Tres wrote:The thing that isn't right is your complete avoidance of the very real consequences of doing nothing. You and others like to make much hay over the consequences of action, but simultaneously pretend there are no consequences for inaction.
If we were inside a burning house on a rainy day, you'd argue that we shouldn't run outside because we'll all get wet.
Wrong.
I supported the war against Yugoslavia. I am not one of the pacifists who reject the notion of a necessary war per se - I believe they exist. I believe WW2 was one.
But war is, and always should be, a means of last resort.
War has a knack of replicating itself, of destroying lives, psyches, communities and societies on such a scale that they lead to new wars, soon after or a generation later.
That is why war should only ever be waged when the danger is immediate; when there are no other feasible means to contain or eliminate it; and when the medicine will not be worse than the illness, as we say here.
Whether this is the case should be considered every time, and I'm sure all of us here are doing exactly that.
To my mind, the present situation in Iraq fulfills none of the three above criteria. There has been no proof that Hussein was preparing a war against anyone, or even that he was colliding with Al-Qaeda in plotting terrorist attacks after the 9/11 example, and no proof that he was developing nuclear arms. The threat posed by his possible ownership of remaining chemical weapons could, according to a majority on the UN Security Council, the UN inspectors and neighbouring countries, have been contained and in time eliminated through the process of UN inspections backed up by military threat (rather than action) already in place. Finally, on the cure/illness thing, I am personally not sure - I am
afraid that the costs of this war, in terms of lives lost, terrorism incited, international institutions flaunted, and economies ruined, will be greater than the cost a Saddam regime surviving under its no-fly zones and UN inspectors would have posed to world security.
This might sound cruel towards the Iraqi's, but again I find myself quoting Mary Robinson, who, as former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, cannot be accused of disregard for civilian interests, in saying that sometimes, it can be justified to settle for containment. I didn't think that was the case in Yugoslavia, as Kosovars were fleeing collectively across the mountains, apparently threatened with immediate genocide. I didn't think it was the case back when Hussein was gassing the Kurds, and the US government rejected any need for intervention. But this time I veer towards thinking it is the case.
It's never an easy choice, as every choice for containment means condemning those inside, but it's not
by definition unreasonable. In 1956 the West decided to stand by while the Soviet troops rolled into Budapest. It's a black page in history, but one can imagine why it was taken, considering the alternative just might have provoked nuclear war. One always has to balance the costs of action and the costs of inaction.
I am not proposing doing nothing, and I am not avoiding the question of what the costs of doing nothing would be. In fact, just like many others here, I am considering that exact question of costs of action versus costs of inaction - and what combination of the two should be undertaken to ensure the least costs overall.
What I think should be
done is what everyone from France, Germany and a range of smaller European countries to governments in the region to the UN weapon inspectors and Kofi Annan himself to a range of experts on international law and politics is proposing variations on: keeping up the pressure through military threat, no-fly zones, UN inspections, embargoes on military-strategic trade, and a 'road map' of disarmament goals each coupled with a concrete retaliation, defined in a UN resolution.
You say he's flaunted them before - it's true. But it's also true that immense progress
has been made - just check the proud US statements of years past about the succesful disarmament of Iraq. According to the UN inspectors and officials the process was actually working - at least enough to warrant continuing it. As long as the US can prove no acute cause why continuing this effort for now would pose an immediate danger to the world, there is no justification for turning to the last resort war represents. The only reasons I've lately heard why the war couldnt wait are that its getting too hot and the troops might get demoralised by the waiting. Those are not the kind of arguments that could ever justify a decision to go for the last resort.
At this time, I consider the danger of what you would call inaction, and I would call pro-active containment, less than that of the kind of action Bush is proposing. That is an
answer to the question you say I ignore: in fact, practically all my posts and those of other opponents of this war here are genuine attempts at asking and answering that question.
