The difference between the left and the right:

I was interested but only because of the Blix quote. It's anti-war bias didn't bother me (not because I opposed the war but simply because I tend to ignore bias in media).

I hand't seen Blix's quote yet so that piqued my interest near the end.

He took a drumming and so far it appears he will be vindicated.

Now that he is retired he offers his opinions but IMO, throught this ordeal he conductd himself honorably, despite having a very difficult job.

Is Fisk definitely a left-winger, McG, or is he someone presenting something with which you disagree -- so you are labelling him a leftist?


Seems to me he reported what he saw and was told. What is wrong with that?

I don't think there is any difference between the left and the right. They just face in different directions.

The difference is in how willing each is to turn around and look in the other direction to see what's coming at them.

You mean like ... ?

Walter, you could also have posted the Hapsburger Adler!

Blix has certainly made some interesting comments, and he said if only he had more time for inspections it would have made a difference. I disagree with him in respect that so many WMD's(biological/chemical) could be hidden in such a small space. Also, we found the jet fighters burried in the sand that we had no idea were there, suffice to say we knew all we were ever going to know without going in, deposing him, and continuing the search without his constant shell games and stall's.

The Blix quote that solidified my thoughts of our strike as being justified is, "You can hang a 'BEWARE OF DOG' sign on the door, even if you don't have one." Saddam thought as long as we thought he had them and would use them, that we wouldn't attack, therefor he never offered proof of not having them. Now, in his pretending that he did, what were we to do?

If a person came up to me who had serious issues with me, with hands in his jacket pockets saying, "I have a gun in my pocket, do as I say or I will kill you." He may not have a gun, I don't no, but he certainly has my undivided attention and I will obey his commands and consider him a threat. How long could this go on? A day, two day's, a month, years? Until me or someone calls his bluff or deposes him I am unable to move on from this dilemma.

I think without knowing it, Blix swerved into the simple crux of the conflict, something had to be done to tilt Saddam's hand or there would have been indefinite inspections which never would have come to a conclusion, as long as Saddam positioned himself as having the goods. If they are there, or not there, he had to be deposed to ever know, Saddam was stupid.

That is about as faulty an analogy as I can imagine. Who came up to who? Who was threatening who? You fail to note that we were the ones coming up with the threats. And our hands weren't in our pockets either.

Here's my analogy about your analogy:

I walk up to another man and threaten to kill him if he didn't jump and touch the sun. The man jumps a bit but fails to reach the sun so I kill him and his family.

Later, to defend my actions I say: "what would you do if a man walked up to you and threatened you?"



Brand X,

I respectfully posit that the analogy was absurd.

So.......Saddam had no issues with America? Should we have waited for him to come up to us, like Al Qaeda? The point was not to risk that gain IMO.

Brand X,

There is not a situation on earth that you can't describe as a POTENTIAL risk. Upon what do you base your notion that Saddam ever even had the intention to "come to us"?

Our intelligence agencies rated the liklihood as slim to none.

You can make a boogey man out of thin air. That doesn't make it real.

Saddam was a boogey man, but not to us.

In any case that is no defence of your analogy (which reversed the roles to defend our role as aggressor).

Again, Saddam did not threaten us, we threatened him and went to attack him. If he had teh capability would he be justified in launching an attack on the US? After all he can't let "the worlds most powerful nation threaten him with teh world's most powerful weapons."

There are sound and logical arguments for the war, but I think the one you are trying is a dead end.

He might not have directly though he does hate the Bush's, even to the point that a Saddam supported Iraqi bombed the WTC in 1993, given that, he's as much a threat in 2003. If he hadn't been happy to set over there and rake money in from the 'oil for food' deal, he would have been a lot more uneasy, he was quite comfortable with making the US and UN look bad while maintaining mucho income. He made it plain, he was going to be 'entertained' by the inspectors til Saddam got old and died.

Are you sugegsting that the threat Saddam posed in 93 was the same as in 03?

And that Saddam being contained and "entertained" by inspectors was a threat?

Yes, and as the easy border crossing is proving there now, proves that Saddam wasn't 'contained', and anything he wanted to concoct or export was certainly a threat.

Hmmm...and you don't suppose this is because after the fall of the regime there ceased to be a border guard, now do you?

Brand X, there is not a shred of evidence that suggests that Saddam wanted to export anything but oil.

Again, you can make a boogeyman out of thin air, you can talk of apocalypse and mushroom clouds, that doesn't make it real.

Get real, border guards? What a joke! Like they were ever effective.

Okay, and you can believe he wasn't a threat and that he didn't have anything, it doesn't make either real, using you own argument of course.

So we agree to dsagree, that's alright, I have enjoyed the challenges here, and the pure 'edutainment' value.

Brand X,

I agree that the border guards made little difference BTW.

And yes, I believed Saddam did not have weaponized WMDs, I also believed he had limited quantities of things like Antrax that can be obtained anywhere.

Terrorsists don't need Saddam to aquire these things.

Now I have never said I believe he was not a threat at all. You claimed that he was and I asked what you base that on.

Remember that a war was waged, making a case for a nation not being a threat is hardly as important as making an honest casus belli.

It's not just an issue intristic to Saddam, do you agree that unprovoked invasion of a nation should have a strict criteria?

Do you agree that it's easy to make the argument for a *possible* threat?

You see, as far as war opponents go I am not your typical one. I opposed *this* war simply because I believe that lowering the standards of what is an acceptable unprovoked invasion is a threat to global security. Pre-emptive invasion of a nation is a very very serious tricky issue.

I had long maintained that of the Us could convince the world that the war was just then I'd not have a qualm.

So I don't really think we are that far off. I think you'd agree that the war was multifaceted, it wasn't as simple as being about WMDs (though this was the only legal basis for the case for war) or about the liberation of the Iraqi people (ironically the strongest moral case is no legal case) or oil (it's a little about oil, certainly not motivated by it).

That's why I think it's a mistake to argue the "threat" issue so stridently. It's very easy to make people see enemies, when we are talking about a criteria for unprovoked invasion of another nation I think we should not be feckless with our justification.

In short, I believe he may well have been a threat (though to me it was not a significant one, I have been known to be wrong though), but i also do not think our positions are so far apart that you'd not agree that the criteria for unprovoked war should not be lenient.

Of course, if you think the threat was that dire, then I guess you can argue that the criteria was not flimsy and yes, we'd have to agree to disagree about the degree to which Saddam was a threat.

But, and I am just guessing here, I think you'd agree taht it was about more than just a threat and the alleged threat was stressed more that the other reasons.

So, hating the Bush clan makes someone a threat? Enough of a threat to attack a country? That's downright silliness.

errrrr, just to clarify, Craven. The position of much of the world is that there was no war - there was an attack. A minor detail for some, huge to others.




oh - what was this thread supposed to be about again? the difference between the right and the left. i'm not entirely clear what point McG was making there, or attempting to make.