PNAC

[kurto]

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(if indeed we were completely wrong, which hasn't yet been proven)

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OMG. LOL

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(if indeed we were completely wrong, which hasn't yet been proven)



OMG. LOL

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It hasn't been proven that Saddam Iraq did not convoy some WMD or WMD-components out of Iraq into Syria just prior to the war. What those convoys were carrying is still yet a mystery, as far as I know.

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"Just because the PNAC authors might have the foundation of a Manichean world view, does not mean that they haven't drawn the approximately correct conclusions regarding world powers and struggles."

I disagree. While it is not impossbile that they have drawn correct conclusions, their black/white good/evil us/them dichotomies make it highly likely that they're wrong. KISS works in poker, not in international relations. One size usually doesn't fit all.

"Just because they might have some hubris or arrogance, does not mean their strategy is fatally flawed."

But it leads to fatally flawed policies. Again, I cite the very similar attitudes that the Cold Warriors of the Kennedy and Johnson administration had. Their hubris and arrogance blinded them to facts that contradicted their preconceived notions.

"Just because they see the world in terms of good and evil, does not mean that certain systems are not worse than others--specifically 'worse' are communism, theocracy, Islamism, and fascism--and any combination of the above."

I agree. It is the response to these systems that I have a problem with, not the assessment (with which all but the most extreme on the left and right agree).

We live in the real world. You and I both abhor the Saudi's regime. The question is what should be done about it and in what manner. I watched a rerun of The West Wing last night in which the president was pressuring the Saudis to allow more democracy and to not crack down on some protesters. The Saudi prince told the president that when the opposition wanted to call him the worst epithet possible, they would call him an American. So if there were free elections in Saudi Arabia, would the results be a regime more democratic and open, or the opposite? I don't know the answer and I worry about those who say they do without a thorough knowledge of the history and politics of the country and region. Most of those experts are in the State Department and foreign service, precisely the people the PNAC types denigrate.

The problem with a premptive strategy is that it is subject to misuse. Again, I cite the PNAC types who favored a response to 9/11 against Iraq no matter what the evidence showed. We've been over this ground many times before, so no need to review, but, in my judgment, the fact that the president said leaving Hussein in power would lead to a mushroom cloud over the United States backs up my assertion about the worldviews of the PNAC types and other neocons.

Anyway, I hope I'm wrong and that our current policies make for a better world.

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I think you are raising some quite valid concerns, Andy, but I also think you are jumping to conclusions too readily. I'll elaborate if you can't guess what I mean.

[kurto]

Yep. Clearly he snuck out a fleep of airplanes and 30 nuclear warheads. (how the inspectors and all our satellites never found this prior is a mystery.)

Its interesting to see how far you stretch to give him every benefit of the doubt.

Ignore the British Intelligence Document made where they recapped the meetings saying that the US was fixing the evidence. Ignore the fact that Powell and Rice both said Saddam was disarmed and wasn't a threat prior to the war. Ignore the fact that no other nation (including Iraq's neighbors) thought they were a threat. Ignore the fabricated evidence (and sheer nonsense) that Bush & Co pushed on the war, ignore that the IAEA released reports saying that any Bio/chemical weapons that Saddam had would be inert since they were past their shelf life, ignore that the inspectors went everywhere the US said to look and found nothing, Ignore the fact that Bush ignored our own intelligence agencies that contradicted him, Never mind that Bush and his staff (PNAC) had listed many reasons why they wanted to go to war with Iraq (WOMD wasn't one of them) before 9/11, etc.

But you're probably right. It looks like Bush just just knew in his heart that Saddam had WOMD. He wasn't lying.

Even though there really wasn't a peep from Saddam in over a decade, and even though the UN inspectors were doing their thing... clearly if we didn't immediately go to war, the world was in danger. He wasn't lying and full of crap... it was the only solution.

I apologize, but I really think its hard to take Bush apologists too seriously. I can't picture them defending all this with a straight face.

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I'm not an apologist for Bush. I'm just not yet convinced that Iraq had no ongoing/restarting WMD programs. Nor am I convinced that Iraq did not ship some of those things off to Syria.

[kurto]

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I'm just not yet convinced that Iraq had no ongoing/restarting WMD programs. Nor am I convinced that Iraq did not ship some of those things off to Syria.

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That's fine. I think that's a little naive. For one, just about all evidence found thus far contradicts that notion. Second, our spy technology is much more sophisticated then allowing.

I simply don't believe that a nation that is under constant surveillance by us while penned in by the UN blockade... can sneak out a convoy of weapons that they've hid from the world for the last 10 years. (And of course the old question.. if Saddam had these weapons, why didn't he use them? They would have been his only real weapon against the US firepower.)

The only logical reason I can see that a person would defiantly want to believe Saddam had all these mysteriously disappearing weapons has more to do with politics then 'reason'.

I don't think you and I are going to get far on this front. I say we agree to disagree.

[wacki]

Andy fox, thankyou for your well thought out response. I just took some time to look over your post. You listed four books. Three of those aren't mentioned on the website and don't appear to be even discussed on the website. There are many people that hold views that I think are delusional but are capable of thinking straight when working under certain conditions. If the material on that website is excellent, it doesn't matter how crappy the work the authors previous points were. Yes, I know it's related, but it doesn't always mean something. I'm trying to find out what is so bad about THAT SPECIFIC WEBSITE not it's authors.

As for:

The PNAC wants an America "fully engaged and never apologetic." [Kaplan and Kristol, The War over Iraq] The first thing they should apologize is the lack of planning for post-war Iraq. "Stuff happens" [Rumsfeld] is not good enough.

That book is linked to on the website, therefore I consider it open territory. Do you think we shouldn't be engaged? Or do you think we should be engaged and apologetic? I'm assuming the later.


General statement:

Andyfox is the only person to have a decent response from the left. And his response is a good one IMO. What I'm amazed at is nobody has yet to produce a quote from that website that shows why the left is so angry at this website.

And yes I know people have posted quotes from the website. However, those quotes are predictions on how warfare is going to evolve. Anyone that believes those predictions are false is delusional. I know this for a fact because I am in the biotech field. It's only a matter of time. How many years/decades is anyones guess. A crash Chinese program (manhatten project) could have it here pretty easily in 10 years IMO. But right now the research isn't being done. Well, not in a direct route at least.

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I simply don't believe that a nation that is under constant surveillance by us while penned in by the UN blockade... can sneak out a convoy of weapons that they've hid from the world for the last 10 years. (And of course the old question.. if Saddam had these weapons, why didn't he use them? They would have been his only real weapon against the US firepower.)


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Well it was caught on satellite. Truck after truck, in a long convoy, leaving Iraq for Syria shortly prior to the war. "Sneak out" wouldn't be the word to describe it. The real question is, what the hell was in those trucks?

Also please note I'm not saying Iraq HAD WMD at the time; just that I don't think it's been proven that: 1) Iraq had zero WMD or WMD programs at the time, AND 2) Iraq had no intermittent, or re-startable, WMD programs at all. And of course earlier in the thread I argued that multiple governments thought Saddam had at least one of the two listed above.

But yes, it appears we'll have to agree to disagree.

[wacki]

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I simply don't believe that a nation that is under constant surveillance by us while penned in by the UN blockade... can sneak out a convoy of weapons that they've hid from the world for the last 10 years. (And of course the old question.. if Saddam had these weapons, why didn't he use them? They would have been his only real weapon against the US firepower.)

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UN blockade = worthless
Also, if you have a decent brain and self control, it's not that hard to smuggle stuff across a giant border. Drug dealers do it all the time with boat sized loads.

[kurto]

You can't compare drug dealers smuggling drugs into a country (especially the size of the US) with smuggling a convoy of weapons from a country the size of California in a country that's being monitored by presumeably the best in US spy technology.

And the UN blockade wasn't worthless... Until Bush instructed them to say otherwise, as I have repeatedly pointed out, both Condeleeza Rice and Powell had both said prior to the war that Saddam was disarmed and not a threat.

Pretty much all evidence thus far shows that Saddam was not threat. And there seems to be plenty of evidence to show that Bush would have known as much.