Doug,
You mention that while a majority of the worlds democracies supported the
war in Iraq, many of their peoples did not. Yet, is this not an argument
in my favor about the strength of our coalition? With the mild
exception of Switzerland, every modern democracy in the world sets policy
through elected representative rather than by referendum, in large part for
precisely this kind of reason. If so many democratically elected leaders,
like Jose Maria Aznar, were willing to risk their jobs and going against
the will their people because they believed that this war was so important?
Indeed, let us consider the list of industrialized democracies that did
not support the war on Iraq - one of them, Germany, had a leader who was
fighting for his electoral life and used the war to pander to voters with
anti-American rhetoric to secure re-election. The other, France, is
currently engaged in joint military exercises with the People's Republic of
China to assist the Communist Party of China in intimidating the voters in
China's only free election. I'll take my coalition of Tony Blair, John
Howard, Jonichuro Koizumi, Jose Maria Aznar, et al over the coalition of
Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder, thank you very much.
(As an aside, I don't think that *anyone* would call Mexico one of our
strongest "allies". Indeed, Mexico recently withdrew from their formal
military alliance with us (this alliance also includes Haiti, St. Kitts and
Nevis, and Venezuela, for what it was worth.) Mexico is certainly one
of our strongest trading partners, but have never really been a formal ally.)
You then list four reasons for supporting the War in Yugoslavia:
>1. We had the support of all our NATO allies.
>2. It was a limited action not designed to actually take over and occupy a
>nation.
>3. The government attacked was in the opening stages of a genocide.
>4. The action could not be construed as benefiting the strategic and
>economic interests of the U.S. or its allies.
First, I think that the Clinton Administration made no secret of the fact
that they hoped their air strikes would produce regime change in
Yugoslavia. Secondly, Iraq was in the "opening stages" of building
nuclear weapons. Indeed, for the most part, the worst Yugoslavia was
accused of was "ethnic cleansing" - essentially forcible deportations, but
there is little to no evidence of serious genocide. In addition, since
far more people were dying in Iraq, why was Yugoslavia special for you?
UNICEF estimated that 4,000 *extra* children per month were dying in Iraq
because of Saddam, over 1.1 million since 1991. The WHO put the figure
even higher, at 5-6,000. UNICEF also estimated that *over* 50% of
children under the age of 5 were either malnourished and underweight. We
are talking about the emaciation of an entire generation of Arab children
here. And I haven't even brought up the torture chambers and mass graves
yet.... Your last reason, however, I naturally find laughable. The idea
that the US should only perform good works when we would not benefit from
it is absurd. And I would note that NATO specifically cited a strategic
interest in Yugoslavia in choosing to intervene outside the boundaries of
its alliance - as specified in the North Atlantic Treaty - for the first
time ever. Thus, while you may have seen no strategic interest here, NATO
*clearly* saw it differently. I would also note that whereas the NATO
intervention in Yugoslavia was clearly outside the boundaries of any
international law - such as The North Atlantic Treaty - the US at least had
a UN resolution authorizing "all necessary means" justifying its action in
Iraq.
As for the situation in Saudi Arabia, I am sure that if you could just have
reminded the Saudi hijackers on 9/10 that we were in Saudi Arabia at the
government's invitation that they would have packed up their bags and gone
home. It is virtually undisputed that the presence of US troops in the
Muslim Holy Land was a primary recruitment tool for Al Qaeda during the
1990's. I am very surprised to see you attempting to deny that. Gautam
has said this many times, and I think that it bears repeating, "do not
assume that the terrorists think like you do." While you somehow believe
that US troops in Saudi Arabia at that government's invitation could hardly
motivate terrorists - the evidence tells us otherwise.
More importantly, folllowing 9/11, surely the unilateral withdrawal of US
troops from Saudi Arabia would surely have been perceived as a victory for
Al Qaeada. Moreover, that presumes that Saudi Arabia would not have been
upset at the US withdrawing from Saudi Arabia while Saddam Hussein was
still in power and threatening its borders. Remember, the Saudis had the
US construct the most modern air base in the world so that we might assist
in defending their country. Or would you have withdrawn US troops from
Saudi Arabia following 9/11 over the Saudi government's objections?
Lastly,
At 10:34 PM 3/15/2004 -0800 Doug Pensinger wrote:
>> I'm sorry Doug, but the evidence simply does not support your conclusion
>> that inspections work..... indeed, any US President who supported your
>> conclusions would clearly be guilty of criminal malpractice, based on the
>> track record of intelligence and inspections.
>
>This U.S. president is clearly guilty of malpractice and negligence based
>on his fighting the wrong war at the wrong time.
The question you never seem to answer, however, is that based on the
information available one year ago today, what sort of reasonable and
competent US administration could believe that Iraq had no weapons of mass
destruction?
We had seen Iraq use chemical weapons, and knew of stocks of biological
weapons.
In 1991, we stunningly found that Iraq had come within one year of
assembling a nuclear weapon without the knowledge of US intelligence.
The only previous biological terrorism attack remains unsolved, testifying
to the great difficult in tracking these weapons..
Saddam Hussein had spent 12+ years dodging and frustrating inspections,
with the clear intent of hiding *something*.
****Given the above evidence Doug, how could you *possibly* conclude that
Iraq had no WMD's?*******
Moreover, as Hans Blix has noted in his book - sanctions and inspections
were on their last ropes in Iraq. With each expiry of the sanctions, the
US was struggling more and more to get the sanctions reauthorized. In
addition, since Saddam Hussein was directing the sanctions towards ensuring
that his own people suffered, the sanctions were becoming a public
relations disaster for the US in the Arab World. (I would point out that
opposition to Iraqi Sanctions motivated the terrorist attack by a loner on
my alma mater, CWRU, last year.) Indeed, inspections had not occurred
since 1998 until Bush began building an invasion force - and those
inspections did turn up banned missiles which could have been used to
attack US forces in the Persian Gulf, as well as our allies in Turkey in
Israel. Moreover, as Hans Blix has noted, even with an invasion force on
his doorstep, Saddam Hussein never cooperated with the inspections and made
a full accounting of the disposal of his weapon programs as required by
multiple UN resolutions. George Bush had a unique moment in history to
motivate the American people towards supporting the final enforcement of UN
resolutions on this subject, and securing that Saddam Hussein never
developed another WMD and never attacked one of his neighbors ever again.
The alternative, as Hans Blix points out, was continuing with no
inspections in Iraq since 1998 and the likely eventual refusal of France,
Russia, and the People's Republic of China to renew sanctions upon Iraq in
the near future. In that future history, how long would it be until Iraq
purchased the same sort of "nuclear bomb kits in a box" we have recently
discovered were purchased by the DPRK, Libya, and Iran on the black market?
And if DPRK could assemble a nuclear bomb under our noses even while Bill
Clinton was paying them bribes to specifically not do so, what are the
chances that Iraq could pull the same trick in world three years from now
with no sanctions and no inspections? And if our intelligence was unable
three years from now to find *specific* intelligence of Iraq acquiring such
a nuclear bomb kit, what are the odds the the American leadership would
call for and the American people and the wider world at large would support
a military intervention to prevent this from happening??
JDG
_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
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