The US, The UN and Iraq

perception

No-one is denying the world would be better off without Saddam and his Ba'athist regime. To use a little logic that you regard as lacking on this side, in any cost/benefit analysis, getting rid of Saddam would be a pretty big positive in the benefit column. But the costs of doing so by naked aggression simply outweigh it. I'm not a pacifist. I have supported this country taking military action in the past. I've thought about this long and hard, believe me. I voted for Blair. I'm a Labour party member. A friend of mine is a junior foreign office minister. But on this one, I cannot support it. Attacking Iraq is not justified in current circumstances, and Blair is mistaken to put his faith in Bush's humanity.

dys

Do you know for a fact that the governments (in your blanket statement)did not least protest diplomatically? What are we supposed to do---react with military force to every human rights violation? You can't have it both ways.

PDiddie - You make a good argument, but I think there is a big difference. We are not planning a sneak attack targeted specifically at killing civilians in a nation that does not know our intentions.

Just as killing someone in self-defense is not murder, a US military attack on Iraq is not terrorism. Remove the fact that I was defending myself, and yes, the fact that I killed my attacker sounds like murder. A better analogy might be police launching tear gas into a house where felons are "holed up" with weapons, in breach of their parole. Remove some of the facts, and you have police simply attacking someone's home. The facts and the authority of those taking the action matter very much to any analysis of their actions.

Again, your comparison is thought provoking, but I think it sidesteps some very important pieces of the puzzle.

Steve

Your position is noted. Will you also be as vociferous with an apology in the event that Mr Blair and Mr. Bush prove to be correct?

Hello wind!

Roger and tres

The Gergen quote is a bit less benign than you suggest, in that the second of these possible consequences is uniquely serious and threatening. Gergen is, of course, a Republican.

Two bits from the NY Times today... LINK



http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/31/opinion/31FRI1.html

I'm not sure that Blix is qualified to offer an opinion on what does or does not justify war, nor do I think it is appropriate for him to offer one in his position. It's simply not his job to even consider the prospect of war. It is his job to gauge Iraq's compliance with UN resolutions regarding its disarming. Period.

In re. "Shock and Awe". Folks seem to think this is some sort of new concept; it is not. Military art has long known and practiced the concept. Rather than give a long list of examples, here is just two. Preceding an assault, an intense artillery barrage is directed onto the target. Though artillery may kill and destroy some portion of the enemy, it is the shock and impact on moral that actually "soften resistance", and prepares the battlefield. SWAT assaults often open with a "flash-bang". This is a small hand grenade-like device that produces a blinding flash of light and a tremendous "Bang". The "flash-bang" is virtually harmless, but those within the targeted area are disoriented and generally incapable of mounting an effective counter fire. It's an old concept and a new buzzword. Ho-hum.

An intense bombardment at the outset of operations into Iraq will serve a number of purposes. We would want to further disrupt and destroy their CCC cubed system, especially the communications components. Radio and television stations will cease to exist. This helps to isolate individual components of Iraqi resistance, and makes coordination of their forces difficult. Power plants will be destroyed as a part of that overall objective, so everything not powered by emergency generators will be inoperable. Transportation nodes will be attacked to make movement difficult and fix the enemy forces into place. Saddam's logistical efforts have historically been terrible, and our initial bombardment will cut what little food, water and ammunition supply that do exist from Iraqi fighting units. Radar installations will be destroyed if they come on line to prevent effective AA activity. Airfields will be rendered useless to Iraqi air. Barracks and political offices, especially those of the Ba'ath party and security police units will be hit repeatedly. With the use of precision munitions, the effect will be devastating with relatively small collateral damage.

Iraqi fighting forces must already be fearful of the coming storm. They remember what happened last time, and can expect to die if they resist. The Iraqi fighting forces are large, but overall they are decidedly inferior. The rank and file is poorly trained, poorly equipped, and fed. The basic soldier is nothing more than cannon fodder, and they know it. The command structure is already shaking. They die if Saddam doesn't believe they will do a Kamikazi, and they will die if they move against our forces. Frequent purges have further reduced the number of effective and experienced battlefield commanders. The officer corps is ill trained, holding together their units more by fear than by leadership. This is not to say that there aren't some crack units that may present stiff resistance for a short time. Saddam can be expected to order the use of chemical weapons as the tide turns against him (no coordinated counterattack will be probable, so chemical munitions preceding an assault is unlikely); he has done so in the past. Advance units of Allied forces will be prepared for the chemical option, so the Iraqi military and civilian populations can be expected to suffer most from use of chemical munitions. That in itself may deter commanders from following orders to launch chemical attacks. Biologicals and radiation munitions are less likely, but within the realm of possibility.

The "shock and Awe" is intended to further degrade Iraqi ability to effectively oppose Allied forces. This is especially important because surprise in the coming campaign will be difficult to assure. Our lines of approach are relatively predictable. The likelihood of another "Hail Mary" along the long desert and empty border of Saudi Arabia is low, though the mere possibility may divert some combat units from the more probable approaches. Our timing has also been telegraphed to some extent. The matter of the precise time and date must be denied the enemy as long as possible. Make the Iraqi military stand to arms as long as possible. That will tire them, play upon their fear, tax their will and logistical support. A tired, hungry soldier who has waited for a long time imagining his coming death tends to greatly reduce his effectiveness when the battle opens. The bombardment will carry some surprise, but it must be brief. Short bombardments have to be intense and very effective against targets necessary to managing an army to achieve the greatest level of effectiveness.



This prompts a couple of observations. First, the United States hasn't employed carpet-bombing since the end of WWII. The aerial bombardment of legitimate Iraqi targets during the late Gulf War might just as well been called "Shock and Awe". There was intense, overwhelming bombing of strategic and tactical targets, followed by ground operations, and that is not carpet-bombing. After the first waves against strategic targets, the focus shifted to tactical attacks against purely military targets. We use a relatively small number of iron bombs on any target, and precision-guided weapons are the antithesis of carpet-bombing.

I think operational planners will seek a more focused initial attack calling for more munitions delivered in a shorter time during the coming affair. The amount of collateral damage should not be significantly greater than bombardment of Iraqi cities during the Gulf War. Several thousand Iraqi civilian casualties are to be expected. If we utilized carpet-bombing techniques that number would be well over a hundred thousand.

You obviously do mean the invasion of Kuwait, or you wouldn't have said it. The snide correction only underlines the contempt you seem to have for American intentions then and now. As to the costs, it's very true that precision weapons are expensive. They are expensive, but both effective and efficient. Would you prefer using less effective, less efficient munitions? Iron bombs are relatively cheap, but then they are so ineffective and inefficient that you need to drop a lot of them. That means carpet-bombing with its correspondingly high rate of collateral damage, and increased casualties among the targeted population.

timber

Your piece on France and TotalFinal is relevant. But what does it tell us? That France has economic interests tying it to Iraq which influence it's ideas and behavior. Perhaps also, that France is uncomfortable with a further rise in American power and dominance in the world.

Taking the economic ties issue first. You have argued on several occassions that oil is not the motive (or at least not a significant motive) behind present US policy regarding Iraq. I disagree. US policy in the middle east is intimately connected with ensuring predictable affordable petroleum supplies, and even administration statements acknowledge this. Thus I see no way in which the French are acting differently than the US. If your point is that the French are not merely against the war for moral/policy reasons, I grant the argument. But in the same sense, the diminshment to the moral high ground works both ways.

On the second point of anxiety at increased American power and dominance...well, that is something Europe has experience with, even if they think back only a single century. Those countries which move towards such power and dominance ALWAYS think they've got things figured right, that others have it wrong, and that that they are thus justified, indeed compelled to move forward for the good of history. It is one face of the totalitarian impulse.

perception

If Bush and Blair turn out to be "right" (although I don't know how we define right in this situation), I will do more than apologise. I will personally write to all the orphans and widows, all the maimed and sick and all those whose lives have been destroyed, and explain to them in simple language that they can understand, why it was all worthwhile.

What will you say to them if it all goes "wrong"?

Steve,

I believe your quotation is from George Orwell's novel 1984



Blatham,

That history lesson about the dangers of totalitarian regimes is a good one. It is one of many reasons that Saddam and Kim must be dealt with summarily, and without appeasement. Of course, you probably meant that the United States is a powerful, and at least potentially, totalitarian government. Is that what history has shown? The Marshal Plan and an open, popular democracy for Japan are examples of an American plan for world domination? This country became the leader of the Free World, not because it sought that role, but because we alone were capable of effectively countering Communist expansion and conquest. Many Americans would have loved to go back to isolationist policies once the Cold War was ended. Would that have made for a better world? If the world prefers a world without American leadership, then who is going to take that role? France? Kuwait? India or Pakistan? China? Who? The United Nations has proven itself again and again as an ineffective mechanism for ensuring world stability, so what are you left with?

Steve, how about:

Regarding the Iraq-Iran war, and who did what to whom. Throws a different light on what we've been spoon-fed.





http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/31/opinion/31PELL.html

mama, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU. All these people claiming that Saddam gassed the Kurds will need to retract. Now what? One down, two to go. c.i.

And this. Hans Blix's report, which does not agree with what George Bush said. Who do you believe?

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/31/international/middleeast/31BLIX.html?ex=1045034744&ei=1&en=d304389fd1a1781b


Why are we pushing hundreds of thousands of personnel, airplanes, ships, tanks, guns - at a country everybody says is the size of California? Is our actual aim to obliterate them? Once we go in, don't we overrun the country?

And to date, the U.N. has not been able to scrape up one cent in donations to help rebuild Iraq.

Well, mamjuana, Blix doesn't agree with Powell either.

But certainly we all should believe your government and the US Foreign Minister Blair more than the men who do the job in Iran!

Asherman

When you speak of the Marshall Plan, you speak of the past, by more than half a century. The world, and your country have changed.

I wish I could grant the US a continuing pass into eternity on the assumption it will act rationally and in everyone's best interest, but I do not, because I do not think it (this administration, on the Iraq issue and some others) is PRESENTLY. I am not alone in this mildly educated opinion, and share it with many others in America and elsewhere.

The argument for world 'leadership' by the US is euphemistic and circular. The US will volunteer to do this because the UN cannot, but the UN cannot because the US would rather do it. You get no pass on this one either.

Bill, don't understand
Mama, I would have thought the real war aims are blindingly obvious.
Asherman. Thanks for the prompt that it was from 1984. I don't have a problem with the tactic of using "shock and awe" in war fighting. In fact as the Irish government has not co operated fully with Britain for more years than I care to remember, I would advocate similar tactics against Dublin.

steve asked?



them = "orphans and widows, all the maimed and sick and all those whose lives have been destroyed"

BW answers:

You know, Perception, you keep describing yourself as a guppy, and describing me and others as sharks-but you've been sticking it to people with just as much abandon as anyone else here. In fact, i would describe you as someone lurking in a doorway during a riot, and darting out to loose a shotgun blast, before ducking back under cover. Here's your remark which leads me to say that:



You know, you keep chanting this absurd mantra, while accusing others in this thread of twisting the truth. You've got the truth down and are breaking it's frail arm every time you post such a statement. Both sides of this issue present some facts, a lot of opinion dressed up as fact, and both sides trot out their own version of logic, and are derided by those with whom they disagree for that version. You need to lighten up with the absolute pejoratives. You've got no corner on truth, neither does Timber, Tresspassers nor Asherman. Neither does Dyslexia, BLatham nor Steve have a corner on the truth. I have no such advantage. What this discussion boils down to is that you have two sides who look at the same information; one side decides that logic dictates a military solution, while the other side decides that logic dictates maintaining the status quo ante, and that military action is unjustified. Certainly i don't dispute your right to hold your point of view. I am saying that remarks such as that above add fuel to fire which burns quite hot already, and needs no stoking.

If you feel someone has used faulty logic, then you should cite their remark, and explain why the logic is flawed. If you feel someone has distorted the truth, or has misunderstood the truth-then you need, once again, to cite their posting, and refute that passage. Very often, one makes a statement in good faith, but are misinformed, or have misjudged the case. As an example, you cite Franklin's writings of religious fervor in 18th Century America. It is quite understandable why you reached your conclusion, but it is misled by Franklin's anglo-centric view, one which colors our history to this day. The "Great Awakening" was confined largely to those whose christianity derived from John Calvin through the Anglican church, i.e., the religious descendants of the Puritans. At the time Franklin wrote, those were the independent congregationalists, and those in the Anglican church known as "low church." This movement corresponded with the "New Light" movement in England and the rise of John Wesley. The New Light preachers in America, however, did not get much attention from the Swedish and German Lutherans in Delaware; nor from the German Lutherans, Moravians and Anabaptists in Pennsylvania; nor from the Dutch Reformed Church members in New York and New Jersey; nor from the Scots-Irish Presbyterians in North Carlina; nor from the Catholics in Maryland and South Carolina; nor from the "high church" Anglicans in Maryland, Virginia and South Carolina. In short, the "Great Awakening" was never as influential as historians, looking narrowly at the history of English dissenters in America, have always claimed. Which is why i posted as i did. I did not come out to accuse you of willfully falsifying the historical record; i did not accuse you of faulty logic or blind denial-i assumed, as my experience teaches me, that you had a part of the picture, but not all of it. I thought I'd give you some more of the picture. You need to do the same here, not simply make blanket accusations against those with whom you disagree. To provide another example, for balance, it was implied in one post that the United States had practiced carpet bombing in Iraq in the Gulf War. Asherman deflated that eggregiously misstated remark. I look at what i know or believe to be the facts of this case, and come to an entirely different conclusion about the need for military action than does Asherman. However, when i read that statement, i was going to deny it myself, but read Asherman's post in which he had done so; i had no need to do so then. I welcome your participation, and hope that you will contribute more thoughtful replies than the one I've quoted above. I also realize that you posted that some time ago, but I've been busy today, and did not get back to the thread for hours.