posted
Here's another reason why I think the invasion of Iraq was never really about WMD or about the post-invasion bring freedom and democracy to an oppressed people justification....
quote:Mr. Bush also took issue with Mr. Kerry's argument, in an interview at the end of May with The New York Times, that the Bush administration's focus on Iraq had given North Korea the opportunity to significantly expand its nuclear capability. Showing none of the alarm about the North's growing arsenal that he once voiced regularly about Iraq, he opened his palms and shrugged when an interviewer noted that new intelligence reports indicate that the North may now have the fuel to produce six or eight nuclear weapons.
He said that in North Korea's case, and in Iran's, he would not be rushed to set deadlines for the countries to disarm, despite his past declaration that he would not "tolerate" nuclear capability in either nation. He declined to define what he meant by "tolerate."
"I don't think you give timelines to dictators," Mr. Bush said, speaking of North Korea's president, Kim Jong Il, and Iran's mullahs. He said he would continue diplomatic pressure - using China to pressure the North and Europe to pressure Iran - and gave no hint that his patience was limited or that at some point he might consider pre-emptive military action.
"I'm confident that over time this will work - I certainly hope it does," he said of the diplomatic approach. Mr. Kerry argued in his interview that North Korea "'was a far more compelling threat in many ways, and it belonged at the top of the agenda," but Mr. Bush declined to compare it to Iraq, apart from arguing that Iraq had defied the world community for longer than the other members of what he once called "the axis of evil." Nor would he assess the risk that Pyongyang might sell nuclear material to terrorists, though his national security aides believe it may have sold raw uranium to Libya in recent years.
Yes, when presented with a question about the apparently very real nuclear capability of North Korea, a nation with
a brutal dictator and;
a horribly oppressed population;
the ever-engaged President of the United States just shrugs.
And says that he hopes diplomacy will work over time.
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
Well obviously the campaign in Iraq was not primarily for liberation or to stop weapons programs. It was more urgent to liberate North Korea, but they have a better military then Iraq, so there would have been more casulties initially including more civilian casulties if North Korea tried to attack Seoul with artillary. An attack on Seoul would be election losing for sure. There are ways to topple North Korea, though, other then military assault, which should have immediatly been implemented.
quote:Well obviously the campaign in Iraq was not primarily for liberation or to stop weapons programs.
Obvious?
Those seem to be two main justifications for the use of military force in Iraq.
Perhaps you could to tell us what you think the preemptive invasion was primarily for then?
And I'd be interested in seeing how your answer jibes with the way the Administration promoted the invasion.
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
"Perhaps you could to tell us what you think the premptive invasion was primarily for then?"
Saddam Hussein tried to kill his daddy.
I don't understand what you mean about jibing with the administration's promotion for the war. Are you asking for the reason for the war, or what they said was the reason for the war? 'Cause they're obviously not going to be the same thing.
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
I guess it was more of jab at just that sort of inconsistency.
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: Civillians were targeted yesterday when they were making the pilgrimage to the mosque in Najaf (sp?). Snipers fired on civillians with not a military (or even police) traget in sight- shooting several for no reason.
US forces were no where near the area (confirmed).
Not entirely sure how this is relevant to the incident you quoted in your previous post or that I commented on. No one's saying there aren't groups out there killing civilians deliberately. I just found it interesting how you were willing to condemn those who kill civilians while targeting US forces but not US forces who kill civilians (entirely accidentally) while trying to kill insurgents/terrorists.
-------------------- "I am an almost extinct breed, an old-fashioned gentleman, which means I can be a cast-iron son-of-a-bitch when it suits me." --Jubal Harshaw
Registered: Feb 2002
| IP: Logged
posted
(Like, Gulf War 2 = bad, you will get no argument fundamentally otherwise from me. I want to get that out of the way. Now then, maybe it is just me, but if a foreign head of state orders the assassination of our President (or even, in this case, a former President, as the alleged plot was hatched in 1993) it's an act of war. Now, I'm not making any claims about what actually happened, or what is justified or not justified as a result. ((Just because something is an "act of war" doesn't necessarily mean that war is the best response, for instance.)) It's just that, when that particular point is raised, it often seems to be used to prove that, see, it was just a private Bush family matter, none of the country's business, whereas it seems to me that it is. Or rather, would be, as there's some question over whether any plot actually existed. Anyway, Tim was just using it is a rhetorical jab, but this has sort of been on my mind ever since all this started, so, now it is out of my system.)
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: Civillians were targeted yesterday when they were making the pilgrimage to the mosque in Najaf (sp?). Snipers fired on civillians with not a military (or even police) traget in sight- shooting several for no reason.
US forces were no where near the area (confirmed).
Not entirely sure how this is relevant to the incident you quoted in your previous post or that I commented on. No one's saying there aren't groups out there killing civilians deliberately. I just found it interesting how you were willing to condemn those who kill civilians while targeting US forces but not US forces who kill civilians (entirely accidentally) while trying to kill insurgents/terrorists.
The US forces have gone out of their way to avoid civillian casualties wherever possible while the insurgents are far more indiscriminate. I cant see US forces sweeping gunfire through a croweded intersection to nail one target.
The diffrence is that while some civillians have been killed in batles between US forces and insurgents, the US forces are not going out there targeting civillians to cause fear: the insurgents are killing anyone who's death they feel furthers their cause.
Recently that's their own civillian countrymen...y'know, the ones they're supposedly thrying to "liberate" from the great western occupying forces?
This hole "insurgentcy" thing is becoming one big grab for power on Al Saudr's part. The line between his "forces" and the the remnants of Saddam's loyalists is becoming less distinct every day.
Small wonder the new government would consider raiding one of raq's most hold places just to nail him.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
quote: The diffrence is that while some civillians have been killed in batles between US forces and insurgents, the US forces are not going out there targeting civillians to cause fear: the insurgents are killing anyone who's death they feel furthers their cause.
Recently that's their own civillian countrymen...y'know, the ones they're supposedly thrying to "liberate" from the great western occupying forces?
Well yes but that's exactly the same thing all those other charming anti-imperialist movements used to do. You know, the ones the US was/is so very fond of. I don't like or support these people any more than anyone else. To be frank I wish they had that same belief in their invulnerability to bullets as the Mahdists in the Sudan did.
quote: The US forces have gone out of their way to avoid civillian casualties wherever possible while the insurgents are far more indiscriminate.
To be fair, the US forces have got slightly better at avoiding this sort of thing as the conflict has gone on, but in the early part of the war there were complaints from other Coalition armed forces about the lack of fire control demonstrated by the US armed forces on the ground.
What I object to is the branding of all those who oppose the Coalition/ the new Iraqi government as terrorists and the apparent use of this to justify any sort of behaviour toward them. We shouldn't sink to their level. All this posturing and bleating about how they're all going to be killed is unnecessary.
At least the US appears to be showing a slightly more responsible attitude towards Iraq than Afganistan. Unfortunately I don't think that'll last with the 'get out as soon as we can' attitude. If your're going to fight wars for 'regime change' (which is basically liberal imperialism) then the US needs to accept that it's going to cost time and money to effect that in a way that leads to long term stability.
-------------------- "I am an almost extinct breed, an old-fashioned gentleman, which means I can be a cast-iron son-of-a-bitch when it suits me." --Jubal Harshaw
Registered: Feb 2002
| IP: Logged
Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
Saddam's assassination plot (true or false), of course, was in response to the Gulf War, which was in response to his annexing Kuwait, which was in response to nothing in particular except maybe to the Kuwaitis draining Iraqi oilfields (true or false) and wouldn't have been much of a cause for alarm (true or false) ten years earlier, cf: Iran.
The Inevitable Moral: don't install dictators and don't appease them for two decades.
Registered: Nov 1999
| IP: Logged
"Now then, maybe it is just me, but if a foreign head of state orders the assassination of our President (or even, in this case, a former President, as the alleged plot was hatched in 1993) it's an act of war."
President, sure. But former president? How far does that go? Assassinating the sitting vice-president would be an act of war, but what if they assassinated Dan Quayle? And what if a foreign leader assassinated Alexander Haig? Is that an act of war?
I can understand drawing a line between current and former members of the government. But where is the line between former members and other former members?
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
That comes down kinda to popularity, I guess. If Carter got killed, then yeah, we'd be at war over it. Probably Al Gore even. I cant magine anyone trying to make a statement by whacking Quayle though, so I guess he's saved by his own ineffectivness.
A country just should'nt allow former leaders to become targets for revenge plots once they're out of office and security is not as tight.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
Printer-friendly view of this topic
