Another Iraqi war discussion

[Ziggurat]

That has not proved to be the case with terrorism. Every damaging attack on the US has come from an individual, or at the least, a group which was not specifically affiliated with a single nation.

There is only one significant terrorist attack on the US which can be thought of as a non-state sponsored, individual terrorist attack: the Oklahoma City bombing. And that wasn't Islamic terrorism. State sponsors like to keep some distance between their tools and themselves, but they have been and remain an integral part of Islamic terrorism. The Taliban's support of Al Qaeda was absolutely critical to the power that group had.

In my opinion, having a country that can be attacked makes them less dangerous, since we know who and where they are.

That speaks to risk, not capacity.

But even given that Saddam was a real bad guy who couldn't be trusted, the argument that "even weak states can launch dangerous attacks" is still hollow. Sure they can. All of them can. It doesn't follow that they will.

I never said that any such state would.

I cannot see that anyone here has given good evidence that Saddam was about to attack, not just that he could. That is the evidence we need in order to justify the invasion.

I don't think that is the standard we need to operate under, especially when we're talking about this issue being only one of several motivators. Because, quite frankly, if Saddam was about to launch such an attack, the chances of finding that out before the attack were quite slim.

 

[RandFan]

Certainly. The aim of the Iraq2 war was to topple Saddam Hussein and the entire Ba'athist regime, remember? D'oh. Excluding all Ba'athists from the new (imposed) government, disbanding the Iraqi army. All those aims accomplished -- those aims meant the destabilization of an entire region, the revolutionary destruction of an old regime in favour of a new one At the time (2003 and later), the project was also marked by a new and significant change in policy where bringing democracy to the Middle Eastwas made a paramount aim -- and Iraq was the first project (unless you want to claim Afghanistan too). You can see a discussion paper here; you can see some of President Bush's remarks on the subject here; you can see a long discussion here; Francis Fukuyama on the subject and again here too:

I'll defer to Tricky.

No, really? Truly amazing. Yet you are the one who claimed contrary to the facts and without evidence, just for example, that "Chavez does not permit free speech". Biased much, hmmm?

If you were intelectually honest you would have noted that I conceded my mistake. Also, if you were fair you would admit that what Chavez did was something that would simply not be tolerated in the West. But you are not likely to do that are you?

I think you need to:
1) read the news much more before you try debating it, and actually get some idea of what you're talking about first,
2) and to examine your woeful hypocrisy on this point.

Whatever Gurdur. What you "think" is of little consequence to anyone.