Brandon9000 wrote:
I am not saying that he had the intent to do it.
In this case the specter you tout is becoming even less tangible.
Quote: What I am saying is that:
1. He is evil and ruthless, and personally a murderer. For example, he has professionally been an assassin (e.g. the attempt on General Abdul Qassim), a torturer (e.g., at the "Palace of the End" in the early 60s), and has personally participated in the liquidation of many enemies (e.g., the meeting of the Revolutionary Command Council on July 22, 1979).
And like I said, I have nothing but contempt for the arguments that use things like "evil".
Note this is not just mere disagreement, as there are reasonable things with which I disagree. But to use "he is evil" as an argument draws my contempt.
It's an insipid argument both because "evil" is a fictional concept and because even if it weren't invasions should not be based on the perceived character flaws of the individual but rather how those flaws manifest themselves.
Like I said, if you want to mount a case for regime change based on his domestic "sins" then it's a case that would be far more defensible than the insipid "nuke in the US" argument.
Intent is inportant because you can't take preventative action against someone simply because of their character flaws, you must make the connection between that and the act you intend to prevent.
Despite what
georgeob1 says, international law gives very very little lee way for pre-emption at all, and no allowance whatsoever of "preemption" of an act that isn't even likely or imminent.
Quote:2. He has no problem with intentionally targetting civilians, and the key word here is intentionally.
If you are using "intentionally" as a key word to differentiate this from my devil's argument analogy with the USA it does not do so.
Again, the USA is the nation that has killed the most civilians with WMDs than any nation in history and did so
intentionally.
I happen to think it was justified in the context where we used it (even though I do not think it was necessary) and I raise this comparison to illustrate the facility with which this righteous indignation you are using as a basis of war can be used to justify almost any aggression.
Quote:3. He has personally used WMD both against civilians and during an invasion.
So has the US, and remember we did so both
intentionally and suceeded in killing more civilians with WMDs than any other nation in history.
Now we were, indeed, invading. But there is a very good point (that I suspect that you are trying to say even if you didn't out and say it) about it not being an unprovoked war.
But if you now are going to call on sovereignty as an issue you are strengthening the strongest argument I have against ill-sold "pre-emptive" war.
In short you are using as a differentiating factor the very "sin" you are defending.
See, Saddam's breaches of sovereignty are violations of international law. In that I agree wholeheartedly.
But I stop short of using said acts to justify it's identical twin.
The US has breached sovereignty many times, and this invasion was again both against international law and the principles of sovereignty. So if you plan to continue to use Saddam's disrepect for sovereignty in your argument you should note that you do so in order to justify ours.
Quote:In other words, this is a blackly evil and immoral man, who cannot be permitted to acquire weapons which would make him invulnerable, and one of which could kill a million people and wound many more.
And like I said, even if that's true this in no way makes the assertion that war was necessary valid as
methods prior to the war had suceeded in this proscription.
Quote:I am not saying that no one may have the weapons, just that people in the category of a Hitler or a Stalin may not. You have said that evil is a "fictional" concept. Are you asserting that there are not people in the world who fit the common definition of evil?
You are using "common" in order to rewrite the real definition when challenged.
But yes, "evil" is the stuff of fairy tales.
Quote:Our sense of urgency was proportional to the threat. What was the threat? The threat was the prospect of WMD being used against Saddam's enemies.
Brandon this is really one of the more stupid comments I have seen.
You are saying that our very real and present act was proportionate to a very unreal and non-existent threat. It's laughable.
Quote:As I have pointed out, one single use of one of the worse varieties of WMD could kill a million and wound a like number.
And as I have pointed out you can construct this boogeyman all you want, but we are not discussing your fantasies but rather reality something incompatible with this boogeyman you keep touting.
Quote:Given that Hussein was known to have already developed biological and chemical weapons, and that our estimates were that he could have nukes within a couple of years, but sooner if he could purchase the purified fissionable material, and that such estimates are not very reliable, there was urgency.
Remember the US analogy, if this is true then the urgency with which the US should be invaded is much more pressing.
Secondly you are simply repeating the false claims of Iraq's nuclear timetable, your willful disregard for facts will only be met with my disregard for your fallacy.
Lastly, given that timetable in your fantasy there's
still no sense of urgecy that should interrupt the inspections.
And here we run into the insipid part of your argument. It in no way addresses the "many other ways" argument. You claim a sense of urgecy that interrupted the inspections was valid based on the both idiotic and false notion that Iraq was 2 years away from nukes.
Besides being false that is not a justification for the interruption of the tactic that best deprived Iraq of these weapons (ie. inspections).
Quote: If it's not obvious, the intentional spreading of an effective plague in the US, or the detonation of a nuke in Los Angeles would be much worse than 9/11.
If it's not obvious that I think this idiotic fantasy of yours is not in any way a reflection of reality or reasonable in the least then by all means listen to me say it again.
I do not merely disagree eith this, but also find it simply insipid. It's like discussing geopolitics with a child with an overactive imagination.
So tout the nuclear boogeyman all you want, I will continue to give it all the consideration that it is due.
Quote:In early September 2002, a report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies estimated that Iraq could put a nuke together within months if it could get hold of enough enriched uranium or plutonium. The CIA agreed, warning that Iraq could have nuclear weapons within a year, if it could get enough fissionable material from outside. While Iraq might have needed a few more years (as little as three years according to German intelligence) to produce on its own the fissile material to make a bomb, that timetable would have dropped to under a year, even to a matter of months, if the Iraqis succeeded in buying material from an outside source. In 2002, former Iraqi nuclear scientist Khidhir Hamza appeared in a U.S. congressional hearing and testified Iraq was two to three years from building a successful nuclear bomb. It should be remembered, however, that in 1990 the CIA had estimated Iraq was still several years away from having a nuclear weapon, but we now know that at the time of the first Gulf War Saddam was only a year away from going nuclear.
Do you have a point? This in no way validates the nuclear boogeyman of yours, it just illustrates that it's easy enough to fabricate this boogeyman.
All of the above is simply based on the timetable it would take for ANY nation to produce nukes under those conditions.
It's not based on a single bit of information exclusive to Iraq.
So like I said, said boogeyman can be used to justify an immediate pre-emptive invasion of any nation you want.
Just call 'em "evil" right?
Quote:1. National rulers whose evil and whose willingness to intentionally target civilians is beyond question cannot be allowed to have them, because of the ability of some of these weapons to kill on the scale of millions,
Still on the "evil" train. Let's let it slide and merely point out taht even if this were true that's an indiotic justification for the war, as said weaponry had already been sucessfully removed from Saddam's power.
In short, this is a "we needed to invade immediately to achieve what had already been acheived" argument.
Quote:2. If more and more countries, including small dictatorships, acquire these weapons, then sooner or later, someone will use one. It is not realistic to think that if we get to the point where dozens of countries have WMD, someone, somewhere isn't going to use one or give them to someone who will.
Is this justification to invade other countries or to invade Iraq?
Because, again, you can no more demonstrate that Iraq had any inclination at all to make a significant effort to aquire nukes than you can in illustrating that the timetable you cite is in any way specific to Iraq.
Quote:One final note, when you say that Bush is known to wage wars that kill civilians, this must be distinguished from intentional attempts to target civilians, not by acident, but as the primary, intended target of the attack, as Saddam's use of chemical weapons against the Kurds. They are not at all the same thing.
What on earth makes you think Kurds are all civilians. Saddam was doing just as most others do when targeting civilians, he was making a decision that would inevitably kill civilians in addition to the targets.
But in spirit I agree, and really don't much care about the civilians Bush's wars have killed anyway. I bring it up because the self-righteous and fantastic moral indignation that you think is a sufficient casus belli is a lot less absolute than you portray it, and as I said sounds like an over-active imagination more than anything.
