August 26, 2003
OUT OF THE PAST
With all the tales of horror and mass graves now revealed in
Saddam Hussein's Iraq, it's a little unbelievable that some people feel
the liberation of that country was a bad idea. Many, silently
conceding the incorrectness of their previous stances regarding the
deadliness of an Iraqi war to U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians, now
focus on the supposedly dubious case that President Bush made for war
prior to its occurrence. There is a furor in the U.K. over accusations
that the rationale for going to war was based on the immediate
availability of chemical and nuclear weapons to Saddam Hussein, when
perhaps now it's possible he only had precursors. BUSH LIED is now a
bumpersticker slogan. It's interesting to go back and actually see
what case Bush actually made in the run-up to war. Here are some
excerpts from a piece the late
href="http://www.lexiphane.com/lex/modules.php?name=News&file=article&s
id=59">Michael Kelly wrote in the November, 2002
href="http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/11/kelly.htm">Atlantic
Monthly:
Tagged:
Bush made the new argument reasonably well in an address to the United
Nations on September 12. Previously the Administration had
suggested that Saddam's regime posed an immediate threat to American
lives and that it was complicit in al Qaeda's efforts. The former may
be true, but it is hard to prove. The evidence for the latter has
eluded searchers. Now Bush instead stated that "our greatest
fear is that terrorists will find a shortcut to their mad ambitions
when an outlaw regime supplies them with the technologies to kill on a
massive scale." Undeniable. And Iraq, Bush argued, was the "one regime"
that was likely to do that. Saddam's regime has a history of using
weapons of mass destruction in war, and had even used them against
Iraqis. Because of this singular history, the UN had in 1991 forced
Saddam to agree to a series of mandatory resolutions whereby he would
renounce support for terrorism, destroy all stocks of weapons of mass
destruction, and submit to unfettered UN inspections to ensure
compliance. As Bush noted, actually understating the case, Iraq had
broken all these promises, defied all these resolutions, and in general
"unilaterally subverted" the commands of "the world's most important
multilateral body." (A nice bit of reverse spin on "unilateral" and
"multilateral" there.) And by the way, Bush noted, Iraq had also defied
the will of the UN and broken the peace when, in 1993, it "attempted to
assassinate the Emir of Kuwait and a former American President" (the
latter also known as "my dad"). [emphasis mine].
So the case was built on Iraq's history of aggression and use of
chemical weapons alongside its refusal to honor countless U.N.
resolutions. No explicit requirement for the identification of
chemical or nuclear weapons once we were in Iraq was ever made. It was
enough to look plainly at Hussein's track record and acknowledge that
he would likely facilitate further attacks against the U.S. that could
make 9/11 look small scale. Presciently, Kelly writes of the certainty
that we will go to war and we will win it decisively. The only matter
left open would be what would become of post-war Iraq:
What remained after "Should we?" was not "Will we win?"--that is as
near to a given as one gets in war--but everything else. There will be
a war, and there will be an American victory, and then there will be a
postwar. Bush's father never gave his own postwar reality sufficient
thought, and so unleashed the intolerable danger his son must now
address (although the son is too observant of filial respect to say
so). It is this--the postwar, the promise that this time we will think
it through to the end--that the second President Bush must address,
publicly, explicitly, convincingly. He made, and will win, the argument
for war. He must make, and win, the case for a peace that can survive
the week after the war.
Posted by Lexiphane at August 26, 2003 11:41 AM
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Comments
"It was enough to look plainly at Hussein's track record and
acknowledge that he would likely facilitate further attacks against the
U.S. that could make 9/11 look small scale."
huh? "likely"? maybe "kinda sorta possible"? when did he ever do
anything that would suggest he would attack the US directly or ever
unify with Islamic fundamentalists? he gasses islamic fundamentalists.
This is the official reasons for the war:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/response/disarm.html
to suggest otherwise is insane. many of them are lies. Condy Rice
was talking about "mushroom clouds" and Dick Cheney said that he
believed Iraq had a functional nuclear weapons program.
if the country falls into the Shiites' hands it will be a large
mistake.
if our resources, military and intelligence, are being exhausted in
Iraq and this contributes to Al Qaeda's ability to attack again it will
an even larger mistake. The Talban is regaining control and influence
in Afghanistan.
Also, Saddam's chemical attacks against Iraq were condoned by the US
gov't at the time.
Here is an old but great summary of the scam:
https://ssl.tnr.com/p/docsub.mhtml?i=20030630&s=ackermanjudis063003
/>
http://www.madgeorge.us/
Posted by: Stevo at August 26, 2003 4:22 PM
Well that's nice that you can blithely write off the thousands of lives
of shiite Muslims Saddam ordered gassed and otherwise killed as being
expendable because they were "fundamentalist." And as for the country
falling into "the hands" of shiites, they are the majority population
of the country. Of course, the particular hands we're trying to put
the country into are Iraqi, with a modern pluralistic government that
doesn't get to single out and brutalize any particular ethnic group--
Shiite or not. I imagine that's what the majority of Iraqis would
prefer as well.
To say that Saddam wasn't in
href="http://usinfo.state.gov/regional/nea/iraq/text2003/0320def.htm"
rel="nofollow">violation because inspectors happen to be physically
in the country is so facile as to be laughable. Unrestricted access
was what was required and UN inspectors were met with obstruction and
non-cooperation. And even if they were given free rein to wander
around and look to their hearts content, that was not good enough. At
the end of the gulf war, Saddam's weapons program was clearly
documented. Part of the cease fire agreeements required he provide
positive proof of its destruction, not merely permission to play a
massive game of hide-and-seek. Of course he failed to do this as
well.
Things in that region are already starting to
improve. Terrorist groups in Israel have lost significant sources of
funding. Fascist Ba'ath organizations in Jordan and elsewhere are now
filing for bankruptcy. We'll soon have significantly reduced our
strategic dependence on Saudi Arabia (both militarily and oil-wise) and
will soon be able to bitch slap them if necessary. Syria is toeing the
line already and is reducing its presence in Lebanon. And that 6,000
civilians figure killed has been thoroughly
href="http://oxblog.blogspot.com/2003_03_30_oxblog_archive.html#9190916
2" rel="nofollow">debunked.
Posted by: lexiphane at August 26, 2003 4:55 PM
that "gassing" comment looks much worse than what i meant. The last
thing Saddam would do is unite with Al Qaeda as is suggested in the
official whitehouse website. Only a war could do that. As for things
getting better, right now 140,000 US troops are sitting ducks,and will
continue to be. Basic services that even Saddam at least provided are
still not functional and those that exist are being sabotaged.
Terrorism is only increasing and our troops are at the center of it.
/>
The gassing of Iranian trops by Iraq was practically condoned by the US
gov't at the time. The choice not to remove Saddam in 1991 was made so
that exactly the people the US is supposedly trying to "return" Iraq to
would not gain power.
All of the reasons in the Atlantic article, and in your additional
comments were not the reasons presented to the american people. If
they were the reasons for War, they should have been, instead of the
constant fear mongering that was unleashed for months. The gallons of
toxins that could be released in 45 minutes, the mushroom clouds, the
mobile labs, the unmanned drones that can span the Atlantic, were crap
at worst and highly hypothetical at best. Posturing for political
reasons with Saudi Arabia, humanitarian reasons, the removal of tyranny
from the face of the earth (even as this admin wages another war
against the 1st ammendment) ect could have been justifiable in the eyes
of many but probably not the majority of Americans.
The "undeniable" reason for war stated by Kelly could now be true. If
the WMD do exist, either they are sititng under some undisturbed pile
of sand, or in the exact hands that this war was supposed to keep them
out of. The question is if the Bush administration really cares?
Also, the war profiteering by many corporations with deep connections
to the Bushies is real, not hypothetical. Harry Truman called such
deals "treason". Even the hint of profit being a reason for war was
sickening to him.
Posted by: Stevo at August 26, 2003 5:32 PM
also, there are many other ways to not be dependent on Saudi oil.
like using less oil. that is a bit more safe and cheaper.
Posted by: Stevo at August 26, 2003 5:35 PM
I'm tired of hearing pinko communists claim that no WMD have been
found. Of course they have. Remember the nuclear bomb components they
dug up? Oh, let me guess, they have to actually be put together to be
consider a threat to the world? My God wake up. Do you actually want
to see a mushroom cloud before you would justify the use of force?
/>
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/06/25/sprj.irq.centrifuge/
Posted by: Anonymous at August 27, 2003 9:29 AM
Conservation efforts or alternative energy resources would not reduce
our consumption of Saudi oil. As the low-cost producer in the world,
and the fact that oil is a fungible commodity resource, they would be
the last to be effected by conservation efforts. Granted, a reduction
in overall demand could lower the price of oil a bit--to which the
Saudis are extrememely exposed--but as they have the lowest cost in
extraction, it would hurt them less than every other producer in the
world.
Saddam was left in place at the close of the last Gulf war in a
shortsighted attempt to maintain a balance of power in the region,
primarily between Iraq and Iran. Shi'ite Iran was seen as a more
severe threat because of Iran's longstanding hostility towards the U.S.
following its theocratic revolution and the taking of hostages. Iraq's
Ba'athists were predominantly Sunni and that's the population that's
currently engaging in terrorist attacks now. The Shi'ite population
seems grateful for our presence and if is pissed about anything, it's
that the country isn't ship shape a few months after the beginning of
our occupation. I'd say it's incorrect to claim that Saddam would
never cooperate with Islamist terrorists. He supported Ansar al Islam
in the north of Iraq as long as they helped him supress the Kurdish
population there. It's similar the way governments like the Taliban in
Afghanistan and the gov't in Sudan hosted Osama bin Laden over the last
ten years.
Countries now know that they cannot come out and outright attack the
U.S. as Japan did before WWII or as Cuba threatened by attempting to
put nuclear missiles 90 miles to our South in the 60s. They must work
by proxy, i.e. hosting, funding, and enabling terrorist groups. It's
an opportunistic and symbiotic relationship. The countries responsible
for such activities must be neutralized. The Cold War was a 40-year
worldwide project in defeating the malignancy that was communism. I
imagine current efforts must be the same. Sometimes this means
breaking out into hot wars, sometimes it means diplomacy and
gamesmanship. What is clear is that the threat is too great to ignore.
Nearly 3000 people were killed 2 years ago and the country's two
tallest buildings were felled. Four airlines were hijacked and
destroyed in one day. The White House or the Capitol narrowly averted
destruction while the Pentagon was severely damaged. What exactly
would merit a serious response to the real threat terrorism poses to
the country? A nuclear device being triggered in the harbors of NY,
Baltimore, or LA? Hundreds of thousands of people dead instead of
thousands? Millions? When Marines were killed in Beirut we left.
When the Khobar towers in Saudi Arabia were bombed we did nothing.
When the U.S. warship Cole was attacked in a suicide mission we did
nothing. When terrorists tried to blow up the WTC in '93 we took them
to court. All of these things emboldened terrorists and their sponsors
and what we got was 9/11. Inaction now is a clear invitation to even
greater horrors.
Posted by: lexiphane at August 27, 2003 10:08 AM
You go girl!
Posted by: Anonymous at August 27, 2003 11:27 AM
Iraq had zero to do with 9/11. There is a very good chance that this
war will make us less safe rather than more. Just because someone sees
this war as a potential disaster doesn't mean that they are soft on
terrorism. By concentrating on Iraq we very well may be more easily
attacked and more likely. The number, ferocity, and drive of Islamic
terrorist could very well increase due to this war.
AS for always being dependent on Saudi oil. it doesn't have to be that
way. if the bush admin had the same will to encourage alternative
fuels, high mileage cars, even new drilling with the goal being to
reduce our need to suck up to the Saudi's (which would increase our
security) that they did for the war they could do it.
As for the Pinko stuff. Plenty of conservative hate the war. An old
pigeon shitted centrifuge does not make a mushroom cloud.
Posted by: Anonymous at August 27, 2003 12:36 PM
Again, a committment to alternative energy resources and higher gas
mileage will have little effect on the Saudis. The same way people
search out the cheapest gas at the pump, producers go for the cheapest
oil they can get on the world market. That's produced by the Saudis,
so even if there were only three gas-guzzling cars left on the road,
the fuel they'd be putting in them would likely be from Saudi oil.
More pronounced was our regional military dependence on the Saudis. If
anything, the war in Iraq has greatly reduced our presence in and
dependence on that country.
And I didnt say that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11. That was the
responsibility of a stateless coalition of terrorist groups that reside
in whatever country will have them, offer them aid, or give them
assistance from their intelligence organizations. We can't abide such
states anymore. And we can't take a laid-back, defensive posture
anymore. The world survived the cold war because the Soviets took
seriously the threat of mutually assured destruction. When I see
pictures of little kids dressed up as suicide bombers and teachers
exhorting their students that it's glorious to die, I get a little
leery that any rational discourse or incentivizing is going to work.
All countries have groups of deranged nutballs. Civilized countries
don't let them become civic institutions. I think the war in Iraq is
terrible. I wish I could sit home and think about Tara Reid, Ashton
Kutcher and how the Yanks are going to kick the Red Sox's ass again
this year. I wish all our troops were home doing the same. But it's a
grown-up dangerous world that we live in, and a lack of action is no
longer a possibility. We are at war, whether we choose to
acknowledge it or not.
Posted by: lexiphane at August 27, 2003 1:11 PM
BOO-YAAA!!!
Posted by: Anonymous at September 2, 2003 2:52 PM