US AND THEM: US, UN & Iraq, version 8.0

I fail to understand your purpose in adding this line to what was otherwise an excellent essay, logically well built on historical precedents.

My guess is that you think the probability of changing people's minds with excellent logical argument that employs reference to historical precedents, no matter how well expressed, to be very small. However, I encourage you to consider the effect of such argument on those who are still seeking enlightenment. To such people, I think such argument is essential to their confidence in their own understanding.

Thank you, I found this essay very interesting and quite informative.

I am still waiting fo you to respond to the point of this previous post with other than an hysterical attempted rebuttal:


Setanta, while you have offered persuasive argument that the following estimate is probably an exaggeration, you have not yet supplied what you think (and some evidence in support of what you think) is a more accurate estimate:


If France's Bonaparte regime is not on par with say Cambodia's Pol Pot regime that murdered millions of civilians, then perhaps you think it only on par with Iraq's Saddam Hussein regime that murdered only hundreds of thousands of civilians. Or pehaps you think it only on par with Cuba's Castro regime that murdered only tens of thousands of civilians. Could it actually be that you think it only on par with Iraq's Baathist-al-Qaeda regime (alias, "the insurgency") that has murdered only thousands of civilians?

You may wait until the cows come home on their own--i consider your attempts to contribute here to be little better than drivel on most occassions, and outright drivel on the remaining occassions. I simply take the opportunity to shoot your **** down when you make unsupported and unsupportable statements about history--a subject about which, it becomes increasingly obvious, you know nothing.

(Hint: cows will stay where they are until one goes to get them.)

I hope you recover soon from your hysteria.

"you hysteria?"

Now that is hysterical . . .


Don't flatter yourself . . .

ican,

Thanks for the kind words.

I'll admit I did not closely follow the rather heated argument about (I think) who had killed more civilians during wars and civil disorder during different periods of history. I believe it is safe to stipulate that the United States and all of the nations in Europe, and many others too, have killed lots of bystanders, spectators and merely innocent people who happened to be there during their many wars in the modern age (roughly since 1492). It is difficult to assess relative virtue (or the lack of it) from all of this because the population of the earth (and of cities and armies) has risen so fast during the past five centuries, and because of the large variations in the death tolls of wars due to variations in tactics, weapons, and the strategic goals being fought over. Certainly the bombing of cities by all participants in WWII added greatly to the civilian death toll, compared to (some) previous conflicts which saw only engagements between land armies in the field. Famines and epidemics associated with wars also add a large degree of variation to all of this that often has little to do with the merits (or lack of them) in the motivations of the various contending parties.

With all of this in mind I find it difficult to see just what conclusions one could reliably draw from such an examination. Certainly the sxtreme cases are illustrative - the Holocaust, the elimination of whole populations under Stalin, and Mao, etc. Beyond that it seems unlikely that one could draw any reliable conclusions from just the death statistics.

It is this line of reasoning which led to the sentence to which you objected.

Certainly the invective was flying in those exchanges, and I did not take the trouble to attempt to trace it back to its origins. I do (at least fairly often) try to avoid that sort of thing. There is usually something of interest to be found in the words and knowledge of even one you disagree with strongly. Better to try and find that. Even so, Setanta has occasionally found me condescending and offensive - and sometimes with good reason. Easy to preach: harder to act wisely.

The prinicple problem with such a appeal to history is that it assumes a static condition in human affairs, absent the particular bogey man. Absent Napoleon, one still has Austria attacking France, England landing troops on Walcheran Island (disasterously), the French revolutionaries attempting to export their revolution. Absent Hitler, Germany still nurses a childish and petulant (and grossly unrealistic) grudge against the "Versailles Diktat," while harboring the grossest illusion about not having been militarily defeated. It is naive, at best, to think that an individual makes that much difference in human affairs. I do not entirely subscribe to Tolstoy's contention that individuals do not matter at all to history, but i am also not so naive as to believe that all is happiness, peace and light without the human "monsters" who have plagued us.

With emphasis on: "It is difficult to assess relative virtue (or the lack of it) from all of this"

That is my general conclusion also.

However, in particular, the current wisdom of those I call castroites (i.e., those who favor different rules for different people) is wrong when that wisdom evaluates the relatively small transgressions in the US's current efforts in Iraq within the context of historical US flaws, but outside the context of historical other-nation flaws.

In some respects, measuring the US by higher standards than those used to measure other nations is flattering. But hating the US for its failures to consistently live up to those higher standards is irrational. Worse, blaming all Americans for the serious flaws of only some Americans is just another form of bigoty.

The US chose to take on an extemely risky and difficult but noble mission which for years it had tried to ignore and/or avoid. Our elected leaders decided that continuing to ignore and/or avoid this mission would cost us a great deal. I agree with them. I infer you do too. In deed, there is just cause to believe it would cost the other democracies of the world a great deal too.

The difficulty of the US's current mission in Iraq and Afghanistan is enhanced and not eased by incessant fault finding absent specific recommendations on how to overcome those faults. Expectations of near perfect perfomance, when neither the US or any other nation has ever exhibited such peformance, is not only naive; it is foolhardy and destuctive.

So attempting to establish a more realistic context for currently evaluating US efforts, I described the larger context of the actual historically flawed behaviors of many nations of the earth.

Setanta,
You are still the boss when it comes to historical facts and figures, and yet..... what beyond that?
What are we doing here? Filling up time?

You are very kind Oh Thou Candle-less One--i would suggest to you that this thread is one of the undead because the subject continues to prey upon peoples' minds . . .

Agreed.

And I will leave you all alone with this as I don't feel that I have anything to contribute.

The loose use of Fronde and Revolution together just show my own linkage of the two--and I also linked the Frondes with the incessant street fighting-- you know, the small revolutions by the people on the countryside, and urban, in response to Mazarin's (and Richelieu's before him) preposterous taxes. This all balls up in to a series of wars, which lasted over quite a bit of time, and did eventually star Napoleon Bonaparte.

I don't think it should be dismissed with such snide malice, as you well know Bonaparte did take part in this fighting.

This article examines US and UK intentions to invade Iraq before 9-11, and the manipulation of intelligence reports, and of the two governments, to create conditions for this.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/051005F.shtml

Eighty-Eight Members of Congress Call on Bush for Answers on Secret Iraq Plan
Raw Story
Thursday 05 May 2005
Eighty-eight members of Congress have signed a letter authored by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) calling on President Bush to answer questions about a secret U.S.-UK agreement to attack Iraq, RAW STORY has learned.
In a letter, Conyers and other members say they are disappointed the mainstream media has not touched the revelations.
"Unfortunately, the mainstream media in the United States was too busy with wall-to-wall coverage of a "runaway bride" to cover a bombshell report out of the British newspapers," Conyers writes. "The London Times reports that the British government and the United States government had secretly agreed to attack Iraq in 2002, before authorization was sought for such an attack in Congress, and had discussed creating pretextual justifications for doing so."
"The Times reports, based on a newly discovered document, that in 2002 British Prime Minister Tony Blair chaired a meeting in which he expressed his support for "regime change" through the use of force in Iraq and was warned by the nation's top lawyer that such an action would be illegal," he adds. "Blair also discussed the need for America to "create" conditions to justify the war."
The members say they are seeking an inquiry.
"This should not be allowed to fall down the memory hole during wall-to-wall coverage of the Michael Jackson trial and a runaway bride," he remarks. "To prevent that from occuring, I am circulating the following letter among my House colleagues and asking them to sign on to it."
The letter follows.
May 5, 2005
The Honorable George W. Bush President of the United States of America The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Mr. President:
We write because of troubling revelations in the Sunday London Times apparently confirming that the United States and Great Britain had secretly agreed to attack Iraq in the summer of 2002, well before the invasion and before you even sought Congressional authority to engage in military action. While various individuals have asserted this to be the case before, including Paul O'Neill, former U.S. Treasury Secretary, and Richard Clarke, a former National Security Council official, they have been previously dismissed by your Administration. However, when this story was divulged last weekend, Prime Minister Blair's representative claimed the document contained "nothing new." If the disclosure is accurate, it raises troubling new questions regarding the legal justifications for the war as well as the integrity of your own Administration.
The Sunday Times obtained a leaked document with the minutes of a secret meeting from highly placed sources inside the British Government. Among other things, the document revealed:
 Prime Minister Tony Blair chaired a July 2002 meeting, at which he discussed military options, having already committed himself to supporting President Bush's plans for invading Iraq.

 British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw acknowledged that the case for war was "thin" as "Saddam was not threatening his neighbours and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea, or Iran."

 A separate secret briefing for the meeting said that Britain and America had to "create" conditions to justify a war.

 A British official "reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
As a result of this recent disclosure, we would like to know the following:
1) Do you or anyone in your Administration dispute the accuracy of the leaked document?
2) Were arrangements being made, including the recruitment of allies, before you sought Congressional authorization go to war? Did you or anyone in your Administration obtain Britain's commitment to invade prior to this time?
3) Was there an effort to create an ultimatum about weapons inspectors in order to help with the justification for the war as the minutes indicate?
4) At what point in time did you and Prime Minister Blair first agree it was necessary to invade Iraq?
5) Was there a coordinated effort with the U.S. intelligence community and/or British officials to "fix" the intelligence and facts around the policy as the leaked document states?
We have of course known for some time that subsequent to the invasion there have been a variety of varying reasons proffered to justify the invasion, particularly since the time it became evident that weapons of mass destruction would not be found. This leaked document - essentially acknowledged by the Blair government - is the first confirmation that the rationales were shifting well before the invasion as well.
Given the importance of this matter, we would ask that you respond to this inquiry as promptly as possible. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Members who have already signed letter:
Neil Abercrombie
Brian Baird
Tammy Baldwin
Xavier Becerra
Shelley Berkley
Eddie Bernice Johnson
Sanford Bishop
Earl Blumenauer
Corrine Brown
Sherrod Brown
G.K. Butterfield
Emanuel Cleaver
James Clyburn
John Conyers
Jim Cooper
Elijah Cummings
Danny Davis
Peter DeFazio
Diana DeGette
Bill Delahunt
Rosa DeLauro
Lloyd Doggett
Sam Farr
Bob Filner
Harold Ford, Jr.
Barney Frank
Al Green
Raul Grijalva
Louis Gutierrez
Alcee Hastings
Maurice Hinchey
Rush Holt
Jay Inslee
Sheila Jackson Lee
Jessie Jackson Jr.
Marcy Kaptur
Patrick Kennedy
Dale Kildee
Carolyn Kilpatrick
Dennis Kucinich
William Lacy Clay
Barbara Lee
John Lewis
Zoe Lofgren
Donna M. Christensen (more)

This is new?

Al Green signed it...?

Seriously. They already trotted this tripe out at the BBC, and were found to have fabricated it--and heads rolled.

Why don't the conspiracy theorists just get over it?

The Wars of the Fronde and the Revolution are proximate neither in time nor in cause. Louis XIII died in 1643. His grandson, aged 5, became Louis XIV. His mother, Anne of Austria, and her advisor (and possibly her lover) Mazarin, represented a minority interest in power resented by the noblesse. In fact, the civil wars collectively known as the Wars of the Fronde had no political basis in common with the revolution. The conditions which existed one hundred and thirty years later and which lead to the Revolution were in large measure created by Louis XIV, who did not take actual power until 1661, when he was 23. His program was to draw the noblesse to him at Versailles, to marginalize them politically, and to erect an edifice of centralized monarchical power. Read L'Ancien régime et la revolution by Alexis de Tocqueville sometime. I'm not certain how it is translated into English, although it seems obvious to me that it ought to be The Old Regime and the Revolution. I do know that it is available in English. Tocqueville very clearly demonstrates how the layering of new monarchical taxation and exaction onto the old order impositions of the noblesse, combined with the rise of a middle class responding to the new economic and social opportunities created a strained situation, a powder keg waiting for a spark. The failure of the grain harvest in 1788, largely due to a devasting hail storm which was general throughout northern France, and leading to nearly criminal hoarding and price gouging by speculators, was the spark. The government might have weathered that storm, had it not bankrupted itself ten years earlier fighting England during the American revolution.

The conditions which lead to the French revolution simply did not exist in 1643. Just because you know so little about French history as to make such simplistic and naive statements is no reason for others to accept them.

I should also add that Bonapart took part in no street fighting, apart from the famous incident in which he fired on the mob in October, 1795--an incident immortalized by Thomas Carlisle as "a whiff of grapeshot." Napoleon commented that the practice of firing blank charges to disperse a crowd was folly, because, discovering themselves unhurt, they would come on the more resolutely and with greater anger. So he poured grapeshot into the crowd, which very effectively dispersed them. In so doing he ended the Revolution, and ratified the right-wing counter revolution which had created the Directory.

You really have a lot of reading to do before you are sufficiently informed to comment on that period.

This is inaccurate and misleading. The report which led to two significant resignations at the BBC (of reporter Andrew Gilligan and D-G Greg Dyke), demanded at the time by the Governors, was later proved to be accurate in all important factual aspects.
This was discovered among the conclusions contained in the Butler Report, commissioned by the government.

They damn well are related.

And, I am well aware of Mazarin's relationship to Louis, his mother, blah blah...

The Frondes were about utter contempt for Mazarin due to the taxes, among other insults against the poverty stricken French people. These factors remained, and added with others to push off the Revolution--but writers have reviewed this period as related. Taxation and financial imprudence were likely the MAIN reasons the public was so hot.

The Fronde DID include anger over the heavy spending on the Thirty Years War, and related fighting pushed by Richelieu and Mazarin. The extreme taxation WAS related. The refusal of the First Estate to pay taxes WAS at issue.

Just because you know so much about history doesn't mean you're always right.