Godless Dave

MegaDave, that is a very good question and a very tough question. It goes right to the heart of one of the fundamental questions for American foreign policy, and really for the foreign policy of any powerful, wealthy democracy.

Let me ask you this: Are you willing to make the people of Myanmar suffer with no help from the US against such a brutal regime? How about the people of Congo? Zimbabwe? Pakistan? Saudi Arabia? China? Saddam was hardly the only brutal dictator in the world. I'm not saying that makes what he did OK. I'm not even saying we should have done nothing at all. But how do we as a nation decide which oppressed people to help and when? Our resources are not unlimited. We used military force successfully to get Milosevic to stop killing Kosovars, but Kosovo and Serbia are still a mess several years later. Afghanistan, which we only liberated last year, is on the brink of descending back into anarchy.

I'm generally a realist regarding international affairs. When it comes to sending citizens of my country off to kill people and risk their own life and limb, I think in most cases it should be done only to protect our national security. I love freedom and democracy, and I'd like nothing better than for all the people in the world to live in free societies with just and accountable governments, but I don't think freedom flows from the barrel of a gun.

Jat

What Bush did was only unjustifed because of when it was done and for why it was done (WMD the excuse, oil the real reason). If he were president 12 years ago and did the invasion back then then it would have been justifed to a great extent, because what Saddam is being accused of now was mainly done 12 years ago just before the 1st Gulf War when he also had his WMD as well. They had the moral authority then. They don't have it now.

auto-da-fe

I guess I should have given my position as well, but I personally think WHAT Bush did wasn't that wrong, only the justification of what he did was wrong.

To Godless Dave, I say that I too am a realist, in that I know we cannot solve all the worlds problems, but, does that mean we should not attempt to solve any of the worlds problems?

To Jat, I find it hard to buy that what was morally justified 12 years ago, is no longer, simply because of the 12 year time span in between. Why is it no longer morally justified?

Bulgie

I know this sounds bad, and I will get hammered for it, but I wouldn't have changed a damn thing. Not to say that I would have looked the other way, but I wouldn't have invaded the country.

Personally, I feel the only time a successful revolution can take place is if the people do it for themselves. I am so greateful that I was not around during the revolutionary war in the USA and that I didn't have to fight. But by that same token, I am very grateful that it was my ancestors that did, instead of some other granted. (Now granted the French helped, but that was later in the war... it was the colonies that started the process, and just needed a little help finishing it.)

Sakpo

MedaDave,

Do you also support invading all other countries where the regimes in power treat their people in a manner comperable to how the Hussein regime treated the Iraqi people?

Or will we just do good (pretending that's what's happened in Iraq) when there's oil to be had?

Loren Pechtel

Originally posted by Godless Dave
I would not have brought the WMD/Iraq issue up when Bush did. Saddam had been defying the inspections and UN resolutions for some time. I don't see what made last fall the magical time to bring the situation to a head.

True--but the same argument could be made about *ANY* specific time.

auto-da-fe

First, tell me how we have benefitted so far (oil wise) from the invasion of Iraq. Ok, then, tell me how we are going to benefit in the future (oil wise). Please, at least speculate how we are going to do this. Are we going to have our servicement take a barrel each home? Are we going to take over all their oil wells and make them ours while hoping no one notices? Please tell me how this will happen.

Second, no, I don't support invading every country with despotic rulers, however, that doesn't mean we shouldn't do anything, and that doesn't mean that we may not have to invade sometimes. Would I have invaded Iraq? Well my personal thoughts on it are that SH was the top brutal dictator in the world right now (or at least 6 months ago he was), so if I was going to invade any country it would have been his. UN sanctions did nothing. Oil for food didn't help. World shunning didn't help. Nothing else that had been tried had helped up to that point, and nothing would have ever helped. I don't believe an SH controlled Iraq would have ever been able to get out from under UN sanctions that were slowly killing the entire country.

brighid

My problem with the argument of all the bad things Sadaam admittedly did is that we support and have supported many regimes (including the Taliban in Afghanistan prior to Sept. 11th) and the double standard, hypocritical position this presents. We didn’t invade Cambodia under the rule of the Khmer Rouge despite millions being slaughtered. We aren’t interested in attacking China for the Tibetan people they have slaughtered. We aren’t interested in invading North Korea who admits to having ICBM’s and a nuclear weapons program. We aren’t invading Rwanda even though tens of thousands (if not millions) of men, women and children have been slaughtered and continue to be slaughtered. We aren’t invading Israel even though innocent Palestinians are killed, nor are we invading Palestinian strongholds because they are killing innocent Israelis’. We aren’t stepping in with military force between Pakistan and India … and the list goes on.

Personally, I would have allowed the UN Weapon’s inspectors the additional months they requested to complete a thorough search so we could have indisputable evidence that WMD’s exist if that was the criteria I was using to preemptively invade a sovereign country. I would not circumvent International Law or damage the credibility of my nation in the eyes of the world without indisputable evidence. Two more months would not have harmed the war effort. If anything it would have allowed the humanitarian aide to reach there to prevent the crisis the Iraqi people are facing right now – no electricity, running water, infrastructure and although they were very happy to be out from under the thumb of Sadaam many are not happy under American military rule.

I would have insisted on an International Coalition of countries aiding in the removal of Sadaam and had we produced indisputable evidence even France would have joined against Sadaam.

I do not believe the sanctions damaged Sadaam’s regime as much as it harmed the already oppressed masses and I might chose to lift them to aide the people of his country.

There is no disputing that Sadaam is an evil man and he and the Ba’ath party tortured, murdered and imprisoned untold amounts of men, women and children. On those grounds I agree that the Iraqi people are better off without this dictator. The mass graves really aren’t a surprise, at least not to me. Such things are found in almost every oppressive regime that uses fear, force, and death to control a populous. However I feel that was never really a consideration for this administration. I was an appeal to emotion, and although valid I would argue there are far worse human tragedies going on (such as Rwanda) that would be better served with our attention.

I think the argument from evil on this one is morally inconsistent with our actual foreign policy and was a distractive, manipulative tactic to bolster this administrations desire to attack a nation for reasons other then WMD, regime change, or protection of the US.


Brighid

TollHouse

That's the problem right there. Just what the hell are the facts?

I don't think this admistration was interested in "the facts" but "the facts (wink, wink)" that supported their agenda.

From what I can tell, they already knew they wanted to rough things up over there and only then did they grasp onto anything that would sell this war to the Americans and the world at large.

That right there is where my actions would have differed.

Tristan Scott

I'm not a fan of President Bush, but I don't miss having Saddam in power.

Of course it was all about oil, as well it should have been. The quest for the control of Iraqi oil could have easily led to a war between much more serious combatants.

It still could. That's the reason we will have a presence in that country for a long time.