Rumsfeld 'led Bush to war'?

[Ion]

Ziggy, that's too naive for my intellect:

Ah yes, now we enter the personal attack phase, because you have no answer to the fundamental challenge I posed. You still present no workable plan to ensure that Saddam never aquired nukes.
...

Did Hussein ever acquired?

So U.N. worked.

...
Hussein was not going to remain contained by the UN. France, Russia, and China were all opposed to the sanctions, and illegal smuggling through Syria was making them a joke anyways. The inspectors only worked as far as the Iraqi's were willing to cooperate - which they only did with the US army parked next door (something we could not sustain indefinitely). Saddam never took UN threats of "serious consequences" seriously at all - and why should he, when three of the five security council permanent members showed no intention of backing up that threat? The UN was not going to keep him contained, and showed little interest in doing so.
...

The U.N. contained Hussein in:

1.) no WMDs;

2.) 3 civilians killed per day for 10 years, much less than 60 civilians killed per day by Bush in one and a half years.

...
Back to the Saddam appologist mode, I see. If you want to tally lives, why do you drop the 350,000 Iraqis and 300,000 Iranians killed in the Iran-Iraq war? Or does that not count because it's muslim-on-muslim violence?

Bush is an ass, but you've got your head on completely backwards if you see him as a greater evil than Saddam. Come back when you clue in to reality. Come back when you actually know something about how the Baathist ideology worked. Come back when you understand the kind of person Saddam was, and what his hopes for the region really were. Until then, you contribute nothing to this debate but empty rhetoric.

.) The war between Iran and Iraq was in 1980, ain't that so?

.) U.N. contained Hussein since 1992, ain't that so?

Containment like in:

1.) no WMDs;

2.) 3 civilians killed per day for 10 years, much less than 60 civilians killed per day by Bush in one and a halh years.

So the U.N. containment of Hussein worked since 1992 at least better than the non-containment of Bush, ain't that so?

.) Looks like Bush is now the number one evil worldwide, ain't that so?

Because what I do read in today's The San Diego Union Tribune, is:

"Five consortia led by U.S. banks and one British bank are finalists to manage the new Trade Bank of Iraq, a lucrative job rebuilding Iraq's financial system. The consortia are led by Bank of America, Bank One, Citigroup, J.P. Morgan, Chase & Co. and Wachovia..."

See now?

The evil who kills 60 civilians per day to 'liberate' Iraq, has a special-interests plan for skinning Iraq, at work here.

 

[Earthborn]

Then come back and explain why exactly you think the program he had in place prior to gulf war 1 wasn't an active program.

Hey, I have absolutely no problem admitting that the program he had prior to Gulf War 1 was an active program. The issue for me is, whether it still was an active program at the start of 2003. Seems to me like it wasn't.

Then you're hopelessly naive. What, for example, would you call someone who enjoys torturing others?

I would call someone like that 'someone who thinks it is great fun to torture people'. And I profoundly disagree with that. I feel no need to assign vaguely defined metaphysical concepts such as 'evil' to such a person. Rather I would assume that this person has some sort of neurological damage, making such a person very dangerous.

Hope is not a plan. That's simply not good enough when it comes to nuclear weapons.

I meant that I hope, for your sake, that someone will find this 'technology' and these 'raw materials', showing that this war was good for something. If I were you, I wouldn't be so hopeful...

If you think the IAEA reports are just propaganda, then you really are a Saddam appologist.

Well, I apperently am not. I skimmed through it and it looks well researched and balanced. It also looks to me like Iraq was cooperating, reluctantly, sometimes ending cooperation to start it again a few months later. It looks to me like the IAEA had a pretty good idea what Iraq was up to with nuclear weapons and apperently Iraq could not maintain its nuclear weapons program with all these inspections going on. Some machines were discovered, some things were found to be suspect.

No active, functional nuclear weapons program was found in operation during these inspections! Now that the Iraqi regime is gone, such a thing is still not found. Maybe it didn't exist after 1991...

Because he's wreckless, he doesn't understand us, and he didn't think we'd try and stop him.

I can't see how Saddam could be mistaken for being wreckless. And I don't see why he should have expected the US to try to stop him in 1991.

I would guess five to ten years.

Basically from scratch under the scrutiny of the world? I thought you said it was difficult.

What, then, could we use as a criterion for action that would ensure he never got a nuclear weapon?

When the IAEA finds a factory actually capable of producing weapons, but just before it is in operation. Should be doable with satelites, aerial photography or inspections that are going in with a bit of threat.

A single bomb on that factory should do the trick. Human rights inspectors and lifting of sanctions shouldhelp the population.

Don't bother responding until you've got an answer.

There, you have what you asked for. I don't claim that it is the only or the best answer. IAEA or UN inspectors might have better ideas.

They only resumed because of the credible threat of US force. We could not maintain that threat indefinitely, because it required having much of our army stationed in the gulf.

So are you saying that the attack on Iraq was done because the US could not maintain that threat indefinitely and had to do something. Anything.

And if we assume you are right, could the US force have waited just a little longer to let poor old Blix (who was slowed down by lousy US intelligence) finish his job?

The UN had no intention of authorizing force (certainly not Russia or China, and not likely France either), and Saddam knew that.

Unless something was actually found.

And the thought of Saddam with a nuclear weapon is a terrible thing indeed.

Bush, with his famous diplomacy and his obvious respect for human life (he sleeps very well) with a nuclear weapon worries me a bit too.

And those people who think it is a good idea to develop smaller, more tactical nuclear weapons scare the bejesus out of me.

The anti-war side never had a credible alternative to make sure that never happened.

The credible alternative was in operation and seemed to be working (although not perfectly in part because of the US).

My point was that the poster's disbelief in the existence of evil (but only in stupid and ignorant people) was completely inadequate to comprehend the true horrors that some people commit.

This sound to me a bit like ID proponents claiming that something is so complex, it cannot be understood without assuming an 'intelligent designer'. I see no reason to assume some metaphysical stuff for either.

Perhaps though you have a compatabilist idea of what 'evil' means, and that it can include neurological damage or extreme environmental situations (like being the absolute ruler over a country) making people dangerous to others.

 

[Ziggurat]

Did Hussein ever acquired?

So U.N. worked.

Are you not paying attention? Did you not read my posts describing why that containment was failing? Past tense does not equal future tense. You have no argument for why the UN could be expected to continue to contain him. All you have to offer is wishful thinking. Hope is not a plan.

The war between Iran and Iraq was in 1980, ain't that so?

Oh, then Saddam is forgiven, is that the idea? He's cured of his agression, he's reformed his ways, he'll never attack another neighbor again as long as he lives, cross his heart and hope to die. Just that once with Kuwait, but it won't happen again, he promises. So why won't I just leave the poor, innocent little dictator alone?

Looks like Bush is now the number one evil worldwide, ain't that so?

No, it ain't so. He's a right bastard, never said he wasn't. But you're blind to the true evil in the world if you think Bush is even near the top of the list. There are people out there who want to completely destroy the western world, who WANT to return the world to the middle ages, and who will commit any attrocity imaginable to try to bring that about. And yet Bush's crony capitalism is somehow the greatest threat to civilization that you've ever seen. Hell, even for run of the mill corruption it's not hard to beat Bush.

Hey, I hear there's a thread going on where someone was trying to defend Kim Jong Il. Maybe you want to jump over there and say how much worse Bush is than him too.

 

[Ziggurat]

Hey, I have absolutely no problem admitting that the program he had prior to Gulf War 1 was an active program. The issue for me is, whether it still was an active program at the start of 2003. Seems to me like it wasn't.

That's a reasonable conclusion. But it's not reasonable to conclude from that that Saddam wouldn't restart it in the future. He was clearly not complying with UN mandates, and there's no reason to think he wasn't just waiting till he thought the time was right.

Well, I apperently am not. I skimmed through it and it looks well researched and balanced. It also looks to me like Iraq was cooperating, reluctantly, sometimes ending cooperation to start it again a few months later.

That last sentence is part of the key to the situation. He was continually testing the UN, seeing how far he could push them. And he could push them pretty far without France, Russia or China ever calling for the use of force. He only allowed inspectors back in because of the credible threat of US intervention. Here's what he probably thought was going to happen: he'd let them back in for a while (still without complete cooperation), let the French and Russians hold us back in the UN, wait for us to withdraw our troops (which we could not keep there indefinitely), then stop cooperating completely. Lather, rinse, repeat. He could count on the French, Russians, and Chinese to oppose military action as long as he backed down a little bit each time we moved into position. But we couldn't keep moving into position, and he knew that. So he thought by jerking our chain he could wear us out, and eventually he'd have freedom to act again. He just didn't realize we'd act now, because he doesn't really understand the west. Again, the issue is not what programs he currently had in place, the issue was what he would do in the future. And I think Iraq's continued non-compliance is a clear indication that they were looking for a way around the inspections, and I have no reason to think they wouldn't have achieved that.

A single bomb on that factory should do the trick.

What makes you think we'd know what factory to hit? The inspectors were oblivious to the weapons developments going on at Al-Tuwaitha before gulf war 1, they cannot be relied upon in the future to discover clandestine programs.

Human rights inspectors and lifting of sanctions should help the population.

But the sanctions were one of the few things slowing him down. Lifting them would make it easier to make nuclear weapons. Now we face another dilemma: it's bad for the Iraqi populous to keep the sanctions in place, but they're necessary if you have ANY hopes of containment (and even then not much, with the amount of smuggling going on through Syria). But if we invade now, we can lift the sanctions. As for human rights inspectors, that's not a credible idea. The few arms inspectors had a hard enough time, and they never did get full compliance. What credible threat would you back up human rights inspectors with? Why would Russia and China, for example, be at all interested in backing up human rights inspectors with any kind of muscle? The head of the UN human rights commission is (or was) Lybia, for crying out loud, the UN has no serious interest in enforcing human rights with force.

So are you saying that the attack on Iraq was done because the US could not maintain that threat indefinitely and had to do something. Anything.

Not anything, but something. And Iraq five years from now is going to be a much better place than it would be five years from now if we just decided to continue a waiting game with Saddam. Certainly there have been missteps along the way, and we face a learning curve regarding the occupation. But I think we were justified, and Iraq will be better off in the long term because of it.

And if we assume you are right, could the US force have waited just a little longer to let poor old Blix (who was slowed down by lousy US intelligence) finish his job?

What good would that have done? If Blix didn't find anything, we still would face the problem that Saddam was looking for a way to restart his nuke program. If we needed to invade, it's better to get it over with.

Bush, with his famous diplomacy and his obvious respect for human life (he sleeps very well) with a nuclear weapon worries me a bit too.

Hey, you'll get no argument from me that Bush is an ass, and I'm certainly not going to vote for him in '04. I'm quite upset about many of the specifics of how he went about the leadup to this war, and have criticised his misuse of intelligence in other threads on this board. And as I've said elsewhere, his motives for going to war may be very different from my motives to support it. But that doesn't change the fact that I think invading Iraq was the only realistic way of ensuring Saddam never got a nuke. And that was an imperative.

And those people who think it is a good idea to develop smaller, more tactical nuclear weapons scare the bejesus out of me.

I'll agree with that as well. Luckily I don't think it's just up to Bush, hopefully congress won't sign off on that. I'm not a Bush supporter, but I think a lot of people on the left were unnecessarily hostile to this war because they conflated support for it with support for Bush. But the two are not the same.

Perhaps though you have a compatabilist idea of what 'evil' means, and that it can include neurological damage or extreme environmental situations (like being the absolute ruler over a country) making people dangerous to others.

It's not really a religious notion of evil that I'm talking about. But ignorance, stupidity, and dangerousness are inadequate descriptions. You cannot educate this sort of pathology out of some people, you cannot treat it with therapy, it goes much deeper than that, and it can be virulent. If you want a non-religious term, maybe something along the lines of malignant sociopathy, but that's still not quite enough to describe the violent depravity people like Saddam and his sons.

 

[Ion]

Are you not paying attention? Did you not read my posts describing why that containment was failing? Past tense does not equal future tense. You have no argument for why the UN could be expected to continue to contain him. All you have to offer is wishful thinking. Hope is not a plan.
...

U.N. contained WMDs in Iraq, and contained the Hussein's rate of killings (relative to the higher rate of Bush's killings).

Works for me.

...
Oh, then Saddam is forgiven, is that the idea? He's cured of his agression, he's reformed his ways, he'll never attack another neighbor again as long as he lives, cross his heart and hope to die. Just that once with Kuwait, but it won't happen again, he promises. So why won't I just leave the poor, innocent little dictator alone?
...

He was contained by U.N..

Works for me.

As opposed to Bush now.

Bush is not contained by anybody.

...
No, it ain't so. He's a right bastard, never said he wasn't. But you're blind to the true evil in the world if you think Bush is even near the top of the list. There are people out there who want to completely destroy the western world, who WANT to return the world to the middle ages, and who will commit any attrocity imaginable to try to bring that about. And yet Bush's crony capitalism is somehow the greatest threat to civilization that you've ever seen. Hell, even for run of the mill corruption it's not hard to beat Bush.

Hey, I hear there's a thread going on where someone was trying to defend Kim Jong Il. Maybe you want to jump over there and say how much worse Bush is than him too.

It is obvious that:

"There are people out there who want to completely destroy the western world, who WANT to return the world to the middle ages, and who will commit any atrocity imaginable to try to bring that about."

The thing is to placate that under U.N., ensuring that a wacko like Bush doesn't break the democratic process and doesn't degrade Iraqi civilians for his special-interest agenda.

The cause of dealing with these people -including with Hussein- was hijacked by the wrong politician who kills civilians and breaks the democracy in order to achieve special-interests.

To use an anology, in order to cure a sick person (here, Hussein), one is not bringing in another sick person to do the treatment (here, Bush), but one brings a doctor (here, U.N.).

 

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by Ion
The thing is to placate that under U.N., ensuring that a wacko like Bush doesn't break the democratic process and doesn't degrade Iraqi civilians for his special-interest agenda.

What, are you calling the UN a democratic process? It's a dictator's club. Most members are not themselves functioning democracies, how can you possibly consider the UN as a whole to be democratic? That's almost like that supremely ironic quote from the head of the Arab league (which doesn't really have any true democracies as members) saying that the interim Iraqi leadership council doesn't have moral authority because it wasn't democratically elected.

To use an anology, in order to cure a sick person (here, Hussein), one is not bringing in another sick person to do the treatment (here, Bush), but one brings a doctor (here, U.N.).

The UN was impotent to do anything about Hussein, because it was unwilling to use military force to make him comply. He thumbed his nose at them for over a decade with his non-compliance, and they did nothing substantive about it except pass more resolutions. What makes you think the UN could have solved the problem? Sure, it would have been wondeful if the UN stepped up to the plate and handled the situation, but that wasn't happening, and France, Russia, and China made clear that they weren't going to let that happen. So if the UN is a doctor, it's a quack.

 

[Ion]

What, are you calling the UN a democratic process? It's a dictator's club. Most members are not themselves functioning democracies, how can you possibly consider the UN as a whole to be democratic? That's almost like that supremely ironic quote from the head of the Arab league (which doesn't really have any true democracies as members) saying that the interim Iraqi leadership council doesn't have moral authority because it wasn't democratically elected.
...

It's a democratic process because it has the U.N. Chart overseeing the international community.

If something doesn't work, then the channel to make it working is thru U.N..

Clearly, Bush is undemocratic to lie, get out of the U.N. and kill.

...
The UN was impotent to do anything about Hussein, because it was unwilling to use military force to make him comply. He thumbed his nose at them for over a decade with his non-compliance, and they did nothing substantive about it except pass more resolutions. What makes you think the UN could have solved the problem? Sure, it would have been wondeful if the UN stepped up to the plate and handled the situation, but that wasn't happening, and France, Russia, and China made clear that they weren't going to let that happen. So if the UN is a doctor, it's a quack.

Well, it is in this quack that U.S. has to invest money and effort in order to improve the international community, rather than break with it, lie and kill like Bush did in a solo pointless to the world war.

Bush with 60 civilians per day killed since September 11, is more of a quack than Hussein, who is himself more of a quack than U.N..

U.N. is the way to work internationally, and there is no other way to work internationally, so if not happy, then improve U.N..

 

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by Ion
It's a democratic process because it has the U.N. Chart overseeing the international community.

You ignored my point completely. How can the UN be a democratic process when most of the member states are not democracies? Or is it democratic in the sense that every dictator gets a vote?

If something doesn't work, then the channel to make it working is thru U.N..

It would be nice if things worked that way. But the UN was not going to do anything substantive about Iraq. Are you suggesting that France and Russia actually would have authorized the use of force? Not a chance, and they made that clear. And Saddam was counting on that.

Well, it is in this quack that U.S. has to invest money and effort in order to improve the international community, rather than break with it, lie and kill like Bush did in a solo pointless to the world war.

It wasn't a pointless war. You STILL haven't advanced any alternative that was guaranteed to prevent Saddam from getting nuclear weapons. That was the point. And the whole world benefits greatly from that, even if only a few countries had the backbone to step forward and act.

U.N. is the way to work internationally, and there is no other way to work internationally, so if not happy, then improve U.N.

I'm all for improving the UN. But it has inherent limits, one of the most important being most of its member states are not democracies. And if the UN does not take effective action (which it was not doing, and had not been doing for the past decade, on Iraq), then I don't see why we need to risk the wait in the hope that maybe they'll improve. Hope is not a plan.

The UN has a terrible record when it comes to trying to enforce its will by force. The worst masacre in the Bosnia-Hercegovina conflict happened in UN-protected so-called "safe area":

http://www.hrw.org/summaries/s.bosnia9510.html

"The fall of the town of Srebrenica and its environs to Bosnian Serb forces in early July 1995 made a mockery of the international community’s professed commitment to safeguard regions it declared to be “safe areas” and placed under United Nations protection in 1993. United Nations peacekeeping officials were unwilling to heed requests for support from their own forces stationed within the enclave, thus allowing Bosnian Serb forces to easily overrun it and—without interference from U.N. soldiers—to carry out systematic, mass executions of hundreds, possibly thousands, of civilian men and boys and to terrorize, rape, beat, execute, rob and otherwise abuse civilians being deported from the area."

Do not look to the UN to protect you. They are impotent.

 

[Ion]

I overlooked your post because it is fundamentally wrong:

Sweden for example doesn't have problems with U.N., but lying and killing Bush has grave problems with U.N..

"But it has inherent limits..." shouldn't even be uttered by somebody coming from the country of belligerent Bush:

when one comes from Bush's country, one looks at U.N. as a step up to what the Bush's country does.

In U.N. not every dictator gets a vote, the Security Council gets to vote on grave measures like war.

As for France and Russia from the Security Council not authorizing the use of force until all diplomatic options were exhausted, that's how it should have been followed by Bush too if he was an honest leader.

It works well in Lybia.

 

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by Ion
In U.N. not every dictator gets a vote, the Security Council gets to vote on grave measures like war.

Oh yes, Russia and China aren't exactly dictatorships. But they aren't really functioning democracies either, particularly China.

As for France and Russia from the Security Council not authorizing the use of force until all diplomatic options were exhausted, that's how it should have been followed by Bush too.

All diplomatic options were exhausted a long time ago - more than a decade of diplomacy, and Iraq still did not comply with UN security council demands. But the security council didn't have the will to back up its own demands. Do you think dimplomacy is what got inspectors back into Iraq? Do you think it was the threat of UN action that got Saddam to back down a little bit? How long were you willing to let the cat and mouse game continue before you concede that diplomacy wasn't working? Why do you think Saddam would ever yield to mere diplomacy?

You're blinded by your own hatred of Bush. You place your faith in an ineffective collection of politicians without the willpower to back up their own promises (need I remind you again of their failure to maintain security in promised safe areas in Yugoslavia?), and condemn the removal of a bloodthirsty tyrant from power because you don't like the man who made the decision to take him out. That's really all it comes down to. But that's not good enough.

 

[Ion]

...
All diplomatic options were exhausted a long time ago - more than a decade of diplomacy, and Iraq still did not comply with UN security council demands.
...

Bush's U.S. didn't comply with the U.N. Security Council either, when Bush went to war in Iraq.

So Bush's U.S. can not invoke in the Iraq's war the reason of abiding by U.N..

Diplomatic options were not exhausted:

.) since 1992, Hussein killed less than Bush does in one year and a half;

.) in 2003, Hussein doesn't have WMDs anylonger.

So the U.N. diplomatic options do work pretty good.

 

[Ziggurat]

Diplomatic options were not exhausted:

.) Hussein killed less than Bush;

Now you're lying. Saddam killed 350,000 iraqi's and 300,000 Iranians in the Iran-Iraq war. He sent thousand more of his soldiers to die in the invasion of Kuwait - did you count them too? Did you count the 30,000 Shia's he killed in his brutal suppression of southern Iraq in 1991? Did you count the 180,000 Kurds he killed during the 80's, or the thousands more he would have killed without American-enforced no-fly zones? He was a continuing threat to his neighbors and his own people. And all you can do is rationalize his tyranny, and try to count up bodies in as skewed a manner as possible so this bloodthirsty dictator looks better than a democratically elected head of state. You're a Saddam appologist, you have no credibility to any kind of moral high ground.

.) Hussein didn't have WMDs anylonger.

So the U.N. diplomatic options work.

Then why did Saddam never fully comply with UN resolutions? You never answered that. You have no answer for that. And you STILL have no argument for how to prevent Saddam from getting nuclear weapons in the future.

If you cannot provide an argument beyond "Bush was worse" and "the UN is the final arbiter" then I have nothing else to say to you.

 

[Earthborn]

But it's not reasonable to conclude from that that Saddam wouldn't restart it in the future.

This is pure speculation. He might or might not continue his nuclear program. Both or equally reasonable. Is it okay to kill almost 8000 innocent civilians based on such speculation?

He was continually testing the UN, seeing how far he could push them.

As should have been expected. The US is constantly testing the UN as well, it can just get away with more.

Here's what he probably thought was going to happen: he'd let them back in for a while (still without complete cooperation), let the French and Russians hold us back in the UN, wait for us to withdraw our troops (which we could not keep there indefinitely), then stop cooperating completely.

Or maybe he didn't have a clue what was going to happen, and just tried what he could to prevent a US invasion. Sounds more likely to me.

So he thought by jerking our chain he could wear us out, and eventually he'd have freedom to act again.

That could be what he was hoping for, but I would imagine that he must have realised that it wasn't realistic hope.

He just didn't realize we'd act now, because he doesn't really understand the west.

Invading a country without provocation, out of fear of some sort of weapons. Western governments supporting the US on what was clearly propaganda. I don't understand the west either. Does the 'west' understand itself?

Again, the issue is not what programs he currently had in place, the issue was what he would do in the future.

So what was he going to do in the future, oh great oracle?

What makes you think we'd know what factory to hit? The inspectors were oblivious to the weapons developments going on at Al-Tuwaitha before gulf war 1, they cannot be relied upon in the future to discover clandestine programs.

Well, since then technology has improved quite a bit, so I imagine it is now easier to recognize a nuclear weapons factory than ever before. And if you can't recognize it in any way, you can always count on the fact that nuclear devices need to be tested too. Should be pretty obvious by then.

What credible threat would you back up human rights inspectors with?

Perhaps no threat at all, but rewards when a country is complying.

I could imagine a future in which the power in the UN depends on country's ability to honour human rights. Every country gets inspections, and those countries that follow the Universal Declaration of Human Rights most closely will get a bigger vote in the security council. And which country doesn't want to have a big say in world affairs?

The permanent members of the security council will likely be The Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland. The US with its death penalty and backwards social program will be somewhere between China and Russia. Civilocracy.
'They say I am a dreamer...'

And Iraq five years from now is going to be a much better place than it would be five years from now if we just decided to continue a waiting game with Saddam.

Don't set your hopes up too high. It took decades with Japan, and that is the most ethnically homogenous country in the world, had people already interested in America and who knew they were uttery defeated so had no choice anyway. Reforming Iraq may prove to be a bit more complex than that.

What good would that have done? If Blix didn't find anything, we still would face the problem that Saddam was looking for a way to restart his nuke program.

So the war was started because Blix wasn't going to find anything? Funny, I remember that it started because there was already no doubt there was something there and no time could be wasted.

It is always remarkable how quickly justifications for something can change.

But that doesn't change the fact that I think invading Iraq was the only realistic way of ensuring Saddam never got a nuke.

But he doesn't appear to have tried to get one anymore. Perhaps without an invasion, we could not be absolutely certain he wasn't going to get one. But since he didn't have an active nuclear program, it seems a reasonably safe bet he wasn't going to get one either. Is it worth cluster bombing children to get that little bit more certainty?

If you want a non-religious term, maybe something along the lines of malignant sociopathy, but that's still not quite enough to describe the violent depravity people like Saddam and his sons.

How about a really lousy childhood and far too much power for a human being to handle?

Most members are not themselves functioning democracies, how can you possibly consider the UN as a whole to be democratic?

It is true, the UN is not democratic. It doesn't have to be. It is a council of diplomats. The diplomats are selected for their diplomacy: the ability to suck up to other nations. They are not selected for their popularity with the people, and I'm am glad they aren't. Just imagine what the UN would be like if we voted for its officials and we get people like George ('bringing to justice' equals 'killing') Bush, Silvio ('I am above the law') Berlusconi or Ariel ('I ain't gonna sign no stinkin' peace treaty') Sharon to represent our nations. The world would not be a better place.

 

[Ion]

Now you're lying. Saddam killed 350,000 iraqi's and 300,000 Iranians in the Iran-Iraq war.

You are lying:

I posted repeatedly that the war between Iraq and Iran was in 1980, and that U.N. contains Hussein since 1992 with good results.

See my calculation of how much Hussein kills since 1992 against Bush since 2001.

It is in this thread, earlier, for you to read before posting lunacies:

Hussein kills 3 per day;

Bush kills 60 per day.

 

[Ion]

...
Then why did Saddam never fully comply with UN resolutions?
...

Hussein never fully complied with U.N. resolutions, just so that you Ziggy ask about it.

But, Bush, who according to my calculation earlier in this thread kills 60 per day since September 11, doesn't comply with the U.N. Chart in order to aggress Iraq, now that's awesome Ziggy, don't you think?

 

[Ziggurat]

This is pure speculation. He might or might not continue his nuclear program. Both or equally reasonable.

No, only one is reasonable. We MUST assume that he would build nukes if able to. The consequences for thinking he would build a nuke and being wrong do not compare to the consequences of thinking he wouldn't build one and being wrong. And the evidence clearly points to him hoping to restart his program. How else to explain the fact that Iraq consistently refused to hand over all the documents on its nuclear weapons program? And remember the parts hidden under a rose bush? They may not have been much, but they were hidden specifically for the purpose of restarting the nuclear weapons program at some point in the future.

Is it okay to kill almost 8000 innocent civilians based on such speculation?

Stacked up against potentially millions, yes. I refuse to be paralyzed from acting against violent dictators out of fear of bloodying my own hands. The alternative (sanctions and inspections) wasn't working, and was probably killing even more civilians because Saddam gladly starved his own people.

Or maybe he didn't have a clue what was going to happen, and just tried what he could to prevent a US invasion. Sounds more likely to me.

There's plenty of things he could have done to stop an invasion, but chose not to do. Specific demands the UN made of him. For example, the UN weapons inspectors wanted to be able to remove Iraqi scientists AND their families from Iraq, so that they could be questioned without threat of reprisal. Saddam never let that happen, and mostly didn't even let them be quesioned without minders. Consequently, scientists were not free to answer questions honestly - they knew if they squeeled, he'd kill them and their families. Doesn't sound like a man who's trying to fully cooperate.

That could be what he was hoping for, but I would imagine that he must have realised that it wasn't realistic hope.

Saddam has little concept of how an open democracy works. But the French, Russian, and Chinese opposition to the use of force gave him plenty of hope that he could keep yanking our chain.

So what was he going to do in the future, oh great oracle?

Build a nuclear weapon. Use it for cover to continue aggression against his neighbors. Keep us from interfering while he wiped out the Kurds. This isn't rocket science, and I've already said this before. This is all stuff he was engaged in prior to his defeat in gulf war 1, it's not a secret. He was not a changed man.

Well, since then technology has improved quite a bit, so I imagine it is now easier to recognize a nuclear weapons factory than ever before.

Quite the reverse. It's getting easier to conceal a weapons factory.

And if you can't recognize it in any way, you can always count on the fact that nuclear devices need to be tested too. Should be pretty obvious by then.

Yes. Obviously too late. That means they already have one.

Perhaps no threat at all, but rewards when a country is complying.

What sort of rewards could you possibly offer a man like Saddam? He had plenty of money. He didn't care if his people were starving. What he wanted was domination over the middle east. Are you willing to offer him that? Because just like with Hitler, there is no point at which he will be satisfied. You cannot buy off a man like Saddam, and attempts to do so only strengthen his position.

I could imagine a future in which the power in the UN depends on country's ability to honour human rights. Every country gets inspections, and those countries that follow the Universal Declaration of Human Rights most closely will get a bigger vote in the security council. And which country doesn't want to have a big say in world affairs?

That would be a nice future indeed. But Saddam had no interest in being a part of such a world. There is nothing you can offer him to get him to join. And this kind of scheme is completely unworkable for any country that does not participate willingly.

Don't set your hopes up too high. It took decades with Japan,

Japan prior to WWII was in much better shape than Iraq. We won't be done with Iraq in five years, but things will certainly have improved from what they were like under Saddam.

So the war was started because Blix wasn't going to find anything? Funny, I remember that it started because there was already no doubt there was something there and no time could be wasted.

Ah, now we get to the distinction between why Bush claimed we needed to go to war and why I supported the war. The two are not the same, and Bush can and should be criticised for the specifics of the case he made. But the mistakes he made do nothing to counter the argument I have outlined. I don't need to agree with Bush to support the invasion. I don't toe his party line, I don't expect others to, but I do expect people to consider what the consequences of not invading actually were.

Blix wasn't going to find anything, regardless of what was there, because the Iraqi's were not cooperating. That non-cooperation was a more fundamental problem - it didn't tell us what Saddam was doing at the moment, but it was a clear indication that in the long term, Saddam had no intention of abiding by his promises not to restart his nuclear weapons program.

But he doesn't appear to have tried to get one anymore. Perhaps without an invasion, we could not be absolutely certain he wasn't going to get one. But since he didn't have an active nuclear program, it seems a reasonably safe bet he wasn't going to get one either.

No, it's not safe at all to bet that he wouldn't get one in the future. Do you think he was a changed man? Do you think his defeat in gulf war 1 reformed him from his blood-thirsty, power-hungry ways? Not in the least. He always viewed the fact that we didn't kick him out as a sign of weakness. All he was doing was biding his time, waiting until it was safe to restart his nuclear weapons program. That's the safe bet, and that's the one backed up by the evidence.

Is it worth cluster bombing children to get that little bit more certainty?

We're not getting a little more certainty. We're getting absolute certainty that Saddam will never get a nuclear weapon versus almost no certainty. That's worth risking a lot. And we took great pains to limit civilian casualties. Considering the scale of the invasion and the fact that the Fedayeen tried to wage a guerilla war, we did a pretty damn good job, too. Not perfect, of course, but there was no way of doing this perfectly. And considering the daily attrocities Saddam committed against his own people, including letting them starve while he and his cohorts lived the high life and sent money to encourage Palestinians to blow themselves up, I think long-term the Iraqi's themselves are going to end up better off for this invasion as well. And if a little blood is on our hands rather than a lot of blood on Saddam's hands, well, that will have to be OK.

 

[Tricky]

Ziggy, you just can't invade countries base on what you think they might do, else you would be invading half the countries in the world. You have to catch them doing it. For us to act otherwise makes us as bad as them. That is not a goal to which I aspire.

Now what do you think of a country that:

• Definately has nuclear weapons
• Sells (or gives) nuclear weapons to other countries
• Has used nuclear weapons in the past
• Has the capability of producing biochemical toxins.
• Has invaded other countries
• Has killed many innocent civilians trying to get to a much smaller number of suspected enemies
• Supports removing freedoms from his people for "security purposes"
• Has a leader who believes he is guided by God

Does that sound to you like a prime target for invasion?

 

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by Tricky
Ziggy, you just can't invade countries base on what you think they might do, else you would be invading half the countries in the world. You have to catch them doing it. For us to act otherwise makes us as bad as them. That is not a goal to which I aspire.

It's not what we think he would do, it's what we know for certain he was going to try to do. I can't see how anyone can argue that Saddam wasn't going to try to get nuclear weapons. That's simply not a tennable position. And invading us doesn't make us as bad as him. Did Saddam try to limit civilian casualties when he invaded Kuwait? Did he try to repair infrastructure? Did he actually refrain from looting the place wholesale? Did we ever make civilians the direct, intended targets of our invasion of Iraq? No. Iraq will be better off because of our invasion, and the response you give is that it was against international law. Well, if international law hurts the people it's intended to help (Iraqi civilians) and cannot ensure global security, then there is no reason to abide by it. It's that simple.

You're grasping at straws, trying to justify why we didn't need to prevent Saddam from getting nukes. That's a position that I will never agree to. That's a position that does not place world stability as a priority, a position that could easily cost hundreds of thousands of lives. You present no plan for how to keep nukes out of Saddam's hands, you merely claim that we should do in the future what we have no reason to believe we would be capable of doing: knowing exactly when Saddam was building nukes. That's not a plan, and it's not good enough.

Governments are not people, they have no iherent rights. They only do exist when they have the power to exist, and they only should exist to the extent that they help their own citizens. Saddam's government should not have existed, it gave nothing to its people. We took away their power to exist, but their justification for existing vanished decades ago. Are you mourning their demise?

 

[Ion]

...
Stacked up against potentially millions, yes. I refuse to be paralyzed from acting against violent dictators out of fear of bloodying my own hands. The alternative (sanctions and inspections) wasn't working, and was probably killing even more civilians because Saddam gladly starved his own people.
...

Then Ziggy, "...refuse to be paralyzed..." in an imperialist U.S. country.

It is true to some degree, that people get the government they deserve, and you are an example of getting this from Bush's U.S..

As for the government that myself I do deserve, I do deserve a government that deals with wackos like Hussein by the democratic process in place at U.N., process that produces strong results allowing countries to live pracefully together in the world.

In the entire world, only a few countries run by abusers like Bush, have co-living problems within U.N.:

the majority of countries, like Sweden, don't have co-living problems within U.N..

 

[Ion]

It's not what we think he would do, it's what we know for certain he was going to try to do.
...

You know "...for certain he was going to try to do." from Bush.

Bush is not a reference.

Now if you knew "...for certain he was going to try to do." from U.N., that would be a reference.

Like knowing "...for certain he was going to try to do." from Hans Blix (Den.), and el Baradei (Egypt), professional U.N. inspectors, that is a reference.