question for the anti-war guys - NOT A FLAME

[marbles]

"Further, I'm not sure why him "calling our bluff" is such a bad thing. In the first place, it's not just him, but most of the rest of the world. The world views the U.S. as both a benevolent promise and a threat. If Bush unilaterlalism is proven unworkable, then we'll have to redouble our efforts at persusasion and diplomacy and rely less on brute force. Everyone is better off."

You win the prize, Alger. That post was closer to resolving my question than any other today. I still don't want Saddam to stay in power, but obviously you agree with me in that respect anyway.

One hitch, though: You say that we'd have to redouble our efforts on persuasion and diplomacy and less on brute force. I think that's just a little bit naive, particularly when dealing with the likes of Saddam (and, for that matter, what's-his-face in North Korea). I don't believe you can sit down at the table with these guys, and in some cases, brute force is the only answer.

I'm not sure we're quite at the point where force is our only resort with Saddam right now, but we're a lot closer than we have been with anyone in a long time.

[Chris Alger]

(The quotes are yours, the bold is my first post)

"Enforcing the UN resolution should be easy and painless then if there's no resistance."

Not for those caught in the crossfire. And there's a big difference between an aiblity to defend entrenched positions and an ability to be a regional threat.

"First of all your dredging up an over 10 year old war".

An event which is one of two cross-border invasions that supposedly prove that Iraq is a regional threat. Proponents of the war raise it all the time.

"Second of all if we would have supported him in earnest he would have won the war instead the standoff that resulted with both sides being slaughtered. So methinks you exaggerate and are bringing up something that is irrelevant today and you're just throwing crap against the wall."

US support for Saddam during the Iranian war included the technology of weapons of mass destruction and is a matter of public record. It proves that the US cared so little about Saddam's then-known record of tyranny, brutality and murder that it was willing to help him spread it to another country. Why do you assume that the US will never do it again if it's interests so demand?

Further, his invasion of Iran was supported by the U.S. other western states, where any invasion he launched against anyone would be met with immediate annihilation by the U.S. All evidence suggests that Saddam has been and will continue to be relatively powerless and deterred.

"Again since he's powerless there won't be much resistance to enforcing the relevant UN resolutions."

Do you seriously think that the ability to win a war is the only matter of justification worth considering?

'There are three arguments you hear to the contrary:

1. Saddam is so dangerous that any trace of chemical or biological weapons in his possession present grave threats to the U.S.

Maybe you hear it but I don't.

An interview with Bush today. That's not his position at all.

Bush Presses U.N. to Back Action Vs. Iraq

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp..._wh/us_iraq_28

I'm not sure how you think this refutes my point. "In a brief exchange with reporters, Bush was asked what it would take to avoid war. "Full disarmament," he replied tersely. Asked to expand on the answer, the president said, "Well, there's only one thing: it's full disarmament. The man has been told to disarm. For the sake of peace, he must completely disarm."

In other words, Bush's threshold for war isn't whether Iraq is a threat of any particular magnitude, but whether it has disarmed 100%. I understand this to mean that if Saddam retains any trace amounts of WMD, that the resulting threat will justify war.

I disagree. The issue for me isn't the degree to which he's disarmed, but the degree to which he's a threat.

2. Saddam's material breaches of Security Council resolutions undermine the rule of international law.

This is a better point, but the U.S.'s refusal to allow UN resolutions to be enforced against its client states make it irrelevant.

"The implication here is that:

a) the UN acts at the USA's beck and call and is totally controlled by the USA. Nothing could be further from the truth."

The US has full power to prevent the Security Council from enforcing anything. Not quite total control of the UN, but sufficient control to prevent the UN from interring with US interests.

"b) the UN is a useless organization for imposing international law.

This is perfect example of throwing crap at the wall to see how much sticks. No mention in Chris's words that "the U.S.'s refusal to allow UN resolutions to be enforced against its client states makes it irrelevant" by the Security Council members. No linkage for imposing UN resolutions on Iraq and Israel have been proposed by Security Council members either. Perhaps they should be."

By "linkage" you mean some sort of quid pro quo, the SC goes after Iraq if the US agrees to enforce against Israel? Dream on. The other members of the Security Council know well that the US would never consider allowing any resolution against Israel to be enforced. After 30 years of US vetos and threats of vetos I think they've got the message.

3. We should be "on the safe side" and go to war as long as any risk remains.

"What's your source for this one? I've never heard this justification."

The term "safe side" is a quote from M. You yourself praised a WSJ article arguing for war on the grounds that we'll never know what Iraq has by way of WMD because there's no way of locating them. Because of this, the argument goes, the whole UN inspections process is a joke -- "a waste of time" -- he called it. That's what I mean by the safe side: war will be jusitifed even if we can only prove trace amounts of WMD or even no WMD at all. Saddam himelf is all the risk we need.

Two more points:

1. The US cannot be trusted to refrain from invading Iraq even if Iraq disarms. Complete disarmament of all conventional and WMD would therefore render the people of Iraq as well as Saddam vulnerable to a war of aggression. This is part of the current dispute over the range of Iraq's missiles.

"You're entitled to your opinion. It's interesting that you're waffling here. Above your implication that Iraq is impotent as far as having a defense capability so there is no need to disarm..."

I don't understand that Iraq needs to disarm for the purpose of being unable to defend itself from invasion. That's a new one.

"and here your implication is that they need their defense capability as a deterrent to the potential for naked US agression. Perhaps they, Iraq, should be allowed to develop a few Nukes and maintain a stockpile of WMD's to further deter the threat of naked US agression."

This is certainly the lessen that other countries will take to heart. After all, nobody's talking about invading North Korea.

"Blix and Annan have drawn their line in the sand. Iraq is refusing compliance. We'll see what happens.

I guess what I take from this is that you believe the UN process isn't worth very much."

No, I'm all for the process. I don't think that the threat of immediate war is necessarily part of it.

[brad]

and how does he prove he destroyed the ones which american forces blew up during the war?

so you see there will always be stuff he cant account for.

[nicky g]

Oooo I say, you've all been fighting wthout me.

One thing. No, the fact that other regimes have been allowed to flout UN resolutions does not mean that it's ok for Saddam to flout them too. But it make the idea that he must be ATTACKED, BECAUSE he has flouted UN resolutions absurd. It is perfectly possible to back 1441 and not support the war, because 1441 does not call for force. Flouting a UN resolution does not guarantee or demand war. One would think nothing at all was being done to Iraq at the present and that war was the only option. Perhaps a sincere offer to lift the sanctions (which Blair and co have previously said would only happen wth the removal of Saddam, even though that has nothing to do with the legal basis and ostensible purpse of the sanctions) should Iraq cooperate more might be a way out of this impasse.

[Chris Alger]

[MMMMMM]

That certainly ought to straighten the whole thing out;-)

[Zeno]

“If we're serious about the worst governments in the world, then let the UN or at least the Security Council agrees on what constitutes a "bad" government and put into place a series of measures designed to isolate them and encourage their replacement and reform.”

This has been done to Iraq since the Gulf War and the results are not encouraging. The somewhat bias, but usually reasonable, Economist estimates that 360,000 Children have died because of the sanctions and isolationist policy of the UN to pressure Saddam’s regime. True numbers are probably impossible but certainly damage has been done. And this does not count deliberate deaths caused by Saddam and his henchmen. In addition, black-markets, smuggling, payoffs, backroom deals etc make real isolation of “bad governments” impossible and you cannot isolate a regime without punishing innocent people.

Few governments working with an international body have the political will or international clout, much less the stomach for such actions. Plus, Nationalism would have to markedly decrease before anyone would take such an approach seriously. Given the irrational nature of people and the easy way that they are manipulated, this will never occur.

There is no political solution. You must wage war and kill large numbers of people. It is the human way to solve problems.

Le Misanthrope

[Zeno]

"I don't like war, and I don't want Saddam Hussein to be running a country, particularly without disarming. Can't someone give me what I want?!? "


No.


As I stated in a response to one of chris's posts:

"There is no political solution. You must wage war and kill large numbers of people. It is the human way to solve problems."


Le Misanthrope

[brad]

360k?

madeleine albright said a half million on 60 minutes almost ten years ago!

ive heard its now about a million.

[Chris Alger]

This isn't what I'm talking about. Iraq was subject to sanctions only because of the Gulf War, not because Saddam is a dictator with WMD -- there are several of those. The sanctions were barely multilateral, never enjoying much support outside the security council. They were ostensibly designed to eliminate WMD, not to reform Iraq's poltical system, and predictably tightened Saddam grip on his country. Given the tepid attempts to get Saddam to dissarm during the 1990's it appears that the sanctions were more designed to wreck Iraq's economy and infrastructure as a lesson to those countries that consider crossing the west, especially the U.S.

I was referring to a system by which the UN sets minimum standards for political decency along the lines of the genocide convention and enforces it through the General Assembly. It's completely utopian because the major powers, especially the US, would never consent to it.