Anti-war argument [Admin Mod says: Target Practice!!!!]

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[Revelation 911]

[Revelation 911]

most excellent zot shot

[ricpic]

In his first or second major speech after 9/11, the President said that the war on terrorism would include a war on those regimes that aid and harbor terrorists.
It is generally accepted by experts in the field that Tehran, not Baghdad, is the home office of Islamic terrorism. After all, the fit between the Iranian mullahs and Al-Queda, Hamas, Hezbollah, is closer than that between these groups and Saddam, an essentially secular dictator. Why Iran has not been target number one has puzzled me for some time.
That said, the momentum behind an attack on Iraq is so great at this point, that to not follow through would be a geo-political catastrophe for the US.
But I still disagree with Iraq as priority number one.

[headsonpikes]

Thanks for the Alistair Cooke piece.

Historical analogues may not be templates for the future, but they do suggest correct policy to those who have eyes to see the dynamic of an unfolding event.

That is, those like Churchill; alas, they are few.

[BlueLancer]

To a large degree, I agree with your synopsis. However, even in World War II, we didn't attack the major power, Germany, directly at first.

First, we nibbled away at the extremities: North Africa .. Tunisa, Morocco, Algeria, Sicily.

Then we took on the lesser power, the one most likely to easily fall and give us position .. Italy.

It was only then that we went against the main force of the enemy.

I see much the same here: Afghanistan and the most accessible Al-Qaeda targets .. the extremities;
Iraq ... the lesser enemy, most easily knocked off.
Iran ... it's entirely possible that, after the fall of Iraq, Iran will fall under the weight of revolt from within, thus not requiring any action other than support on our part.
From there, we have the central position and can go just about anywhere and do pretty much as we please.

I don't view this as jumping off a cliff, but rather climbing from one point to another, building on our last success to set up the next.

As my wife would say "Patience is a virtue, possess it if you can; it's seldom in a woman, but never in a man."
(Not that I necessarily agree with that .. being in the latter category myself .. but, still, it makes its point.)

[twyn1]

Why Iran has not been target number one has puzzled me for some time.

My (limited??) understanding on the Iranian situation is that they have a large number of people in Iran (mostly students, but also some people with "connections") who are working to overthrow or remove the current government -- my guess is that we are (covertly) aiding these folks -- one threat at a time --Saddam is highest on the "scary" list right now

[twyn1]

Thank you for your wise and personal perspective -- it is a sad fact that the "younger" generation does not understand (has not been taught??) the history behind what allowed Hitler to flourish

[Jonah Hex]

ZOT!!!

[hellinahandcart]

Five important reasons why I don't support a non-UN-backed war on Iraq:

Am I to assume all your objections would vanish, if the UN were to back military action in Iraq?

What a hypocrite. If you'd said you would NEVER support a war on Iraq for any reason, you'd at least get points for consistency from me.

But your very first point was that the UN hasn't given "permission", as if we needed it in the first place. If all the pampered thugs in the UN were in favor of this, I suppose you'd go along with them? Hmmm?

[Kay Soze]

Comparison-Iraq Inspections & Treaty Versailles 1919 by former Deputy UNSCOM Dir Charles Duelfer
The World on PRI ^ | 2-17-03 | Lisa Mullens


Posted on 02/18/2003 2:27 PM PST by Kay Soze


Welcome to PRI's The World: your daily international news magazine.


Question: Ray Paulie was curios about something- “How the weapons inspections carried out by the UN and Iraq compare to the inspections carried out in Germany by France under the Peace Treaty of Versailles of 1919?” Comparison of Current Iraq Inspections and the Peace Treaty of Versailles 1919 by UNSCOM former Deputy Director Charles Duelfer


Mullens: “French and other international inspectors did try to disarm Germany after the Treaty Of Versailles.”


”Who in the World turns to Charles Duelfer for a comparison with Iraq. For seven years Mr. Duelfer was deputy chairman for UNSCOM that’s the UN commission that inspected Iraq in the 90’s.”


“He said the inspectors in Germany after WW1 ran into the same problems UNSCOM did after the Gulf War.”


Duelfer: “While the Germans gave up certain things they also tended to hide certain things for example; they had a large number of forces which they were supposed to demobilize. Well at the same time they were demobilizing army units the inspectors found that mysteriously there were a very large number of police units being created. In the area of weapons production is the famous Krup arms firm building things and moving them to civilian sectors so that the production capacities were hidden.”


“All the same techniques were applied and same problems ensued.”


Mullens: “And so what was the immediate parallel there, I mean why can we see Iraq and Germany just post WW1 as being kind of two of a kind. What was happening with in the country at the time?”


Duelfer:“Well it was a defeated Nation and what was being asked by the country was to give up something which it considered vital to its national security.”


Mullins: “And you’re saying that’s the case in both cases.”


Duelfer: “I think that true with respect to Germany I mean they the German nation was only recently kind of solidified and a lot of the unity depended upon the Reichstag or the army and what the international community was demanding was that they give up that unifying element. Same thing like wise is taking place with Iraq. Where I think we under estimated the just how important weapons of mass destruction were to the regime in Baghdad.”


Mullins: “So the weapons of mass destruction because they define Saddam Hussein at least in his eyes then the inspections are pretty much doomed to fail- would you say?”


Duelfer: “I think there doomed yes because the international community has asked Iraq and in the case in 1918 Germany to give up something which is existential from their calculation and yet there is no existential threat or reward to cause that to happen. Germany was not occupied after the first WW similarly Iraq was not occupied.”

“I think one of the lessons Saddam learned early on in 1991 when they very seriously blocked inspectors, was that the council was not going do anything which would threaten the existence of his regime.”


Mullins: “OK Lets go back to Germany just post WW1. I mean obviously you could consider it a failure but the inspectors did manage to reduce the size of the German army and they did force Germany to destroy some stock piles of weapons at least while the inspectors were there, I mean they seem to be able to neutralize the German threat.”


Duelfer: “That’s true, the problem is in both of these cases is benefit of the inspectors sustainable?


Mullins: “Well is not a short term gain worth something?


Duelfer: “It is, certainly Iraq now has fewer weapons than it would’ve had UNSCOM not done its work. But the question is; Is it sustainable?


“Even now when Iraq is being much more cooperative than they have been in the past there doing so because there is a huge array of forces around them at great expense. And I dare say that’s not going to be sustainable over the long haul.”


Mullins: “Let me bring in South Africa here I mean Colin Powell the secretary of state has cited it as something of a blueprint for how inspections could work and just for some background here South Africa had begun a nuclear weapons program sometime in the 1970’s because it wanted to deter its neighboring states who were against the apartheid system at the time.
Then it was around 1993 that South Africa’s president said basically we have dismantled pls inspectors come and see for your self.


Duelfer: “I think its an interesting example but it not very close to the circumstances in Iraq. South Africa was acting in their own interests when it decided to disarm we’re talking about coercive disarmament with respect to Iraq. They clearly don’t believe getting rid of these weapons is in their interests.”


Mullins: “So if South Africa wanted to be welcomed into the international Community is there any kind of possible parallel that could be offered to Iraq I mean isn’t that even conceivable?”


Duelfer: “Well there is if you begin to think about Saddam and his top leaders leaving , I mean if Saddam and his top two or three dozen people left I think the UN could do a tremendous job of assuring the region and the world that the programs were gone and that would be the first step towards addressing the issue more strongly with Iran and some of the neighboring states which are thought to have weapons programs like this.”


Mullins: “Given the fact that inspections have been around for so long why do you think there haven’t been better lessons learned, I mean with the exception of places like South Africa?


Duelfer: “Well there haven’t been that many inspection systems which are based on non cooperative arrangements. Most of the inspections which you see are pursuant to some sort of arms control agreement and this is steadfastly not arms control its coercive disarmament and those are two very separate circumstances.”
”That is why the analogy with the Versailles Treaty number one is very interesting because it is a case like the one we face with Iraq. But the inspections and verification systems that you’re familiar with from the nuclear talks the SALT and the START arrangements and the things in Europe those are based on two parties or more acting in what they believe to be their mutual self interests. And that a different case than what we face in Iraq.”


Mullins: “The work that we are talking about as inspectors is work that you took part in yourself, that you managed for a considerable amount of time as the deputy chairman of UNSCOM. Do you feel it was a waste of time or something just short of that?”


Duelfer: “No it was not a waste of time at all. We did a lot of very good work but the question was, you know what were the objectives of our manager we worked for the security council which is a group of fifteen nations and its a bit like having a Cybil for your boss. “In other words somebody with multiple personalities and each of those members of the Security Council I think had really other objectives and agendas which they were pursuing.


”Some people were interested in containment some people were interested in other aspects of their relationships with Iraq we did a lot but ultimately we could not cause a nation state with all the massive resources that it had to fully cooperate and fully comply.”


Mullins:“Charles Duelfer Thank you.”
”Charles Duelfer was Deputy Director of UNSCOM from 1993 to March of 2000. He is now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.”

[Petronski]

4. The threat that Iraq poses to us is tiny.

I agree. It is as tiny as the smallpox virus, a molecule of VX gas or the Plutonium atom itself.

[Kay Soze]

As The Former Deputy Dir of UNSCOm said the Inspections are doomed to failure and the lack of resolve has emboldened Saddam.

Als note that he says will stabilize the region beacuse others will not have to be in an arms race with IRAQ.

Also Why has there been ZERO ARab demonstrations on keeping Saddam around?

[CaptRon]

Such a war can only lead to an increase in terrorism

Then they have already won.

If the aim of terrorism is to influence behavior through the threat of violence and we do nothing to oppose it, then they are now in control of our foreign policy and defense policy. There is now only one way remaining to show them that they are not...

[GraniteStateConservative]

Did you create that zot in a bottle image?

[dinasour]

the US will no longer need to beg (and pay billions) for a base in Saudi Arabia, as we will have one in Iraq

ten percent of the world's oil will be under the control of the Great Satan, dealing a death blow to OPEC.

You hit the nail on the head. To avoid fueling the left's criticism, these goals are purposely mis-understated, but are probably part of the main reasons for going into Iraq.

In addition, we are putting every tin-pot dictator in the region on notice that you will not be safe in your palace if you choose to bring your jihad to our shores.

And, we'll have a lot of tanks and guns and troops pointing at Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia to back it up.

American Imperialism? You betcha. And we need a lot more where that came from. 9-11 changed everything.

Look for a big change in the our attitude toward are "friends" in Saudi Arabia when we no longer need their oil or their bases.

[piasa]

As to your arguments, we have heard them all before and they have all been addressed on this forum, over and over and over.

We don't care one way or another if you are convinced of the need to go to war; indeed, I assume that there is nothing which would convince you to go to war. And we can assume that there is nothing that would convince you to intervene if you saw a person getting mugged or raped in a side street. Intervention might cause more muggings and rapes, after all...namely YOURS.

Yours is the mentality of a person who has already tasted defeat and found the flavor of boots more tolerable than the feel of scraped knuckles. You believe that because you find defeat palatable, that others should, too.

The simple FACT of the matter is that we have been at war now since Iraq invaded Kuwait in the early 90s. Iraq started the war, and we opted not to finish it because the liberals whined then about how "brutal" we were to those who had raped and pillaged Kuwait, to those who had set fire to what remained of her wealth, to those who in an act of spite wasted a nation's precious resources by pumping crude into the Gulf; how terrible we were to those who hoped to foul nations' water supplies with oil before fleeing northward with their weapons and captives so as to live and fight another day against a weaker enemy. And now, after about 12 years of continuous Iraqi cease fire violations, Iraqi bribery, blackmail, threats, and stalling, all accompanied by the steady repetitious cicadalike whining of liberals that the sanctions were killing the children... we now have liberals wanting the sanctions to continue while an endless circle-jerk of inspections accomplishes exactly nothing other than to give Hussein more time to kill.

Now we are resolved to finish that which should have been finished not in the name of the UN but in the name of something higher, our country, our names, the only names that ever count. And the average Iraqi is going to be very glad to see us.

[finnman69]

OK..lets go LW fruit loop plinking......

1. Such a war can only lead to an increase in terrorism. The Iraqis, arabs and muslims around the world will see such a war not only as a war on Islam, but also for what it mostly is about - an imperialistic grab for oil. Anyone doubting this need only consider Iraq's history. The CIA played a hand in overthrowing the government in Iraq in 1963 which led to Saddam's party and thus Saddam himself coming to power. The reason was that the government had moved to nationalise oil (exactly the same thing also happened in Iran). Going back further also gives a long history of the colonial power Britain treating Iraq atrociously in order to control their oil.

Where is the mass increase of terrorism after we invaded Afghanistan and removed the most Islamist and extreme of all the arab regimes, the Taliban? Removing a secular piece of shite like Saddam will be viewed as a positive move among arabs, especially his own oppressed citizens. If Arabs are wary, its only because they are understandably worried about collateral damage, but they still want Saddam out NOW. Read here about the Iraqis who want the invasion NOW When the Enemy Is a Liberator-NY Times. How will it be imperialist if we don't stay in Iraq? We did not take the Iraqi, Kuwaiti or Saudi oil fields in 1991 Einstein! If we truly are the evil imperialist nation you see us as, those fields would be ours now, but they aren't are they? Saddam came to power by systematically murdering the opposition and in a famous televised display ordered Baath party members out of the room to be executed while he smiled and smoked a cigar. What does Britain's past colonialism have to do with the price of eggs? The artificial past borders imposed on Iraq by Britain will create some ethnic conflicts, but widespread arab outrage on the street? I don't think so.

2. There are no proven links between Saddam and the Al-Qaeda. The best intelligence agencies (those of the US and Britain) in the world have been working flat out to try and find one, yet both reported no link (despite this fact, both Bush and Blair repeatedly cite information discredited by their own intelligence agencies as evidence of a link - if they are so convinced of the case for war they shouldn't need to lie in presenting it). British intelligence reports that even the possibility of a substantial link is unlikely, given that Osama is in ideological conflict with Saddam (in a recent tape Osama termed Saddam and his regime 'infidels').

It's public knowledge that Saddam funds terrorism in Israel and pays bounties to the familes of homicide bombers. It's also public knowledge that Iraq tried to assasinate President Bush. Now if one tries to assasinate a foreign leader as powerful as the president of the United States, you have to understand that if you succeed, the US will come after you big time. Did Saddam care about the incredibly severe consequences? No. Think he cares about the consequences of using WMD against us or helping others do the same? No. The links between Al Qaeda and Iraq have been shown and will be further proven. The US and UK have not lied regarding intelligence they have released. The biggest worry is that Saddam will in the future pass his WMD weapons on or use them for terrorist blackmail. After 9/11 this is simply not tolerable. The primary reason saddam is about to be reomved is his continued efforts to develop and conceal WMD programs. That in combination with his nefarious past and his links to terrorist groups is all the reason in the world we need to disarm him and remove him from power. It has been proven Saddam has not disarmed and has continued to conceal his programs while he funds terrorism.

3. Before the UN sanctions Saddam had created a country with the one of the highest standards of living in the Middle East. At least for his own people he had thus done a better job than most other Middle Eastern leaders, and now we're supposed to be saving his people from him? I'm not saying Saddam is all good, far from it, but he is far from the evil tyrant Bush depicts him to be (i.e. he did not gas his own people as Bush repeatedly claims).

This is the dumbest and easiest comment to refute. Saddam is a mad man near the level of Jeffrey Dahmer. His mother attempted to abort him. He was abused as a child, tortured animals for fun, shot at a teacher, and killed his first political opponent at the age of 20. He is a cruel sadistic man who has regional and global dreams of domination. He supresses the truth, he tortures his people, he executes those who speak out against him or cuts their tongues out, he has professional rapists on staff to intimidate others, and he uses the oil for food program to build lavish palaces numbering close to 100 now that also likely conceal WMD programs. Meanwhile he claims the UN and the US have starved him although his army is well fed as is he. He has embezzeled billions from his people. He riggs elections so 100% of the vote is for him. He builds sculptures and commisions paintings of himself much like big brother. He exectuted his own son-in-law. His people fear him and want him gone. To suggest Saddam is not so bad is either a sign of complete ignorance , evidence of utter stupidity, or you are a bad liar.

4. The threat that Iraq poses to us is tiny. Iraq probably still has some 'weapons of mass destruction' of course, but an insignificant amount which pales in comparison to that of many other countries (including of course the US and Britain, but also less stable places such as Syria and the nuclear states of North Korea, Pakistan, India and Israel).

The threat of WMD attacks is very real and very very dangerous. It is not tiny. And Saddam is not allowed to have ANY WMD programs nor weapons at all. With the exception of North Korea, none of the nations you mentioned have demonstrated irresponsibility nor used those weapons against their own people. To suggest that the US should be disarmed first is a false and stupid argument. Iraq MUST disarm according to the UN.

5. The US has a deplorable record of foreign intervention over the past 50 years.

You mean deplorable like winning WWII, stopping Hitler and Japan, winning the Cold War causing the fall of communism, freeing Kuwait, and stoping 'genocide' in Kosovo?. Are you arguing an isolationist policy where we should never defend our oversea interests or protect our own nation?

[FourtySeven]

Now THAT is a Zot picture!

[FourtySeven]

LOL.......BRAVO to the entire post!

I just wish whoever this is who continues to literally beat their head up against a brick wall with these peacenick posts every morning could get it through their thick, albeit whinny skull that they are wrong and arguments like yours are right.

I especially loved this line: we now have liberals wanting the sanctions to continue while an endless circle-jerk of inspections accomplishes exactly nothing other than to give Hussein more time to kill.

LOL.....TRUER words have rarely been spoken!

[VRWC_minion]

What unique ideas.