At 09:51 PM 1/12/2004 -0800 Doug Pensinger wrote:
>> Well, first of all, I disagree with your characterization of "95%."
>
>As well you should. The speech was 10,416 words, 197 of which concerned
>internal human rights violations. That's less than 2%, so I was way off.
>The rest delt almost exclusively with Hussain being a threat to the rest
>of the world.
*AND* of failing to comply with the resolutions of the UN Security Council.
Resolutions that were a precondition of the cease-fire that ended the first
Gulf War.
At any rate, the 2% doesn't count? The attempt to create the first Arab
democracy doesn't count - just because the case is so simple?
>> Lastly, what is so wrong with the Bush Administration saying that we
>> believe that we should invade Iraq for reasons A, B, C, D, E, and F.....
>> but we recognize that reason "D" is a bit complex/disputed, and that "D"
>> is the reason that skeptics would be most receptive to, and so we are
>> going to spend most of our time arguing for "D" as that is the reason
>> that will get
>> us the most votes?
>
>What's wrong with it is that the U.S. is a democratic republic meaning the
>government requires the consent of the government especially as it
>concerns sending our youth in to harms way and spending massive amounts of
>our money. The reason the people of this country consented to go to war
>against Iraq was because they were led to believe that that country posed
>an imminent threat to our security. What the Bush administration has done
>is a political bait and switch. With our money. With our kids.
>
>It makes no matter how many reasons, secret or otherwise there were. And
>it doesn't matter how many U.N. resolutions were violated _if our security
>was not threatened_ which it is quite obvious, it was not. If our
>security is not threatened then U.N. violations should be dealt with by
>the U.N.
Come again? What were thousands of our troops doing stationed in Saudi
Arabia if Iraq did not threaten our security?
At any rate, you are offering a lot of 20/20 hindsight here. I guess that
you are right that Bush should *not* have believed our intelligence
services, which were telling us that Saddam Hussein was hiding massive
biological, chemical, and possibly nuclear weapons programs - if only
becaue our intelligence services had already been proven disastrously wrong
in pre-war Iraq, India, Pakistan, and the DPRK over the previous ten
years..... indeed, they are almost a contrarian indicator at this point.
Nevertheless, unless you are arguing that Bush should have used US
intelligence as a contrarian indicator - then you *must* argue that Bush
must still have considered Iraq a threat to US security. Clinton had
ocntingency plans prepared for an invasion of Iraq, and certainly wasn't
about to pull our troops out of the Gulf. The entire Clinton
Administration also firmly believed that Saddam Hussein had these weapons.
Any rational person would also believe that Hussein would have few qualms
about selling these weapons to the highest bidders.
And if selling gallons of anthrax to the highest bidder isn't a threat to
our security, then I encourage you to come to Washington someday and open
my irradiated mail - thanks to an anthrax killer whom we still can't trace.
>I would agree that the President in his role as commander in chief should
>have the power to use deadly force w/o explicit consent in order to
>circumvent impending disaster, but he damn well be able to justify his
>actions. In this case none of your reasons, secret or otherwise meet
>these criteria AFAIC.
Of course, in this case, he had both a standing UN resolution an explicit
authorization from Congress.
>And lets look at those secret reasons: Your argument that U.S troops in
>Saudi Arabia fostered the recruitment of terrorists by Al Qaeda, but the
>invasion of a sovergn Moslem nation is a hundred times the incentive that
>troops in SA were and beyond that the number of Americans in Iraq not only
>provide incentive, they provide greater opportunity for terrorism. As far
>as protecting SA from Iraq, it's pretty clear that the Iraq of 2003 was a
>shadow of the Iraq that invaded Kuwait, and we managed to defend SA back
>then. So we could have solved that particular problem by removing troops
> from Saudi Arabia and perhaps posting them in Kuwait.
This is again 20/20 hindsight. Neither the Clinton Administration nor the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia agreed with you strategic assessment in August of
2000. Are you saying that Bush should have gone against Clinton's and
Saudi Arabia's assessments unilaterally?
Secondly, I also think that you are not thinking sufficiently long-term.
The Bush Administration did not hide their belief that they intended to use
a liberated Iraq as a catalyst for a democratic reshaping of the Middle
East. Did invading Iraq inspire some jihaids over the past two years?
Quite possibly. But 20 years from now will the US benefit from no longer
having troops in the Muslim Holy Land and from having Iraq liberated from
Saddam Hussein's oppression? I certainly think so. At the very least,
I would hope that you could see that reasonable people could disagree on
this point, and that the Bush Administration reasonably believed that this
would benefit Iraq - and that this justified a war.
I also think that you are also assuming that the jihadis think like you do.
The jihadis care little for the concept of "sovereignty" that you cited
in your "hundredfold reason." I do think, however, that 10 years from
now when there are no US troops in Saudi Arabia and little US presence in
Iraq, that the jihdi rage against us will certain fall below the levels
that recruited the 9/11 terrorists.
Plain and simple, the Bush Administation made it clear that they wanted to
remove Saddam Hussein for two key reasons:
1) It would make the world a better place for numerous reasons
and
2) They could not be sure of how he would dispose of his weapons and
weapons knowledge, especially since it was obvious he was trying to hide
something from UN inspectors.
And as such, the Bush Administration focused on the legal case revolving
around non-compliance with 12 years of UN Resolution in order to justify
the war that would accomplish 1 and 2 above.
JDG
_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
_______________________________________________
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