AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

It's a certainty that the UN Security Council believed Saddam had the WMD though because they kept those sanctions on year after year after year, kept funding the inspectors to go in there but the inspectors weren't allowed to do their jobs, much less finish it, and you have resolution after resolution after resolution dealing with the OFF monies that were enriching Saddam year after year after year.

Diest TKO wrote:

Mystery Man - Do you seriously not see the difference?

Hitler posed a threat because unlike other madmen with deludions of taking over the world, he acted to take over the world.

But he didnt have the military capability to ever reach the US.
He didnt have the airlift capacity, nor the sea power to invade.
So, he was no threat to us.
No matter how you cut it, he was no threat to the US.

I think that Saddam posed a threat in the Gulf War because he began using his weapons on both his civilians and in Kuwait.

But what imminent, actual threat was he to the US?


Slobodan Milošević was also going for land grab in terms of power by revoking the autonomy of Kosovo and Vojvodina and replaced locally chosen leaders with his sympathizers.

Sounds like a typical politician.
What imminent threat was he to the US?

The difference is between talk and action.

2003 Iraq had made no action to validate itself as a threat.

Neither was any other country we ever went to war with, yet you are justifying those other wars.

T
K
O

The argument that Saddam was 'contained' and was 'no threat' to anybody can be alleged after the fact. But practically nobody believed that at the time of the invasion.

OE thinks that just because almost 100% of the free world thought he had them at the time of the invasion, a substantial majority of those thought he would use them, and because there was sufficient evidence to pass all those UN resolutions and keep on those sanctions for 12 years at considerable expense and risk to those who were enforcing them, well that just isn't enough evidence to assume that the old boy really had them.

Last week, the leaders of Britain, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain, issued a courageous statement declaring that "the Iraqi regime and its weapons of mass destruction represent a clear threat to world security," and pledging that they would "remain united in insisting that his regime be disarmed."

Their statement was followed this week by an equally bold declaration by the "Vilnius 10"-Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania, Albania, Croatia and Macedonia. They declared: "Our countries understand the dangers posed by tyranny and the special responsibility of democracies to defend shared values... We are prepared to contribute to an international coalition to enforce [Resolution 1441] and the disarmament of Iraq."

Clearly, momentum is building-momentum that sends a critically important message to the Iraqi regime-about the seriousness of purpose and the world's determination that Iraq disarm.

Let me be clear: no one wants war. No, war is never a first or an easy choice. But the risks of war to be balanced against the risks of doing nothing while Iraq pursues the tools of mass destruction.

Nur meine Generation hat dabei gelernt -- you have to make the case, and to make a case in the democracy you must convince by yourself. And excuse me, I am not convinced! This is my problem. And I cannot go to the public and say, "Oh well, let's go to war because there are reasons", and so on. And I don't believe in that.

And I guess OE thinks that keeping those sanctions on to enrich Saddam Hussein and kill another 50 million of his people was preferable to war.

The conservative point of view is that the absence of armed conflict is not necessarily peace.

All you have to do is read all those UN resolutions to know what the facts were believed to be.

And all you have to do is read the history leading up to the war to know that if one person was fooled, EVERYBODY was fooled:

Colin Powell's 2-5-03 speech to UN Security Council
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2003/iraq-030205-powell-un-17300pf.htm

revel wrote:

As for mysteryman; yes we needed to respond to WW2; Hitler was destroying the world and the Jewish population in particular and it was about time we got involved.

In the first gulf war; saddam invaded Kuwait; there was an urgent need as it was something which was happening at the time and not twelve years later.

As for Kosovo; the Serbs were killing and removing the Albanian population; it was something which was happening then and we needed to intervene for them.

Afghanistan; the Taliban refused to hand over Bin Laden who was behind the attack on 9/11; so we needed to respond.

Yet you have said before that there was no need to invade Iraq because they were no threat to us.

So, in WW2, what imminent threat to us was Hitler?
What threat was Iraq to us in the first gulf war?
What threat was Kosovo to us?

If the justification for war is an imminent threat to the US, what was the imminent threat in ANY war the US has ever fought?

mysteryman wrote:

Diest TKO wrote:

Mystery Man - Do you seriously not see the difference?

Hitler posed a threat because unlike other madmen with deludions of taking over the world, he acted to take over the world.

But he didnt have the military capability to ever reach the US.
He didnt have the airlift capacity, nor the sea power to invade.
So, he was no threat to us.
No matter how you cut it, he was no threat to the US.

I think that Saddam posed a threat in the Gulf War because he began using his weapons on both his civilians and in Kuwait.

But what imminent, actual threat was he to the US?


Slobodan Milošević was also going for land grab in terms of power by revoking the autonomy of Kosovo and Vojvodina and replaced locally chosen leaders with his sympathizers.

Sounds like a typical politician.
What imminent threat was he to the US?

The difference is between talk and action.

2003 Iraq had made no action to validate itself as a threat.

Neither was any other country we ever went to war with, yet you are justifying those other wars.

T
K
O

It's not that a country has to present a threat to the US, but there actions must be contained in their borders. It's the moment that they attempt land grab etc that it becomes a world interest to stop them.

So a country does not have to be a threat to the US for us to go to war with them?
As long as they are contained and as long as they only kill and torture their own people its ok, is that what you are saying?

1) As Hitler would have captured more land/countries, he would have been able to cultivate his air and naval capabilities.

Actually, no he wouldnt have.
The resistance in all of the occupied countries were keeping German forces pinned down, and the countries that he conquered that did have naval forces, in most cases, managed to get their fleets to England.
If he didnt have the air and sea power to invade England, a country only 30 miles away, there was no way he was ever going to have the ships, transport craft, or long range aircraft to invade the US.

2) With Saddam, see above.
The Iraqi "navy" consists of mostly coastal patrol craft, and they would never have been able to fight their way out of the gulf, let alone across an ocean to attack the US.
But since you said it was OK for him to torture and kill his own citizens, why would he have needed a navy?

3) With Solbadan, see above.

It doesn't have to be a threat to specifically the US, but it does have to be a legitimate threat.

Who defines that "legitimate threat"?
If a country feels that they are being threatened, what outside agency decides?
And if it doesnt have to be a legitimate threat to the US, why are we getting involved?
Many on here say that since Iraq was not threatening us we shouldnt have gotten involved, yet you are saying that it doesnt have to be a threat to the US, as long as it IS a threat.

So, lets go with your statement.
Iraq had invaded Iran, they had invaded Saudi Arabia, they had invaded Kuwait.
They had a proven track record of invading their neighbors, they refused to abide by the ceasefire terms, and they were known to have had AND USED WMD's, against their own citizens and against citizens of another country.
They were a legitimate threat,especially since Saddam was trying to convince the world that he still had WMD's.

Foxfyre wrote:

The argument that Saddam was 'contained' and was 'no threat' to anybody can be alleged after the fact. But practically nobody believed that at the time of the invasion.

Then you can acknowledge now that we made a mistake. Saying that we had bad information or whatever isn't an acceptable excuse.

The claims were wrong.
K
O

The bottom line is that all claims were false about why we should go.

It doesn't not get any more basic than this. And yes, it's a big deal.

T
K
O

It's not that a country has to present a threat to the US, but there actions must be contained in their borders. It's the moment that they attempt land grab etc that it becomes a world interest to stop them

It doesn't have to be a threat to specifically the US, but it does have to be a legitimate threat.

The bottom line is that all claims were false about why we should go.

It doesn't not get any more basic than this. And yes, it's a big deal.

T
K
O

real life wrote:

As I recall , the UN Security Council backed the US position, until some of the members realized that George Bush was not Bill Clinton and Bush really meant[/u] what he said.

Then a severe case of cold feet rapidly developed.

'French feet', I think it was known as.

It's certainly convenient to think that only France was opposed to the American invasion of Iraq.

Fact is that the US/UK never even presented the resolution to the UN Security Council - not just because France threatened to veto it, but also because Russia and China were not really convinced.

Not to mention all those other countries.


The so called 'Coalition of the Willing' was a big joke. Really.

The entire Clinton administration, the entire Bush administration, the CIA, the UN Security Council, the UN weapons inspectors, and essentially all heads of state consulted believed the claims were true. And, for those with the courage to act, that is what they acted on. .....

"I don't know. A proof is a proof. What kind of a proof? It's a proof. A proof is a proof, and when you have a good proof, it's because it's proven."

When discussing what type of proof Canadians wanted from the US before assisting in a war with Iraq. This is considered one of Chretien's most memorable quotes.

In his speech to the UN Security Council on 27 January 2003, Blix asked awkward 'questions that need to be answered'. On chemical weapons he raised the problem that: 'Some 6,500 chemical bombs containing 1,000 tons of chemical agents and "several thousand" chemical rocket warheads are unaccounted for.... Inspectors found a "laboratory quantity" of thiodiglycol, a precursor of mustard gas.... Iraq has prepared equipment at a chemical plant previously destroyed by the UN....' On biological weapons he said: 'Iraq has declared that it produced about 8,500 litres of [anthrax], which it states it unilaterally destroyed in the summer of 1991. But Iraq has provided little evidence for this production and no convincing evidence for its destruction.' He also warned, ominously, that Iraq's anthrax 'might still exist' (12).

Only it didn't. The Iraq Survey Group now says that Iraq had no active chemical or biological weapons programme. So Blix was as wrong as Bush, Blair and everyone else who said Saddam had weapons that posed a threat to world peace

still one of my personal favourites

Quote:

"I don't know. A proof is a proof. What kind of a proof? It's a proof. A proof is a proof, and when you have a good proof, it's because it's proven."

When discussing what type of proof Canadians wanted from the US before assisting in a war with Iraq. This is considered one of Chretien's most memorable quotes.

Canada didn't think there was proof.

Canadian government policy has been to seek a peaceful solution to the Iraq crisis through the UN system. The Canadian government supported UN Security Council Resolution 1441 which called for Iraqi disarmament. Canada did its best to persuade Security Council members to be flexible in deciding on the next steps and to do so with the greatest possible unity. As recently as March 11, Canada made a presentation to the Security Council suggesting the development of a prioritized list of key remaining disarmament tasks and a deadline for Iraq to implement those tasks.

Forcing a Regime Change
Prime Minister Chretien has also said that he is very uncomfortable with forcing a regime change from outside a country. He argues that only the country's people have the right to change a government, and imposing a regime from outside could set a dangerous precedent. "If we change every government we don't like in the world where do we start? Who is next?"

foxy - read what you posted

foxy - read what you posted