THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

Hell of a lot of people say ....klik me

["I was sitting on the floor of an old concrete house in the suburbs of Amman this week. Every man in the room believed President Bush wanted Iraqi oil. Indeed, every Arab I've met in the past six months believes that this - and this alone - explains his enthusiasm for invading Iraq. Many Israelis think the same. So do I... Along with the concern for 'vital interests' in the Gulf, this war was concocted five years ago by oil men such as Dick Cheney... Back in 1997,]

McTag

I join you in your beliefs.

I also find it interesting that those who are rabid hawks on here tend to have two factors in common:

1, they are rather old in age, and having lived through America's honorable wars, cannot figure out the fact that we're no longer as honorable as when they served/lived;

and

2, they believe the ends justify the means.

It's difficult to know where to begin when discussing the unbelievable heist that has been pulled off on the American people with them; they deny, deny, deny anything that America does is bad; they don't believe anyone's sources; they ridicule those who imply that the US doesn't have people's best interests in hear (either at home or abroad); they resort to name-calling when the information gets thick; they live in a fantasy world where our imperialism isn't a bad thing and that we don't have thousands of instances of torture and abuse going on.

I think these people for the most part are so scared of the idea of a cabal capturing our highest levels of gov't that they simply won't accept the fact that it has happened. The cognitive dissonance must be tough to live with.

Don't give up the fight; history will bear us out!!!

Cycloptichorn

Steve,

The motive you call "obvious" is neither obvious nor even plausible. If it preoccupies you, that is only a result of your persistent refusal to consider the facts.

If oil was the motive there are far easier ways and places in which we could get direct control of it. We are not even taking control of the Iraqi oil.

It isn't the U.S. that threatens the potential of the Euro as an international reserve currency. It is instead the poor performance of the sclerotic economies of Continental Europe and the impending effects of demographic decline, no-longer-supportable social programs, and inflexible labor markets on their economies that does this. Easy to blame your problems on others: much harder to face unpleasant facts and deal with them yourself.

Perhaps Britain has bought too much into the timid, legalistic formulas of a continental Europe that is unwilling to face or deal with real issues directly and looks instead for legalistic formulas that create the illusion of a solution but without the fact (or difficulties) of one. In that unrealistic framework, perhaps the arguments were indeed found lacking. However, the framework itself is an excuse for inaction by powers that should know better and which have the means to do the right thing, but not the will.

It will be interesting to see what the European powers, which so dreaded the use of the term "genocide" with respect to Sudan, precisely because it would require action on their parts in another of their legalisms, will now do with the ICC authorization they so cherish. Who will go into Sudan to seize the culprits and haul them off to wherever for the justice of the great International Criminal Court? Indeed, which of Aesop's mice will step forward to place the bell around the cat's neck?

The ends likely don't justify the means--but they may require them.

George wrote :

"Steve,

The motive you call "obvious" is neither obvious nor even plausible."


Come on George, took me about 3 seconds to find this:

Oil Wars

Transforming the American Military into a Global Oil-Protection Service

By Michael T. Klare

In the first U.S. combat operation of the war in Iraq, Navy commandos stormed an offshore oil-loading platform. "Swooping silently out of the Persian Gulf night," an overexcited reporter for the New York Times wrote on March 22, "Navy Seals seized two Iraqi oil terminals in bold raids that ended early this morning, overwhelming lightly-armed Iraqi guards and claiming a bloodless victory in the battle for Iraq's vast oil empire."

A year and a half later, American soldiers are still struggling to maintain control over these vital petroleum facilities -- and the fighting is no longer bloodless...

Michael Klaus has an impressive academic pedigree, but he is one of those professors pushing a decidedly left wing agenda with little or nothing presented to balance it. Come to think of it, he would be an excellent example to use in the "Everthing but diversity of thought' thread.
http://pawss.hampshire.edu/about.html

We are all constrianed to the use of the weapons available to us. Lacking either information or intelligent argument, Cyclo resorts to invective and ad hominem attacks. These are not techniques that lend themselves to confidence in the judgement of one who uses them.

To each his own.

then don't it remain unjustified?

I am wondering just when clyop resorted to "invective and ad hominem attacks."

... or the same ends might have been reached by other means.

And there is the unfortunate scenario when the ends are so necessary, the only means available to us are utilized to get there.

Justification may be defined differently.

Some say justifying something means it is blameless.

Few things meet that standard.

Others say it denotes defensibility. It can mean that a thing was right, with no quibbling.

Or that a thing was reasonable in light of circumstances....

It meets some of these, IMO, and not others.

I agree with what Fox said. Sometoimes, a thing is so necessary, you have to acheive it....period.

So what is your definition of "justification", Lash?

Not considering it in context of this conversation, but my general take on the word is that something is completely just.

It is right, without qualification. No real aspersions can be cast on that which is justifiable.

I realize someone could take exception to my definition, and that I may be incorrect. But, that is how I've always defined the word personally.

My dictionary uses both of the definitions--

Ah, okay... I guess I'm still thinking of how the words translates into my language, were it has a slightly different meaning. I guess. It's like, when you're on the defensive, knowing that you're wrong, you try to justify something, meaning: find good reasons why you had to do something?

That would be how I personally think about or use the words justify/justification... If something is completely just - I don't know, it is - just.

Justifiable/justified has a slightly negative, because passive, connotation in my mind.

But then, I'm totally aware of my often enough poor knowledge of subtle meanings in the English language.

In religion, 'justification' means to be absolved of sin and made right before God. In a secular context I think it means 'necessary' within the context or under the circumstances related to a specific action. (In the publication world, it means to make all the printed lines the same length. I think we can discard that one for now though.)

Do the ends justify the means? Could the use of nuclear weapons ever be justifiable? In that context, was the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that took many tens of thousands of lives and caused suffering to many more justified when compared to the hundreds of thousands or millions of lives along with much more widespread destruction that would likely have been lost in a wholesale bombing and invasion of Japan? Then again would we have used the bomb if Japan had it too?

Extrapolate that paradox to the invasion of Iraq. Have the deaths that have resulted been justified by the lives that have probably been saved?

These are not easy questions and not answered without some serious soul searching and consideration of all aspects of the issue.

George my learned friend, is not the pot calling the kettle black here? My last substantive post got ignored by you (I know, I do it to others) and you concocted a response about statistical probability of ex-GIs being disfunctional, which was impressive but was nothing to do with what I wrote, while at the same time heaping scorn. I'm sure there was some ad hominem too, but I'm too idle to go looking it up, my computer is too slow.

That defence did not fly at Nuremberg. It won't do here either.

You're not alone in this, because when Brits talk to Americans I believe some of the subtleties of meaning get lost, from both sides I mean....not that we're too subtle most of the time here.

True enough, McTag!