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thestickman
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oat soda:
Only in magical land of moral relativism are such arguments valid.
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Adonis33
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oat soda:
What!!?? I cannot believe I read this. Please tell me you are kidding.
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INRI
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oat soda:
For a different perspective, try reading this article from the Washington Post:
washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/17/AR2005061701217.html
It is your interpretation that the intent was unjust. I don’t know, freeing 25 million people from the thumb of a murderous dictator, getting rid of one of the most aggressive and destabilizing regimes in the most volatile part of the world seems like pretty good intent to me. Arguing that the intent was flawed is the WEAKEST part of your argument.
This is a *non sequiter. *You are essentially equating democracy with contraception, pornography, homosexuality, and abortion. Democracy also brings this thing called “freedom”, especially the freedom not to be fed into a plastic shredder or be summarily shot and dumped into a mass grave. What America does inside its borders is irrelevant to the discussion here.
I cannot recall hearing a dumber argument on these pages than this one. One needs to consider what the death rate would have been in Iraq with a murderous Saddam regime still in power and sanctions still in place. Given the size of those mass graves that have been found, it probably would have been WORSE. Last time I checked, the Iraqis had their own government and were in charge of making their own laws, so your whole “export the culture of death government” seems a little hollow. In, fact your whole argument seems based more on a hatred of American culture and GWB than any objective analysis of what is going on in the ground in Iraq. I refer you to my previous posts on this thread.
For a different perspective, try reading this article from the Washington Post:
washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/17/AR2005061701217.html
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Thekla
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It’s a mistake to let the rationale for war to turn from a threat to America to anything else. Ultimately, our government needs to be held to its words and not allowed to shift rationales and play on emotions after the fact. Americans have lost their lives and their loved ones; others have damaged bodies and some will never be as they were. I think that most people would agree that one life for a lie is too many. What we won’t agree on is the lie.
There are ways for a world leader to help bring change to the rest of the world. But playing fast and loose with the facts and changing rationales afterward will lose you future support not only of the rest of the world, but of your own people.
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gilliam
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Here is the rationale our government gave for going into Iraq. Note it is a LOT more than WMD, those who want us to now cut and run, need to fact these facts.
Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq
Personally, as many of you know, I have a real hard time with those who keep arguing about why we got into Iraq. We are there now, and need to deal with real life, not what might have been or might not have been.
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gilliam
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SaintIgnatius
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YesORno said:
Nothing unexpected, do you expect a clean take over? You are living in a fairy tale world.
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qmvsimp
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See thread above for the actual resolution authorizing force in Iraq to see what our rationale was.
But let’s talk about your comment here. There are two rationales in any war: moral and political. What you’re criticizing are the moral reasons why the war is (was) just. The political reasons are not as important (I think) than the moral reasons. First you must have a moral reason, then you look for a political reason.
There are good moral reasons for invading Sudan and North Korea. But there are no realistic political reasons for doing so.
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mike182d
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Philip P:
What exactly did you expect from the situation when you say you wish for “better diplomacy?”
When asking a wall to move doesn’t make it move, more asking isn’t going to do the trick.
You mean like waiting to go to war after the 20th resolution the U.N. tried to pass and Saddam disregarded instead of the 17th?
What exactly did you expect from the situation when you say you wish for “better diplomacy?”
When asking a wall to move doesn’t make it move, more asking isn’t going to do the trick.
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mike182d
Guest
You mean like when the media praises a military death-count of 1,000 as a landmark, takes every opportunity it can to show American’s being killed in war, and *never *mentions anything good happening in Iraq?
Who is playing on whose emotions in this debate?
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Philip_P
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Better diplomacy, for one, would have successfully created and preserved more good will to the US, regardless of our ultimate actions. It’s really not surprising that the UN was ineffective, since the Bush administration was very dismissive of the UN from the get-go. The UN is only as strong as the member nations wish it to be, and as the most powerful nation, we exert enormous influence on it. How can you expect a process to work when you have no faith in it and don’t work to make it effective?
Secondly, our failure to sell ourselves to France and Germany was a major setback. Yes, France and Germany disagreed sharply with us. Diplomacy is about finding a way to overcome those differences. The first term Bush administration seemed unwilling or unable (or both) to succeed here.
As far as diplomacy viz. Iraq, we would have been in a far stronger position to exert other pressures as alternatives to war had we been successful in rallying more heavy-hitters in the world community. Again, our failure to do so speaks to the Bush administration’s unwillingness or inablitiy in this regard.
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Richardols
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So, then it follows directly that you must go to war. Huh?
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mike182d
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What would necessitate war, in your mind?
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If a man pulls a gun on your daughter, how long do you try to coerce the man “peacefully” into not shooting her? Do you wait for him to pull the trigger?
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thestickman
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Philip P:
Too funny, indeed.
LOL!!! Blame Bush for the ineffectiveness of the Useless Nations. That oil-for-fraud scam the UN was running for Chirac and Koffi’s buddy, Saddam had nuttin’ at all to do with their effectiveness, right?
Too funny, indeed.
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thestickman
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Better yet, if a man was standing as if he had a gun and was ready to pull it on my daughter–I would blow his head off to protect her and ask questions later.
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qmvsimp
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Philip P:
Philip P:
Philip P:
This is not fair here. The US was actually enforcing UN resolutions when it invaded Iraq. The other member nations ignored the enforcement of the resolutions. I think it was the US that actually gave credibility to the UN resolutions. The US paid in blood and money. Now who really supports the UN and who doesn’t?
Philip P:
This is not fair here either. We wanted to invade Iraq a lot sooner. We deferred to Germany and France and allowed one more resolution before we went in. According to Colin Powell, France actually promised us they would support force if we first went with one more resolution that had a timeline on it. Well, Saddam violated the final resolution and France reneged on their promise. We then went in without them. Don’t tell me that we ignored France and Germany. Both countries were pandering to anti-Americanism and to contracts they had with Iraq.
Philip P:
This begs the question: Do you have to wait for certain countries to agree with you in order to take action that protects you? I think the answer is no. As for heavy hitters, how about Great Britain, Spain, Australia, Italy, Netherlands and Japan? Those are heavy hitters who supported our actions in Iraq. When people say “more support” or “heavy hitters” they exclusively refer to France and Germany only.
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Philip_P
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The governments of Spain, Australia, Italy, and the UK have leant support (none more so than the UK), but the overwhelming majority of the populace in those contries have not, which is surely signficant. Indeed, in Spain the government was unable to stay in power (yes 3/11 was a factor, but the government was already unpopular because of their support for the war). Lack of popular support undermines the level of committment and assistance we can expect from a democratic country.
Skilled diplomacy would have garnered not only more support, but stronger support as well. Our inability to succeed here continues to hamper us, especially now that our military is tied down in Iraq and we must rely on non-military options to address other threats, such as Iran and N. Korea. And yes, France and Germany are important countries to have on our side, just as much as the UK is.
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Philip_P
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But that’s exactly my complaint - that we seem to have been unable to conceive of a way of enforcing UN resolutions short of paying “in blood and money” as you put it. What’s more, it is precisely in “blood and money” that seems to have been the preferred method of payment of the administration. In other words, the reason we’re in Iraq is because President Bush wanted us there, all other reasons being secondary (as to his motivations, I suppose we can only speculate, but I believe the course for war was set the moment he became president).
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mike182d
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Philip P:
Good diplomacy is not accomdating the obtuse and the ignorant just so they’ll like you after you make a decision.
We are the lone superpower in the world. The world would have hated us regardless of what we did in that moment. In fact, a lot of their decisions prior to the war was based on pre-existent anti-United States bias.
Good diplomacy is not accomdating the obtuse and the ignorant just so they’ll like you after you make a decision.
Having their hands deep in the pockets of Saddam Hussein’s Oil-for-Food scandal had *nothing *to do with it, I’m sure. How do you effectively appease corrupt nations conspiring against you?
You speak of these *ends *of diplomacy but what is significantly lacking is your suggested *means *of attaining this end. It is one thing to tell men to get rich and quite another to demostrate how.
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mike182d
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Thank you, good sir. That analogy actually works much better than my own!
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