Edited by author 03-21-2003 11:12 PM
"Bush had to make a promise to Arabs such as the Saudis that Saddam would stay in power. Your posts ignore this and therefore really don't make a lot of sense. Apparently you aren't particularly interested in them making any sense. OK. Wail away."

No, it's just that it is NOT RELEVANT. Plus, show me where Bush PROMISED that there won't be an internal revolution? He didn't?!? I'm surprised...

Ok, for the sake of argument, EVERYTHING you say is 100% right, I agree with it, you the man!!

Now, what does that have to do with where we are now? (hint: nothing)

Edited by author 03-21-2003 11:19 PM
Just to make this perfectly clear:

My assertion is that WAR is the ONLY way to oust Saddam.

Your assertion must either be:

1. There's another way (if so let me hear it)
or
2. Saddam is fine where he is.


Let's leave Bush Sr. out of this. Let's also leave Clinton out of it since he did NOTHING to rectify the situation and he didn't go after Osama after he blew up barracks and bombed the Cole...

Which of the above assertions is yours?


Oh, and I think our promise to the Saudis was:

1. We wouldn't DIRECTLY go after Saddam personally(a promise to CONGRESS as much as to the Saudis, since assinations were outlawed under Johnson)
2. We wouldn't OCCUPY Iraq.

Other than that, Saudis were SCREAMING for us to move in because they, like us, felt that Saddam was planning a sharp right turn into Saudi Arabia, giving him the #1 and #2 largest oil wells which pump the money he DESPARATELY needed after his 10 years of war with Iran...

Again, your ignorance is showing: The US has attempted to assassinate foreign leaders under Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, and Bush Jr. Perhaps surprisingly, none of these attempts have been sucessful.

And I'm saying that if the foreign service and intelligence services say that Bush's approach to this war has been disasterous and will do us long-term damage, we should take notice and heed their advice. You seem to be saying that we shouldn't.

Edited by author 03-22-2003 12:08 AM
LoveGravy:

Here's two ways other than war: coercive inspections, and the so-called Plan C from a former U.S. Defense Dept. analyst. Whether you agree with either of them, your lack of referencing them seems to show that you haven't looked very hard.

There is also the obvious possibility that 6 months more of diplomacy and pressure would have moved France and/or Germany from their current positions, taken largely in response to Bush's arrogant and completely tactless approach to the situation, and not to the goals of the policy itself.

I'm curious: why do you think so many people in so many countries oppose this war? What exactly is it that they're protesting, in your eyes?

Edited by author 03-22-2003 12:02 PM
"And I'm saying that if the foreign service and intelligence services say that Bush's approach to this war has been disasterous and will do us long-term damage, we should take notice and heed their advice. You seem to be saying that we shouldn't."

Again, NO suggestions from you. If you aren't going to state ANY alternatives then I'm done trying to discuss this with you.


Dan Z:

Both of your alternatives involve the threat of force, which the FRENCH and RUSSIANS said EXPLICITLY that they would VETO. Those are EXACTLY the type of resolutions that 1441 SHOULD have been, but with the French promising to veto ANY resolution that includes the use of force as a penalty, these would NOT have been approved. These are the types of resolutions that Bush WANTED, but the French made if VERY clear that they would veto them. Since the UN would not be able to pass any resolutions that had teeth, Bush was forced to build a coalition of his own and go around the UN. Remember, right before his "48 hour deadline" he and the British were going to propose a 30 day deadline for FULL inspections or war begins, and the French said, WITHOUT ANY AMBIGUITY, that they will veto it since it threatens force. That has the UN's hands 100% tied behind their back, exposing a fatal flaw in the system and reducing the UN Sec Council to a debate forum rather than an effective legislative body.


"I'm curious: why do you think so many people in so many countries oppose this war? What exactly is it that they're protesting, in your eyes?"

Simple: It's the FIRST preemptive war we've fought. WWII we waited for Japan to bomb us, the Gulf War we had Iraq invading Kuwait, etc. There are certain conditions that people see as JUSTIFIED for war:

1. Direct attack against your country.
2. Direct attack against an ally.

That's about it. Think about applying that policy to other things, like police work. If a man in a mask comes into your house and puts a gun to your head, the Police couldn't do anything until the robber PULLS THE TRIGGER. It's like those innefecctive stalking laws (that have since been changed) that allows a stalker to follow you, threaten your life, but the police cannot do anything until they actually try to kill you. We saw the idiocy of those laws and changed them, and we are finally coming around to do the same with military doctrine.

The Hawks, lead by Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld, started pushing after 911 to change military doctrine so that the US doesn't have to wait for an attack to strike first (actually, Wolfowitz wrote the new doctrine under Bush Sr. but it was shelved when it got leaked to the press and Bush Sr. re-wrote it into a "Containment" doctrine instead). This new doctrine of preemption is tough to swallow for many, but the world has changed. This isn't the chivalrous days where armies would announce their intentions in advance, these are times were planes are being flown into buildings and the enemy hides everywhere. Because of this, when a threat exists, the US is justified in using force to eliminate the threat before it can act. If this doctrine was in place in 1938 we could have saved a LOT of problems.

The rest of the world isn't under as direct of a threat as the US is. After 9/11 we now have, for the FIRST TIME in our history, a terrorist group willing to carry out MASSIVE attacks on US soil. Just using airplanes they killed THOUSANDS, and some of the terrorists were learning to fly cropdusters, meanwhile Saddam is amassing chem/bio weapons... That's too much to let stand.

France, Germany, Russia and China have too much of an economic interest in Saddam's regime to support a war. Iraq owes Russia BILLIONS for weapons purchased during the war with Iran, plus all of the oil rights deals that are being cut with these nations. France is brokering missile deals through Syria to supply Iraq with Chinese missiles. Chirac is VERY DANGEROUSLY CLOSE to getting a no confidence vote, his economy is in shambles, and he cannot afford either a war OR to lose the revenue from Saddam. Because of close ties with France, China, Russia and Germany, other countries are waffling, PLUS this threat is mainly against the US (Saddam only stated that the US and Israel are his main targets) so, like the US in 1939, they are saying "It's not my problem". The world is in a recession and wars are expensive.

The US is protecting our own safety, and just because other countries want to "wait and see" if Saddam will give his WMD's to terrorists doesn't me we should. Quite frankly, liberating the people of Iraq is a side benefit. They are good people and I hope they are safe, but internal affairs aren't something I'm gung-ho about the US going to resolve, but Saddams desire to build and use WMDs is enough for me.

DanZ, I WISH those options you mentioned would have passed. I wish war could have been avoided. But since France and Russia said they would veto ANY AND ALL resolutions that included the use of force against Iraq, there was little hope of any resolutions having teeth. Those options WILL NOT WORK unilaterally, becuase without UN legitimacy they are akin to a US occupation of Iraq and would immediately lead to war (Saddam would not let US troops occupy without a fight, and without us taking out C&C plus defense sites we'd be sitting ducks!), so if there is to be war, we need it to be on OUR terms. Therefore our only choices were inaction or war. Sanctions don't work when only one country participates, but war does.

I hope the loss of innocent life is mimimal, and I hope that a liberated Iraq is a better place than an Iraq under Saddam. I KNOW I'll feel much safer knowing that the chem/bio weapons have been FINALLY destroyed or at least are under the control of a non-Stalinist regime that is bent on wiping out the US.

Preemption is a major change in US military doctorine, but I feel it's necessary when the "Smoking gun" that most people want to wait for is going to be an irradiated crater in the middle of NYC.

Edited by author 03-22-2003 12:19 PM
Dan Z,

First off, thanks for posting viable alternatives, even though the French have actually prevented them from actually being viable. It shows that you have actually studied the situation.

Second, a note about "inspections", coercive or otherwise:

Iraq is a body larger than the state of California. One U-Haul full of Chemical weapons could wipe out a town, or one nuke the size of a van (Saddam was working on minituarizing it so it would fit on a missile when the Israelis bombed their enrichment site and inspectors forced their sites to move and hide) is a MAJOR threat. Do you think that YOU could find a place in ALL OF CALIFORNIA to hide that UHaul where it couldn't be found? It could be under a pile of cars in a junkyard, or in your own basement, but the INspectors only have 60-100 people in the ENTIRE STATE of California to find it.... Now figure that a SINGLE VIAL of Anthrax the size of your thumb can be bred into a TON of Anthax in about a week. Can you hide a vial that small in the entire State of California so that 60 people looking for it cannot find it?

Inspectors were SUPPOSED to be just that: Inspectors. NOT detectives.

Saddam was supposed to declare ALL of his WMD's in 1992, and the inspectors job was to go to those sites that Saddam declared and tag and destroy those weapons. The inspectors started showing up and NOTHING was there... Suddenly their roles shifted to something that they weren't SUPPOSED to be, which is detectives. If Saddam was forthcoming, the inspections would have been completed in 1993, but since Saddam was hiding and lying, their job took over 12 years with little results. Now, that's ONLY going on what Saddam DECLARED in 1992! Do you REALLY think he declared EVERYTHING? We could only find and oversee destruction of about 2/3 of what he DECLARED, and assuming he didn't have more, or build more in the past 12 YEARS, is a tad naieve.

Even sending in an entire ARMY to find and destroy all the WMDs isn't sufficient. I'm SURE Saddam has some of his weapons hidden in Syria, UAE, Qatar, Somalia, Libya, etc. I mean he had 12 YEARS to move/hide them, how dumb would he have to be to keep them where they could be found?

The answer is to remove the person that would USE them. If he had 100,000 WMDs it wouldnt matter if the person in control of them was not the violent, sociopathic dictator that would actually use them.

Think of it like this: We have found a mass murderer, so instead of throwing him in jail, we instead we go into his house and destroy all of the knives and guns and let him go... Not the best way of dealing with it in my eyes.

Inspections could ONLY work if Saddam was OPEN and HONEST about his stockpile. He's lied so many times that it's crystal clear that he's NOT telling the truth. Even Blix admits it (see my post below), and without Saddam telling them what he has and where, even 10,000 inspectors and 100 years won't disarm him properly.

Lovegravy,
they are going to hold their hands over their ears and eyes and play argument "ping pong" with you.

QrazyQat, assassination attempts have hardly been used as many times as you have stated. The reason they haven't (and the reason they weren't successful when they were) is because our policy regarding soldiers doesn't work with assassinations. All soldiers must have an escape route from a military action. That has ALWAYS been the doctrine. The first rule of assassination is to kill the assassin or leave him to be killed.

Thats the kind of death plan that a militant Islamic organization would implement. You know like the ones who blew up the car bomb that killed the Australian news crew in Iraq yesterday. Oh wait, i forgot - saddam doesn't have ties to ANY violent Islamic groups.

Uh huh.

Next you guys are going to be citing Scott Ritter's views on the situation.

The fact of the matter is - we can sit here and post our views til the cows come home but only ONE voice matters:

That of the Iraqi people.

their voices are starting to be heard and they make you peace activists look like a bunch of buffoons!

Here's one from the staunchly antiwar Guardian:
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,919642,00.html

and here's two more:
I WAS A NAIVE FOOL TO BE A HUMAN SHIELD FOR SADDAM
By Daniel Pepper -- telegraph.co.uk
I wanted to join the human shields in Baghdad because it was direct action which had a chance of bringing the anti-war movement to the forefront of world attention. It was inspiring: the human shield volunteers were making a sacrifice for their political views - much more of a personal investment than going to a demonstration in Washington or London. It was simple - you get on the bus and you represent yourself.
So that is exactly what I did on the morning of Saturday, January 25. I am a 23-year-old Jewish-American photographer living in Islington, north London. I had travelled in the Middle East before: as a student, I went to the Palestinian West Bank during the intifada. I also went to Afghanistan as a photographer for Newsweek.
The human shields appealed to my anti-war stance, but by the time I had left Baghdad five weeks later my views had changed drastically. I wouldn't say that I was exactly pro-war - no, I am ambivalent - but I have a strong desire to see Saddam removed.
We on the bus felt that we were sympathetic to the views of the Iraqi civilians, even though we didn't actually know any. The group was less interested in standing up for their rights than protesting against the US and UK governments.
I was shocked when I first met a pro-war Iraqi in Baghdad - a taxi driver taking me back to my hotel late at night. I explained that I was American and said, as we shields always did, "Bush bad, war bad, Iraq good". He looked at me with an expression of incredulity.
As he realised I was serious, he slowed down and started to speak in broken English about the evils of Saddam's regime. Until then I had only heard the President spoken of with respect, but now this guy was telling me how all of Iraq's oil money went into Saddam's pocket and that if you opposed him politically he would kill your whole family.
It scared the hell out of me. First I was thinking that maybe it was the secret police trying to trick me but later I got the impression that he wanted me to help him escape. I felt so bad. I told him: "Listen, I am just a schmuck from the United States, I am not with the UN, I'm not with the CIA - I just can't help you."
Of course I had read reports that Iraqis hated Saddam Hussein, but this was the real thing. Someone had explained it to me face to face. I told a few journalists who I knew. They said that this sort of thing often happened - spontaneous, emotional, and secretive outbursts imploring visitors to free them from Saddam's tyrannical Iraq.
I became increasingly concerned about the way the Iraqi regime was restricting the movement of the shields, so a few days later I left Baghdad for Jordan by taxi with five others. Once over the border we felt comfortable enough to ask our driver what he felt about the regime and the threat of an aerial bombardment.
"Don't you listen to Powell on Voice of America radio?" he said. "Of course the Americans don't want to bomb civilians. They want to bomb government and Saddam's palaces. We want America to bomb Saddam."
We just sat, listening, our mouths open wide. Jake, one of the others, just kept saying, "Oh my God" as the driver described the horrors of the regime. Jake was so shocked at how naive he had been. We all were. It hadn't occurred to anyone that the Iraqis might actually be pro-war.
The driver's most emphatic statement was: "All Iraqi people want this war." He seemed convinced that civilian casualties would be small; he had such enormous faith in the American war machine to follow through on its promises. Certainly more faith than any of us had.
Perhaps the most crushing thing we learned was that most ordinary Iraqis thought Saddam Hussein had paid us to come to protest in Iraq. Although we explained that this was categorically not the case, I don't think he believed us. Later he asked me: "Really, how much did Saddam pay you to come?"
It hit me on visceral and emotional levels: this was a real portrayal of Iraq life. After the first conversation, I completely rethought my view of the Iraqi situation. My understanding changed on intellectual, emotional, psychological levels. I remembered the experience of seeing Saddam's egomaniacal portraits everywhere for the past two weeks and tried to place myself in the shoes of someone who had been subjected to seeing them every day for the last 20 or so years.
Last Thursday night I went to photograph the anti-war rally in Parliament Square. Thousands of people were shouting "No war" but without thinking about the implications for Iraqis. Some of them were drinking, dancing to Samba music and sparring with the police. It was as if the protesters were talking about a different country where the ruling government is perfectly acceptable. It really upset me.
Anyone with half a brain must see that Saddam has to be taken out. It is extraordinarily ironic that the anti-war protesters are marching to defend a government which stops its people exercising that freedom.

DO AS I DID: AN OPEN LETTER TO SADDAM HUSSEIN'S GENERALS
By Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa
I appeal to you, the generals of Iraq's Republican Guard, to follow my example and turn your arms against your country's tyrant. I can assure you that you will never regret taking that step.
History repeats itself, and if you can live two lives, you have a chance of seeing that repetition with your own eyes. In my other life, I also served a terrorist dictator, who had transformed his country into a monument to himself and created his own dynasty. Nicolae Ceausescu was a Romanian Saddam, who starved his people to build palaces for himself and spent the country's wealth to produce weapons of mass destruction in order to fulfill his megalomaniacal dreams. Like you, I held a high position at the top of my country's society, when I broke with Ceausescu: a two-star general, personal adviser to the president, acting chief of his espionage service, and state secretary in his ministry of interior. Like you, I also lived a privileged life in the dictator's entourage, in which every material need was generously provided by the government. But eventually, the prospect of being judged by history as an accomplice of one of the world's most despicable dictators convinced me to give up everything.
Now, at this historic moment for your country, I call upon you, my fellow generals, to follow in my footsteps, and I assure you, you will never regret it. On July 28, 1978, when I made my break, I was exactly three months short of the round age of fifty, and I have never looked back. I knew that it would not be easy starting my life over from scratch with no tangible possessions but the clothes on my back, but the anticipation of finally being a free man and living in a free society was irresistible. Today I have a marvelous new life, and my native Romania is becoming a flourishing democracy. I am proud that I have done what I could to help Romania cast off the evils of its past and make its way into the modern world.
My fellow generals, do as I did. Break away from your tyrannical dictator before it is too late. Expose his crimes against humanity to the world, as I have done with those committed by Ceausescu. Catch your fugitive tyrant, as my fellow Romanian generals caught Ceausescu in December 1989, when he went into hiding in an attempt to escape the revolutionary wave sweeping Communist dictators off the face of Eastern Europe. Make Saddam pay for his crimes, as Ceausescu did for his — with his life.
Like Romania, Iraq has an ancient and proud history and culture. Both countries were conquered by the Ottoman Empire, both became honorable kingdoms, and both were in the last century taken over by despicable dictators. Join the coalition forces fighting Saddam Hussein, and you will also enjoy an honored place in your country's history.
— Ion Mihai Pacepa is the former head on Romanian Intelligence and the highest-ranking intelligence officer ever to have defected from the Soviet bloc. He is currently finishing a new book, Red Roots: The Origins Of Today's Anti-Americanism.

Edited by author 03-23-2003 02:05 PM
QrazyQat, assassination attempts have hardly been used as many times as you have stated.

Reagan: attempt on Ghaddafi. Killed his daughter.
Bush 1 and 2: attempts on Saddam. didn't work first time, probably not second time.
Clinton: attempt on Milosevic -- hit his bedroom but Milosevic wasn't there.

These are the ones I'm familiar with after LBJ's time. I don't know if Nixon did any (he did everything else) but I don't remember any assasination attempts offhand.

QrazyQuat, those were NOT considered assasination attempts, according to what was outlawed. Bombing buildings where the leaders and other command and control facilities makes them VIABLE targets and therefore NOT considered assasination. These strikes are also 100X LESS LIKELY to successfully achieve the goal of killing a single individual.

It's one of those distinctions that can be manipulated to a certain degree. If, however, we activated sleepers and had them put a .308 bullet in his head it would cause MAJOR problems polically, but dropping a 2000lb bomb on a building he's suspected to be in is considered fair...

I think it's all stupid. It's OK for us to risk 1000's of lives to kill someone, but NOT OK for us to send in a lone sniper. Then again, I'm not congress, so my opinion doesn't really count.

Yes, those raids you mentioned were attempts to kill a single person, but the fact that they were carried out by bombers instead of snipers made them legal.

Hey, I didn't make the rules here, but since we have to play by them I don't see many other options.

The fact of the matter is - we can sit here and post our views til the cows come home but only ONE voice matters:

That of the Iraqi people.

So Bush is President of Iraq, then?

Sorry so snarky. Wish I had more time. Maybe later.

Edited by author 03-23-2003 04:44 PM
QrazyQuat, those were NOT considered assasination attempts, according to what was outlawed.

Legal mumbo-jumbo doesn't fool everyone as easily as you, I guess.

Of course, this business re assasinations started when you unaccountably connected the idea of ousting Saddam after the first Gulf War with the idea of assasination -- of course they are not related.

"So Bush is President of Iraq, then?"

Oh yeah, Saddam is an entirely legit leader - he was elected with 99.9% of the vote!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Legal mumbo-jumbo doesn't fool everyone as easily as you, I guess."

THE DEFINITION OF ASSASINATION IS LEGAL MUMBO-JUMBO!!!

I said Assasinations were outlawed, you point out several incidents that DID NOT meet the legal definition. How does this mean I was "FOOLED"?!?

Your debate style is, well, hard to get a handle of. It's a mix of non-sequitors, straw men and red herrings. In short: All fluff and no substance.


The "Legal mumbo-jumbo" is VERY important. As I mentioned, bombing a building is am INEFFECTIVE way to get a kill on a specific individual. A .308 bullet to the head is a VERY effective way to kill an individual. The fact that the president can ONLY use bombs means that's what he's going to use. If he COULD authorize covert sniper assasinations I'm CERTAIN he would.

Saying that the legal distinction between the two is insignificant shows that you don't understand the situation at all.

Please stop, it's obvious you don't understand, and won't, because you are either PLAYING dumb or truly are, either way I don't have the patience for it. Dan Z and others can follow along in a real discussion, so I have to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are simply trying to derail the debate instead of add anything of substance.

Oh, and just in case you all missed it, I'm sure Saddam was JUST ABOUT TO DECLARE this to the inspectors....

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,81935,00.html

"A senior pentagon official has confirmed to Fox News on Sunday that coalition forces have discovered a "huge" chemical weapons factory near the Iraqi city of An Najaf, which is situated some 225 miles south of Baghdad.

Coalition troops are also said to be holding the general in charge of the facility.

The Jerusalem Post ran a story earlier Sunday that was written by an journalist on-hand with the U.S. unit -- the 1st Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division - that took the plant.

The article states that one soldier was lightly wounded when a booby-trapped explosive was triggered as he was "clearing the sheet metal-lined chemical weapons production facility."

The chemical plant is described as a "100-acre complex," surrounded by an electrical fence. The plant was also apparently camouflaged to avoid aerial photos being taken."



So, for all you folks supporting MORE inspections, why hasn't this immense facility been found, inspected and destroyed??

In a country the size of CALIFORNIA (larger than CA, actually...) it's easy to hide a 100-ACRE complex if you want to.

I think in the next few weeks we'll see just how far away Saddam REALLY was from compliance with UN Resolution 1441...

I don't see much debate actually. You just insist, with whatever rock comes to hand, that even though Iraq was defeated decisively, we could not have ousted Saddam. And that the reason for this lies anywhere but with the commander in chief. It'd look like a massive goof except that he had to promise this to get Arab support -- it really wasn't an option, unfortunately. It might have helped things along over the last decade.

BTW, the Fox story also says "U.S. Central Command, which oversees the war in Iraq, said in a statement that troops were examining several "sites of interest," but said it was premature to call the Najaf site a chemical weapons factory." You know, the guy there is bad and who the hell said he wasn't? The real question the war is why did Bush botch the approach to it so badly, putting the US on the outs with so many people? Whatever the reason for that, it's done and it's too bad.