’t Hussen have to be taken out too? What’s with this bûllšhìŧ about trying to get inspectors in there? Hussein’s been playing shell games with the U.N. for years, and he has come out and SAID that he WANTS NUCLEAR WEAPONS to USE AGAINST THE U.S. I don’t understand those who don’t want us to go to war with them. I mean, I just don’t get it. Didn’t we screw up by not heeding the warnings of 9/11 (much as we did with Pearl Harbor)? We’re being given a chance to avert disaster by the very guy telling us he wants to nuke us, and is tryng to do so, and yet people want us to negotiate with the guy. The fûçk is the matter with these people?

   Bin Laden/Al Quaeda and Hussein BOTH have to be taken out. It’s not a one-or-the-other situation.

6. As for the support of Blair question, speaking as a UK citizen, every time I see Tony open his mouth I *think* I can see Bush’s sticky, brown fingertips in there… I could be wrong; Blair could just be badly in need of a tonsillectomy…

   I don’t want anybody to take from this that I’m a… shudder… Tory… by the way. I share the viewpoint of Billy Connolly that the desire to be a politician should automatically disqualify you from ever becoming one.

7. I agree that Saddam is something of a substitute, but we really don’t know exactly where he is, either. I saw a quote today from Gen. Schwarzkopf that during the last Gulf War, the military didn’t know where he was. I suspect that while bringing ruin to the Irqai military will not be an impossible undertaking, finding Saddam Hussein and overthrowing him might be. And then he and Osama and Mullah Omar will all be on the run, mocking us by their absence.

   I have many qualms about this potential war, and this is just one of them. Like most of my other qualms, there doesn’t seem to be anyone in Washington asking questions about this. All we seem to hear is complete confidence that we can do this with absolute ease. No one mentions that just like other enemies of the US, this one is darned drafty and probably has an idea of how to go AWOL.

8. Here’s the problem with going to war with Iraq:

   From the moment Bush took office, the administration did everything it could to flip off the global community. Treaties were ignored, agreements set aside. The message of isolationism was made clear and strong to the rest of the world.

   Now, with no smoking gun tying Saddam to 9/11, we’re trying to tell those same countries whom we flipped off that we must unite to attack Iraq. We expect them to fall into line. But if they don’t, and we go in solo against Iraq, we will only succeed in uniting other countries not against Iraq…but against us.

   Don’t you see? In terms of conquest, we will be seen as no different than Nazi Germany (the difference being, as was scathingly mentioned in “Boondocks,” that the leader of Germany was democratically elected). WE will be perceived as the aggressors. WE will be painted as going to war with the nation of Islam.

   We’re trying to put across a message about Saddam. And what did they used to do to messengers delivering unpopular messages?

   Should Saddam be attended to? Yes. But it cannot, must not be done unilaterally. We must go forward united, or united we must remain where we are.

   PAD

9. No one’s denying that Saddam Hussein is, in the words of Spike, “a Very Bad Man.” And no one claims that he hasn’t played games with inspectors in the past. But none of that is sufficient justification for going to war.

   Retaliatory war (when you are attacked, you attack back) is justified. Pre-emptive war (when you know for certain that someone is about to attack you, you attack them to pre-empt their attack) may be justified in some circumstances, if the threat is real and immediate enough. Preventive war (when you attack someone because they might someday acquire the ability to attack you) is never justified.

   No matter what the Bush administration and their flacks on Fox News claim, a war against Iraq would be a preventive war. The best intelligence we have (that has been released to the public) suggests that Hussein’s government is at least two years away from acquiring nuclear capability.

   Also, despite his anti-American rhetoric, Hussein knows that it is not in his interest to attack America or our allies, even through terrorist intermediaries. He’s homicidal, not suicidal. He knows that the best way to guarantee a U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the destruction of his power base, would be to attack us or our allies. If anything, an attack by the U.S. will make Hussein more likely to use his weapons of mass destruction, since his conventional forces were devastated by the Gulf War and he hasn’t been able to rebuild them.

   Containment and deterrence, the policy which caused the collapse of the Soviet Union, has kept Hussein in his box for the past 10 years. I see no changes in his situation since 9/11 to suggest that it will not continue to hold him. Forcible inspections by an international team with full access should be enough to diminish his capability of causing harm.

   There are other good arguments against this war: the fact that it will distract us from the ongoing war against our real enemy, al-Qaeda, the fact that it will further alienate the U.S. from the international community and sow the seeds for more terrorism, etc. — but the moral argument should be enough. Of course, the Bush Administration, for all its talk of good and evil, has shown itself to be strangely resistant to moral arguments. sigh

   As a final note: the poster above who supported the war (while simultaneously recognizing that it is a pretext — nice trick, that) mentioned Pearl Harbor. Do you know what doctrine the Japanese used to support their attack? You got it: Preventive war.

10. >>We need to draw a line in the sand with our ALLIES who are responsible for terrorism. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan are our allies, but THEY are the ones who fund and support (directly or indirectly) the terrorists. <<

    This statement somehow reminds me of the rather disingenuous argument that by doing drugs you may be supporting terrorists. The terrorists get a small amount of funding from drugs, but the bulk of their money comes from Arab governments and royal families, which get their money from oil. And who is the world’s largest purchaser of oil? The US Government. Not that we’re likely to hear that argument from the Oval Office anytime soon. (When I first heard about this Presidential ticket back in 99, I remember thinking, “Gee, in their ongoing efforts to prove they’re not out of touch with the common man, the Republican Party has nominated two rich white male oil tycoons from Texas. I’m feeling better represented already.”)

    Of course, as far as our allies go, terrorism and human rights and the like have never had anything at all to do with American foreign policy. The Taliban were being heavily courted for American business opportunities before September 11 even though we knew full well what kind of people they were. What really matters is whether or not a country will open their doors to our businesses. If you really doubt that, ask yourself: What is the major difference between Cuba and China on human rights violations, and why does one continue to be villified while the other has “Most Favored Nation” status?

    And I liked the Boondocks reference. Very intelligent comic strip. “I have some leads on who helped the terrorists to power. Ready? First, R-E-A-G-A-Hello? Hello?”

11. But Saddam? He’s in Iraq. Him we can find.

    This misses the point a bit. Ultimately, we don’t need to find Hussein. You chase Bin Laden out of Afghanistan, he sets up shop somewhere else and the threat resumes. You chase Saddam out of Iraq, and he’s Adolph Eichmann.

12. Should Saddam be attended to? Yes. But it cannot, must not be done unilaterally.

    I think the lack of international support isn’t the issue, but rather the symptom. The reason our allies, and even many people at home are reluctant to support this drive to war, is because there is a strong sense that Bush administration is not telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. They’ve needed to use exaggerations, innuendo, and “what ifs” to make their case, and that’s never a good sign.

    If the Bush administration could provide conclusive evidence, like Kennedy did in the Cuban Missile Crisis, that Iraq was on the verge of acquiring nukes, then I think the American people would wholeheartedly support a strike akin to Israel’s in 1981, even if it had to be unilateral. If there was strong evidence that Iraq was in cahoots with Al Qaeda, I think there would even be support for unilaterally taking out Saddam. But absent that, this just isn’t going to wash.

    It looks like what’s going to happen is that we’re going to take out Saddam, and then have a huge American troop presence in Iraq for decades to come, to protect our oil interests. And by the time the rage at that manifests itself on America in a deadly way, Bush’s 8 years will be up, and he won’t have to deal with the consequences of his actions. We will.

13. We may not need to go after Sadaam after all, given what happened yesterday. For those who haven’t heard, Sadaam, in an attempt to shore up his support in case of an American invasion, and to increase the supply of draftable soldiers, announced “amnesty” for many of the political prisoners in his nation’s prisons. Not content with this bone, the families of the prisoners stormed the prisons, and freed every single prisoner. Iraq may soon be celebrating Bastille Day on October 20.

14. I have many qualms about this potential war, and this is just one of them. Like most of my other qualms, there doesn’t seem to be anyone in Washington asking questions about this.

    At least one person in Washington is asking questions:

    http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2002/cr091002.htm

    -R

15. The whole War on Terrorism thing is a political nightmare. Bush is just trying to secure himself in office where his daddy couldnt! Its a bit like Margaret Thatcher and Falklands war.

16. Ron Paul is standing up to his own party and president. Good for him, good for us. I’ve rarely agreed with him on anything and haven’t cared too much for his politics or persona, but here I can gladly applaud him.

17. First of all, Hitler was not democratically elected. He was placed in a position of power in the German government by the German aristocrats who wanted to tap into his popularity with the working class. Gerald Ford came to power the way Hitler did, not George Bush.

    Secondly, the United States has been giving the finger to the rest of the world for most of its existence. The Kyoto Accords were defeated in Congress by the votes of Democrats and Republicans, not by the President. The Clinton Administration did just as much to piss the world off, Bush is just a bit less subtle about it.

18. Boy, I feel like I’m visiting the letter to the editors page at The Nation. So you guys are the San Francisco Democrats Jeanne Kirkpatrick was talking about.:) How do you feel about SDI now that North Korea has developed nukes, despite their promises to the contrary, and missiles capable of delivering them to American targets?

19. You know, ever since Iraq came into the national discussion re: the war on terror, it’s had me scratching my head.

    Sure, I’m convinced that Hussein needs to be removed from power, but the only reason he got mentioned in the first place was because he was quoted as cheering the 9/11 attacks. In the absence of a base of power for the Taliban, Iraq doesn’t seem to be the next logical priority.

    If not for the Geneva convention, I’d say we should send a sniper in and just be done with him. Hussein may be a lot of things, but smart clearly isn’t one of them. He’s like a white guy heckling a comedian on Showtime at the Apollo (or rather, Showtime in Harlem, now) or the Def Comedy Jam. Yeah, he’s safe as long as the cameras are rolling, because the last thing anybody needs is to be filmed delivering a gang-beating, but unless he leaves the theatre with a police escort to an armored car driven by James Bond, I don’t like his odds of getting home unscathed.

    How many times has Saddam stepped up and smacked us in the back only to turn around and run to the goal and shout “Olly olly oxen free?” And worse, Iraq is Anthony Michael Hall doing to to the Judd Nelson that is the US. Eventually, dámņ the rules, he’s going to get a nuke shoved up his nose.

20. Heh. Meant to hit the Preview button, not the post button. That wasn’t a complete thought.

    Anyway, I can see why Hussein has the illusion of an important thing to take care of, and I can certainly see why Dubya would want to further that illusion. It would be enormously satisfying to give Saddam the wedgie he’s been begging for for 10 years.

    It’s been so much trouble, though, that it’s really not worth the effort and it makes us look bad because we’re just picking on the guy we can find. The number of other countries who have backed out on us should be enough proof, but since it’s not, Bush should really sit down for the weekend and watch some teen angst movies. We’re not the hero, we’re the bully. At the end of the movie, we’re shouting the same crap we have been the whole time, but everyone is backing away from us because they don’t want to look bad by sticking with us. They might even agree with us, but we’re quite clearly becoming James Van der Beek at the end of Angus.

    Also, this probably wouldn’t be happening if Bush weren’t such an idiot.

21. Peter:

    I doubt the Democrats could get much mileage out of “eight years of peace and prosperity before Bush,” when Clinton has even admitted to knowing what a threat bin Laden was and pretty much ignoring him. I don’t blame Clinton so much for that as I do the standard American line of just rolling over and accepting the crap other countries throw at us (like Hussein’s constant shuck and jive, which is probably what gives terrorists the notion that they can attack us on our own soil).

    The economy was in a slump but really went into the toilet as a result of Sept. 11 — I live in New York and saw firsthand the damage the terrorist attacks had. I can’t see how you can blame anyone — regardless of their political affiliation — for the problems of the economy. Any intelligent voter (if there’s really such a thing, but I’d like to think so) would see how cynical that is.

    Much like the notion of “concentrating on the economy” and ignoring Hussein. What good is there in improving the economy if a real or even perceived terrorist attack sends Americans scampering under their beds again — afraid to travel, afraid to go on holiday, afraid to eat out… all the sort of thing that wrecks havoc on the economy.

    We should have dealt with Hussein in ’91. This was the elder Bush’s blunder. Dealing with him now seems justified — to me at least, maybe I’m nuts — because he keeps going back on his word as far as the terms of Iraq’s surrender went. I supported Clinton’s dropping a bomb on him — even if it might have been politically motivated.

    Considering how often we have elections in this country, it’s impossible to do *anything* without it appearing to be politically motivated.

    Really, I’d hoped the reaction to 9/11 would be renewed vigilance not “let’s get bin Laden and then go back to watching ‘The Bachelor.'”

    Oh, and the creator of “Boondocks” is a racist bore (I can forgive the latter and reasonably ignore the former but the two combined is intolerable). He mocks interracial couples and insults white people who dare to do anything that he believes is the “province” of blacks (a recent negative jab at Kelly Clarkson of “American Idol” for apparently emulating Mariah Carey — oh no!).

    But back to your regularly scheduled program.

22. Peter, So you know Saddam is in Iraq but no more specifics beyond that? I’m sorry but Iraq is a big place and the man has many doubles and has had years of oil money to build hideouts anticipating an assasination attempt. I don’t think finding him and arresting/killing him would be nearly as easy as you made it out to be.

    -Shawn

23. >>How do you feel about SDI now that North Korea has developed nukes, despite their promises to the contrary, and missiles capable of delivering them to American targets?<<

    About the same as I did growing up knowing that the USSR had enough nukes to destroy all of us several times over. Oddly enough, we didn’t feel the need to go to war with them. Why do you ask?

24. Speaking as an ill-informed F.F. (filthy foreigner for all you United Statesians), and very possibly devil’s advocate, I can’t help but point out that wars have historically been effective at revitalizing a national economy. Perhaps the Bush administration is pursuing ‘alternate’ avenues for economic recovery, by bombing the tar out of Iraq.

25. Actually, wars are not really that effective at revitalizing economies. Wars can temporarily stimulate certain types of production, but they do not in and of themselves save an economy.

    Everyone points to World War II as an example of war saving economies. Everyone forgets the other factors involved. Up until that point, the government had not acted directly in guiding economic activety. The New Deal and the wartime production of weapons were the beginning of Keynsian economic policy for the United States. Since the government now stimulates, bails out, and subsidizes most forms of American industry and agriculture on a regular basis, a war would not stimulate production.

    Also, the American people who were employed during wartime amassed wages, but due to rationing were unable to spend them on the consumer goods that they wanted. After the war, they poured these wages into homes, cars and all the other products they were unable to purchase during the Depression and the War. It was the release of built up wages, as well as lack of any effective foreign competition, that stimulated the American economy.

    Indeed, Vietnam nearly crippled the American economy in the 60s and 70s. The Gulf War did not bring about any real economic growth, probably the reason Bush the first only served one term.

    Sorry to ramble, but as a history major, I get annoyed by the argument that wars always stimulate economic growth.

26. Peter David: “Don’t you see? In terms of conquest, we will be seen as no different than Nazi Germany”

    Luigi Novi: Putting aside your violation of Godwin’s Law, Peter, comparing an American invastion of Iraq to the Nazi campaigns is ridiculous. The Nazis invaded countries without provocation or just cause to conquer them and take them over because they simply wanted to, not because Czechoslovakia, or Poland threatened them with nuclear weapons. It’s one thing to concern oneself with how we look. It’s another if the people form a conclusion of us that involves a totally unreasonable analogy to Nazis that ignores the historical differences between the two.

    I’ll say it again: Saddam has come out and SAID that he wants to get nukes to use against us. He already has the switches, according to Time magazine. If he gets the weapons grade plutonium and other materials, he may acquire nuclear capability. Sorry, Josiah, but this most CERTAINLY justifies preemptive measures. Why do we want to let this guy get these materials BEFORE we do something?

    Yes, it WOULD be crazy/stupid for Saddam to attack us.

    Your point?

    Unless we’re not talking about the same person, Saddam Hussein has shown himself to be a few french fries short of a Happy Meal. I’m not sure if comparing him to the Russian premiers during the Cold War is entirely appropriate, Peter. During the Cold War, leaders of both superpowers were afraid of having their people incinerated. Does anyone here think Saddam, who has ordered his own people gassed from down in his gold-plated bunker, and allowed his own people to starve (and yes, it is HE who is to blame for that, not OUR sanctions) really gives two šhìŧš about his people?

    Would it be nice to do this with the cooperation of other countries? Sure. But we have to do it one way or another. Other countries don’t have our best interests at heart.

    …

    Josiah Rowe: “Do you know what doctrine the Japanese used to support their attack? You got it: Preventive war.”

    Luigi Novi: So because someone else used the same argumentative justification for something we condemn, that means both situations are morally analogous?

    Nope, sorry, try again. That’s a non sequitir.

    We revolted against the British to establish our independence from their tyranny. Iranians students revolted against the Shah for the same reason. Therefore, ipso facto, taking hostages was justified for the same reason we rebelled against the British. See the flaw in your argument? We didn’t tell Japan we were looking for nuclear weapons to use against them because we didn’t like their way of life, or the way they had things like civil rights or freedom for women. While we did eventually use the bomb against them, it was during a time of war, and at least many of our citizens continue to question its use today. Americans would not tolerate their government using the bomb against anyone, particularly civilians. This is a bit of soul-searching and restraint that we would be hard-pressed to find in Saddam.

    …

    Luigi Novi: “We need to draw a line in the sand with our ALLIES who are responsible for terrorism. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan are our allies, but THEY are the ones who fund and support (directly or indirectly) the terrorists.”

    Varjak: “This statement somehow reminds me of the rather disingenuous argument that by doing drugs you may be supporting terrorists.”

    Luigi Novi: I don’t see how they’re analogous. I didn’t say anything about how American consumerism plays into it, although yes, it is true that anyone who buys oil and diamonds doesn’t have clean hands. As for drugs, I don’t see what you’re talking about, Varjak, unless you’re talking about Afghani opium.

    …

    Varjak: The terrorists get a small amount of funding from drugs, but the bulk of their money comes from Arab governments and royal families, which get their money from oil.

    Luigi Novi: It isn’t just a matter of funding, Varjak. Where do you think the HATRED they feel for us comes from? The madrassa schools in Pakistan are largely to blame too. They take in students, feed them and clothe them for free, and educate them in hatred for the U.S. The Taliban came directly out of those madrassas. The word “Taliban,” in fact, means “student.” It’s an indicator of how they were indoctrinated into their anti-American viewpoint, and the reason this is going on in Pakistan is because the Pakistanis resent the fact that we give so much aid to their enemy, India. We need to improve relations with Pakistan, treat them as we do India, force Musharraf to either step down or hold democratic elections, and SHUT THOSE MADRASSAS DOWN.

    …

    Stephen Robinson: “[Aaron McGruder] mocks interracial couples and insults white people who dare to do anything that he believes is the “province” of blacks (a recent negative jab at Kelly Clarkson of “American Idol” for apparently emulating Mariah Carey — oh no!).”

    Luigi Novi: An interesting criticism, given that Mariah is half Irish-American, one quarter Venezuelan, and only one quarter African-American.

    And can someone tell me how to format on this site? I’d appreciate it. 🙂

27. I am not sure the posters realize just how evil Saddam Hussein really is. He has been in power in Iraq for about 35, at first as someone else’s deputy. Then he got rid of No. 1. In the 70s already he was massacring Kurds and Assyrians in northern Iraq, driving Kurds out of their homes in the hundreds of thousands. He broke his own promise to give the Kurds autonomy, which had already been promised to them in the treaty of Sevres (1920) after WW One. He resettled Arabs in areas from which Kurds had been driven out, a process still going on in the areas of Mosul and Karkuk in northern Iraq which within Saddam’s control, outside the Kurdish controlled zone. In 1988, he used poison gas first against the town of Halabja, killing 5,000 and then in August-September in the “Anfal” campaign which drove out 100,000s of Kurds, destroying towns and villages. Considering what he did it got very little coverage in our free and liberal press. The NYTimes even covered up for him in 1988 when its correspondent in Baghdad (Clyde Haberman, I recall) failed to report the explicit admission of Saddam’s General Khairallah who said that the Iraq govt had decided to “empty the border zone of its population.” I read this in the French weekly Le Point, but the NYT [all the news that fits we print] did not have it. Neither did the US govt give much publicity to Iraqi crimes against humanity. France boasted of how much weaponry they were selling to Iraq. Now that Bush seems to want to make war on Saddam he is having a hard time convincing a lot of people, since the US govt and press have been covering up for Iraq for so very long, & that includes Bush senior who let him get off when we had him. Another problem is that the US and Europe and Arab and other Muslim allies of the US have helped terrorists and dictators, like ben Laden, Arafat, Hafez Assad of Syria, etc.

    The problem with a US war against Saddam Hussein would be to make sure that Bush & Co. do the job right. Something like denazification would be needed.

28. <>

    I was actually asking some of the more excitable posters about their feelings. Do they think that it’s a good idea to have a defense in place against a rogue nation that now has atomic weapons and now has missiles capable of hitting Hawaii and Alaska? Israel has enemies with weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles and they are deploying an anti-missile system. Since we now have at least one, shall we say crazy, nation with the ability to hit us were we wise to withdraw unilaterally from the ABM treaty?

    I myself would hate to see us go to war with North Korea. I’ve lived in the South and they are good, honest, moral people. The lunatics who run the North are evil and crazy. I look forward to the day the people in the North are able to get rid of their oppressors, but I don’t want to see the people in the South suffer the ravages that would come in the form of chemical and biological attacks. I also don’t want them, or us, to suffer a nuclear attack. In the eighties Israel did us a favor and took out the French built nuclear reactor in Iraq. Unfortunately Israel has no aircraft carriers so they can’t get to North Korea for us, so we’ll need to do something by ourselves. Diplomacy and bribery have failed with the North so far. What do the multilateralists think we should do now?

29. Stephen Robinson: “[Aaron McGruder] mocks interracial couples and insults white people who dare to do anything that he believes is the “province” of blacks (a recent negative jab at Kelly Clarkson of “American Idol” for apparently emulating Mariah Carey — oh no!).”

    Luigi Novi: An interesting criticism, given that Mariah is half Irish-American, one quarter Venezuelan, and only one quarter African-American.>>

    That’s another issue, as well. Apparently, McGruder believes that the child of an interracial couple is black, plain and simple, and that attempts to deny that (like Tiger Woods or Mariah Carey and so on) or consider herself “biracial” is essentially “self-loathing.”

    He has a character designed to sort of “send up” this mentality as he views it. It’s pretty sickening.

30. Luigi Novi: “I’ll say it again: Saddam has come out and SAID that he wants to get nukes to use against us. He already has the switches, according to Time magazine. If he gets the weapons grade plutonium and other materials, he may acquire nuclear capability. Sorry, Josiah, but this most CERTAINLY justifies preemptive measures. Why do we want to let this guy get these materials BEFORE we do something?”

    Did I say I wanted to let him get nuclear materials? I just don’t think that an invasion of Iraq is the only way to prevent Saddam’s nuclear capability. If the U.S. would stop blocking the U.N. from the resolution for unfettered inspections to resume, we would be able to find and destroy what little progress he’s made. OK, he’s got the switches: big whoop. That’s a lot easier to obtain/build than two other major components he would need in order to be a threat: fissible material, and a delivery system. There’s no evidence that he has either of these things, and I think we can keep him from getting them — if we work with the international community.

    And, call me a romantic Westphalian, but I don’t think that just because a foreign country is doing something that we think might threaten us, we have the right to invade them. For one thing, if we do that, it’ll set a precedent that will destroy all moral authority the U.S. has left. What’s to stop North Korea from invading South Korea with the same “justification”? Or China from invading Taiwan? Or even, somewhere down the road, some unknown nation from attacking the U.S. because they think that our weapons of mass destruction could be a threat to them?

    Luigi Novi: “Yes, it WOULD be crazy/stupid for Saddam to attack us.

    Your point?

    Unless we’re not talking about the same person, Saddam Hussein has shown himself to be a few french fries short of a Happy Meal. I’m not sure if comparing him to the Russian premiers during the Cold War is entirely appropriate, Peter. During the Cold War, leaders of both superpowers were afraid of having their people incinerated. Does anyone here think Saddam, who has ordered his own people gassed from down in his gold-plated bunker, and allowed his own people to starve (and yes, it is HE who is to blame for that, not OUR sanctions) really gives two šhìŧš about his people?”

    He may not care about his people, but he sure as heck cares about his power base. He knows that if Iraq is destroyed, he’ll have nothing to rule over, and those gold-plated bunkers won’t last long against the bunker-blaster missiles we saw used in the caves of Afghanistan. (An aside: the reason we failed to get bin Laden and his cronies in Tora Bora wasn’t because we didn’t know where he was, or lacked the firepower to annihilate his location, but because we tried to let the Afghans capture him alive. I doubt we’d make the same mistake with Saddam, if we did invade.)

    Saddam is, as south philly points out, an evil, evil bášŧárd. But he’s not insane or stupid. Every evil act he’s done has been to the end of strengthening his power base in Iraq. Of course he’d love to get rid of the U.S. — we’re the main thing keeping him from actually controlling a fair amount of the country he nominally rules. But he knows darn well that he doesn’t have a chance against superior U.S. armed forces and firepower.

    In the late 1940s, the U.S. knew well that the Soviet Union was developing a nuclear bomb. We also knew that despite our recent alliance with the USSR against the Nazi menace, the Soviet Union’s aims included the overthrow of the United States and all capitalist countries. Should we have invaded Russia in 1949?

    Luigi Novi: “So because someone else used the same argumentative justification for something we condemn, that means both situations are morally analogous?

    Nope, sorry, try again. That’s a non sequitir.”

    My point was that preemptive war is historically a justification used by tyrannical, imperialist nations, not democratic republics who obey the rule of law in international affairs.

    And by the way, the term is non sequitur.

    Luigi Novi: “We revolted against the British to establish our independence from their tyranny. Iranians students revolted against the Shah for the same reason. Therefore, ipso facto, taking hostages was justified for the same reason we rebelled against the British. See the flaw in your argument?”

    Your critique doesn’t hold up because you present an unrelated third term, which I didn’t do. I made no syllogistic claim: I merely made two examples under a common thesis: that preemptive war is never justified. Examples: Pearl Harbor, the planned invasion of Iraq. It’s not a proof, it’s an example.

    (Besides, the Iranian students were justified in rebelling against the shah’s autocratic rule. They weren’t justified in taking hostages, but that was nine months after the overthrow of the shah. The ayatollah and his followers merely replaced one form of autocracy with another. But, to coin a phrase, I digress.)

    Luigi Novi: “We didn’t tell Japan we were looking for nuclear weapons to use against them because we didn’t like their way of life, or the way they had things like civil rights or freedom for women. While we did eventually use the bomb against them, it was during a time of war, and at least many of our citizens continue to question its use today. Americans would not tolerate their government using the bomb against anyone, particularly civilians. This is a bit of soul-searching and restraint that we would be hard-pressed to find in Saddam. “

    I wasn’t making a comparison with the use of the bomb, I was making a comparison with the perception of hostility combined with the provocative accumulation of armed forces and weaponry. President Roosevelt spoke often about the threat posed by Japanese dominance of the Pacific, and increased U.S. forces in Hawaii and the Pacific. Japan perceived this as a threat, and attacked Pearl Harbor to prevent the U.S. from gaining the ability to attack it. Nuclear weapons, of course, did not exist in 1941. But the justification used by Japan is the same as the justification used by the Bush administration: they want to hurt us, so we’re going to hurt them first. That’s immoral, illegal, and un-American.

    P.S. Iraq may lack civil liberties, but women there are hardly any worse off than men. Indeed, in terms of the rights of women, Iraq is one of the least oppressive states in the Middle East (after Israel, of course). It’s not a fundamentalist Islamic state. If you think we should invade the country, the least you could do is learn a bit about it.

    P.P.S. I don’t think that there’s any way to quote on this system: instructions for bold, italics, and _underlining_ are at the bottom of the page.

31. As far as the Democrats using the economy to get themselves elected? Clinton’s “fabulous” economy was headed for the çráppër long before he left office. So he inherited an economy built on Reagan/Bush policies, right? Unfortunately, that means that George W. inherited an economy based on Clinton’s tax-and-spend administration.

    God help us if we decide that 9/11 is old hat and we need to start voting with our wallets again instead of our brains. I’ll take GWB’s strong America over the Dem’s “Me Me Me” attitude. The reason they’re running scared this election season is because they HAVE no issues.

    And Hussein needs to die. The rest of the world just might eat his nukes because they don’t think it’s “proper” to take down a murderous madman. I’m glad Bush isn’t losing sleep over what Europe thinks about him — talk about crappy economies. The European Union can keep their “military assistance”, thanks. We’ll pick up the slack, as usual…

    Dave Gallagher

32. Josiah Rowe: If the U.S. would stop blocking the U.N. from the resolution for unfettered inspections to resume, we would be able to find and destroy what little progress he’s made.

    Luigi Novi: In what way has the U.S. been blocking the U.N. from unfettered inspections? I hadn’t heard any mention of such a thing.

    Josiah Rowe: I don’t think that just because a foreign country is doing something that we think might threaten us, we have the right to invade them.

    Luigi Novi: I respectfully disagree.

    Josiah Rowe: For one thing, if we do that, it’ll set a precedent that will destroy all moral authority the U.S. has left. What’s to stop North Korea from invading South Korea with the same “justification”? Or China from invading Taiwan? Or even, somewhere down the road, some unknown nation from attacking the U.S. because they think that our weapons of mass destruction could be a threat to them?

    Luigi Novi: The slippery slope argument. The problem with slippery slope arguments is that the B you think will follow A doesn’t necessarily do so, and I believe this to be the case here. North Korea or China are going to do something based on our cue because they’d otherwise think it would look unacceptable to the rest of the world? Why? Given what China did to one of our planes in international waters last year, and given that North Korea just recently showed us what they think about international agreements, that seems unlikely. I doubt China or North Korea need a “precedent” from the U.S. to do anything.

    Josiah Rowe: He may not care about his people, but he sure as heck cares about his power base. He knows that if Iraq is destroyed, he’ll have nothing to rule over, and those gold-plated bunkers won’t last long against the bunker-blaster missiles we saw used in the caves of Afghanistan.

    Luigi Novi: Good point.

    Josiah Rowe: In the late 1940s, the U.S. knew well that the Soviet Union was developing a nuclear bomb. The Soviet Union’s aims included the overthrow of the United States and all capitalist countries. Should we have invaded Russia in 1949?

    Luigi Novi: Another good point, Josiah. But I still wonder if Saddam can be accurately compared to any of the Cold War Soviet premiers. With the exception of Stalin, he seems a tad bit more unstable and unpredictable.

    Josiah Rowe: And by the way, the term is non sequitur.

    Luigi Novi: Oops. Please forgive me. That’ll be forty lashes for me. 🙂

    Josiah Rowe: P.S. Iraq may lack civil liberties, but women there are hardly any worse off than men. If you think we should invade the country, the least you could do is learn a bit about it.

    Luigi Novi: And if you think Iraq is not more oppressive to its women than its men, then I would respectfully suggest you do the same.

    Josiah Rowe: P.P.S. I don’t think that there’s any way to quote on this system: instructions for bold, italics, and _underlining_ are at the bottom of the page.

    Luigi Novi: Thanks, Josiah. I appreciate it.

33. First of all, I think it’s great that we’re able to have this civil discussion. More than anything else, it’s the ability to have this sort of disagreement that makes America a better place than Iraq or North Korea.

    I think we’ll have to “agree to disagree” on the morality of preemptive war and whether Hussein’s Iraq can be compared to the USSR.

    Luigi Novi: In what way has the U.S. been blocking the U.N. from unfettered inspections? I hadn’t heard any mention of such a thing.

    I think that the U.S. insistence on a single resolution with consequences laid out is a smokescreen. The Bush administration is hellbent on war. They’re happy to go to war with or without U.N. sanction, but they don’t want the U.N. to vote against an invasion of Iraq. Therefore, their current strategy of pushing for a resolution demanding the resumption of inspections and threatening “serious consequences” if the demands aren’t met makes a lot of sense: if the resolution passes, it authorizes war (or comes close enough to pass muster); if it fails, then the U.N. has failed to show the strength to enforce its own resolutions. However, if (as the rest of the permanent membership of the Security Council recommends) the two aspects are addressed in separate resolutions, the possibility arises that the world community thinks that there might be another way to deal with Hussein’s intransigence besides bombing his country to smithereens. (The International Criminal Court comes to mind… oops, we forgot to sign the treaty.) :\

    A single resolution works with the administration’s “You’re either with us, or against us” rhetoric. Two resolutions shows that you can fully recognize the depths of Hussein’s evil and still not support invasion of his country. So instead of passing the first of two resolutions two weeks ago, which could have had the inspectors back at work already, the Bushies keep the U.N. in diplomatic deadlock, which just happens to make the world body look even more bureaucratic and intransigent than it already is.

    Luigi Novi: And if you think Iraq is not more oppressive to its women than its men, then I would respectfully suggest you do the same.

    OK, that’s fair. Iraqi women are oppressed worse than Iraqi men. What I should have said is that their oppression is insignificant compared with that of women in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, or Kuwait.

    I won’t claim that Iraq is a paradise of gender equality: just that Iraq does not discriminate explicitly against women the way that many Islamic states do. Human Rights Watch’s 2001 report on Iraq ( http://www.hrw.org/wr2k1/mideast/iraq.html ) has only one complaint about the treatment of women: the use of rape as an intimidation tactic against opponents of Hussein’s regime. Indeed, most human rights groups see the biggest threat to the well-being of Iraqi women as the lack of access to food and medical care, due to the sanctions. (I don’t want to get into the issue of who’s to blame for the suffering of the Iraqi people, but it’s unarguable that they are suffering.) Equality Now lists no discriminatory laws against women on the books in Iraq, although it does list one discriminatory U.S. law (see http://www.equalitynow.org/beijing_plus5_personal_eng.html#usa . It’s a fairly minor discrimination, all things considered, but a discrimination it is). Finally, the constitution of Iraq actually states that men and women are equal before the law, something that is absent from the U.S. Constitution. (I’m under no illusion that the Constitution of Iraq is upheld as strictly as the Constitution of the U.S., but it’s an interesting observation, no?)

    Iraq may hate us, but it’s not because we have civil rights and freedom for women. Iraq certainly lacks civil rights, but women there are nearly as free as men (that is, not very much at all — if female slaves are treated worse than male, is the problem sexual discrimination, or slavery?).

34. What the educated public –as well as the benighted academy– have trouble understanding is how our dear Uncle Sam, without the public’s desire or wish or approval, often walks down both sides of the street or walks in two directions at the same time in foreign policy. For example, the Carter administration, particularly sweet old Zbig Brzezinski, Jimmy’s national security advisor, helped Khomeini take over Iran, all this in the name of civil liberties, democracy, etc. In fact, a few months after Khomeini’s putsch, the Nation magazine of NYC wrote editorially that one of Khomeini’s helpers at the time, a man who was helping to write a new constitution for Iran, had “impeccable civil libertarian credentials.” Ramsey Clark of the ACLU was promoting Khomeini’s cause in the USA. Needless to say, Khomeini was totally opposed to civil liberties in theory and practice. Now after he took power –less than a year I believe– Khomeini’s “student” followers took over the US embassy in Teheran. Not much gratitude there. At this point, the ubiquitous Iranian students throughout the USA started demonstrating in various US cities in favor of the embassy seizure.

    Another example of two-sided policy is how the US fights terrorism yet enriches Saudi Arabia which sponsors Islamic education of the extremist Wahhabi variety and thus produced most of the 9/11 mass murderers. The Saudis have also been donating generously for years to the Hamas fanatics who blow up people in Israel. Further, Syria is alleged to be part of the “anti-terror coalition,” yet Syria has energetically sponsored terrorist groups operating against Israel, Turkey, Jordan, and –especially– Lebanon, where the fanatic and Judeophobic Hizbullah are Syrian pawns within the govt while most of the country is occupied by Syria [in violation of the Taif accord]– for the greater glory of Arab nationalism and the anti-terror coalition.

35. Josiah Rowe: OK, that’s fair. Iraqi women are oppressed worse than Iraqi men. What I should have said is that their oppression is insignificant compared with that of women in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, or Kuwait.

    Luigi Novi: The fact that the treatment of women elsewhere is worse does not make their treatment in Iraq “insignificant.” Judging whether a government’s treatment of women is inhuman shouldn’t be made solely on a basis of comparison with someone else who’s perceived to be worse. The fact that Iraq uses rape as a form of intimidation (and I’m not sure if this is is Iran or Iraq, but virgins sentenced to death, in fact, are systematically raped because it is illegal to execute virgins), and the fact that so-called “honor killing” is either not criminalized or not prosecuted is hardly what I’d call “insignificant,” comparison or not.

36. I believe that the rape-before-execution is found in Iran, not Iraq.

    You’re right that “honor killing” is a terrible problem. I hadn’t heard that it was found in Iraq, but I wouldn’t be surprised to hear it. I do know that it’s widespread in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and is also found in some rural areas of India.

    Since this is about to fall off the main page, shall we take further discussion to email? You can click on my name, and remove the words NOSPAMPLEASE to email me, if you wish. Otherwise, I’ll see you around the boards, etc.!