On Sep 10, 2004, at 5:41 AM, JDG wrote:
At 02:06 PM 9/7/2004 +1000 Andrew Paul wrote:I still want someone to tell me what Iraq has to do with terrorism,
Or 'had' to do with terrorism, as it may well have a lot to do with it
in the future. I wish people would stop saying terrorism and Iraq in
the same sentence, or else explain, with the addition of some evidence.>
I've addressed this many times on the List, but here is a quick summary:
1) Following September 11th, it was clear that letting failed States fester
posed a threat to the United States.
Oh quit it. What about North Korea, Pakistan or the rapidly re-emergent Russia? I find it baffling that those who advocate bombing the hell out if Iraq always seem to blithely overlook these other, much greater and more significant threats.
2) Following September 11th, if terrorists were able to kill thousands
using airplanes, it immediately became worrisome as to how many thousands
could be killed through the use of WMD's.
Oh quit it. Missing Russian nukes have been on everyone's mind since the mid 1990s. Or at least anyone who's been paying attention. Nothing was more "immediately worrisome" after 11 September than before.
And there's a subtler shade here. Aircraft are not nuke or bio weapons. They are not WMDs at all. Making a connection between using aircraft a missiles and dirty bombs is an interesting piece of sophistry but does not justify the assault on Iraq.
Saddam Hussein had twice come
within a year or so of building a nuclear bomb in 1981 and again in 1991.
Care to cite some evidence for that assertion?
Moreover, Western intelligence services had been previously caught
completely by surprises in 1991, again in India and Pakistans several years
later, again in the DPRK in 2001, and then again in Iran in 2003. Given
that intelligence could not be relied upon to predict when a nuclear bomb
would be imminent, pre-emptive action was necessary due to the tremendous
downside of letting Hussein go nuclear.
But it was this same flawed intelligence that was cited as the reason to attack Iraq. You cannot have it both ways -- you can't use faulty intelligence as an excuse to support an attack based on faulty intelligence.
3) The primary grievance of Osama bin Laden was the permanent placement of
US troops in Saudi Arabia - a strategic necessity so long as Saudi Arabia
continued to supply the plurality of the world's oil and so long as Saddam
Hussein remained in power on Saudi Arabia's border.
Um, actually I believe OBL's primary grievance is that the entire world is not fundamentalist jihadist Muslim. Since the US is the largest single symbolic threat to jihasdism, it's obvious we're the biggest target. As wealthy and connected as his family is, are you seriously asserting they couldn't get pull enough in SA to have US troops scaled back? (After all we know the Bin Ladens are in bed with the Bushes.)
4) The September 11th attacks were carried out by a large number of Saudis
- apparently iun large part due to #3, and probably also in large part in
reaction to the tyranny in their own country.
You have interesting ideas about where religious intolerance originates. These people were (are) in effect driven insane by their belief systems, not by governmental oppression or by irritation about US troops.
This necessitated working for reform, if not regime change in Saudi Arabia - something that was impossible so long as US troops were stationed in Saudi Arabia.
No, as long as SA is a theocracy, reform is impossible. The presence of US troops has little to do with that. In order for real change to take place, the citizens of SA would effectively have to reject their religion.
Removing Saddam Hussein would permit us to take stronger gambles with pressuring Saudi Arabia for change.
That's more convoluted than twelve contortionists playing Twister.
5) Two of the primary sources of Arab outrage against the US are the
continued occupation of the Palestinian people by Israel and the
impoverishment of the Iraqi people under Saddam Hussein and UN Sanctions -
both of which are often blamed on the US. Removing Saddam Hussein would
eliminate a funding source for Palestinian terrorism - the single greatest
obstacle to peace there, as well as ending the UN sanctions on the Iraqi
people and leading to their eventual relative economic prosperity.
Um, it's the SAs that are backing a lot of Palestinian activity, IIRC. Iraq never had as much capital to spare. That's why the hijackers came in the main from SA, not impoverished nations like Iraq or Afghanistan. (Well, that plus SA is a theocratic dictatorship, while Iraq actually wasn't. Hussein was a despot and a tyrant, and he was surely a madman, but he wasn't a god-emperor.)
6) Removing Saddam Hussein and installing a semi-liberal democracy in Iraq
ala Turkey or Bangladesh would serve as a kernal for reform in one of the
most totalitarian regions of the world - which not coincidentally is also
the wellspring of most of the world's terrorism.
Sure. Unfortunately there never was any clear idea how that could be done, and it still has not happened.
The fact is clear that Hussein was a threat. However he never was as significant a threat as Americans were deceived into accepting; the "reasons" given at the time were outright lies, and the excuses trumped up now (like the ones above) are extremely shabby.
Iraq was a war of choice taken on as a personal vendetta by a power-drunk moron. That is the fact of the situation. All other excuse-making is nothing but hand-waving and self delusion.
-- WthmO
George W. Bush: Putting the 'dense' in presidency since 2001. --
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