Gautam covered most points of your reply (and probably stated his case better than I would have stated mine), so I'll try not to duplicate and limit myself to just add any other additional comments I have.
Jeffrey Miller wrote: > > Too bad that there is no WMD research or acquisition > going on, I beg to differ. While there is no "smoking gun", there is plenty of supporting evidence such as Iraq's attempts to acquire restricted technologies like those aluminum rods, and testimony from some Iraq defectors. Also, if Iraq truly had no WMD research and was not trying to acquire them, why have they done everything in their power to thwart, block and delay the inspection process? Why did they throw the inspectors out? Why not let the inspectors freely interview their scientists if they have nothing to hide? Hans Blix himself has said they are not cooperating. Why not? If they were truthful it would only be to their benefit to cooperate. If Iraq had cooperated with the inspections from the beginning and had truly disarmed and ceased their attempts to acquire/develop WMD, the sanctions on Iraq would have been lifted long ago. Also, what about the anthrax? They ADMIT they had it. And now it's unaccounted-for. If they were developing anthrax back then, why should we think they had a change of heart and no longer have any desire to develop it now? > and that we're going to be hard-pressed to > set up a democracy there. We're going to be there > for far long than anyone seems willing to admit - > far more, in any case, than the 18-24 months that > most pessimistic commentators in the administration > seem to think. Possibly. I think the fate of post-war Iraq is a very valid concern. But regardless of how long it takes, I don't believe the US is going to profiteer from Iraq's oil (which I think was your original point). I believe that Iraq's oil sales will go towards rebuilding Iraq. > No, because a) disarmament is no more pressing an > issue on 9/12 than it was on 9/10 I think disarmament should have been a pressing issue on 9/10 or in 1998 or in 1995, or whenever Iraq started flouting the terms of their original agreement to end the war. But even so, imagine if Clinton or Bush Sr had wanted to back into Iraq in response to Iraq's breaching of the terms - do you think the UN would have backed it? Of course not, the UN was content to issue repeated toothless resolutions. Even now after 9/11 has proven terrorism is a far greater threat than anyone thought, the UN has no will to act without the US pushing it. Back then, it would have been far worse. > d) there's no proof of Iraqi involvement with AQ. FWIW, not proof, but at least evidence: http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/09/25/us.iraq.alqaeda/ CNN.com - Rice: Iraq trained al Qaeda in chemical weapons - Sep. 25, 2002 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101030217-421045,00.html TIME.com: What's Behind a Sinister Flirtation -- Feb. 17, 2003 > ..and look how long we procrastinated when there > was actual bloodshed on the ground, at how we ran at > the first sigh of blood -- and for that matter, what > about other humanitarian crisis' that have occured > or are occuring around the world? We're not > intervening there, are we? It's be nice if *someone* stepped in to put an end to every humanitarian crisis, but I don't think it has to be the US's job every time. In any case, I agree with Gautam's reasoning that if it's in their best interest *and* our best interest it's win/win. Just because it serves our interests doesn't negate the fact it will help them as well. > Yes, we /could/ have, however that was an untenable > position to have taken during the 95th hour of the > invasion. Read "Crusade" for a basic intro to these > issues. I haven't read "Crusade". Why was this untenable? What would have been the consequences that prevented us then that would no longer concern us now? >Yup, and its the same issue. Bush Sr himself said (before polls told him = >it was a dumb thing to say) that besides the obvious humanitarian/global = >stability issue of the Kuwait invasion by Iraq, we couldn't let them = >(with the then.. what, 4th? 5th largest standing army) display such = >aggression within sight of the world's main oil supply. I don't think it's necessarily that dumb a thing to say. I don't know the context, but at the beginning of the Kuwait invasion, no one was sure if Saddam intended to stop at Kuwait's border or had plans to conquer most of the middle east (which IIRC someone here said was a stated goal of Saddam's). Letting Iraq do that was not in the anyone's best interests (except Iraq's). > There are PLENTY of other issues at stake - that you > can only defend a war in Iraq by attacking one > platform of the peace movement isn't terribly > convincing. Well, two comments here: 1) My initial comments to your post were not intended as a general defense of the war in Iraq; they were intended as a direct response to your earlier comments, which I'll quote again here: >When we announce that a big part of our military plan is to seize and >control oil fields for the next 5-10 years, and to let the country >evolve its own leadership for the next 2-4 years, >when one of our strategic goals is the destabilization of Saudi Arabia, >when the only reason we care about these otherwise resource poor countries >is the oil fields.. how is that /not/ about oil at its very core? My comments were purely in reply to this argument, not a broad general attack on the peace movement. 2) I wasn't even really trying to defend the war (although that was the net effect). I'm only lukewarm on the war and would much rather see Iraq begin real cooperation (almost impossibly unlikely) or see Saddam scared by the threat of war into voluntarily stepping down to save himself (also unfortunately unlikely it seems). >School - that's telling. Youth always rebels :) Saddly, it was more than youthful rebellion in one case. During the Desert Shield phase, some guy walked into the town park in Amherst (the town where my school was), and set himself on fire, leaving behind a small note protesting the coming war. What a waste of life. > Except that we DIDN'T. We've had at least one > military engagement with Iraq - air-to-air, radar > sites bombed, cruise missile attacks, etc - every > week since the end of the GW, not to mention > maintaining the no-fly-zones, the bases in Saudi > Arabia (you know, the ones that has Osama's beard > all twisted up), and our Coast Guard and Navy > running random interdiction efforts against all > Persian Gulf naval traffic. As Gautam said, how is this evidence the US didn't keep its word about its intentions in Iraq? Is Saddam still in power? Yes. That's what I meant by "got out". The US said it did not intend to annex Iraq, and it didn't. We did not occupy Iraq or take its oil fields for our own, which was my point. As far as the US having military engagements in Iraq - that's because they keep shooting at us. At the end of the gulf war, Iraq agreed to terms that put restrictions on them and allowed the US to enforce those restrictions. Should the US just have said "oh well, Iraq won't cooperate with our agreement, we'll just go home and let the do what they please". _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
