David M. Payne

Welcome to the club Brian, I agree with you here and in your other post. So far it looks like it's just you and me here in the middle.

David

RED DAVE

From David Payne:

Don't kid yourself, support for the war, especially now that its totally fallacious and imperialist causes are exposed, is a feature of the right. Welcome to Bush country, pardnuh.

Now that the initial shock has worn off that the unelected asshole massively duped the country, the right is slowly trying to crawl back into credibility via skepticism. It won't cut. A lie is a lie is a lie. If you fell for it, that's no big deal.

Continuous repetition of a bad strategy in order for it to finally work out well is a sign of something awry. Also know as: if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten.

RED DAVE

Godbert

[QUOTE]Originally posted by acronos
Well, we disagree here, and I don�t expect that we are going to agree. If you will remember, one of the complaints of the anti-war crowd was that Bush couldn't make up his mind why we were going to war. This was a distortion of the actual point that to Bush there was more than one reason.

Not true - the point is that none of those more than one reasons made any sense and that the pro-war crowd whenever one reason was shown to be nonsense jumped to the next reason and so on until they were at the first reason again and restarted the circle of idiocy

A few of my reasons for supporting the war:

1) The legal justification for the war was that Sadam violated the terms of the cease-fire. For example:
a) he continued to fire on US planes right up to the beginning of the second conflict. This alone was enough legal justification for the war for me.
b) The first weapons inspection team did discover that he hid WMD�s. He also did gave the appearance that he continued to hide these weapons to the second inspection team. I still suspect WMDs will turn up. Regardless, the first inspection team proved that he was lieing about WMD's and that was a clear violation of the cease-fire.

There simply is no legal justification for the war. All UN resolutions concerning the matter (including the ceasefire) ends with the phrase that "the Security Council decides to remain seized of the matter" - consequently everything that is done to Iraq without approval of the Security Council is illegal.
Furthermore, no resolution except the one authorizing the war contains the phrase "all necessary means" which is diplomat speak for armed action - the american UN ambassador acknowledged the fact that resolution 1441 did not contain an automatic trigger before it was passed - of course later Bush was lying that that all those resolution legalized his actions -what a lying piece of shit.
Also, if the war was legal anyway - than what was all the being pissed at the french for saying the would not vote for the war without evidence of WMDs about?


2) It was costing us money and it was a political pain to keep our troops in Saudi Arabia to enforce the cease-fire.

It was costing you money to maintain the no fly zones and bomb Iraq continously for the last 10 years in clear breach of the ceasefire.



3) 911 changed my view of the world. Pre-911 I held an isolationist stance and believed that we should sit on the sidelines and wait for the Middle East to mature enough to eventually become a healthy member of world society. Post-911 I changed to a fix the Middle East stance. Whether we want to admit it or not, we are now in a culture war. Just as Christians are threatened by atheism, the Middle East is threatened by democracy over theocratic rule. It is a war of ideas that has become a war of guns. Yes, I know you disagree. However, 911 made it clear to me that the ME was a threat to the US. All options that I can think of to address this threat are risky and ugly. One of the worst options, IMO, is to do nothing. Of the available options, nation building an Arab democracy in Iraq and/or Afghanistan to demonstrate the value of democracy was the least ugly and most hopeful. I am fairly confident that you will believe me na�ve to consider that we might set up a democracy. However, I find all the options posted by the anti-war crowd(there aren't many) and attitude to always attribute the most evil of the available motives to Bush and the US to be na�ve, so we are not likely to find any common ground here.

To claim that doing nothing could in any scenario be worse than what Bush is doing is just laughable to me.
Also I'm getting tired of the whole being surprised and shocked about 9/11 routine - first of all there was hardly anything that was more certain to happen sooner or later in some form.
Secondly, compared to the number of americans that Bushs rape of the environment will kill 9/11 is hardly worth mentioning. And thirdly you'd have to do some serious planning to come up with a course of action that is more likely to cause further attacks than what your current government is doing.


4) Sadam was bad for his people. Anything the US government brought could only be better than what was already there.

Is it better right now? Will a religious madman who be better than a secular madman (especially for the US)?
And most importantly it is just none of your fucking business what another country does internally (see also all the similar - but oilless - cases where noone gives a shit - or Iraq in the 80s that was much worse but nevertheless received money and material for chemical and biological weapons from the US)


Reason #1 was adequate legal justification for the war,

No it wasn't (see above)


however not enough to me to justify the commitment of resources. However, when reason #1 was combined with the other reasons listed here and a few others not listed, it became convincing to me that we should finish the war in Iraq.

Sure, breaking international law combined with the enfuriation of the whole world and particularly the most terror-friendly portion of it, together with the chance to spend 100 billon $ on killing ten thousands of people and keeping the terrorist spirit up in the middle east all for the purpose of enriching Bush and his buddies are certainly convincing reasons to start a war.

RED DAVE

Right on, Godbert! Don't let 'em off the hook.

RED DAVE

David M. Payne

RD, I know that this is hard for you to believe, but some of us in the middle of the political spectrum support the removal of Saddam for reasons other than we can't see how evil Bush and the right wing is. I see his odious behavior quite clearly, but even a blind pig finds an acorn once and a while, know what I mean? That doesn�t equate to my support of most of, or everything that Bush has done in other things. He isn't the worst person in the world. (And capitalism isn't the worst system to be under either.) I don't like him overall for his religious fundamentalism, as I made clear (if you read between the lines) in "The Emerald Bay Club." I use these forums, my tales and satire, Such as SoB to point out the foibles of the religious zealots and their behavior, as well as those on the far right and left as well. One of the reasons I don't post much here is that I get tired of swimming up stream against the leftist current here in PD, all the while getting rocks thrown at me from the left bank of the stream. (There used to be some guys on the right bank rocking me too, but I haven't seen them lately.) You guys on the left are in the majority here, and sometimes I think you confuse the support you give each other as you bash Bush etc, and those of us in the middle brave enough to post our thoughts here as absolute validation for your position on everything. Your singing to your own chorus for the most part here RD, and every song you sing isn't the absolute truth, it's just your POV. I also find this quote of yours amusing RD.
"Continuous repetition of a bad strategy in order for it to finally work out well is a sign of something awry. Also know as: if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten."
Though you mean it as an indictment of the right, it fits the left just as well.

I think the right would give us liberty at the expense of justice, and the left would give us justice at the expense of liberty. I want both, that�s why I'm in the middle.

David

RED DAVE

If Bush isn't the worst person on Earth, who is?

I am not questioning your sincerity, David. But I believe that in aligning yourself in any way with Bush, you are sterilizing yourself politically. The reason the right has to shut up on this board lately is that it was proven totally wrong in the case of Bush and the war.

Now, with your personal support for Bush's invasion of Iraq and the slaughter of thousands of Iraqis and the destabilization of their country (and a possible triumph of Islamic fundamentalism), you have placed yourself, by your "objectivity," in Bush's camp.

If you hate Bush, you have to oppose everything he does. How else do you build opposition? Can you build a political movement that says: well, we support Bush's slaughter of Iraqi civilians because he got rid of Saddam Hussein, but we oppose his tax cuts? Doesn't work.

The deposing of Hussein was strictly an afterthought, as was the issue of weapons of mass destruction. The Bushies let Hussein alone until well after 9/11, when their strategy of wiping out Al-Quaeda wasn't working, so they needed an obvious target. First came Hussein's links to terrorism. Never proven. Then came the weapons of mass destruction. No threat to the US of the region and never found. Then came the "liberation" of Iraq. hasn't happened. Hussein is gone, but, now, the country is gripped by chaos and the growing strength of the Islamic Right, which Hussein kept in check.

Do you really want to ally yourself with this?

Iraqi Body Count

RED DAVE

RLV

Correction: I'm a centrist, well placed in the middle. You are far to the right.




RLV

RLV

Actually, it seemed more like he was trying desperately to find one that wasn't too obviously a pretense.

These incidents were claimed to be US violations of the cease-fire, by Iraq and by some neutral observers. I'm not inclined to believe the US more than Iraq, neither the contrary, without independent verification of the incidents, which doesn't exist afaik.
Also, the first team of inspectors didn't find evidence of the existence of any WMDs. They simply found that Saddam didn't collaborate adequately with them. Neither did the US, for that matter.
Besides this, the cease-fire was between the UN and Iraq, not between the US and Iraq. It was up to the UN (through its Security Council) to decide if it was broken or not. The SC didn't do this.

Anyway, all this could have provided legality to the invasion, but it would not have provided a reason (as you point out yourself). You don't do things just because they are legal, but because you believe something good will come from doing them.

The troops were not there to enforce the cease-fire. They were there to protect US influence in the area (id est, access to oil). They are going to stay around there, no matter what happens with Iraq.

Besides that, the invasion and the occupation already has costed more money than many years of cease-fire surveillance, and it's going to cost much more in the years to come. If you were looking to saving money, NOT invading was the thing to do.

Indeed. Look at Afghanistan. Do you see any credible evidence of anything vaguely ressembling a democracy, or progress towards one? The situation is worse than with the Taliban. The Taliban, bad as they were (and they were very bad), at least kept most of the country relatively peaceful and lawful. Now you have several warlords, each one as fanatic as the Taliban but less prone to keep the law and in a perpetual state of semi-war with one another and with the weak central government. Plus the Taliban still threateing to come back.
Do you think this is making any progress towards a more democratic and peaceful ME, one that is less of a threat to the US?

And now back to Iraq, experience and the moves so far point towards another Afghanistan-like situation, with several factions (Kurds, Shiites, pro-Saddam Sunnis, who else?) struggling for power, in the whole of Iraq or in part of its territory. And the US only worried for its immediate objectives (controling oil and a base for strategic influence) and disregarding the welfare of the Iraqi people or the future of the country.

Both these changes were bought with the lives of tens of thousands of people in each country, plus many more wounded and mutilated. Do you think that this will increase these people's love for the US? Much of the muslim population of the world is quite moderate and has hardly any liking for Bin Laden. But then comes the US acting exactly as Bin Laden claims: as a criminal power, killing innocent muslims and putting them under its heavy military boot.
Do you think this will decrease support for Al'Qaida?

Well, this may be because the motives presented by Bush & co. have either proven themselves to be plain lies or completely unfeasible. If Bush & co. really believe in the "honest" motives they present, then they are fools. Only if we assume other motives, then they become more credible.

Specially when you see them going for profits so amazingly openly as with the rebuilding contracts, freely assigned to Bush & co.'s friends.

No.
This would have been true with Saddam up to '91. Had the US invaded Iraq while Saddam was gassing the Kurds or sacrificing his own people in that absurd war with Iran, then you would have been right. Invading Iraq just after the Gulf War, when Saddam was massacring the people that the US had just encouraged to revolt against him, it would have been a good option, and it would have saved lives.

But Saddam in '03 was a just a common dictator. Yes, evil and ruthless, cruel with his political opponents and careless with the welfare of his people. But he was not massacring people or causing wantom destruction anymore. The invasion has been, and possibly will be for some time, much worse than living under Saddam in '03.

Also, you are being very optimistic about what 'anything the US government brought' could be. I don't think living under a fanatical Shiite teocracy would be pleasant for the Iraqis, specially the Sunni minority. The Kurds may not be too kind with Sunnis or Shiites. And a civil war is an undesirable prospect to all Iraqis, regardless of faith and ethnic background. Any of these situtations is a possible 'thing the US government brought'.


RLV

RLV

Well, I think that even the most extreme rightist and centrist will say the same: eveybody wants liberty and justice. The judgement comes when one has to choose between them, as it is most often the case.

Anyway, my objection with you calling yourself in the middle is... in the middle of what? You can only judge the political spectrum you know. You may be in the middle of that spectrum, but that whole spectrum may be to the right (or the left) of somebody else's spectrum.
A clear example of this are political views in the US compared to those in WE. What in the US is considered 'center' would be clearly rightist in WE. When you hear Republicans calling some Democrats 'liberal' or, even more striking, 'socialist', you can only laugh. Democrats would be considered center-rigth here, at most some of their extreme leftists could be considered center-left.

So, before claimng to be center of anything, look a bit farther to both the sides, to see if there is more territory there.

Please don't take this as a judgement of your particular position, which I don't know, but a statement of principle. Actually, this particular issue is not very appropiate for a placement across the axis left-right, because it doesn't deal with the usual issues of economic and personal freedom.


RLV

Farren

(RLV)

Funny, over here the views expressed by many US Democrat Politicians would also be considered "center-right". Raph Nader would be on the left, but not very far over the line

I also feel the left-right dichotomy often disguises mutli-dimensional issues.