Enai

Apology accepted.

So I take it that you can't support your assertion. I thought so, as it is by definition impossible. You can always think of a better alternative than installing an egomaniac dictatorship. As to supporting the interests of the US, well... I'd suggest that interfering with the affairs of independent nations is a bit much and outright installing puppet governments is deplorable. What has become of the "home of the free" if they need to make others their slaves?

Umm... this is the topic of the very thread you started?

Enai

PS: before you wonder why I don't answer: I'ts now late (10pm) here, so I'll go to bed. I'm back tomorrow.

auto-da-fe

Must be because of the long day I have had at work, but I am afraid I am not sure what you mean by this.

variable

ya, as far as i could tell, the compliance of the iraqis was not total, but it was definitely tolerable. ritter always used to say that he would find instance upon instance of iraqi's witholding wmd's from inspection teams but that they found them regardless through perseverance. now sure, while not having total compliance from these guys is bad, presupposition of guilt is far worse.


i more or less have an issue with the inspection process being transferred from the un to the us. what happened exactly that indicated that un inspection teams were incapable of finding evidence? was it when ritter would find evidence of wmd's time and again? obviously not. more to the point, that if finding wmd's were truly an issue and that this war was in fact about the threat of wmd attacks, why not do everything possible to fund a better inspection process? i can only assume that it costs degrees of magnitude less than a war... even beyond that, the actions of the us admin beg the question of why even bother to tout iraq as a threat prior to having evidence at all? is it the public or national security that benefits by this kind of pro-war marketing? obviously not... it's instead simply to the benefit of the presidency's image should he invade iraq.

so that being said, yes i do have contempt for the us government now being on the hook to satisfy the us public of their image... particularly if we only examine the fabrications that have been given us to date. is that overly paranoid? imho, no... only because their failure to act as impartial judges of wmd guilt have been downright rediculous. personally, i'd be wondering why a person's faith in such a proven bush-sided intelligence agency could possibly leave a person without that same kind of suspicion... but that's me.


agreed except with the suspicion of how beneficial the "liberation" of iraq is. i think (and i don't think it would be possible for me to stress this more to people) it's impossible to determine if changing governments is a good thing if we're not considering what the alternative looks like. the alternative has been pitched to us as being a democracy, but little else can be said about the forthcoming iraqi government. i mean, is it a mexican democracy? are the votes counted? are the candidates hand picked? is the media supportive of debates and other ways in which to support representative government? all questions that are not of much concern in the media who's line has been to support the bush presidency as often as possible. the media painted us a horrible picture of life under the taliban regime, but failed to focus on the us's involvement in it's rise to power. is the taliban's destruction a good thing? well only if the government they install doesn't go out of it's way to support even more vicious forms of international terrorism and oppress even more of the afghani population.

is having saddam out a good thing for iraqis? yes, however, that's not really the question. the question should more succinctly be "is the change of the iraqi government for the better?" to which we can honestly say that we have no idea. all that we know for sure is that he was a very bad guy but that his successors remain to have a picture painted of them. i suppose we also know the history of the us when it comes to installing governments... i mean, if history is a guide, iraq is in for another oppressive, dictatorial regime.


not 100 percent sure... i have a feeling bush will be relying on some pretty heavy campaign contribution dollars... (and the numbers on candidates who underspend their opponents in campaigning and still win is frighteningly small) regardless, i think that you're probably (and hopefully) right.


iraq was part of opec (and was one of the founding countries of it)... whether it will continue to be part of it remains to be seen... but that's a side issue imho...

the french, russian, and even chinese oil contracts that were predominant in iraq seem to be disappearing, giving way to american & british oil companies. it can only be assumed that there could be some serious strings attached to the issuing of those contracts as well... (ie. that they help to reduce gas prices in the short term) but obviously it's difficult to guess what exactly is going on. all we know for certain is that the oil contracts are changing hands in the same way the government of iraq has changed hands. so is it about oil? personally, the change in oil contracts represents a "yes" in my mind. iraq represents far and away the second largest country of proven oil reserves in the world... it's potential is also rediculously large due to not having adequate research and field testing done.


yup... although i think a war on terror involves getting to the root of terrorism whereas bush views the problem as one of treatment. so i suppose we're in agreement that it's a problem but we're in complete disagreement as to how to act upon it.


i suppose it's a comment on those people if you mean to say it's a good comment we should note that the entire world was brought to base an opinion on the necessity of a war on the basis of wmd's... dead iraqi's killed because of wmd's... footage of us pow's because of wmd's... rediculous amount of "spectacularly accurate" bombing in the middle of a densely populated city during shock & awe because of wmd's... change in oil contracts as a result of wmd's. so ya... when ppl remain vigilant in their pursuit of answers to the wmd question, i certainly see that as a sign of concern that their representative government is in fact representative in its actions. sounds like a good thing to me... personally, i'd be of the opinion that those people who have resisted criticizing bush for his guilty until proven innocent (paradoxically not possible) view of iraq are the ones who have the explaining to do.

well, and this is just me personally, i gave him the benefit of the doubt a long, long time ago... when he first started saying that iraq represented a threat due to possession of wmd's, i can honestly say that i believed him. (sure i questioned his motives, but that's another story) i had seen inspectors time and again be deceived by iraqis only to find wmd's and disarm them. slowly but surely though, the inspectors were able to make some pretty amazing headway... when they were pulled/kicked out (not a debate i want to get into right now), they were away from iraq for four years & so iraq being a potential threat - ya, i can totally buy that. but the problem for me comes in when the threat is continually pitched and not continually demonstrated. we hear pitch after pitch after pitch that they have this and that and this... and eventually (appallingly!) we base a reason for going to war on nothing more than marketing/pitches/artistic renditions of mobile bio-weapons facilities/random supposition. it's at that point that people (like me) take to the streets and protest this bullshit.

so am i ready to jump down his throat? absolutely. because it has nothing to do with the state of affairs today... they could even find wmd's and it wouldn't matter. the point is that they didn't know if iraq was in fact a threat and yet they invaded anyways. and like i say... that's total bullshit.


now, in regards to the original question of what to do about a guy who's a horrible leader and is guilty of all kinds of things... well, here's an idea... you get a bunch of countries together and try to agree upon what makes a leader a bad guy. while you're at it, maybe make other decisions as to what to do about other things are bad (like genocide, slavery, etc). then, after you've come to an agreement/concensus, maybe congeal the process and call it (for lack of a better name) the world court. then, by way of simple rule of law, hold leaders like saddam accountable for their criminal actions under such a court - invading the country to do so if necessary.

sadly, this option did exist, but the us doesn't support the world court or an international rule of law - likely because it would probably find itself guilty from time to time... especially with the kind of "active" foreign policy it maintains.

Loren Pechtel

Originally posted by variable
ya, as far as i could tell, the compliance of the iraqis was not total, but it was definitely tolerable. ritter always used to say that he would find instance upon instance of iraqi's witholding wmd's from inspection teams but that they found them regardless through perseverance. now sure, while not having total compliance from these guys is bad, presupposition of guilt is far worse.

QED.

The inspectors were *NEVER* intended to find the stuff. They were intended to *VERIFY* that it had been destroyed.

Therefore finding anything beyond an oversight is proof of non-compliance. Further searching is an exercise in politics, nothing more.

variable

what bush intended of the inspectors is as relevant to saddams guilt as the artistic rendition of trailers holding bio-weapons facilities. in fact, he could tell us that inspectors doing cartwheels on camera proves that saddam is a threat to the united states. unfortunately, nothing bush *says* proves saddams guilt... it's what is demonstrated. unless of course you're convinced merely by what people tell you - in which case i'll say this: bush is an alien from outer space. believe me yet? what if i say it a few hundred times on your trusted news source? maybe add in numerous op-ed pieces in local newspapers... convinced yet? what? you mean i have to actually *prove* that he's an alien? ya right... more like he has to prove that he's not an alien. oh, what's that? he can't prove it? rofl... sounds like a case of the wmd's to me...

Loren Pechtel

I was replying to a post saying Ritter found a lot of stuff. Nobody is denying the earlier finds.

When we put our troops over there, Saddam got better about letting the inspectors in but he didn't suddenly come clean about WMD.

Enai

Hi MegaDave,
I meant to say to this: You started a thread about the foreign policy of the USA. Not about France's or England's, Russia's or any other countrie's foreign policy. I agree that these and presumably every other country have varying amounts of crime committed in the name of national interest. However, that isn't the topic of this thread. And, believe me, other countries choices are also being discussed. I'd wager most of the discussion goes on in said countries, though, and not abroad. The USA elicits so many responses because of the arrogance of their "We know what's good for you"-attitude. While trying to police the world, the USA (as a nation, not the citizens thereof!) refuse to take responsibility for their actions. They don't accept that crimes against humanity should be prosecuted, if it's an american who committed the crime and foreigners who were harmed. They even retracted their signature to a treaty which would have made the world a much less comfy place for criminals such as Pinochet and Hussein! And why, you ask? Well, the argument was that an american being tried for crimes in front of a non-american court was unacceptable. However, the USA have no problems to try foreigners (even forcibly and without consent of the host nation extraditing them to the USA). So, why shouldn't the USA be forced to explain this stance and many other questionable things?

Enai

Animesh

What would I have done regarding Iraq?

First things first: I'd have concentrated on al Queda, and not spent a year-and-a-half ranting about Iraq.

One fight at a time, folks!

Laci

Reply to What Would I have Done?

Probably waited for the UN to do some more inspections; have diplomatic talks with the countries who were against the US going in, bla bla bla. I would have taken the Clinton path--so to speak.

So--nothing would have been done. Al Queda would be feeling quite superior at this point. Getting away with the 911 tradgedy. Saddam would still be in power. No one outside of Iraq would have found all the weapons he hid in the schools and churches and hospitals. And what about those mass burial sites?

So we could have hidden our head in the sand OR take action, like Bush did. It's not a win-win situation. Lives will be lost either way. But the Saddam Regime would have been even less humane to its people probably if left there. And we wouldn't have our presents in the Mideast.

Sometimes you have to choose!

Godless Dave

Bingo. Saddam posed a minor threat sometime in the future. Al Qaeda was (and is) a threat now. But Al Qaeda is harder to fight because they are not a state; they are a secretive, dispersed organization. Part of me suspects that Iraq was taken on because, as a state, we could wage war on them in the traditional way.