Posted on 09/25/2002 1:21:32 AM PDT by MadIvan
Let's leave the military aspects to one side for the moment - the tactical questions of Iraqi weapons and their possible uses are a matter for the defence experts. Let me deal here just with the moral arguments, which have filled columns of newspaper print and hours of broadcast airtime.
I have spent a good portion of the past 48 hours locked in televised confrontations with critics of the United States. The shrillness of their accusations seems to rise in direct proportion to their incoherence. Even by the usual standards of political doublethink, there is something very desperate and unscrupulous about this case which so ostentatiously claims the moral high ground. It is as if the anti-American reflex came first and the need to substantiate it followed as an afterthought.
The propositions that have been put forward purporting to damn American intervention against Saddam (and British support of it) fall roughly into two categories: the wilfully obtuse and the crassly opportunistic. The first type includes the naive but sincerely conscientious objections of churchmen and undeviating pacifists who feel that there can never be any good enough reason for going to war. I will leave them out of this because their position is not specific to this situation and they are, at least, consistent with their own past views.
The rest of the obtuse lobby puts forward a cocktail of confused assertions which do not stand up to even cursory examination. The first, and most strenuously repeated yesterday, is: we don't have any incontrovertible evidence that Saddam has (or is developing) weapons of mass destruction, and/or even if we have, we have no proof that he intends to use them.
The two parts, or two forms, of this proposition are absolutely essential to its plausibility because they are used interchangeably. The mantra, "We have no evidence", can conveniently slip from being a question of the physical existence of weapons (which can be established by the sort of photographs published yesterday in the Prime Minister's dossier) to a demand for the utterly unprovable: that Saddam intends to use them for nefarious purposes.
What would count as proving the existence of such an intention? Presumably, an affidavit that read, "I plan to attack Israel, Cyprus, or wherever else I can reach with my armoury of ballistic missiles during the next 12 months. Failing that, I will at least equip as many freelance terrorists as I can find with the necessary hardware to do as much damage as possible," signed S. Hussein, in the presence of witnesses (see signatures below), dated September 10, 2001.
When common sense tells us that there can be no evidence of a legally watertight kind, we usually look to past events for indications about likely behaviour in the future. Saddam has, in the recent past, invaded a neighbouring country in the interests of territorial aggrandisement. (Somebody ought to tell Charles Kennedy that this is what "imperialism" actually means.) He has also used the most hideous chemical weaponry against racial minorities within his own population in a blatant attempt at genocide.
When the obtuse camp pleads for concern about the innocent Iraqis who may suffer in an American attack, I wonder about the innocent Kurds who have suffered under Saddam's homicidal persecution. When the obtuse-niks plead for more time for hapless United Nations weapons inspectors to be fobbed off and obstructed, I wonder if they would be so blithely passive about racist mass murder in other countries? Would George Galloway have spoken so assiduously against military intervention if the old white regime in South Africa had gassed Soweto?
This brings me to the other fork of the anti-intervention case: the slippier, opportunist one. A contention that was put to me on air at the weekend was that America cannot be justified in taking action to displace Saddam now because it failed to do so after the Gulf war. So why now and not then?
Because "then" was a mistake. The United States made a serious blunder at the time - due largely to its reluctance to appear "imperialistic" - and it now intends to rectify it. This is because September 11 has made it clear that the support of terrorism by rogue states presents more of a threat to world security than was thought and so the risk of being labelled "imperialistic" by idiots such as Charles Kennedy is worth taking.
Tacked on to this charge of inconsistency, there is usually a taunt that America once supported Saddam and helped to arm him against Iran. True enough. At that time, the danger from a militant Islamic fundamentalist state seemed greater than from Saddam's secular one - especially after Iran took Americans hostage at the American embassy. Everyone knew that Saddam was a bad guy but he seemed the lesser of the two evils. But how does that undermine the ethics of the present policy?
Do the people who argue this way also claim that Stalin's contribution to the Allied war effort and the sacrifices of the Russians at Stalingrad were morally illegitimate because Russia had earlier signed a pact with Hitler?
In the eyes of many of its critics, the Americans can do no right. If they intervene, even to overthrow a criminal who kills his own people, they are "imperialistic". If they fail to intervene - using the obfuscations of endless United Nations debate (in which one tinpot dictator after another stands up to pillory them) as an excuse for delay - then they are selfish isolationists.
The obtuse and the opportunistic tribes concur on the demand that Saddam must start a war before we can attack him. Don't they see that he already has? This is a new world and a new kind of war which has no rules and no formulaic patterns, in which terrorists routinely target civilians. It is a greater threat to free and democratic societies than a set-piece invasion by massed armies.
Excerpt: "Let's leave the military aspects to one side for the moment - the tactical questions of Iraqi weapons and their possible uses are a matter for the defence experts. Let me deal here just with the moral arguments, which have filled columns of newspaper print and hours of broadcast airtime.
I have spent a good portion of the past 48 hours locked in televised confrontations with critics of the United States. The shrillness of their accusations seems to rise in direct proportion to their incoherence. Even by the usual standards of political doublethink, there is something very desperate and unscrupulous about this case which so ostentatiously claims the moral high ground. It is as if the anti-American reflex came first and the need to substantiate it followed as an afterthought."
Yup!
Oh, get over yourself. Your friend Ivan is the one who decided to disregard points that I made about Pakistan. And how that's not a niggling threat, either. And how it's reasonable to conclude, without being a "coward," that this is a greater danger than the penned-in Iraq regime. And who took my contention of not being a pacifist and deciding that, yes, he's read my mind, and he's determined that I am a pacifist after all. I don't take kindly to being accused, implicitly, of being a liar.
Those who pose the notion that someone is a "coward" or a "traitor" are given a pass around here from supplying well-supported or courteous dialogue. This is nothing new.
I maintained, somewhat more pungently, that someone who only offers assertions and insults is being rhetorically empty. I didn't say that someone who was (British, pro-Bush, fill in the blank) was thereby incorrect. Only the latter case is one of ad hominem.
Insisting on reasonable dialogue doesn't mean that one suffers fools until the end of time. When you slam your buddy Ivan about abandoning substance ("Thank you, Tariq Aziz" qualifies, methinks), I might acknowledge that you're being even-handed. Not until then.
The only real difference lies in those that want to attack Iraq before America is devastated by his weapons of mass destruction versus those that those that want to attack Iraq after America is devastated by his weapons of mass destruction.
Take your pick...
--Boot Hill
In a nutshell.
As you Americans say, if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...
And you have no evidence that Pakistan is a greater threat apart from you saying, "I think Pakistan is a greater threat". I pointed out Musharaff has been helpful during the War on Terror. He has nukes for a different purpose than Saddam Hussein. Nothing you've said has refuted this. It's amazing that you actually think you've refuted it just because you're so certain in your pacifism.
Those who pose the notion that someone is a "coward" or a "traitor" are given a pass around here from supplying well-supported or courteous dialogue. This is nothing new.
If the shoe fits, have the courtesy to wear it. You come on here, make statements without any evidence or logic to back it up and are surprised that you get your head pounded in.
I maintained, somewhat more pungently, that someone who only offers assertions and insults is being rhetorically empty. I didn't say that someone who was (British, pro-Bush, fill in the blank) was thereby incorrect. Only the latter case is one of ad hominem.
Oh dear God, here we go again with the same old pacifist whinge. You offered only assertions. I have challenged you, repeatedly, to provide evidence that Musharaff is a greater threat than Hussein. You have not done so. I have put forward facts - that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons, Iraq has invaded its neighbours and so on. These are facts. You counter by saying my facts are assertions and your assertions are facts. And you wonder why you are regarded with thinly veiled contempt?
Insisting on reasonable dialogue doesn't mean that one suffers fools until the end of time. When you slam your buddy Ivan about abandoning substance ("Thank you, Tariq Aziz" qualifies, methinks), I might acknowledge that you're being even-handed. Not until then.
Awww, did I hurt your little feelings? Wait until hell freezes over for an apology.
Ivan
Precisely and admittedly by those who did it. They wish to eliminate us because we are free; they wish the world to be ruled by Islam and by Shaia. It is exactly an attack on freedom. Have you not read their own words and stated purposes?
You think they attacked us because of oil? How silly.
Those pesky details!
More precisely, they wish to conquer and subjugate us, and then impose Islamic law on us. They violently disagree with the notion of separating church and state, and despise us for having a secular government.
Strange, I don't recall Iraq ever attacking us. All I recall is us attacking them. Tell me where they attacked, Oregon?....Maine?....Florida?
It's called a "metaphor"...you should try it some time!
How in the world do you figure this? It's 2002, not 1962.
The question is, of course, how can we justify a "regime change" for Iraq in 2002 and not have justified a change for Cuba in 1962 (or today, for that matter - surely you don't think that Castro has not accumulated nasty weapons specifically for use against the US??).
The answer is that we've become a different people - and a morally inferior people.
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