Dragonlich

1) I've always said that Clinton was cool, and I have never blamed him for lying.

2) I think Bush thought there were WMDs in Iraq, and I even agreed with him. I do not know what happened to them, or if they were even there to begin with; I do think we'll find evidence either way eventually. I just don't think you can say there aren't any WMD yet... Think about it: if Iraq had them, and doesn't now, why on earth didn't Saddam provide the *evidence* he should have (and could have)? He could have ended the sanctions, and stayed in power. Instead, he delayed the whole process indefinately, and never really cooperated with the UN inspections. Why?

3) Attacking Iraq was a gamble, but not attacking them was *also* a gamble (especially without that evidence I mentioned above). You can see the results already, with US forces being pulled out of Saudi-Arabia... Their presence was one of the reasons Osama gave for his holy war, remember? (Of course, he'll still go on attacking) Also, if democracy works in Iraq, that's a great example to the other countries in the region.

4) You don't *know* what the after-effects of this war will be; you cannot know if they'll be negative or positive; you seem to focus on the negative sides, while I prefer to focus on the positive. I belief fundamentalist islam has had it's 15 minutes of fame, and that it will eventually go away, like it has done over and over in the past millenium. One can already see the beginnings of that downfall in Iran, with more and more dissent and anger against the fundies.

5) If the US public on the whole doesn't care about foreign policy, and the US government wants to attack a foreign country, they have to focus the public's attention on the potential dangers to them personally. This has happened before, and it will happen again because that's the way it works.

The US public did not want to fight WW1, nor WW2 until it was clear they *had to*. In these cases, there were countless reasons to go to war much sooner than they had: attacks on US ships by Germany in WW1 and 2, and by Japan in WW2, for example; or the morality of stopping a murderous dictator...

In both cases, the US government needed a single defining moment: the Zimmerman telegram, and Pearl Harbor. Even though there had been previous attacks on US targets, these weren't enough to get the US public to support the war... Again, it's playing with people's perception of reality, in order to get them to do something. That's marketing.

Imagine being a US president; you want to attack Mexico, because they're suddenly building nukes, building a huge modern army, and are threatening to attack (hey, it's hypothetical!). At the same time, the US public simply doesn't care about Mexico, and wants peace, because war is bad, m'kay? It must be *really* frustrating... Now, if you use a good marketing campaign to focus the public's attention on the dangers of Mexico (perhaps accentuate certain elements, while ignoring others), you might eventually convince them to do the right thing. Marketing again.

smooth

You are committing a logical fallacy. It does not hold trure to claim that If A exists then B will occur. Since B did not occur then A must not exist.

Besides that here are some possible reasons as to "why" Saddam didn't provide the evidence you think he could and should have shown:

1) Saddam was the dictator of a sovereign nation. He had an image to uphold. One element of his power (based upon fear) relied upon opposing "Western" demands.

2) As the leader of a sovereign nation, Saddam may not have felt a foreign entity had a *right* to demand inspections. (I agree with this point, btw)

3) The sanctions weren't damaging him--they adversely affected the people. Regardless of whether he actually cared about the people he was ruling or, more acurately, becoming wealthy at their expense the negative consequences actually had the positive effect (from a dictator's point of view, anyway) of galvanizing his population's and world opposition to U.S./U.N. foreign policies/demands.

Dragonlich

Smooth... nice, very nice. If this were my only argument, you'd be correct. Because it is not, your response with rules of logic is irrelevant.

In any case, Saddam *had* to comply with UN rules, which dictated he had to provide evidence of destruction. He did not, therefore it is reasonable to assume he has something to hide, especially with prior knowledge of his attempts to hide evidence.

Your logic is nice in theory; but in reality, Saddam must have seen the US response, and must have known that not complying would get him in trouble. So, either he was stupid and suicidal, or he was hiding something. There, was that more logical?

But even if he did not have anything to hide, he was still breaking the rules.

As for your reasons: even your agreement with point 2 doesn't matter. Saddam was defeated by the US and allies in '91; he signed a ceasefire agreement that demanded his full cooperation with UN weapons inspections. Therefore, he already acknowledged the foreign entity had the right to demand inspections. If he then changes his mind, he is in fact tearing up the ceasefire agreement, and there's a war... which makes it legal for the US to attack, making this whole discussion futile.

smooth

No, it's not more logical. Now you are committing an either/or fallacy. There are other explanations other than the ones you are proposing. For example, Saddam might not have been stupid, suicidal, or hiding anything. He might have just refused to comply for reasons only he knows (I merely proposed some). AFAIK, he isn't dead and might, for all we know, be basking in some cave or tropical island with a cool billion dollars.

I'm not debating on whether he was justified in denying inspections, just that if he did so then he refused for reasons only he knows. His refusal to provide evidence (and I'm only conceding that for the sake of making these points--numerous others have already debated the issue of whether he was providing "proof" or what constituted proof) doesn't necessarily indicate that he was hiding something--your point is pure speculation.

smooth

A point of clarification: I'm not stating that I agree with my second point as the reason Saddam didn't comply with UN inspections. I'm agreeing with the concept that a sovereign nation is not obligated to subject itself to a foreign entity as a matter of principle.

edit:
here was your first fallacy:
If Saddam has nothing to hide, he will prove it. Since he did not prove it, he must have something to hide.

This is an appeal to ignorance (among other things but I only need one).

Dragonlich

Look Smooth... you can throw around logical rules all day long, and I still wouldn't agree with you.

1) Saddam loses the gulf war, and must disarm.
2) Saddam drags out that process, and does in fact *not* disarm.
3) Time and time again, inspectors find evidence of non-compliance.
4) 12 years later, Saddam again refuses to cooperate fully, for unknown reasons.
5) The US decides that enough is enough, and steps in.
5) Saddam loses the second war, and is gone.

Now, you are correct in stating that there are numerous possible reasons for non-compliance, but you then make a logical error by assuming all possibilities are equally likely, which is simply not the case.

In theory, your logical games might work; in practice, one has to look at the whole picture, and at Saddam's pattern of behavior. He has hidden his weapons in the past, and he refuses to provide any firm evidence that he is not doing so now. With such a track record, one cannot expect the UN (or US) to believe his claims, and Saddam should have known that.

Again: he had to prove he didn't have WMDs, and he failed to prove it. Hans Blix himself stated that there were many questions remaining about certain stockpiles of WMDs. The Iraqis claimed to have destroyed them, but couldn't/wouldn't provide any evidence.

Your principle of a sovereign nation not subjecting itself to a foreign entity is, again, nice in theory, but irrelevant in practice. Iraq is a member of the UN, and has signed on to its principles. In normal situations, the UN can therefore demand certain things from them. If Iraq doesn't agree with that, they should tear up the UN declaration they signed, and leave. They did not, and by that inaction, they acknowledge that they are obliged to comply with UN demands. In fact, that is the whole argument of anti-war people against the US in this case: they are part of the UN, and as such, have to follow the rules; they then claim the US didn't follow those rules (which is certainly open to debate, of course).

Furthermore, in this particular case, Iraq would have broken a ceasefire agreement with the US if they refused to subject themselves to the UN rules. If they then (as a matter of principle) do not fulfill the terms of that agreement, they are at war with the US, which makes this whole "second" war in fact a continuation of the first gulf war. Thus, the war would have been legal, and this whole thread about the road to war could be closed.

I propose the following:

Saddam knows that if he fails to comply with the UN rules, he will be attacked. If he is attacked, he knows he will be defeated. Therefore, there must be some reason for not complying with those UN rules and that reason must be pretty important to Saddam, for he is risking his very life for it. What reason could possibly be important enough to risk it all? I can only think of one: he was in fact hiding WMDs when he had always maintained he was not. To me, that is the most reasonable and likely explanation.

KillerYoda

I'm pretty sure he could follow every rule of the UN and he'd still be attacked, since the UN isn't the one making decisions on those situations anymore.

Edit - had to fix my mad typo. Somehow I typed "seill" instead of "still"

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reconmike

But he did not follow the provisions of the cease-fire or un directives so we will never know will we?

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KillerYoda

By attacking them, don't we technically violate the "cease-fire" we had with Iraq? Or is this another one of those "we wrote it so we can do whatever the fuck we want" kind of things?

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Phaenx

They fired on our planes patrolling the no fly zone on a daily basis, guess they beat us to it eh?

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smooth

I know you can only think of one reason, that's why I provided some plausible options for you to ponder.

Both of us seem to agree that Saddam would enjoy nothing more than to create problems for the U.S. (be they WMDs or other acts of violence). The effects of our actions are that scores of people (whether it's the majority is a seperate matter of debate but it is clear there is a significant number of Iraqi and other Middle Eastern citizens) now have a negative view of our policies. Yes, many people did before. Now, however, even moderates may have stepped over the line to fundamentalist reasoning. (Remember the enemy of my enemy argument--well, the same thing applies to moderates and fundies over there as well as over here). That stated, Saddam could be eating ice cream in a cave or Cuba for all we know. Meanwhile, anger is rising among the Middle Eastern people--including in the minds of the people we most dearly want to align with our intersts. An odd state of affairs--with Saddam in power, the people oppose their oppressor. With Saddam gone, the focus becomes foreign powers. Unless Saddam is languishing in prison somewhere without any money he seems to be achieving his goals.

Now you explain how capitulating to the "Western Imperialist demands" would have met his goals better than what has transpired given that had he done that, he would have lost one of the main components of his rule--the violence and strenght it takes to stand up to the greatest power on earth, currently. Had he lost face to his fearful populace the chances of his remaining in power *at their hands* was dramatically reduced. Yet, I suspect they would have removed him in a bloody revolution except this time we would have joined the uprisers and he would be dead.

Obviously, "following the rule of law" was not my only argument and given that you have read the majority of my posts I suspect you merely accidentally committed that hasty generalization. Rather, I'm arguing that Saddam's moves seem to be much more complicated than you give him credit for. Such shortsighted conclusions regarding motives and ramifications have been a guiding principle in our failed foreign policies. This concept I'm referring to actually has a label--blowback.

KillerYoda

The United States, Britain and France began in 1991 denying Iraq the right to fly in parts of its own airspace as a way of implementing UN resolutions urging protection for the Kurds in northern Iraq and the Shiites in the south from the wrath of Saddam. But the "no-fly" zone was never specifically mandated by the UN Security Council, and was rejected from the outset as a violation of Iraq's sovereignty. We brought it on ourselves. It's like a homeowner shooting a burglar, then the burglar going "What the fuck did you do that for?"

Plus, I'm sure if Iraqi planes (if they had any) started flying over the United States we'd shoot them down in a second too.

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Dragonlich

KillerYoda, Iraq technically broke the ceasefire by not giving up their WMDs within x days, back in '91.

Smooth, there are indeed countless possibilities. Your possibility of Saddam being better of now than if he had given in (even a bit), seems wrong to me. I agree that there is a lot of tension in the middle-east, mainly because the US attacked. However, I fail to see how this is good for Saddam himself - he has lost his power, and will not rise again. Perhaps Saddam is one of those foolish people (like Hitler) that think they will win that final battle, and come out on top against all odds; it's certainly possible that he is this delusional... However, it's also possible that you are giving him too much credit: perhaps he's just *this* stupid; his plan of war certainly seems to indicate that.

Interestingly, all of this makes the question of WMDs quite irrelevant: Saddam had them or he did not. Either way, he refused to provide evidence, and that in itself justified the war. After all, the UN/US could not be expected to belief him after all his tricks... Perhaps it's a matter of principle too: either you follow *all* the rules, or you face the consequences.

smooth

Now we seem to be getting somewhere, Dragonlich.

We can whittle at this concept of power and maybe come to a consensus.

The administration's plans to reshape the Middle East (not necessarily for oil interests, more along the lines of instituting or instigating democracratic institutions) have been available for a few years now--I'm not spouting off conspiracy theory junk. You can check the validity of that claim or I can pull up the sources if need be. Those plans and the obvious demonstration that he had fallen out of U.S. favor must have indicated to Saddam that his days were limited. At some point in time he began to illegally squirrel oil-for-food money in off-shore accounts and under his bunk.

Now, Saddam may have rightly or wrongly felt this was the day of reckoning. Regardless, to capitulate to U.S. demands (and remember that we *did* become increasingly agitated while the U.N. backpeddled which also may have signalled to Saddam that this was, in fact, the endgame of his regime) would have weakened his domestic rule. Here you make the conclusion that had he complied Saddam would have remained in power. I, however, claim that either the U.S. demands would have eventually risen to the point that he would be emasculated in front of his people and they would have revolted against what was already predicted (correctly) to have been a brittle regime. It isn't implausible to think that Saddam would also believe that, if his people revolted, U.S. would help their cause unlike 1991.

Given the choice to either allow U.S. demands undermine his regime and lose power or play the victim I don't think I'm attributing too much intelligence to Saddam when I state his better option was to play the victim before the world and the Muslim population. My point is supported by the fact that very early on Bush made it *very* clear that regime change was the menu of the day--Saddam could leave nicely or we would follow through with force. Keep in mind that Saddam didn't have to be a realpolitik genius to gauge or next move even as far back as 10-15 years ago. He only needed to know the history of our (and the entire Western powers, for that matter) foreign policy in the region since the early 1900s to have a fairly broad yet accurate picture of the chain of events that led up to our present situation.

The point, Dragonlich, is that Saddam's regime's days have been numbered since they day we helped him come to power--the question has always only been when that day would come. He has likely been planning for the inevitable and his retention of power is as irrelevant to him as opposed to the billions of dollars he has been able to hide away *and* the waves of resentment the current situation has stimulated (notice--not *created*). What he couldn't have known was the level of technological advancements that have occurred in the past decade. Therefore, he might not be able to access said billions without alerting officials, they might be seized, the war only lasted mere weeks, etc. and any number of other unforseeables. *But the broad picture* as I've outlined surely isn't something intelligence planners couldn't have been working with.

This outline roughly resembles that of bin Laden's situation, as well. Not too much of a coincedence so much as the fact that their military training and operative planning has come from the same source--U.S. agencies. The irony that we trained various groups in the art of decentralization allow them to become amorphous in global networks--an attribute that makes their threat much more virtual and dangerous (I agree with Bush on that point).

btw, you keep asserting that his action (or non-action) justified U.S. actions. I'm not debating on whether the action was justified--that's a pointless debate since it has already occurred. The original quote I chose specifically limited my debate to your assertion that Saddam's refusal to provide evidence that he destroyed his illegal weapons is proof that he possessed them.

smooth

Here's some support for you from here:
edit: fixed link

KillerYoda

You're referring to U.N. Resolution 687, the original cease-fire measure passed by the Security Council in April 1991, which required that Iraq "unconditionally accept the destruction, removal or rendering harmless" of everything related to its chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons programs, right? It had no deadline or schedule.

They lied and all, but according to the document we wrote, they could sit with their thumbs in their butts with tons of weapons for decades without technically violating the ceasefire agreement.

That's like assigning a research paper with no due date. Most people wouldn't even do it.

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Dragonlich

Okay...

1) you assume that if Saddam had given in, he'd lose face, and his population would rebel. To me, this is highly unlikely. They tried that before, and it was made clear to them that the price for rebellion was too high; One need only look at the experience of the recent war to see that. As Saddam controls the media, he can tell his people anything he wants. In fact, he's been telling them that they *won* the '91 gulf war. They may not have believed it, but that's an indication of how his regime works: deny everything that might hurt you. Thus, giving in to UN demands might not have led to a revolt after all, because his people simply wouldn't hear about it. Furthermore, any revolt would simply be stopped dead in it's tracks by Saddam's secret policy. He is a survivor, and it is not unlikely he would have survived this episode too, as long as the US hadn't attacked anyway.

2) Had Saddam given up his WMD evidence, the US would not have been able to attack, period. How could they have, when the main reason for that attack was gone? How would they have maintained that Saddam wasn't cooperating, if it was clear that he in fact *was* cooperating? Even the US would not have been able to dispute that. Regime change would not have been an option.

3) Had Saddam given up power before the war, he would have survived, and would have been a wealthy man, capable of plotting his comeback. As it is, he has opened himself up to danger, given up his wealth, and taken a huge risk. Given that the guy is pretty paranoid, I would suggest he's unlikely to take such a risk unless he absolutely has to.

4) Would Saddam assume that Muslim opposition to the US attack would somehow keep him in power? That would have been a risk worth taking... However, evidence from previous conflicts must have made him realize that the Muslim world in general wasn't going to support him. How desperate do you have to be, if your only chance of success is a sudden popular revolt all over the Muslim world? The odds of this ploy succeeding are extremely small, and even a man like Saddam must have known that.

5) You assume that Saddam was after wealth, not power. Yet it is commonly understood that he models himself after Stalin, and wanted to become the guy that rules the entire middle-east. In short, his history shows that it is power he is after, not wealth per se. I will acknowledge that his actions might have made him a legend (if he had managed to pull off his stated plan of killing enough Yanks to win the war), but again, the risks are too great. Also, given his own record of manipulating popular opinion, he must have know how easily the Muslim population changes their minds. His history of brutal repression would come out eventually, and he would be seen as a monster, not a hero.

er... gotta go now. job interview is more important.

smooth

1) I'm not assuming anything, I'm proposing an alternative viewpoint. Regardless, I'm not even stating that Saddam would have faced a rebellion but merely that he only needed to *believe* he faced a rebellion or recognize that his regime was fading. And you misquoted me, I wasn't addressing U.N. demands--according to the people invovled Saddam was complying with those. The U.N. is taken seriously around the globe--our country has the problem with it. I was addressing U.S. demands which were altered and increasingly demeaning as time progressed.

2) You are practicing historical revisionism with this point. The initial claim wasn't WMDs; that claim evolved over time. By the time the U.S. public overwhelmingly supported the war it was due to a myriad of reasons put forth by the administration--only one of which was WMDs. Besides, the U.N. and the inspectors were, in fact, stating exactly what you claim the U.S. couldn't gainsay--that Iraq was complying with the inspections and that, give more time, would be able to validate the claim that Iraq was disarmed. Rather than wait, the administration charged the threat was to high to our population to wait any longer and changed the timeline.

3) AFAIK, Saddam isn't dead. By all accounts, there isn't any evidence that he isn't a wealthy man and nothing apparent to prevent him from plotting a comeback if that is his intention.

4) Obviously Saddam wasn't planning that Muslim opposition was going to save his regime--and I never claimed that he thought that. I claimed that Muslim opposition to U.S. interests has been galvanized by the current events which certainly fits his long-term goals--regardless of him staying in power or not.

5) Once again, I'm not assuming Saddam was after wealth rather than power. I pointed out that after assessing his position Saddam may have very well believed his regime was about to end and opted out with as much wealth and face as he could muster. Besides that, I dispute your claim that the Muslim population changes its opinion rapidly and, frankly, it sounds racist. Your country's news coverage of Muslim opinion may have fluctuated and, more likely, your interest in their opinions waxed and waned--but I doubt the accuracy of stating that one month Muslims were pro-US and then anti-US the next. Finally, the only record you have of Saddam's geopolitical models and how he dealt with public opinion are limited to external, non-definative sources.

This has been an interesting discourse but you seem to have fallen prey to my country's propaganda claiming that Saddam was a buffoon. This is a tragic side-effect to the mechanisms used to galvanize public support of our administration's policies by denigrating and dehumanizing the opposition. Worse, if the administration actually believes the social constructions they have built then this would account for their inability to implement effective long-term policies (answering the earlier question of *how* our policy makers could have possibly known the ramifications of their actions years ago).

Dragonlich

Smooth... frankly, I don't care anymore.

Y'see, I'm too ecstatic; finally got myself a new job as computer salesman in a well-known Dutch store!

(Told you that the job interview was important...)

boatin

well, it was an interesting discourse. But ultimately was another example of a growing belief of mine:

Over the last month, the "anti-war" people have been willing to talk, think and look at ideas. The other side isn't.

I know that is a gross generalization - nobody has been great at saying "great idea. Maybe I've been wrong".

But there have been multiple threads where the last words were some equivalent to "yeah, whatever. Don't confuse the issue". Or the thread gets dropped after some point made by the "anti-war" crowd.

I don't know, I'm clearly biased. But that doesn't mandate that the opinion is wrong.

And I'm not picking on you, Dragonlich. This was only the proverbial "straw". Congrats on the job!

Dragonlich

Boatin... in this case, you're incorrect. I had to run after writing that last list, so it's not quite as good as I had wanted. I got the job (woohoo!), so I was kinda busy. And thanks for the congrats; I'm very happy to finally have a real job after over a year of searching...

Anyway... this thread has moved from "The road to war was paved with lies", through "lies or not, it's politics", to eventually "Saddam's refusal to cooperate does not mean he has had WMDs".

I acknowledge that Smooth is correct in his insistence that Saddam's actions do not proof the existence of WMDs. However, his arguments that Saddam has some big plan, and that his actions were all aimed to accomplish it (my interpretation, could be wrong again!), is as much speculation as my arguments that he was stupid in doing what he did. We just don't know what his true feelings were, and can only judge his actions.

However, all of that does not really matter to the original point of the thread: regardless of Saddam's motivations and plans (which we'll probably never know for sure), the US attacked. They had no reason to believe Saddam, and that was reason enough for them. Saddam's (in)actions were relevant, while his real intentions with that course of (in)action were not. He was obliged by international pressure to prove the destruction of his WMD arsenal, and he failed to do so; one can of course debate whether it could ever truly be proven either way, but that's quite irrelevant: Saddam didn't live up to his pledges, and was removed from power because of it.

By the way, my take on the true reasons for war... It's a combination of many things:
- PR from the liberation of the Iraqi people (overestimated?)
- the final end of Saddam's regime and his *ability* to hide/create WMDs
- the end of the sanctions, which create a lot of anti-US feelings in the middle-east, justified or not
- oil and economy
- a warning to would-be dictators and anti-US people: fuck with us, and you lose

The US government focused on now one, then another reason, depending on the mood of the public and the press. To me, this is acceptable, and actually very smart. The road to war was paved with half-truths and spin, in order to accomplish a just cause (in the eyes of the Bush administration). It is too soon to debate the results, because we're only at the beginning of a new "time line", so to say. We'll see what happens in the next 5, 10, 20 years. Maybe we'll regret this war, and maybe it'll be one of those turning points in history. We just can't know yet, like we cannot yet know whether Saddam had WMDs or not... (sorry, had to say it.)

ARTelevision

Dragonlich,
I popped in here to read a smart and cogent realpolitik response. As always, you make the grade!
carry on...

oh and big congrats- you deserve a job today!

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boatin

See, now if you get all reasonable...

I completely agree with this list. And I appreciate seeing it this way, I know that you have written of some of these things before, but it is nice to see it distilled.

To get back to the thread. As you say:

Quote:

this thread has moved from "The road to war was paved with lies", through "lies or not, it's politics", to eventually "Saddam's refusal to cooperate does not mean he has had WMDs".

The place where we disagree is this:

Quote:

To me, this is acceptable, and actually very smart. The road to war was paved with half-truths and spin,

You come close! You almost say "lie". But I probably can't get you over the line.

IMHO as a realist, I recognize the need for half truths and spin. Politics was always thus, and will always be. But I do have issues with lies*.

The American people, and the world, shouldn't be told that Iraq was a serious threat, with stockpiles of WMD. I don't believe our Intelligence Agencies believed it. I just believe the administration wanted to believe it.

But I'm guessing we have distilled it down to the specific difference of opinion. Thanks for responding!


*Time will tell, we may never know, this is my speculations vs. others, etc. blah blah blah

smooth

Still going...

Missing in Action: Truth