Posted on 02/03/2003 12:44:26 PM PST by GailA
COLUMN: M.D. Harmon
Those seeking a 'smoking gun' had better hope they don't get it
Copyright © 2003 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
The United States and a constantly increasing number of allies are coming closer and closer to holding a despicable tyrant responsible for his past actions and rendering him unable to continue them both at home and abroad.
So, some people are upset. An entire dovecote of "anti-war activists" (at least for this war, and for this president - they were far less dovish when Bill Clinton attacked Serbia) is chirping its alarm over the fact that we have a president who understands that his principal task is the protection of our lives and interests.
Their exaggerations are so many, and their contact with reality so flimsy, that's it's hard to know where to start to hold them to account. Let's start with the big rally that was held in Washington last month.
I have a friend who lives in northern Virginia, a retired State Department officer who loves his country and who protested the Vietnam War in the '60s. Seized with serious doubts about the president's plans for Iraq, he crossed the Potomac to see if the rally would support his qualms.
He hasn't changed his mind about Iraq, but he was aghast at the march. Here's what he e-mailed me:
"I went to the March for Peace for three reasons: to register my anti-war views, and to voice my views on administration policy, and to show my niece and nephew (who came along) that the United States is a peaceful country with millions of citizens united for peace. But then I saw with my own eyes the hypocrisy and vicious hatred that so many marchers had for America. Mike, those people were openly anti-American. I saw it with my own eyes. You could cut the anti-Ameri- canism with a knife. . . . The ANSWER event was not a peace march - it was a virulent anti-American march. . . .
"For the demonstrators there is some kind of moral equivalence between us and Saddam."
Not terribly surprising, considering that ANSWER, the group that sponsored the march, is affiliated with an unreconstructed hard-left Marxist fringe that in the past has expressed admiration for the murderous Joseph Stalin, dictator Kim Jong-Il of North Korea and war crimes indictee Slobodan Milosevik.
Oh, but the marchers didn't necessarily support that? OK, think about who would go to a civil rights march sponsored by the Ku Klux Klan, and then wonder why ANSWER's sponsorship was fine by those attendees.
Next, there are all the people who keep demanding more proof that Saddam Hussein has both evil intentions and the means to carry them out. True, there have been no Cuban-missile-crisis photos - yet - but there are at least two major talks they haven't heard yet, either. One will come this Wednesday, when Secretary of State Colin Powell speaks to the United Nations, and the other will come after that, when President Bush addresses the nation again.
Anybody who doesn't think Saddam is a threat both to his neighbors and the West has not been paying attention - deliberately, I believe, because U.N. inspectors themselves say he has tons of lethal stuff he won't account for - but those speeches should satisfy all but the same people who attended the "March for Peace."
What is truly dangerous is the demand by some that they must see a "smoking gun" before they'll back Bush. In that, they show less support for America than the leaders of Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Denmark and the Czech Republic, who sent a letter last week proclaiming "New Europe's" strong support for Bush. France and Germany had better start worrying about the perils of unilateralism.
In truth, what would a "smoking gun" be? Well, it might be a mushroom cloud forming over Manhattan; or a radioactive "dirty bomb" ex- ploding a few blocks upwind of the Capitol or the White House; or letters full of finely milled anthrax being sent not to a few congressional offices but to hundreds; or a thousand vials of smallpox infecting tens of thousands of people, with a death rate of 30 percent or more among the unvaccinated victims.
Folks, we don't need those kinds of smoking guns. We don't even need them drawn from their holsters. We may not be able to find each and every member of al-Qaida yet, but as the president said Tuesday, we've found a number of them, and they won't be bothering us any more. Their leader, Osama bin Laden, hasn't been reliably heard from since December 2001, and could be among the group Bush mentioned.
It's no easy decision to go to war, and I even have some sympathy for Bill Clinton, who has been strongly criticized for not dealing with terrorism and Saddam after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and subsequent terror attacks abroad.
But that was all prior to Sept. 11. We've seen two of our tallest buildings fall in fire and ruin, seen people jump from the 80th floor because that was better than being incinerated in their offices, seen our military headquarters lethally attacked.
Still, you may want more than this. If you're patient for a week or a month, I think you'll get it.
Myself, I've seen and heard enough. Saddam delendus est.
- M.D. Harmon, an editorial writer and editor, can be reached
at mharmon@pressherald.com or 791-6482.
1. Saddam loathes the U.S. and everything we stand for.
2. He would want nothing more than to destroy us, especially after Desert Storm.
3. He knows it would be suicide to engage us in an open war.
4. What better way to attack us than through phantom surrogates?
1. Can be said of others.
2. True except he has a higher priorities of staying alive, staying in power, exerting more control in the Middle East, etc
3. True
4. Put it this way: what is more likely to inspire a terrorist on a 9/11 style mission: the religious glory from a lifetime of indoctrination or some cash from Saddam?
So how do you fight terrorism in Northern Iraq? How do you confront these terrorists where they are, when your enemy runs the country?
In order to eliminate terrorist safe havens in Iraq, we will have to root out the regime and install a responsible government. This will not be easy or cheap, but it is not like we have a choice. And once Iraq is done, it's on to the next.
But after three or four iterations of this, the local thugs might come to realize that supporting terrorists is hazardous to one's health.
Look, on a very basic level you are being ridiculous. Those dudes didn't just get on planes and wing-it or improvise. They had a plan. How/when/where did they conceive of that plan? Somewhere, in some way, and from someone's mind did that plan issue.
That being said, I'm not arguing here that the plan was in any way sophisticated or anything. But you're missing the frickin' point.
Let's suppose Saddam set aside a desert base to "train" young brainwashed men regarding how to sneak up behind Americans on the street and shoot them in the back of the head. Now, OKAY, you and I could both agree to sneer at such "training" and scoff and say "gee that's unnecessary, don't they already know how to point a handgun and pull the trigger? What's to 'train'? Where's the challenge in that? Ha ha ha!".
But the point is that, even in doing something so pointless, Saddam would be proving himself to be our enemy! He would be actively trying to attack us and kill us in some way. It wouldn't lighten my heart all that much just because the "way" he tries to attack us is so stupid and low-tech. That's beside the point. The point is the active attempt to attack us, and not how the attack is carried out.
And again, what you seem to be saying is that as long as the training was low-tech and required little investment or overhead, you're willing to let it all slide with a big guffaw. This is what I referred to as "touching". A less charitable word for it would be "stupid".
I would love to see a discussion of those possibilities and the risks involved in them. That's what disturbs me most about the rush to war, we aren't talking about what long term benefit it will have versus the long term risks.
What about Northern Pakistan where we apparantly let large numbers of Taliban and AQ escape to? The answer, unfortunately, is not much without risking the whole of Pakistan including its nukes getting into radical Islamic hands.
I agree with you in that I would like to see these things discussed openly a little more as well. But why do you feel that we are "rushing" into war? I would argue that we have given Saddam more than enough to time to obey the U.N. mandated resolutions that were clearly laid out. I would even argue that we are dragging our feet almost to the point of concern. Our current window of opportunity for executing this operation is rapidly getting shorter and shorter with each passing day.
Rush to war, rush to war, rush to war...
I'm sorry but nowadays I have to call a foul when I see this bogus charge being unthinkingly tossed out there. A frickin' year and a half of war talk does not constitute a "rush", sorry. There's a statute of limitations regarding just how long you can keep using the phrase "rush to war", and I have to say: given that it's OVER FIVE HUNDRED DAYS after I saw the first "no war on Iraq" protest sign (right after 9/11), the time has run out.
It's the "war" part that bothers you, not the "rush" part. Drop the disingenuous "rush to war" line. After about a million repetitions in a thousand and one op-ed pieces over the course of a year and a half, it's time to put that hackneyed phrase to bed, along with "doesn't rise to the level" and "it's the economy stupid". It's a dishonest, BS phrase and you know it.
Are you saying it is more consistent to oppose war, or to support it? I think the flaw in your argument - and I've mentioned this before - is that you lump all of those who oppose the war into one, monolithic bunch. That is just as wrong as lumping those that supported both efforts into one pile.
Speaking for myself, I opposed both the efforts in the Balkans and in the Middle East. Missing in both cases were clear objectives, exit strategies and long-term plans. I was right in the Balkans. UN "peacekeepers" (don't you have to have peace to start with, in order to keep it? never mind) have been there for 10-12 years now and there is now sign of their returning home anytime soon. I thought it would establish a horrible precedent for American foreign policy, and one that would only lead to resentment of America abroad. I was right.
I see the same thing happening in Iraq. I predict we will be there forever, even after we oust Saddam and establish something like democracy. In a region and culture mired in the 6th century and that cannot handle anything like democracy, this will lead to even more terrorist attacks, more resentment of America, and more lost American troops.
I also predict we will not be greeted with open arms like all the media and the administration is saying. I suspect the Iraqis will resent more the Americans telling them how to do things than they will Saddam Hussein.
Finally, I hope you note that none of my arguments hinge on "war is ALWAYS the last resort", "war is a failure of diplomacy", "war is hell and I'm against it, there has got to be a better way", or overall concern for oppressed people. I frankly don't give a damn about them. I am concerned, however that American lives are going to be lost and wasted.
The best thing America can do is heed the advice of George Washington: avoid foreign entanglements and enchanting alliances.
Yeah, the small squad approached worked so well in Somalia that we should keep using it...
I am saying that box-cutter training wasn't necessary. Flight training was necessary. One can easily imagine Saudis and other financing the flight training. It takes a great leap of imagination to picture hijackers storming a practice plane slicing up rubber figurines.
The planning for 9/11 and flight training are real and serious issues. Don't trivialize them by pretending that the box-cutter training in the desert was real as well.
So since we cannot attack Northern Pakistan at this time, we should not do anything about Iraq? Why not?
I imagine that just because we can't conquer North Korea, we should all just crawl into a hole and wait for the nukes!
The fact is that we can do something about Iraq at this time. Maybe next we can do something about Iran, or Syria, or Yemen. But eventually, the Pakis will see the writing on the wall and will realize that pissing off the US is not a real good idea, and they will deal with Northern Pakistan.
The US cannot police the world. So we have to encourage other nations to police their own territory. We do this by proceeding against those who do not, in a methodical and thoroughgoing fashion. Eventually any nation who does not want to be next on the list will take care of business on it's own.
Don't forget that the bases in Northern Pakistan were established with the express cooperation of the Pakistani intelligence agency. Once Pakistan can be convinced that it is no longer worth the price to keep these operations open, there will be one less safe haven for terrorists in the world.
In order for that to happen, the world has to know that when Uncle Sam stands up and shakes his bloody fist and yells "WHO'S NEXT!", he means it!
He's not going to have the opportunity to choose. He is going to get reamed no matter what he says he has or does not have, and no matter what the inspectors find or do not find. We have already said we are going to get rid of him, no matter what happens. We both agree he has no chance in an open fight against the US. HE HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO LOSE BY USING HIS BIO- OR CHEMS AGAINST US TROOPS. NOTHING TO LOSE AT ALL.
And of course he has them. He has, with his denials and with the inspections, and all that, bought 500 days to ready his troops, position his rockets, etc. Of course, all of our chest-thumping and rhetoric, and the inability of the inspectors to find anything (coupled with our unwillingness to share what we know) have only increased sympathy for him, and again, given him time to get whatever he's got in position.
Justified or not, it's a dumb way to run a war.
One situation to get one carload of terrorists, who ain't gonna make that mistake again. And Predators ain't gonna take out an entire network, such as Al Queda's presence in Afghanistan. Sometimes it takes a massive deployment of troops. And if we do it a couple or three times, the rest of the tin-pot terrorist-harboring dictators are gonna get sphincter constrictions and be less inclinced to take the United States on.
Because it allows them to turn on Bush and attack while saying "He failed to protect the nation"
You just watch; if we get a WMD attack they will be all over him.
Never mind that most evil dictators that are truly hated by their people would not arm them. The Nazis, disarmed their citizens, as did the Soviets, and the Red Chinese...hell the Brits tried to do it here. It's why we have the 2nd Amendment.
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