georgeob1 wrote:I believe you greatly exaggerate and distort the rhetoric that preceded our intervention in Iraq to create a very misleading picture in your demand for an 'either or' forced conclusion.
And I believe that you are as familiar with the polls that date back to 2001-03, asking people question about a Saddam-al Qaida connection or about the existence of WMD.
I would also point to the Powell's speech at the UN, where he gave, in front of the representatives of the entire world, the reasons why the US absolutely had to invade Iraq.
We can have a discussion about why an intervention in Iraq might have made sense or not, but that's a completely different matter from what this administration
chose to communicate to the public.
georgeob1 wrote:Moreover, you simply ignore a number of fundamental points including; (1)the dangers even the possibility of a nuclear program in Sadddam's hands could have presented in the region;
I don't ignore that point. The problem is that the existence of WMD in Iraq was often enough stated as an absolutely certainty, an imminent threat to the world in general and the US in particular that had to be dealt with
right now - and therefore misleading.
I was, in fact, in favour of a harsh course, even of sending troops to the Gulf region in order to get Saddam to comply with the UNSC resolutions. For some time, I was foolish enough to believe that a war could be avoided if Saddam was only complying and allowing the UN weapons inspectors to do their jobs and to verify the non-existence of WMD.
georgeob1 wrote:(2) The then ten year pattern of escalating attacks on the US and US interests (including a well-organized attempt to bring down the World Trade Center in 1993) , all of which were largely ignored or treated as mere criminal matters by the Clinton administration - all to our great misfortune;
That's right, and I am in no way opposed to international cooperation to deal with the problem of terrorism, or with the situation in the Middle East (not necessarily the same problem, mind you).
However, that question has little to nothing to do with the invasion of Iraq. The war was an attack on a nation state, admittedly a state created by colonial powers in the past (very much like a good number of African nations, or Australia, or Canada, the US or the Latin American countries - even though to varying degrees), but even in that regard in no way unique in the region.
Iraq had no
connection to terrorism in the sense that Iran, Syria, Pakistan or Saudi Arabia have ties to terrorism. Sure, Saddam was giving money to Palestinian families, but I doubt that this was more than propaganda - a move to associate Iraq and himself symbolically with the Palestinian cause.
georgeob1 wrote:(3) the obvious fact that the narrow focus on WMD was an unintended side effect of Blair's need for political cover within his own government, and the unfortunate decision of the Bush Administration to go along with it and take the case to the Security Council, instead of simply acting on the authority we already had under the agreement that ended hostilities after the Gulf war.
You forgot the ties to terrorism. WMD and the ties to terrorism.
That was how the war was sold to the
American public. Saying that these two issues were omnipresent in the American media merely to convince the Brits to go along with the plans of the Bush administration to invade Iraq seems to be quite a bit far-fetched, george.
georgeob1 wrote:Our real strategic reasons for the intervention were and are very different from what you assert - a fact that I suspect is not unfamiliar to you.
Well, what I'm talking about is that the "real strategic reasons" were unfamiliar for the American public.
Which leaves me wondering: why would this be the case? Could the American public not be trusted with the real strategic reasons? Or were people simply not paying attention.
georgeob1 wrote:I believe the mew century (or at least the early decades of it) will be largely focused on a long building challenge to the west from a reawakened Islamic world, stuck in the failed paradigms of authoritarian secular (Baathist) rule and equally authoritarian (and intolerant) religions rule. All this in a culture and civilization that never experienced an Enlightenment and which still chafes from the misrule and exploitation of European colonial power, which until the 1950s controlled the government of the vast majority of the Moslems on the planet. It is simply a fact that the present political movements, both secular and Islamist have their origins in the resistance to colonial misrule during that period. The roots of the confrontation with the West are old and well-developed. We would have to face this situation with or without our interventio n in Iraq --- no matter how much a too comfortable, complacent, and aged Europe might wish to deny it.
I know that you like to place the blame for the current situation squarely at the feet of the 18th and 19th century European colonial powers.
While there is certainly a lot of truth to that, I think you completely underestimate how quickly people react to a new situation. I think the way Washington has communicated its goals and gone on about those very recently have as much influence on the situation in today's world as the bad decisions of the 19th century France or Britain.
Without straying too far off topic, on a couple of trips to Latin America I have noticed how people react to the course the Bush administration has chosen in order to pursue American interests in the world, and it is definitely not in a good way. The dangerous thing about this is that it seems to be sufficient to run on an anti-American platform to even gain a large number of votes in elections, and personal experience seems to confirm this trend. I
have been to Bolivia and to Nicaragua and Chile and several other countries not too long ago, and I'm not at all surprised at how leftist parties or key figures have regained power in several countries.
The same seems to hold true for European countries, and being different from American seems to be good enough to be electable. Lacking first-hand experience, I can only imagine the situation in Muslim countries.
georgeob1 wrote:You narrowly focus on superficial contradictions and ignore the real underlying historical issue. You then go on to wonder at how an intelligent observer could not see through the veil or how the American people could be so stupid as to not adopt the same self-serving blindness that seems so pervasive throughout what Donald Rumsfield so aptly called "old europe". Remarkable!!!
Right. I narrowly focus on superficial contradictions. Don't think that I'm not aware of the underlying historical issues, but frankly: who cares? Who cares that the conflict between Sunni and Shi'a moslems goes back some 14 centuries, when it's just so easy to point to America? Who cares about the evilness of Saddam's regime, about death squads and torture when people can point at America and say "well, what do you think
they do in Guantanamo?" Who cares about all the speeches about freedom and democracy, when CIA agents at the same time abduct people and transfer them to secret prisons for months-long
interrogations?
Shouldn't it worry you a bit that this administration managed to alienate so many countries in such a short time? To turn the sympathies for America right after 9/11 and the international support when going into Afghanistan (and after al Qaida) into anti-Americanism, in a mere couple of years?
I, personally, am fairly disappointed to see apparently, most of the vows made in the wake of 9/11 for a comprehensive strategy involving a multitude of countries were completely forgotten about as soon as 2003. The focus, once again, shifted away from international terrorist networks, from al Qaida and bin Laden.
Given the course that the Bush admin chose to pursue instead, I doubt that inaction could have been a worse choice regarding the safety of the American population from terrorist attacks.
