Poll: over 40% of Canadian teens think America is "evil"

From Sowells article:

What are the known facts about Saddam Hussein's chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons?

We know that, at one time or other, he was either developing or producing or using such weapons. Back in 1981, the Israelis bombed an Iraqi nuclear facility, to the loud condemnation of many nations. But, without that pre-emptive strike, the outcome of both Gulf wars could have been tragically different.

Saddam Hussein not only had, but used, chemical and biological weapons against his enemies, foreign and domestic. With the help of the French, he was rebuilding nuclear facilities, ostensibly for civilian energy purposes, but oil-rich countries do not need nuclear power plants to generate electricity.

More than a decade of playing cat-and-mouse with international weapons inspectors raised more and more suspicions about Iraq's weapons programs, and various nations' intelligence services reported that in fact he was back to his old tricks and developing weapons of mass destruction that could pose a major threat.

Who said so? The Russians said so. The British said so. Bill Clinton said so. Leaders of both political parties said so. George W. Bush was one of the last to say so. Yet he alone is accused of lying.

Were all these people wrong? While that is possible, it is also possible that Saddam Hussein used the long months between the time when the threat of invasion was debated at the United Nations and the time when it actually occurred to dismantle his weapons facilities and disperse them, perhaps to some neighboring country.

There is already photographic evidence of a massive dismantling of a facility of some sort before last year's invasion. These photos were published on the front page of the New York Times. Whether or not that particular building was producing weapons of mass destruction, it shows that Saddam Hussein saw the need to get rid of some things before they got captured.

Nations do not wait for iron-clad proof when there are lethal threats. The massive Manhattan Project that produced the first atomic bomb was begun when the United States was at peace because of reports that Hitler's scientists were working on such a weapon.

We had no proof -- and, after Germany surrendered, it turned out that Hitler's atomic bomb project was nowhere near the stage that we feared. But we couldn't take that chance.

People who talk glibly about "intelligence failure" act as if intelligence agencies that are doing their job right would know everything. But intelligence-gathering has always been a chancy business. In a nuclear age, the only thing that makes sense is to fail safe -- and strike pre-emptively, if necessary. If that offends people who think and talk in abstract terms about international law, then it is better that they be offended than that we wake up some morning and find New York or Chicago in radioactive ruins.

It was Saddam Hussein who chose to play cat-and-mouse with the weapons inspectors whom he had agreed to let monitor Iraqi facilities as part of the peace treaty ending the first Gulf War. It was his intelligence failure to think that he could keep on doing that indefinitely.

Come on Jer... That's twice you said that, and I don't believe you mean it.

If we have compelling, but not sure evidence that a "suspected" terrorist is planning to Nuke Manhattan; you want to give him the benefit of the doubt until we can "prove" he's a criminal?

This is patently false. Hussein kicked the U.N. Inspectors out in 1998. They had done their job for seven years at that time. Typical neo-con tactic, create your own historical truth to prop up your dubious contentions.

Wouldn't being kicked out constitute a failure? C'mon Setanta, I have always considered you one of the smart ones. Don't go proving me wrong now!

LOL, typical liberal spin, the UN inspectors had been stonewalled and misdirected for those seven years. Their inspection targets known well in advance, their ability to interview critically hampered, and many places kept off limits.

To say they did their job is blatantly false.

That is an abuse of the word "facts." You are referring to allegations made by a few of those posting here, you are not referring to facts. McG has just provided a marvelous example of what passes for fact among those who support this war--he claimed, falsely, that the UN Inspectors hadn't done inspections for 12 years. In fact, when the Inspectors returned in 2002, they had been gone for just less than four years, and had done inspections for seven years before they were kicked out.

That's why so much of what you post is crap--you don't bother to make a distinction between fact, and allegations which happen to coincide with what you would like to believe.

I can't assume you thought much before posting this. Being kicked out is evidence either of them closing in on violations, which Hussein would not tolerate; or, it is evidence of them closing in on the proof that he had no WoMD, which would have sent his stock in radical Islam plunging by proving him a paper tiger. Either way, the expulsion of the Inspectors shows that they were doing their job, and that was making Hussein very, very uncomfortable.

I always consider you one of the smart ones, blah, blah, blah . . .

There were inspections, fruitless ones, like looking in florida for the northwest passage.

linky

"What we could do is find some indications that there was a nuclear weapon or a biological weapon, find some indications that they were not telling the truth about the biological weapon. But finding the weapon itself, we were never going to do. It's completely impossible. It's their country."

Bill,



If we've got access to where he lives and a bunch of guys in blue hats inspecting it...yeah I do. The other part of that is COMPELLING EVIDENCE - obviously, by the public outcry and lack of international support, there wasn't compelling evidence in this case.

I wouldn't have had an issue with a covert team assasinating Saddam because of what he's done to his people and whatever perceived threat he may have posed. Invading the country and killing our innocents and their innocents is an issue though. The other issue I have is the precedent it sets.

Now, if North Korea feels threatened by the West it can launch an offensive saying, "The US acted preemptively to protect their interests - We should be allowed to do the same." Please note that I put that in quotation marks as something that they could say - not as something I agree with.

McG,

Your townhall author talks about the US building an A-bomb because there was fear that Hitler was working on one. I agree with that idea. Build it and be ready. The bomb was dropped during the war though, not pre-emptively. Which was the right thing to do.

All the US had to do was amass the force that was necessary to invade Iraq and then continue to allow the inspectors to go to town on Iraq. With a large international force in waiting, ready to strike if the inspections were being stopped or revealed anything, the US would have been ready and would have been subject to an extremely low risk of potential harm. The other thing this would have done would have been to show the middle-east that america is reasonable and cares about their people.

Instead the US has taken a "bring it on" & "if you're not for us, you're against us" stance. That's a confrontational stance if you ask me - and that literally is "asking for it."

The US did just that, but saddam wouldn't come clean.

Good thing we did invade, otherwise we wouldn't have known about farnce and russia's corrupt dealings with saddam.

jer, I agree 100 percent; Bush's famous "bring it on" resulted in chaos for Iraq. People have short memories.

We could have turned up the heat on inspections. We were already in the process of doing so.

There were a lot of other options than armed invasion of the country.

Cycloptichorn

I wanted 20ish.

Indefinite inspections.

Not to "put up with Saddam" but to contain him. With inspections all over the place, he couldn't have done anything but bitch at us.

He'd have been dead in 20.

After 7 years of inspections the inspectors themselves said they were worthless.

What is that definition of insanity?

Jer, there's only one Alpha. NK can do no such thing. Argue the unfairness of "might makes right" till you are blue in the face, but the principle isn't going away anytime soon.

We could debate what constitutes compelling evidence and effective containment till judgment day… that wasn't my point. My point was; there are situations where "innocent until proven guilty" isn't practical. I'm confident you can create an example to prove this to yourself.

By admitting you wouldn't have minded an assassination of Saddam, you've made the whole "innocent until proven guilty"-"insufficient evidence" angle obsolete. Your honest belief that war wasn't justified is making you cling to reasons it wasn't that you don't actually believe.

Craven writes:


And in 20 years maybe another 300,000 Iraqis would have been put to death at Saddam's consent/order, many or most in most unimaginable horrible ways.

Sometimes good intentions produce unintended bad consequences. And sometimes ambiguous intentions produce unexpected good consequences. Through an investment of our and their blood and treasure, hundreds of thousands of people may have been saved along with a potential new democracy, ally, trading partner, and increased stabilityin the Middle East. All this, to me, made it worth it.

Which assumes that there would have been 300,000 deaths, surpassing the number of Iraqis killed by his regime from 1978 through 2002; it assumes that what we have done now is establish a new democracy; it assumes that they will want to be our ally; it assumes that they will want to be our trading partner; it assumes that this has or will produce stability in the Middle East (it's a little problematic to increase that which is not in evidence). There is a great deal of assumption there, and little reason to assume.

Fox, To make it "worth it" to you, what exactly have you sacrificed?

What have you sacrificed that she hasn't c.i.?

c.i. hasn't claimed that anything made this "worth it" to him, O'Bill . . . apples to oranges . . .