The US, The UN and Iraq

trespassers will wrote:

cicerone imposter wrote:

Fortunately there are more people out there with their eyes open than shut;

I'm not so sure about that tres. I'll admit to sharing some of perception's frustrations at the moment.

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Here you go again, going back into history. I'll repeat it again, since you seem to be deaf to my previous posts: we are talking about TODAY and TOMORROW. Not yesterday, last year, or ten years ago. It seems to me that MORE PEOPLE WILL DIE IF GW BUSH STAYS IN POWER. Herein lies our differences, and the twain shall never meet. GWBush has control of the most powerful military in the world. What he can do far exceeds what Saddam ever dreams of doing. Why do you think so many in this world are protesting this war? I don't think you'll ever get it. c.i.

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c.i., I don't think the point here is to change anyone's mind; rather it is to explore and exchange the various thoughts and views that make up the controversy of the matter. Some folks are convinced that Saddam has to go now, and some folks are convinced there is never a justification for war. Some folks are convinced that war is inevitable, and others believe they may be able to stop it. there have been some very good arguments pro and con on this thread, and many analyses which have borne out, or appear to be doing so. If WE haven't been able to come to a concensus, is it any wonder the world's diplomats are having trouble?

timber

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cicerone imposter wrote:

Here you go again, going back into history.

There is a context to what is going on, and it is a HISTORICAL one. Remove the context, and I agree that attacking Iraq makes no sense. Guess what? The facts you want to say are out of bounds bare directly on what is happening.

Remove the context and a surgeon is just some guy who goes around cutting people open.

Remove the context and the warden is just some guy holding lots of people against their wills.

Remove the context and Hans Blix is just some Austrian running around Iraq barging into places he doesn't belong.

Remove the context and Bush, Blair, and so many other leaders around the globe would just be capriciously arguing that we should all attack an innocent nation whose leader and government has done nothing to warrant such action.

You can't have a rational, meaningful discussion about this or any issue and disallow discussion of its context.

So YES, I do keep bringing up history, and you might want to consider whether it is a weakness of your position that you seem to think it can only be defended by ignoring the very context that makes this issue meaningful.

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Tartarin,

Your otherwise uplifting post was marred by many inaccuracies, unfounded assertions and flawed conclusions.

What evidence is there to suggest that we live in a "...world full of whole new generations of people .... better informed, ... more aware of ... independence and freedom ....speaking many more languages...". While we certainly do have more effective mass communications than in the past, most of it involves stuff like reality TV and the Simpsons. I know of no evidence to suggest that wisdom, understanding or even linguistic ability in the developed world are any better now than they were 50 years ago. Certainly many previously underdeveloped nations have seen great improvements, but otherwise I believe you greatly exaggerate these changes.

Your references to the "world court" are incorrect. The Bush Administration opted to stay out of the International Criminal Court treaty - that is not the same thing as the World Court, a body which the United States does recognize. It, by the way, has jurisdiction only when the sovereign nations standing before it accept the court as ajudicator.

What "safety nets" has the Bush administration "destroyed"??

Please tell me who is it in the world that has "...grown up knowing peace and cooperation...? The 20th century was one of the bloodiest in history. I doubt there was a moment in it in which there was no war.

I believe your assertion that bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are merely "... standard international criminals..." requires a good deal of amplification before one can acknowledge any meaning in it. What is a "standard international criminal" Was Hitler one? Do you really mean that a "...standard international police intervention.." is all that is needed to deal with them? What, by the way, is a "standard international police intervention"?

While I suppose there were lots of fogies during the '50s, I'm not aware that we or they ever threw any ballistic missiles at anyone, your assertion to the contrary notwithstanding.

We have not yet reached the 'end of history', and I believe your analysis and understanding would benefit if you would read more of it.

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In 'real life' this is called bribe, illegal in most countries and ends up in prison for most:

US Offers Turkey Big Aid Package for Help in Iraq

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Quote:

....much less willing to declare that their nation is supreme among all others, much more apt to have studied in another country, much more likely to have friends in other countries -- etc. etc. We have a world in which international cooperation -- the political policy of peace -- makes much more sense. A world in which peace is the natural response to all disagreement and violence, not war....

Yes, tartarin, we are called one-worlders, usually in derision, but the scorn is not as confident as it used to be.

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avoiding all the history on Iraq-Saddam, for me this issue boils down to one thing PREEMPTION. while it has occured with the US it very much runs against the grain of what i consider America's vision of itself and the world. all the nice and cute analogy's of surgery/cancer etc. there are prices to be paid for having a living vital democracy- we are allowed to elect the incompetent and have done so many times, we make mistakes constantly throughout our history, we are amazingly inefficient with out advesarial form of government, and we don't preemptively attack other nations.

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Bosnia doesn't count, right dyslexia?

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"while it has occured with the US" as you can see i agree that it has happened.

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An example of post-Sadaam yukkiness...

Quote:

Iraqi opposition slams plan for military governor

Luke Harding, Sulaymaniyah, northern Iraq
Sunday February 16, 2003
The Observer <http://www.observer.co.uk>

A leading figure in Iraq's opposition last night rounded on American plans to install a US military governor in Baghdad to rule post-war Iraq, describing the plans as an 'unmitigated disaster', 'deeply stupid' and a 'mess'.
In an interview with The Observer, Kanan Makiya, an adviser to Iraq's main opposition group, the Iraqi National Congress, said America now appeared to have dumped its commitment to bring Western-style democracy to Iraq. Instead, under pressure from Saudi Arabia and the Arab Gulf states, Washington was preparing to leave Iraq under the control of President Saddam Hussein's Baath Party.
'This would be an unmitigated disaster for the long-term relationship between the US and the Iraqi people,' he said. 'The Iraqi opposition is going to become anti-American the day after liberation. It is a great irony.'
Iraq's democratic opposition parties are meeting this week in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq to finalise plans for a transitional government. But their vision of a post-Saddam administration is deeply at odds with proposals set out last week by President George Bush's special envoy to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad - and apparently endorsed by the Foreign Office. Under the plan a US military governor would rule post-war Iraq for up to a year.

http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,896778,00.html

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The folks debating here for whom I don't have respect could be counted on one finger. I find myself frequently disagreeing with the supported policies, arguments, valuations and estimations of timber and asherman and george and perception, etc.

I don't think we should assume or even desire unamimity. Unanimity of opinion and totalitarianism are a workable match (think North Korea) but the whole notion of democracy, with its valuation of free speech and free thought, presupposes debates precisely such as this one. Or the one occuring at the UN.

There was a lovely line of dialogue in a WestWing episode last year where an important election had been won by someone other than who the administration desired. As one character grumbled about all the reasons this was a bad thing, another character responded 'Democracy means that sometimes the wrong guys win'.

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I've been more worried about the lack of international experience (and languages) on the part of Americans than of other nationalities, George! Nonetheless, whether you're talking about the Simpsons or about personal acquaintance and friendship across national and ethnic lines, you can't argue that we haven't become much more knowledgeable about and experience with each other's cultures.

"World Court" was a dumb mistake. Apologies. I'd original typed it in lower case and then in a quick revision upper-cased it, giving it the wrong meaning.

Safety net -- outlined in the preceding paragraph.

Yes in answer to all your questions about "standard international criminals," of course. Standard international police action once again refers to the UN. An action agreed upon by members, carried out by a police force made up of those members.

The generation growing up with peace and cooperation has known wars (the worst was Vietnam) but (in part in reaction to Vietnam) has come to value peace over confrontation. Unfortunately not wholly true, but certainly the most recent generations have been comparatively fortunate in prosperity and opportunity.

I'm really careful about the history I read -- so much of it is written by victors (American history written by European settlers), by those trying to justify a political viewpoint (hagiographies of discredited presidents by their speechwriters or chiefs of staff), and by those trying to justify their dubious actions or those of their sect or nation (oh... Ollie North comes to mind..!)

Perception -- and speaking of perception, yours of the UN is quite different from mine -- I actually wept with appreciation not only of intelligence and careful consideration shown in many speeches given at Friday's SC but of the process itself. We are stuck in adolescence in the US: we want our solutions and we want them NOW. I don't trust that. I trust cooperative effort to reach a reasonable solution. It's a jury system. The US is not "subservient" to the UN, it is an equal member.

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Thanks for that link, blatham.

Here is an earlier quote from an American:

"Rumsfeld: Afghan model for post-war Iraq
By Pamela Hess
UPI Pentagon Correspondent
From the International Desk
Published 2/14/2003 9:06 PM

WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 (UPI) -- As the world watches and waits to see whether the United States will declare war on Iraq, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld Friday skipped ahead to outline his vision for Iraq after the war is won.

"If the United States were to lead an international coalition in Iraq, we would be guided by two commitments: to stay as long as necessary; and to leave as soon as possible," he said during a speech on the USS Intrepid, a World War II aircraft carrier permanently docked as a museum in Manhattan.

Offering Afghanistan as a model for U.S. behavior after hostilities, Rumsfeld described U.S. intentions to be peaceful and constructive, attempting to liberate Iraqis from President Saddam Hussein and put them in control of their government.

"The goal would not be to impose an American-style template on Iraq, but rather to create conditions where Iraqis can form a government in their own unique way," he said.

"From the outset of the war (in Afghanistan), our guiding principle has been that Afghanistan belongs to the Afghans. The United States does not aspire to own it. Or run it." "
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030214-075334-2330r

Sometimes -which is, honestly, in this matter quite often- I think, well, I better don't tell it.

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A bit more on the elephant alert...

Quote:

The Unsettlers
By SAMANTHA M. SHAPIRO

Moshe Zar lives in a castle-size home atop a hill in the West Bank, near the Palestinian city of Nablus. Although Zar, 65, is Jewish, his house isn't in a gated, guarded Israeli settlement, nor is it built in the suburb-in-the-desert style typical of those settlements. It is an enormous Arab-style house -- bigger than any building for miles around. Stone statues of roaring lions flank the doorway, and the driveway ends at a chain-link fence adorned with barbed wire. A giant antenna towers above the roof. No one is sure what it is for. (''Communications,'' Zar explains cryptically.)

Zar doesn't hold any official position, although in practice, he functions as a sort of a Wild West-style vigilante mayor of his stretch of the West Bank, inspiring awe among many of the Jews there and fear among the Palestinians. Unlike most settlers, he doesn't have an army posting by his home; when disturbed, he has been known to lean his head out of a parapet and threaten to open fire on uninvited guests. He is a religious Zionist and a longtime friend of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and in the 1980's he achieved moderate fame for his role in the Jewish Underground, a terrorist group that planted bombs in the cars of Arab mayors and plotted to destroy the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 war; since 1979, Zar has been buying land in the territory from individual Palestinians. It is a controversial practice; some Palestinians who have sold land to Jews have been killed as collaborators. A number of Palestinians have taken Zar to court on claims that he falsified contracts. In 1983, a group of Palestinians attacked and stabbed Zar near his castle...

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/16/magazine/16SETTLEMENTS.html

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Quote:

I actually wept with appreciation not only of intelligence and careful consideration shown in many speeches given at Friday's SC but of the process itself

Me, too, Tartarin. I felt a surge of hope that this crisis will be resolved by talk among wise heads around the world. The UN has never been so important. It is our last hope.

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Saddam must be feeling pretty good this weekend, more relaxed than anytime in months. It must look to him as if his strategy of stonewalling and postponing the inevitable is paying off. Saddam has always felt contempt for the UN as nothing more than an ineffective debating society. Again, they haven't let him down. The somewhat riskier notion that Americans are as tender headed as they are tender hearted seems proven by the crowds appearing on television.

Ah, the pressure has shifted from the paroled murderer to the SWAT team. American Presidents, being dependant upon the public will rather than secret police, must obey! American troops will have to be withdrawn soon to reduce the cost of their deployment. Without the American and British presence on his borders, Saddam can lead the UN inspectors around by the nose for a little while and then tell them to leave. The Anti-Saddam opposition both inside Iraq and in surrounding countries will be dealt a fatal blow. Saddam's prestige in the Arab world and among those who hate the West will soar. The French and Russians may now be able to have all economic restrictions raised so that they can benefit from all the nice contracts Saddam has promised. Money will flow in by the oil barrel full, and he will be able to push forward his armament programs. The North Koreans will have plenty of fissionable materials available, and he have the cash to buy. Kuwait and Turkey will be at his mercy, and they will pay a dreadful price for supporting the West. Jordan will shift alligance because the King will no longer be able to trust America to protect him. Once Jordan is cowed, Saddam can directly threaten Israel's borders with the full support of other Arab States. The next Arab-Israeli War will turn out differently than all the past ones.

Ah, its a rosy future Saddam must be dreaming this weekend. Across the world in Pyong-Yang, Little Kim is also dreaming of sugarcanes and dominance. If the Americans are flushed out of Southwest Asia, they will never dare even tp try disarming a nuclear DPRK. In Iran, the Mullahs will be send up prayers of thanksgiving and preparing to use the humiliation of the Americans and British as a divine sign that their brand if Islam is destined for victory.

One of the greatest advantages an attacker can hope for is surprise. Until now that element would have been difficult to achieve. Our lines of approach are pretty much confined by the limited fronts available to us, and the timing has been so obvious that even folks like myself can nail it down almost to the hour. The Republican Guard would be ready and prepared, that's not a good thing.

The impotence of the UN and the public demonstrations have altered the equation. These events will have caused Saddam and his forces to relax in anticipation of a bloodless victory over the West. The operational advantage of striking during the early hours of March 2-3 is not so great that this opening window of opportunity should be ignored. There is little profit in further UN discussions. Those who are with us have already declared themselves either publicly, or privately. The chances of Saddam's resignation, or overthrow are now nil. No significant Iraqi "civil" or military leader is likely to risk defection when Saddam appears to be in the ascendent.

Striking quickly now is more likely to give our troops the advantage of surprise. I suspect that 20FEB is now a better date to commence operations, though the hour may be somewhat later. I hope that Bush has the courage to go forward, and push this to the only conclusion that will protect the United States in the long run. If Bush fails, then Pax America will probably be shorter than it should and in the end a terrible price will have to be paid. If Bush caves in now, the probability of increased terrorist activity and even nuclear war will rise appreciably.

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Tartarin,

Admitting an error, even such an inconsequential one as the momentary confusion of the World Court and the ICC is rare enough, even on A2K. My hat is off to you.

I agree with you about the vulgarity and indifference to the languages and cultures of others that are such a part of American culture. Perhaps it is a result of the continuing stream of immigrants from every part of the world. The continuing spectacle of their addition and adaptation to our growing common culture has perhaps given us the feeling that we embrace all of them in a continuing creation.

I see no evidence that -- absent serious external pressure -- the UN is or will be able to deal with Iraq, or other like complex problems involving high stakes, by any means available to it including 'standard international police actions'. Remember that the very nations that now most vociferously argue for continued sanctions and expanded inspections did nothing when Iraq last expelled the inspectors. - They even argued for the lifting of the sanctions !

There can be something at least superficially reassuring about the spectacle of reasonable men stating the nuanced positions of their countries and occasionally uplifting statements on this matter. There were also reasonable men offering nuanced positions and lofty statements at the Concert of Vienna in 1816, after 25 years of revolution and war in Europe. The governing principle then was a 'balance of power' and the creation of a stable equilibrium among the competing interests of nations and kings. They did fairly well - roughly 70 years of peace. There were even more lofty sentiments and principles expressed by even more reasonable men at Versailles in 1919 and in the League of Nations that followed. Sadly, even worse war and destruction quickly followed, much of it directly traceable to issues ignored or mishandled in those proceedings. We have not reached the end of history. Process and achievement are not the same things.

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Asherman wrote:

The impotence of the UN and the public demonstrations have altered the equation. These events will have caused Saddam and his forces to relax in anticipation of a bloodless victory over the West.

Rumsfled called us "old Europe". Now it seems, Asherman, that you are even reducing "the West" to the USA, United Kingdom, Spain, Turkey, Israel, a couple of East European and some other states.

I'm not that friend of Jacques Girac.
But I'm fully his opinion re. the war as to be read in the next issue (Feb. 24) of "Time"

"France Is Not a Pacifist Country"

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Asherman, Saddam is not the only person in this world that is "feeling pretty good this weekend." You see, millions around this world have protested the US war with Iraq, and the message is being sent to this US administration that their "war with Iraq" is not acceptable - at this time. c.i.

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The US, The UN and Iraq

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