Tim Blair

The anti-warriors are too busy preparing their Palm Sunday protest marches.

Hitch shoots, he scores.

It ain’t tit-for-tat with people like Jong-Il, Saddam, & Al Qaeda & other Islamofascists. Their agenda for our being crippled or destroyed has been limited only by their various inabilities. Deterrence is dying, & with Al Qaeda it is already dead. It is madness to let such swamplings control the rate of escalation.

Plam sunday protest marches?
They're going to ruin a religious holiday with their petty temporal complaints?

*spit*

One thing that got missed in all this is while Bush had his reasons for going after Saddam, others had other reasons. Some because of the threat of WMDs, coupled with Saddam's friendliness with terrorists like Abu Nidal, Abu Abbas (Achille Lauro) and others. Some because of the humanitarian disaster that Saddam was perpetrating on his own people. Some, a debt owed to the Shi'a after their failed uprising in 1991. Some, flypaper, others, draining the swamp that causes terrorism.

There are plenty of good reasons to go after Saddam. There are no good reasons to not to. Whether Bush's reasons are yours or not, it does not matter one whit. Does removing Saddam satisfy YOUR goal? That is all that matters.

Halliburton picks up a few extra bucks. America might grow stronger, or more influential in the world. Does any of these matter compared to what was accomplished? The liberation of the people of Iraq from Saddam's tyranny, the death of many terrorists and would be terrorists?

No. I have my own reasons for supporting Bush's actions. Several in fact. Some do not concide with Bush's, some do. So what? It accomplished and is accomplishing what I wanted done. And that is all that matters to me.

I think that if Don Rumsfeld shook Saddam's hand once, then the US were hypocrites in later trying to shoot it off. And it's the Americans who are the warmongers- TWO wars against a country that never did anything to them. All the Bushes wanted was oil for their Texas friends and to bully Arabs on behalf of Israel. This was a proxy war against the Palestinians. There never were any WMD other than those sold to Iraq by the US.

Answer this: If the Iraqi people were so unhappy with their leader, why did they put up his picture everywhere and grow mustaches like his? Are you forgetting that Saddam held elections in his country and nearly everyone voted for him?

Clearly, the unilateral coalition members who unseated Saddam's lawful government are the true terrorists. Hitch the Brit and other radical Zionists like him are western imperialists bent on subjegating peoples of color. Didn't any of you go to the university, or are you too illiterate to read Edward Said?

More sickening moral bankruptancy from europe on Melanie Phillips website

1 Two minutes Silence at the house of commons for Yassin. Shame they could'nt hold one for the young victims of suicide bombings masterminded by Yassin.
2 EU has covered its tracks on the scandal of EU money being used to fund hamas terrorism.
There is obviously a threat of class action by relatives of victims of EU funded terror and they must pulg the gaps by blaming the victims.
Funding of terrorism is "humanitarian aid" and defence against mass murder is called terrorism by those sick people.

Here are the kinds of answers I usually get:

1. Sanctions should have been given more time to work. (That the sanctions regime was loosening, because of European lack of resolve, is never acknowledged. That the sanctions were killing more people than the war never counts. Only the war dead count against anyone, the sanctions dead are Free Dead.)

2. With the right kind of pressure the regime would have liberalized. ("Right kind" never defined, but of course your average humanities academic at a midwestern state university knows better than the entire diplomatic establishment, so it must exist.)

3. Well, WE supported his regime and made him what he was.

4. Halliburton!

5. Of course, war never solved anything. (Never mind that that contradicts the earlier comment about wanting tougher sanctions etc. I guess these are non-military sanctions enforced by peaceful means.

6. Allow me to now sketch a magical future in which the regime is overthrown without having to get into the messy details of how it is actually accomplished. Anyway, it's not our business. Do you realize 38 million Americans do not have health insurance?

7. See magical revolution which would have prevented everything bad, above.

What I never see discussed is this:

Why did Saddam war against Iran?

Why did Saddam invade Kuwait?

Why did Saddam have chemical and biological weapons?

What was Saddams long term amibition?

If Saddam was allowed to remain in power what would the world look like in 2006?

Why was Saddam pursuing nuclear weapons?

Dear Professor:

Answer this: If the Iraqi people were so unhappy with their leader, why did they put up his picture everywhere and grow mustaches like his? Are you forgetting that Saddam held elections in his country and nearly everyone voted for him?

I believe it was Saddam's policy of "vote for me or die", "copy me or die", and "worship me or die" -- or have you forgotten those mass graves?

Terror can be an effective means of repression by a ruthless regime. Think about it.

Dear Professor:

The comment was satire. (Though I only twigged in the second paragraph)

How do you ask a man to be the last one to be tossed into an industrial plastic shredder?

The "professor" comment was surely toungue-in-cheek, but it's easy to see why one might fail to notice - it was far too much like actual arguments from the left.

unlike some iraqis, at least i still have a tongue to put in cheek

Cut the 2nd graf and you would have fooled me.

I really don't know why the f*ck people get into arguments and laundry lists of reasons for Gulf War II. It's really simple:

1) Gulf War I ended with a cease-fire.

2) One of the conditions of the cease-fire was that Iraq would allow unfettered access by UN weapons inspectors.

3) Iraq threw the weapons inspectors out. At that point, the cease-fire was violated and the war was automatically back on. No reasons needed, no approval had to be sought. By Iraq's choice, the state of war resumed.

That's the argument I've always used. F*ck WMD, f*ck terrorist ties, it's all irrelevant. Iraq broke the cease-fire.

David,

You are 100% correct. I have used that argument and am ignored on it.

In 1936 France and Britain entered into a Non_Intervention (in spanish civil war) treaty. Germany and Italy were sending arms to Franco. They signed the treaty with France and England as they continued to send arms. England and France stopped sending arms to the Spanish government even as they knew(from their ambassadors) that Italy and Germany were violating the treaty as they signed it.
Why did they?? The same reasons as the opposition makes believe that Saddam wanted "peace".And some of the same countries involved. It was and is a stupid game. Iraq makes a declaration. Inspectors find more stuff. Iraq amends declaration. Inspectors find more stuff. And the diplomats play the game of blindness because they don't want to face up to the consequences. If the coalition didnt remove Saddam after his repeated violations of the truce (as you point out), these same diplomats would have removed sanctions and the inevitable catastrophe would have happened in 4 or 5 years. And, as in the 1930's and now, they would have called for more conferences. They never learn.

By the way.

All the crap that is going on now in the Sudan is being reported. Ethnic cleansing, massive deaths and destruction. The UN is fully aware of all this and has been for a long time. It is another Rwanda. Where is Annan, the Security Council, the marchers in the streets, and of course, the Coalition of the Unwilling. Oh yes. There is going to be a meeting to plan for a meeting to discuss a truce.

If the US doesnt have a strategic interest, the rest of the world, with their international law and international courts and international treaties are hopeless shits who do nothing.

Time for another conference.

Guess I'm not too bright...I thought the 'professor' remarks were other than tongue-in-cheek.

Regarding the tired oil thing, I guess Bush's Texas friends will own the oil in Iraq just like Aramco owns the oil in Saudi Arabia...

Concerning Haliburton, the reality is that there is only one other company in the world that has the people and technical resources to do the oil field and pipeline maintenance and that company is Schlumberger.

Aprril,

You are making a mistake in citing facts. That isn't what this is all about. The anti-war arguments are all intended to make the US and Pres. Bush the issue instead of Calliph Saddam Hussein the issue. As long as we are discussing all of these side issues we never have to discuss the issues Hitchins tries to bring up.

zzx375. meant to address last post to you. Sorry

Who is Aprril?

Doh... sorry, zzx375 is Aprril. Please delete this babble.

The Texas oil thing was only a bone to leftists to hide what the Lone Star Country really wants out of this war: a source of cheap sand for its sand art industry. Bush risked everything- blood, billions and world opinion- for Texas and her artist community. Aramco wouldn't deal on the Saudi sand (Cheney tried and tried), so it had to be second choice Iraqi grit, instead.

Obviously, the war wasn't for the oil (except in France's case). We could have bought it more cheaply and w/o the hassle on the UN kickbacks plan. But the war reductionists are right about one thing- war is always over a commodity and its monopoly. War is never about intangibles, like security, political dynamics, ideology, humanitarian considerations or social and economic restructuring.

If capitalization of natural resources ever happens after a war action, then that is an open and shut case of exploitation. Whether the people and their economy benefit or not. Whether they have partial or complete ownership of the resources. Profits by international corporations are profane

Hallibuton is only a front for the Texas sandbaggers, btw, while France's lucrative Saddam oil contracts may yet be honored

Did he really just write "unilateral coalition?"

Who didn't go to uni?

Whats wrong with a war for oil anyways!? Wasn't is british and american engineers and scientists who actually discovered the oil and taught them how to pump it and sell it to us?

Christopher, "Unilateral coalition" was intentional. You know, the cognitive dissonance of the left? And war protestors who think "uni" references any number up to 30 or so?

So why the hell wasn't the case for war put in those exact same terms then? Why couldn't Bush come out and put forward similar justifications prior to going to war instead of the WMD and UN farce that was engaged in? Mobile labs! Drones! 45 minutes!

Why not just come out and say "we belive the world will be a better place without Saddam and we shall have regime change because we think it is best for Iraqis & the region."

Instead we had John Howard saying Saddam could stay if he gave up his weapons etc etc

The warmongers would have fared so much better if they were honest about their opinions. At least the debate would have been about the real issues involved, and not conducted on the WMD pretext when there were far more compelling reasons.

In the meantime, people like Billmon are having a field day pointing out the bad craziness in the lead up to the war.

It was an American who discovered the refining method to create gasoline from crude oil, and the rest of you owe us a healthy royalty check.

Waiting...

1. Do you believe that a confrontation with Saddam Hussein’s regime was inevitable or not?

No. The cost/benefit analysis and the opportunity analysis was not going to change any time soon. Benefits -- what interest did we have that is worth such a confrontation? In other words, why should a member of my family potentially be killed or maimed to fight Saddam (that's the only valid test). WMD? There were none. Terrorists training camps? There were none.

Opportunity costs -- the Iraq War has made it far more difficult to deal with other larger problems, particularly in light of poor planning that has bogged down the US Army and America's loss of credibility due to misstatements about WMD. We've bitten off more than we can chew already, and therefore cannot credibly threaten Iran, which is a country developing nuclear weapons, training terrorists and harboring al qeada leaders. Plus, we pulled crack special forces off the al qeada hunt in Afghanistan to do Iraq.

Worst of all, we truly looked like an unstoppable hyperpower in 2002, which was very useful. Now we look weak.

2. Do you believe that a confrontation with an Uday/Qusay regime would have been better?

Who cares -- see answer to No. 1.

3. Do you know that Saddam’s envoys were trying to buy a weapons production line off the shelf from North Korea (vide the Kay report) as late as last March?

Try as you might to spin this crap, the evidence is now dispositive that the inspections worked -- and they were underway again when the war started. Here's your source, David Kay, in a recent interview:

"Kay noted, "Most intelligence reports from around the world said that the Iraqi chemical and biological programs had already been restarted and that they had weapons. Turns out, I think, those reports were wrong, and now we know they were wrong because inspections were more of a hindrance, and (the Iraqis) feared them more in the mid-90s than we anticipated."

4. Why do you think Saddam offered "succor" (Mr. Clarke’s word) to the man most wanted in the 1993 bombings in New York?

I don't know, do you? After-the-fact assistance is not as bad as assitance in planning, but it's not tolerable. It was appropriate to bring pressure against Iraq for this, but was it worth $200 billion, 600 dead (1,000 or more by the end of the year), 3,500 maimed, limited flexibilty in dealing with truly dangerous regimes such as Iran and North Korea? I don't think so.

5. Would you have been in favor of lifting the "no fly zones" over northern and southern Iraq; a 10-year prolongation of the original "Gulf War"?

Not unless the Iraqis fully cooperated with the inspection process.

6. Were you content to have Kurdish and Shiite resistance fighters do all the fighting for us?

No. I didn't want anyone to fight for us. However, if the Kurds and Shiites pursued their own rebellion, I don't think a replay of Bush I's actions in 1991 would have been smart. You'd have to act based on the circumstances presented, and no rebellion was in the offing.

7. Do you think that the timing of a confrontation should have been left, as it was in the past, for Baghdad to choose?

When did you stop beating your wife? It's not a fairly phrased question. But the reply is that we had appropriately ratched up pressure in the fall of 2002. Kerry and other senators we're correct in giving the President authority to go to war so that a credible threat of force could be made. But the threat worked, so the war was reckless.

Inspectors had full access in March 2003 until George Bush kicked them out of Iraq. They were in the process of confirming what we now know (at a far, far greater price): Iraq had no WMD and destroyed them all by 1994.

And PJ, making his best effort to date, scores ZERO. We have a nice parting gift for you and better luck next time.

I can see from his 1st answer that pj lives in a dreamworld where technology is at a standstill. Yawn.

So-called "professor":

"And it's the Americans who are the warmongers- TWO wars against a country that never did anything to them"

So you approved of Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. (And by extension his long-term oppression of Shia, Kurdish, and Marsh Arab Iraqis.) You also seem to have missed the memo that pretty much everyone else with room-temperature or higher IQ got: He failed to follow any of the agreements that he signed on for following his failed attack on Kuwait.

At which school do you teach, again? I'd like to make sure that no children that I car one whit about ever attend.

"...Answer this: If the Iraqi people were so unhappy with their leader, why did they put up his picture everywhere..."

For the same reasons that the USSR was filled with pictures of Stalin, China with pictures of Mao, and Germany with pictures of Hitler.

Which, by the way, pretty much answers the question about Saddam's high vote takes.

Not that the professor would understand any of the above.

In answering #1 and #2 PJ makes a tired re-hash of the distraction argument and ignores the fact that we are putting pressure on Iran simply by being in Iraq. He ignores how all the leaders in the Middle East are feeling the heat because GWB wants to change their world. Radical Islam fears the idea that Iraq could return to being a prosperous and mostly secular country. He's also making the grand "Saddam only kills his own people, it's not my business argument", but at least he is kind enough to think that we should have threatened Iraq with war just to get the inspectors back in . . . so that the inspectors could prove that Iraq was complying anyway which would make it impossible to effectively "threaten" war to disarm a rogue state again.

In trying to "unspin the crap" #3 he neglects that the only reason we had inspections in Iraq was because of constant pressure and it would take even more of that on a permanent basis to make sure Saddam didn't start back up again. He was trying to deal with North Korea in March, PJ. MARCH. During the inspections.

He doesn't know the obvious answer to #4, which is Saddam hated us and helped our enemies. That made him a threat.

Strangely, for #5, the Iraqis never fully complied with the inspection process and the weekly bombing of Iraq continued until Saddam was removed once and for all. Was it worth the billions and billions, PJ? Was it worth the Iraqi lives lost? And assuming that Iraq did comply and disarm openly, would it be okay for Saddam to start killing Kurds with conventional weapons? Hey, not your problem, right?

#6, PJ says there was no rebellion in the offing. Could that possibly be because we failed to support the last one immediately after the first war, and that our continued sanctions made it impossible? PJ wanted the sanctions to keep containing Saddam and then generously gives his permission for the starved and poor people of Iraq to overthrow him despite having no means to do so. Maybe Saddam could have been a sport and given them some of the Oil of Palaces money to help out.

#7, PJ says the threat for war worked, that must have been why Saddam stepped down when Bush told him to beat it. That must have been why Blix came back to the UN and said "Iraq has answered all of our questions and has not stalled us in any way". That must have been why Iraqi scientists were allowed to answer questions without "minders" next to them or without any potential threats to their families. If we had not removed Saddam by the end of all of this, our "credible threat of force" would have meant nothing and left us weaker than before. That's what a Kerry presidency will give us. Backing down in favor of endless inspections and sanctions and a green light for despots to keep bullshitting the civilized world in the UN.

Thanks for making the first honest attempt to answer, PJ, but you get an F.

So why the hell wasn't the case for war put in those exact same terms then? Why couldn't Bush come out and put forward similar justifications prior to going to war instead of the WMD and UN farce that was engaged in?

Nice dodge, Bongoman, but the answer to your question is two words:

French veto.

The reason WMD were the case put before the UN is because the UN would not give its blessing to a "pre-emptive humanitarian mission to make the world a better place by removing Saddam immediately" The UN doesn't work that way, unfortunately.

I think PJ does pretty well. Better than many I've read. I'll be quick about responding back:

1. a) Many of us think the cost/benefit analysis changed rather dramatically on September 11th, and we couldn't do nothing about that festering region of the world any more. b) Every day we round up somebody somewhere besides Iraq, it becomes more obvious that the "distraction" argument often raised by the antis is false. c) Weaker? I'd say we look strong for the first time in a long time.

2. Who cares? Non-isolationists who believe we're not protected by distance in a nuclear world, that's who.

3. Doesn't really matter what the evidence is NOW. The point is, Saddam wasn't cooperating THEN. The penalties for that were clear. Not doing anything about it would have been the ultimate signal of weakness. As the UN is the ultimate symbol of weakness.

4. Was it worth all that? Ask again in 30 years and maybe we'll know for sure. Was saving those 600 military lives worth the possible nuking of an American city later this decade? That's the kind of question presidents have to ask themselves when they order people into battle. If you can answer a question like that quickly and glibly, you're not ready to be president.

5. See earlier comment about the "Free Dead" of the sanctions regime versus the War Dead laid at Bush's feet.

6. We ARE the reason no one dared rebel again.

7. "It's not a fairly phrased question." Here's a dictator who made four wars of conquest over his career (all disastrous, by the way). Here's the sanctions regime and the coalition, the only things that ever kept him under control-- and they're fraying rapidly. What the F do you think he's going to do the instant he gets the chance, to show that he's the big man again, the Saladin of his age? Not a fairly phrased question my ass. You're living in a dream world if you think the instant the bonds loosened, he wasn't going straight back to the only thing he knew how to do.

I completely agree with you, SteveH. I was voicing how many Middle Eastern Studies professors teach gullible college kids- at a junior high level of emotionalism and grasp of the facts. My husband got a graduate degree in ME studies and even taught the course at West Point for a few years, but it took years for reality to puncture through his Ed Said indoctrination and post-colonialism guilt.

Mike G/

You have it just right. Everyone wants to forget that Pres. Clinton had the Iraq Liberation Act passed which called for regime change in Iraq. And statements made by him and others in his administration identified Saddam as the problem. And all the PJ's like to forget what Saddam did in his quest to be the modern Saladin or Caliph. Those tee shirts with Bin Ladens picture proudly displayed around the world would have had Bin Laden on one side and Saddam on the other. The Arab street would have worshiped him as the new leader and all the authoritarian leaders would have fallen in line. The Arab League meetings would have him in the seat of honor. Horror.

"we truly looked like an unstoppable hyperpower in 2002, which was very useful. Now we look weak."

pj - I don´t think so. You didn´t look unstoppable to your enemies. Even after Afghanistan, you looked like a paper tiger. You looked like a degenerate country afraid to take out a shitty dictator who had openly declared war on you.

The real problem is that we are erecting such impossibly high barriers to going to war. This is unprecedented in history. No reason is ever good enough. And our enemies can smell that. Hey, this is a SMALL war by most standards. Ripping yourself apart over it - that makes you look weak.

"We've bitten off more than we can chew already, and therefore cannot credibly threaten Iran"

If Iraq is more than you can chew, how could you ever credibly threaten Iran, with three times the area, four times the population? How could you have occupied that country? And with Saddam next door! After all, we would still not know for sure if he wasn´t three months away from his first nuke. The evidence that inspections had had some success in disrupting his WMD programs only came up as a result of the war. Saddam´s cooperation with the inspectors was never satisfactory and you had to put 150.000 troops on his borders to keep the pressure up. Troops which would have been tied up in Iran instead, if we followed your strategy. Or do you recommend that we never really attack anybody? I mean, how certain are we that the Iranian nuke program is real? When is the time to act militarily? Would it be now? Do you know the cost/benefit ratio at this point in time, pj?

My point is that in a war on terror you use all means at your disposal: police, intelligence agencies, special forces, foreign sources and allies. You also use your heavy divisions. Iraq was the logical place to use the heavy divisions.

There were so many reasons - WMD potential, terrorist connections, UN resolutions, unfinished business, open threats, loss of face, humanitarian, geostrategic key position, doable from a military standpoint (unpopular regime, military worn down by sanctions, good terrain, not too large or populous). Also a relatively secular country with economic potential, where democratization might have a chance of working - this is vital if you believe that bad government is a root cause of terrorism in the whole region. While I´m sceptical on the chances of Iraq becoming a secular democracy, it is an honorable thing to try, and important for all of us.

Few of these reasons apply to other axis of evil countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran or Pakistan.

WTF? For those that cant see The Professor is pure satire, learn to laugh!!!!!!

The Professor's credible april 1st hoax shows how lamentable ME studies have become worldwiide.
It also an indication to the source of the increasing ME bias throughout the Media.
This is paper terrorism is homespun in our backyards.
The lamentable and cowardly actions of the German Government in response to the capture of the Olympic terrorist at Munich was a watershed for appeasment and the Islamic terrorists groups When you stone a european he picks up the stones that miss and beats himself with them hoping the stoning will stop.

Here's a reply to two criticms of me that I think are closest to being valid.

1. The assertion that our presence in Iraq pressures Iran. This certainly would have been true had the Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz wishful thinking occurred and "mission accomplished" had actually been reached on the day that Bush played boy soldier on the deck of the USS Licoln, but it didn't work out that way. Iran knows that there is no chance of us invading another country right now, particular not one that would create an even a greater fundamentalist backlash than the invasion of secular Iraq. I think the lesson we taught Iran was that allowing UN inspections, and being left as a weak country without nukes, leaves them open to a US invasion whenever the whim strikes America. Iran has greatly ratcheted up their nuclear program since 2002, and I guarantee you that they will appear to make nice to stall sanctions or to prevent a pre-emptive strike, but there is no way they will stop their nuclear program until they can declare, as the North Koreans have, that they have a nuke. Once they have a nuke we cannot invade -- they could wipe out tens of thousands of US troops in one strike if we did. So we have actually nuclearized the middle east, because once Iran declares itself nuclear, Saudi Arabia will be forced to build the bomb. Saudi Arabia is already on record to that effect.

2. The argument is made that continued sanctions would have killed civilians -- a valid point. But the math used to determine children killed by sanctions was merely a function of reduced GDP as a correlation to child deaths, and the war has drastically reduced Iraq's GDP beyond what the sanctions were doing. It has ground the economy to a standstill as Iraq has continued to be a war zone. The child deaths from poverty have sky rocketed in the past year if you use the (controversial) formula that the anti-sanctions groups used to declare hundreds of thousands of deaths in Iraq from the sanctions.

Go on, PJ -- keep on digging yourself in deeper.

PJ-- I very much doubt that Iran has ratcheted up their nuke program. The most likely thing is that we have ratcheted up our awareness of what they're up to. Or they may have ratcheted up internal activities which are replacing their earlier activities on the international market which we have curbed to no small extent. But the idea that we have driven them to something they weren't already hip deep in is ludicrous. As the example of Libya (which funny, you don't mention) demonstrates, we don't really know what any of them are up to, except that it's always more than we expected. (That's even true to some extent of Saddam-- he had less active work going on, though he may not have thought so, but he was more active on the international market.) The answer to Iran's nuke problem is not making the mullahs less nervous so they'll slow down. It's doing everything we can to make them fall as soon as possible.

As for sanctions killing fewer than the postwar scenario-- oh for cryin' out loud, the way out of that argument is NOT arguing that the math for calculating sanctions-related death is unfair, and then arguing that the same unfair formulas SHOULD be applied to the present situation after all! Show me something from a credible source that says Iraq had a functioning economy beforehand, for starters. It had a kleptocracy, and many of the people now out of work should be out of work, since their work was evil. You can't assume a stable ratio of GDP to standard of living when the difference is between one government that was starving and stealing and another is handing out aid right and left. Basically you're saying that putting the torturers out on the street has hurt consumer spending in Iraq. Well, I guess it probably has, but I'm not exactly crying a river over it.

PJ, your argument about Iran assumes that the mullahs will do everything they can to get nukes, which I agree with. But you claim that's because our actions have made it impossible for them to act in good faith and trusted to disarm... which is, well, pretty naive. Iran would be going for nukes period. This isn't something our actions have triggered, we're the Great Satan no matter what we do.

Right now they're not only trying to get nukes, but they're trying to cling to power. I have no idea how much of a revolt is brewing in Syria or Iran because it's hard to get reliable information out of there, but the mullahs are in real danger domestically and they are really worried about US troops being just over the border. Being in Iraq is a good thing, and if it were necessary we sure as hell could move right in. The only things preventing us from such a dramatic course of action would be anti-war agitators and/or a hypothetical Democrat in the White House, not any limitation in our actual military capability. Hell, there were people who said we couldn't possibly get the Taliban out of Afghanistan three years ago and people somehow still take that kind of thinking seriously (cue post from Miranda or IXLTITZ about opium).

Iran and North Korea are both stalling and holding out in hopes that they will get to deal with a kinder, gentler, easier to dupe John F Kerry so that they can forget about any threat from the supreme military force on the planet. They aren't being emboldened and strengthened by the Bush Doctrine. They're scared of it.

With all this geonocide going on in Sudan, will Kofi Anan still do nothing like in Rawanda. In my eyes the UN are IRRELEVENT (but of course the condemnation on Yassin's assasination was very encouraging...let me just put on my hijab and I'll tell you why....).

....The warmongers would have fared so much better if they were honest about their opinions. At least the debate would have been about the real issues involved, and not conducted on the WMD pretext when there were far more compelling reasons.....

bingo, bongo :)

After what the Bush administration had to go through to oust one single crappy dictator, it is indeed unlikely that future presidents will do anything as courageous. I repeat: THAT is what makes you look weak. No thanks to you, pj. And you haven´t answered my questions, either.

The reason intelligent anti-warriors don't answer Hitchens' questions is that each question begs question -- and all are based on the assumption that Saddam and family were out to get us.

Hitchens got mad, self-righteously angry, last year. If he really thinks he's right, he wouldn't keep on fighting the anti-war folks. No. He's an arrogant Cantabrigian or Oxonian (forgotten which) who is furious that his diatribes aren't persuasive, only irritating. I hope at least one colleague asks him daily, "Will you stop beating your wife?"

I usually only have one much simpler question:

"Given your continued opposition to the war and what we know now about Husseins mass murners, environmental disasters, and general oppresion -- would you be in favor today of giving the country back to Hussein?

There should be a question in there that should make mention of the (at least) two Palestinian arch-terrorists who were given safe harbor by Saddam... is that enough of a link to terrorism, or does the situation require a photograph of Osama shaking hands with Saddam?

Hitchens is brilliant. Coming from the left, I've shared his point of view ever since reading No One Left To Lie To & The Trial Of Henry Kissinger.
Thank you for the excellent blog, Tim.

Gosh, Bean. You really destroyed Hitchens. I'll bet you've silenced him forever.

"Dear Professor"....

Oops!

Very poor questions, most based on pure speculation. They would be very easy to hit out of the park, but I am off to church.

1. Do you believe that a confrontation with Saddam Hussein’s regime was inevitable or not?

If "confrontation" means "war requiring 100,000 ground troups and $100B", certainly no. We might have faced another 1998-level confrontation (in 1 or 5 or 10) years, we might not.

Turning the question around, is it inevitable that we will have a confrontation with Iran, Syria, North Korea, Saudi Arabia or Pakistan? If yes, why are we spending our money and tieing down our forces in Iraq? If no, what makes Iraq so special that we can be certain a war there was inevitable?

2. Do you believe that a confrontation with an Uday/Qusay regime would have been better?

It's impossible to know, but there's no reason to believe it definitely would have been worse. Saddam had a proven ability to keep control of his country; his sons had not been tested in the same ways. Their heinous personal behavior did not necessarily make them more dangerous to U.S. interests.

3. Do you know that Saddam’s envoys were trying to buy a weapons production line off the shelf from North Korea (vide the Kay report) as late as last March?

I do know that Saddam had vigorously pursued unconventional weapons for decades; the total U.S. casualties from such weapons is zero, and at the time of his defeat he was further away from having usable weapons than he had been in a decade. The threat was not significant, immediate, or growing.

4. Why do you think Saddam offered "succor" (Mr. Clarke’s word) to the man most wanted in the 1993 bombings in New York?

For any of a number of reasons, e.g. to tweak the U.S., or to associate himself with a (however puny) blow against the U.S. Did this "succor" add significantly to the ability of Islamic terrorists to strike the U.S.? Not at all.

5. Would you have been in favor of lifting the "no fly zones" over northern and southern Iraq; a 10-year prolongation of the original "Gulf War"?

No; they were a relatively cheap way to keep Hussein under wraps, and provided some freedom to the population in those zones.

6. Were you content to have Kurdish and Shiite resistance fighters do all the fighting for us?

They were fighting for themselves. Was I content to have the U.S. not do their fighting for them? Yes.

7. Do you think that the timing of a confrontation should have been left, as it was in the past, for Baghdad to choose?

Yes, because Baghadad had no good cards to play, and it was not in Hussein's power to force a confrontation that would hurt the U.S. or cost us what the war has cost us.

Have we eliminated the threat or simply stirred the pot? At what point can you admit that too many innocent people are dying and frustrations are high, at home and abroad? Or do we just on killing?
No answers here. More questions. Little progress.

BTW. These are NOT seven simple questions. They are seven very complex rhetorical questions.

These questions presuppose that conflict with Iraq was necessary, inevitable and on the whole "cost" justified. As such they require supportive clarification. In doing so, it would also prove to be folly to camp such a discussion in ideology rather than real, pragmatic issues.

The WMD's have been found!

The Depleted Uranium ordinance used in 2003 carried the equivalent of 250,000 Nagasaki bombs.
http://traprockpeace.org/bhagwat_du_29feb04.pdf

I guess Condi Rice was almost right about those mushroom clouds.


Hard to fathom? Can't get your head around it?
http://www.ericblumrich.com/pl_lo.html

Unsure as to how many other countries have used nuclear weapons?
http://www.somethingawful.com/nointelligence/

Feeling Patriotic yet?

Don't despair, by the time you finish reading this post I promise you will feel much better.

but...but.... Saddam was evil......we have given the Iraq people the gift of freedom....we had to do it, he could attack in as little as 45 minutes...he might of had reconstituted nuclear weapons....ah fuck it....to hell with the Iraqi's and our troops, we need cheap oil.

In life you are free to judge and condemn the atrocities of others. The transmutation of that outrage into a license to commit similar atrocities is exactly what UBL wants. Escalation, polarization, collateral damage and endless cycles of reprisals. War as dialogue, in that through war your speak mainly to the victims who are generally innocent bystanders like those victims of 911 and those exposed to uD ordinance, seems to me incredibly stupid and an unnecessary narrowing of real options.

Here's an eight question- I never hear any anti-warriors offer opinions on this topic:

8. Since Saddam would pay $25,000 to the family of a Palestinian suicide bomber to kill some Jews in Israel, why do you think he would not have paid a member of Al Qaeda to kill Americans?

OK Alan, then by extension the rest of the world is justified in attacking the U.S. because we used nuclear weapons on Japan. Who knows, we may...opps, already have, used them against others.

Seems a little presumptious. Possible? Sure. Anything's possible. Likely? Who knows? Worth killimg innocents over?

Seems a little presumptious. Possible? Sure. Anything's possible. Likely? Who knows? Worth killimg innocents over?

"...those exposed to uD ordinance, seems to me incredibly stupid and an unnecessary narrowing of real options.

Posted by: despoticmachine at April 5, 2004 at 03:35 AM"

Sortelli? Someone? Who can yet again force themselves to re-type the basic and obvious info that DU ordinance is only dangerous if it pierces your flesh?

Sigh. The legendary deliberate stupidity of the appeasers, cloaking their worlds in radioactive conspiracies. You guys make me tired.

"OK Alan, then by extension the rest of the world is justified in attacking the U.S. because we used nuclear weapons on Japan. Who knows, we may...opps, already have, used them against others.

Posted by: despoticmachine at April 5, 2004 at 03:48 AM"

Not to mention the Reverse Vampire Division of the US Marines. Don't forget them. We used them first in Kosovo. They had great success in unsucking the blood of Muslim villagers.

PJ is dead wrong about no terrorist training camps.

A U.S. district court judge in Manhattan ruled Wednesday [May 7, 2003] that Salman Pak, Saddam Hussein's airplane hijacking school located on the outskirts of Baghdad, played a material role in the devastating Sept. 11 attacks on America.
...according to courtroom testimony by three of the camp's instructors, the facility was a virtual hijacking classroom where al-Qaeda recruits practiced overcoming U.S. flight crews using only small knives - a terrorist technique never employed before 9/11.
http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=2003/5/9/72820

Also check out
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1051121852966 -
http://edwardjayepstein.com/2002question/salmanpak.htm -
http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/2003/04/07/news/nation/5574507.htm -
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/archive/article/0,,4296646,00.html Still not convinced, PJ?

"In doing so, it would also prove to be folly to camp such a discussion in ideology rather than real, pragmatic issues."

Ideology is what drives this non-war (we already won, didn't we? My president said we won. He made a big deal out of it. He's THE WAR PRESIDENT!).

Apparntly you did not read my entire post. Try the Blumrich link. Or maybe this: http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/180333p-156685c.html

Try reviewing some research by someone other that Raytheon.

so, wait. we are nuking our own soldiers?

Gulf War I syndrome anyone? How patriotic is that?

Its so easy to talk about the need for war here on my computer. Clean, nice, no burns or shrapnel, no dead kids.

The Islamofacists hate us because of our virtues, not our vices. The Iranian students stormed the US Embassy during the Carter administration for many reasons. The one that set them off was President Carter letting the dying ex-Shah of Iran into the US for medical care. Score on more for the "Religion of Peace".

I think we scared off the neo-cons, dude.
Too personal. Too close to communication.

Quiet reflection I hope.

". . . limited flexibilty in dealing with truly dangerous regimes such as Iran and North Korea?"

Ohhhhhhhh, so PJ and the Left want us to invade N. Korea AND Iran! Excellent. Then we can count on their support for such action when it comes time to do just that.

Now, sit back and watch the backpeddling.

. No, you didn't scare anyone off. You bored us to death. Despite evidence, despite facts, despite it all, you continue to spout your trite recitations from your handbooks, marching in lock-step, secure in your conviction that you are superior.

"War never solved anything"? Ask the people of Baghdad. I did.

You all are a Mutual Admiration society, of which you are the only members.

In the end, people like me will continue to protect people like you, despite your little minds and limited intellect.

One Simple Question

1) If as both George W Bush and Condeleeza Rice said in the run up to the invasion to Iraq, the concern of the US was to prevent a "mushroom cloud". They why were US special forces assigned to secure Iraqi oil facilities but not the nuclear facilities?

Quiet reflection my ass. You two live in a fantasy world where American soldiers wantonly gun down children and Bush is a far greater menace than Bin Laden. Your entire world view begins with the premise that America is evil. You completely ignore the publicly stated intentions of our enemy which is the destruction of Western Civilization. There is no negotiation here, nor do they want it. Iraq is just the second battle in a generation long war. Get used to it.

You know MY worldview?
I believe in our soldiers and I think our president is a boob. We should kill the crap out of terrorists, but not innocents. With all our militairy might, can't we find the real badguys?
War is a bad thing, isn't it? Am I missing something here?

Do you own a theater? because theat is about the best example of projection than I have seen in some time.

If you serve in our military, as you imply, then how can you disagree with my post?

I support our troops 100%. Enough so, that I demand that we don't adopt policies that put them at unneccessary risks.

There is a distinction between supporting our troops and supporting a policy of war. I would think, that as an implied military person, you would know first hand the difference.

If Hitch can use Clarke's words, then perhaps some more:

"And the reason I am strident in my criticism of the president of the United States is because by invading Iraq -- something I was not asked about by the commission, it's something I chose write about a lot in the book -- BY INVADING IRAQ THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES HAS GREATLY UNDERMINED THE WAR ON TERRORISM."

nice neat packets of worldview. black, white. Good guys, axis of evil, WMD. Keep it simple stupid.
It's not simple. And it's not stupid.
I am not saying the US is evil. You did.
I DID say Bush is a jerk-off, in not so many words.

Mike,

Don't try to devine my world view. Name calling is not an argument.

"so, wait. we are nuking our own soldiers?

Posted by: es at April 5, 2004 at 04:04 AM
Gulf War I syndrome anyone? How patriotic is that?

Posted by: despoticmachine at April 5, 2004 at 04:08 AM"

Hahahahaha! Oh, I love the Erin Brockovich style of scientific inquiry!

Oh, yes, the EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEvil US government, in its deranged and EEEEEEEEEEEEEvil plans to rule the WORLD, and take all the OIL, and exploit the POOR, and kill all the BROWNSKINNED, decided to ssssssssslowly, ssssssssssslowly POISON its own soldiers with the malevolence of DEpleted Uranium, because we all know how EEEEEEEEEEEEvil uranium is! And, uranium is located ONLY in the secret DEpleted Uranium Weapons Making Facilities in Area 51! The rest of us are SAFE behind our non-harmful pc monitor screens and our tv screens! SAFE, SAFE, I tells you, when we walk through the non-radioactive metal detectors! SAFE when we go to the dentist twice a year! SAFE when we have a chest X-ray!

SSSSsssssooonnnn, EVIL Condi and EVIL Dubya will control the world! That's why they're killing our soldiers with DEpleted Uranium weapons, because right there, in Area 51, scientists are creating android super-soldiers! Yes, they can make them faster, stronger, better than before!

SSSSoooonnn, no one who is not white or Condi will be left alive on this earth! SSSSSoooooon, we shall all worship Jehovah, fiery God of the Old Testament, and EEEEEvil Jebus, hater of gays, women, and Muslims, who won't be here anyway, because only white people and Condi will be left alive!

Oh, how I look forward to that glorious day! Now, if you'll excuse me, I've finished tracing es and despoticmachine's whereabouts and am contacint the black helicopters.

es, despoticmachine, when Jesse Ventura and Alex Trebek knock at your doors in an hour, make it easy on yourselves: Don't fight back. The probing, vivisection, and liquidation shall be relatively painless, I promise you.

fuck that shit. I'm going snowboarding, in my fantasyworldview. Have a nice day. And don't forget to write!

War is bad. Wow, that's deep. If only I had known. Even wars that free millions? Even wars that prevent tens of thousands of deaths? Ya say you "support our soldiers." Why don't you actually go find one that's served in Iraq and ask him if it was worth it. Maybe you want to talk to an actual Iraqi, too, possibly one who was repeatedly raped, our saw their childrens eyes gouged out, or saw their husband thrown into an industrial shredder head first. You two aren't anti-war. Your'e just on the other side.

Ideas and arguments please.

How is it that you don't care enough about our troops to engage in adult dialogue about their safety? You are certainly free to disagree but for everyones sake do it with some evidence.

The following questions could, maybe should, have been posed in say, 1949:

1. Do you believe that a confrontation with the Stalin regime is inevitable or not?

2. Do you believe that a confrontation with Stalin's Communist successors would be better?

3. Do you know that The Soviet Union is well on its way to developing a direct nuclear threat to the West?

4. Why do you think the Soviet government spends 20% of GDP on its military?

5. Are you in favor of evacuating West Berlin; a 40-year prolongation of the division of Germany?

6. Are you content to have Lithuanian and Ukrainian freedom fighters do all the fighting for us against the Soviet Union?

7. Do you think that the timing of a confrontation should be left, as it has been in the past, for Moscow to choose?

Containment's a tough policy to follow. It requires consistency and determination. Some people will always be impatient with it and want to say "Let's fight now." The good sense of the European and American people resisted such calls during the Cold War, when much more was at stake. They were right.

dU sickness? Need another American flag bumper sticker to assuage your conscience?

The evidence suggests you can expect to see many more than were recorded and reported in GWI. The urban nature of this conflict and the fact that our troops are forced to live and operate around the steel carcasses of previous battles is saddening. Why does the military hate our troops?

As for the Iraqi's, their "liberation" will never grant them immunity from exposure. You see our troops will keep stumbling home, while today's Iraqi's and successive generations after them will stumble forward, breathing the radioactive air that we call Iraqi Freedom.

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/180333p-156685c.html

gosh, you folks sure are struggling.

Canadian guy -- that case was a default judgment. Ask a lawyer what that means. I'll take the CIA's views on the issue over a fact found in a lawsuit as a result of a default judgment.

Werner -- try, really really hard, to accept the cold hard truth. Saddam didn't have a nuclear program. El Baradei's pre-war assessment was dead on. The program had been gone for ten years. We didn't face any risk of nukes from Saddam, who was a pathetic, pinned down old man who could threaten no one. Ask yourself this one -- how come Israel was not in panic when we invaded Iraq. If Iraq had WMD that could be fired from a scud missile, one would have thought Israel was at risk. But everyone there knew that Saddam's power had been so degraded from a decade of sanctions and inspections that he couldn't hit them anymore.

As far as those who claim I'm a member of the "Left" who doesn't believe in fighting a war if necessary, get a grip. The democratic party in the US is not the Nader/Chomsky left. You may remember that the Democrats brought the US into WWI, WWII, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the War in Kosovo (or whatever that's now called). I guess you're all too young to remember Bob Dole's line about the "democrat wars."

I repeatedly bring up Iran because it was a far more serious problem than Iraq in the war on terrorism. I don't believe an invasion of Iran would have been appropriate without a lot of pre-war diplomacy/saber rattling, but at least it would have had some relation to the war on terrorism. The Bush foreign policy cabal wasn't interested in fighting the war on terrorism, they were pursuing their mid 90s PNAC plans for war in Iraq.

One final point -- for the really stupid question about whether we should put Saddam back in power -- if I could waive my hand and bring back to life the 600 dead american soldiers, 100 plus dead other "coalition" soldiers, the thousands of dead Iraquis killed in the war and in the car bombings and terrorist attacks of the last year -- if I could bring back the blown off limbs and lost eyes, give kids back their parents -- if I could get the $200 billion spent back from Halliburton and others -- if I could give hit the reset button for that young boy whose arms and legs were blown off, skin burned off and parents killed -- it wouldn't take a half second's hesitation to do so.

The last time this country was this divided was in the 1840's. That resulted the civil war, north vs. south. Could history be close to repeating itself? CIVIL WAR 2004: RIGHT VS. LEFT.

Of course, we all know who would win. The Right. Because we eat meat and own lots of guns.

Despoticmachine

Have you any interest in protecting our innocent from unprovoked war?

And you are a university professor of middle eastern studies?

"I think that if Don Rumsfeld shook Saddam's hand once, then the US were hypocrites in later trying to shoot it off." -- The world changes. The cold war is over.

"And it's the Americans who are the warmongers- TWO wars against a country that never did anything to them." -- Oh, right. Hussein rightfully deserved Kuwait.

"All the Bushes wanted was oil for their Texas friends" -- Iraq oil belongs to Iraq, not the Texas friends. And it was France who abused the Security council to preserve its $100 billion oil contracts and the U.N. that abused the Oil for Food program.

"...and to bully Arabs on behalf of Israel." -- Iraq is not Palestine. And all Arabs are not the same.

"This was a proxy war against the Palestinians." -- Never mind that Saddam had used WMD against his neighbors, harbored terrorists, and actively pursued weapons deliver systems they could use.

"There never were any WMD other than those sold to Iraq by the US." -- The unaccounted for Anthrax didn't really exist and Saddam's obstruction during the U.N. verification never happened.

"Answer this: If the Iraqi people were so unhappy with their leader, why did they put up his picture everywhere and grow mustaches like his? Are you forgetting that Saddam held elections in his country and nearly everyone voted for him?" -- and that hundreds of thousands were tortured and killed if they didn't?

"Didn't any of you go to the university, or are you too illiterate to read Edward Said?" -- Yes. I've read him. Some of what he says is important to know. But some of his stuff is 30 years out of date. And other parts are damned important. For goodness sakes, sort it out! Looking all the way back to Balfour in 1922 one wonders if either Palestine or Israel have earned the opportunity for self-government or whether the U.N. knows what it ought to stand for, preferring, as it does, peace instead of liberty and ignoring whether sovereignty can be forfeit because of internal abuse.

looks like someone else fell for "the professor". :)

my answers

1. Do you believe that a confrontation with Saddam Hussein’s regime was inevitable or not?

not. hussein's regime was effectively contained

2. Do you believe that a confrontation with an Uday/Qusay regime would have been better?

the underlying assumption of this question is that one of saddam's sons would have succeeded him. i'm not sure that's true. when someone like saddam dies, plenty of people would be in a position to throw a monkey wrench into the whole succession thing.

but assuming uday or qusay did end up in charge, i don't think a confrontation with them would be inevitable either. but if it did happen it would probably have been the same as with saddam.

3. Do you know that Saddam’s envoys were trying to buy a weapons production line off the shelf from North Korea (vide the Kay report) as late as last March?

yes, but so what. the weapons system was not a WMD but a longer-range scud missile. the system is famously inaccurate and unable to reach the u.s. besides, iraq probably would not have been able to complete the transaction if the u.n. inspectors had flooded the country per france's proposal. iraq was effectively contained.

4. Why do you think Saddam offered "succor" (Mr. Clarke’s word) to the man most wanted in the 1993 bombings in New York?

i tried a bunch of searches and can find no record (other than other blogs quoting this one) of clarke saying that. where's the link?

5. Would you have been in favor of lifting the "no fly zones" over northern and southern Iraq; a 10-year prolongation of the original "Gulf War"?

eventually, yes. i think everyone would. even the warbloggers do not seem to be against the fact that it is over now. under what circumstances are we talking about? frankly, this question on its own is pretty content-less.

6. Were you content to have Kurdish and Shiite resistance fighters do all the fighting for us?

they were not doing any fighting for us. once again, the entire question rests on an assumption that your opponent does not share. if you want to actually have a dialogue, you have to stop assuming away all of the most pertinent issues. the shi'ite resistence was pretty much dead after bush the first double-crossed them after the gulf war. the kurds were not actively fighting saddam anymore by the end of the 1990s, they had reached a stalemate and had their own statelette under the protection of the no-fly zone. most of the fighting in the early part of the 00s decade in the kurdish region was between different kurdish factions

7. Do you think that the timing of a confrontation should have been left, as it was in the past, for Baghdad to choose?

again, you are assuming that a confrontation is inevitable. it wasn't. half your questions have that unfounded assumption. did you even consider how these questions should proceed if someone answered "no" to question #1?

"Containment's a tough policy to follow. It requires consistency and determination. Some people will always be impatient with it and want to say "Let's fight now." The good sense of the European and American people resisted such calls during the Cold War, when much more was at stake. They were right."

Oh right, let’s trot out the old “Cold War Containment Justification™”. You probably feel quite clever with your little list of questions. Did it ever occur to you that these two situations may not be analogous? That there was a completely different risk/reward ratio? A completely different geopolitical situation? What about all the historical situations where “containment” didn’t work? Such as the 1930’s with the Nazi’s? And why is containment automatically the least cost option? If the allied armies had continued in 1945 and swept the Soviet Union out of Europe when they were relatively weak and didn’t allow them to plunder East Germany, in particular, for scientists and weapons knowledge, would the Soviet Union have been able to become the threat that it shortly became? Once they were a nuclear power it necessitated an enormously expensive cold war that fomented many other real war conflicts and untold deaths in the meantime? In fact, if one analyzes it, the Cold War isn’t a poster boy for containment but rather for preemptive war.

Containment's a tough policy to follow. It requires consistency and determination. Some people will always be impatient with it and want to say "Let's fight now." The good sense of the European and American people resisted such calls during the Cold War, when much more was at stake. They were right.

Oh right, let’s trot out the old “Cold War Containment Justification™”. You probably feel quite clever with your little list of questions. Did it ever occur to you that these two situations may not be analogous? That there was a completely different risk/reward ratio? A completely different geopolitical situation? What about all the historical situations where “containment” didn’t work? Such as the 1930’s with the Nazi’s? And why is containment automatically the least cost option? If the allied armies had continued in 1945 and swept the Soviet Union out of Europe when they were relatively weak and didn’t allow them to plunder East Germany, in particular, for scientists and weapons knowledge, would the Soviet Union been able to become the threat that it shortly became? Once they were a nuclear power it necessitated an enormously expensive cold war that fomented many other real war conflicts and untold deaths in the meantime? In fact, if one analyzes it, the Cold War isn’t a poster boy for containment but rather for preemptive war.

Right, let's just leave a megalomaniacal, corrupt, human rights abusing regime in power despite the clear violation of a score of United Nations resolutions for 10 years. Let's leave them in power so they can continue to be definitive proof to the Arab street of the craven weakness of the west in the face of provocation after provocation. Let’s continue to reinforce the fantasy world view that reigns supreme in the Mid East. Allah is on their side.

Let's continue to allow the keystone state in the midst of the world's largest concentration of energy supplies to be ruled by a regime that has displayed almost suicidally poor political judgment in the past. Let's show the other repressive, wacko states in the area that there is no political will to counteract the social poisons they are spreading or their political machinations.

Because we are afraid of being the "bad guys" We’ll continue to use the tortured logic that to go to war will inflame them and only produce more terrorism. Even as we continue to let every corrupt tin pot regime use us as the fall guys for the myriad social, and economic failures they have brought upon themselves. You see they only hate us for our political and economic policies and it has nothing to do with their revulsion against our popular culture, particularly our sexual mores, and the fear it will destroy their culture. No, they won't mistake our forbearance for craven weakness and a manifestation of our moral turpitude

So what if some kook like Saddam or one of his proxies decides they'll really fix the West and black mails us under threat of radioactively poisoning a significant portion of the world's oil reserves once they have the capability. Hey no blood for oil.

No, let’s stay the course and let containment do its work even though any unintended negative effect of containment will rest solidly on our shoulders (remember the 500,000 children we supposedly killed in Iraq because of sanctions?) That sure won’t increase terrorism or make the vaunted Arab street hate us any more.

OK, despoticmachine, es, and all the rest of you morons, pay attention. It's time for a history lesson (history you idiots completely ignore):

Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. The Coalition forces retaliated and pushed Iraqi troops out of Kuwait and back into Iraq. The UN pushed for a cease-fire where one of the conditions was that Iraq would allow unfettered access by UN weapons inspectors. Remember, Saddam had already used NBC weapons against his own citizens. He had WMDs, and was actively using them. Iraq threw the weapons inspectors out. At that point, the cease-fire was violated and the war was automatically back on. No reasons needed, no approval had to be sought. By Iraq's choice, the state of war resumed. (Thanks, Dave S.)

The reason we picked Iraq over Iran or North Korea is that despite what we may feel about Iran or NK, they have yet to invade a sovereign nation.

For the first time in history, we are at a point where conflict is inevitable. Osama bin Laden showed that it doesn't take much to kill 3,000 people. Saddam actively supported and trained terrorists. This war is an attempt to show that the rest of the world is not going to stand idly by and wait for an imminent threat. We are going to actively search and destroy any and all traces of terroristic activities.

No matter what you fucktards say, you are in support of reinstating Saddam Hussein. The whole point of the questions Hitchens asked was to show that noone on the anti-war front has even thought about this war and what it means. For example, upyernoz responds to #4 with:
i tried a bunch of searches and can find no record (other than other blogs quoting this one) of clarke saying that. where's the link?
Instead of answering the perfectly valid question, you make noise about not agreeing with one of the terms used in the question. Until you stop sidestepping these questions, a rational debate with you guys is impossible.

despoticmachine. Maybe you should check with the CDC. DU is also called, colloquially, lead. It is all but inert. It's radiation level is lower than background. If you live in a brick dwelling, you are absorbing about twice the level of radiation from the bricks as you would if it were built of DU. I feel sorry for those who claim Gulf War Syndrome. Something may, indeed, be going on. However, it is unrelated in any way to DU (CDC again). It fits no known medical model. Too many different symptoms, to few connections between sufferers, no provably causal (or even correlational) effects can be found.

I agree with one thing. We should have a great military force and never, ever use it because we might harm some innocents. I also believe that each time a policeman or innocent is killed in an American city the government should abandon it and let them live in peace. I believe that even if we know where lawbreakers are to be found (like, say, polluters or corporate thieves) we should leave them alone and let those directly involved settle it. I believe that justice is best served by doing nothing in the firm belief that a better world is coming, one in which no one will ever die and the lion and the lamb shall lie down together (even though probably only one of them will get up.)

Oh, well.

The justification for going to war in Iraq is that it's easier than going to war against the rest of the Muslim world.

Considering 9/11 and its implications, repeating the Clinton approach was unthinkable. We could attack the Taliban and deny Al Qaeda its base of operations, but it was predictable that they would scatter and find shelter in Pakistan, a nuclear power. So what then?

State all the options we had, and tell me why we should have expected the U.N. to suddenly acquire a spine? I don't know that overthrowing Saddam was the one best strategy, but it was definitely justified on the grounds that he was in violation of the ceasefire agreement he had signed. What we have since learned is that he had used his country's wealth to corrupt the UN, and buy off France and Russia. So what were the chances that the UN was going to make him comply with its resolutions?

Whatever we did it had to be a departure from swatting mosquitoes and it had to impress the countries who had been giving sanctuary and aid to the terrorists, even as they pretended to be our friends.

None of the alternatives given here has impressed me as realistic or fruitful. I don't know whether we'll be successful in building democracy in Iraq. It will take many more years of patient work to prove the concept. But it has real potential to change the lives of more than just the Iraqis.

I think we should stay the course. Otherwise, we confirm Usama's earlier assessment of us as a paper tiger.

Some good points on both sides of the fence...good reading.

I've got some questions:

1) Now that we've "brought freedom" to Iraq, when free elections are held and the Iraqi's legally vote in some wackjob cleric will the US respect the results?

2) Assume for the moment at some point in the future the US is ruled by a nutcase dictator. If the US were then invaded & occupied by an Islamic state in the name of liberation, how far would you go to get rid of the occupiers? What would YOU do to the occupiers?

3) Now that we've pissed away world support for the war on terror and shot our collective wad on the poorly thought out pnac war in iraq, how do we define victory in iraq? Or is the war in Iraq another unwinnable war on drugs type war were every admistration (republican or democrat) for 30 years has lacked the stones to say we have failed?

Before stones are cast...here are my rules of engagement:

- never tell someone you're going to hit them, just hit them and make sure they never get up
- force multiplier = victory (afghanistan)
- never occupy. occupation is messy nasty business, and disengagement from occupation is generally viewed as retreat (israel / lebanon, french / africa, british / india, etc...)
- conventional troops are not trained to fight terror or occupy countries, they're trained to shoot first and ask questions later.
- you can't win hearts and minds hiding in forts. this strategy didn't work for the brits in northern ireland and won't work for us in iraq. again...look at the successes we had in afghanistan.
- politicians w/private agendas are sometimes as dangerous as terrorists with bombs

my 2cents.
hj

7 more yanks dead in shiite ambush. u boys are so screwed.

Man, you could drag Zubbie, es, pj, and despoticmachine to one of the mass graves in Iraq and they'd still fuss about "terminology" and bad science.

OK, boys (I'm assuming), answer this: do you approve of rape rooms, torture chambers, the gassing of Kurds, and children's prisons?

Please, no "But the Unilateral Coalition didn't talk about humanitarian reasons!" (hint: they did, but I want you to focus) or "We used to torture people, too! The Inquisition wrote the book on torture!" or "But it's their culture! If they didn't like it, they should'a done something about it!"

Just yes, with reasons, or no, with reasons: Do you approve of rape rooms, etc?

Oh, and despoticmachine, I know you dearly love to go on and on about the poisonous "steel carcasses," but remember, I'd appreciate it if you'd focus.

Sure am glad to see good responses to a few posts above. It really is frustrating to hear someone arguing that ensuring the complete safety of troops takes priority over committing them to action. These people never see merit to a war action, unless they are no US interests at stake, such as Kosovo. They cry that they care for the troops (someone even invoked "body parts") when someone like Bush with the wrong party affiliation commits troops to a war effort.

Our troops are in the business, guys, and are damn good and brave (am a military wife). After the Clinton administration's failed efforts to stop Al Qaeda and especially post 9-11, some muscularity is needed to upend the bad guys. Our armed forces are sacrificing and doing great things. They deserve our admiration and not pretend sympathy from detractors who don't believe in their mission. I "support our troops" AND their efforts!

Someone 'argues' that Cold War era containment is effective against the threat of asymmetrical terrorist warfare these days. By that logic, our conventional armed forces together with our 'unconventional' nuclear arsenals and also the MAD doctrine of it-would-be-pretty-stupid-to-strike-first should have deterred the Islamofascists on 9-11. Or even Saddam before he invaded Kuwait. Well, that didn't work. At least we could militarily eject Saddam from Kuwait, but we could not put him out of business because of UN restrictions and Coalition sensibilities. Over the 90's it was pretty well documented just how uncontained and worrisome Saddam's activities were. Why did Clinton's Democrat Senators vote for an Iraqi regime change in the late 90's?

Should we have endlessly enforced the no-fly zones in Saddam's Iraq, keeping in mind that only the US and Great Britain were bothering to do this, and were taking fire? And of course we were blind as to what was going on in the rest of Iraq. There was virtually no oversight or control of Iraq's borders.

Or, perhaps this person is suggesting the mighty UN could effectively 'contain' a regime that defied its paper resolutions and corrupted the so-called sanctions. Charging the UN with containing Iraq is a ludicrously funny concept, especially now that we know about the extensive pay-offs Saddam made to politicians, journalists, businessmen and UN officials during the sanction and Oil-for-Food years.

Then somebody keeps referring to the US atomic attack on Japan. WWII, ferChristssake! What does that have to do with the 21st century?? Even Japan has moved on, prospered and become our ally (after their devastating attack and war against us way back then). Most of us have moved on, too, from Truman's use of the atom bomb in the 40's to stop a bloody war WE DIDN'T ASK FOR.

We didn't ask for the 9-11 attack, either. One of the posts almost made it sound as if the 9-11 terrorists were reacting to Bush's War on Terror-- a sad confusion of basic chronology.

We didn't ask for an unconventional enemy, either- these terrorists are both state-sponsored and independent. They are comprised of specific individuals whom we can keep hunting down, but they also arise out of a movement that has to be fought with ideas, a show of force on our part, and structural changes to their home societies. If the Iraq experiment fails to achieve a ripple effect of positive change in the neighboring fascist and oppressor regimes, then at least the Iraqi people aren't stuck with Hussein and sons. At least they can say they had a chance to make something better of their country and lives.

Leftists/neoisolationists seem to argue that no American troop's life is worth the attempt to increase our national security by bringing needed reform to a failed and violent region that exports terrorism. They contend that intelligence and police work will handle this 'situation'. Two things I would say to the police action alone mentality: The corrupt ME autocracies are churning out and financing fanatical killers faster than we can catch them, and they're not really cooperating with our police efforts inside their borders, obviously.

Second, aren't these leftist objectors the same ones whose litany has been to decry US "support" of corrupt regimes in the Middle East (as if all of Europe and the rest of the world didn't do oil business there, too!)? And, haven't the raving radical Middle Easterners complained for years that the political oppression there was somehow the fault of Satan America? Post-colonialism, oil politics- take your pick. The refrain of the blame-game was sung loudly there and even here in American universities.

Well, now we're doing something about it. Hope they seize the opportunity

c

wondeful comment. You won't change the minds of the oppos, but you did make a coherent case.

I always recommend that people read Civilization and Its Enemies by Lee Harris. He discusses the concept of "the enemy" and how we forget that there are indeed enemies in this world. Very much to the point in these threads. The oppos just can't accept that there are mindless, ruthless people who want to destroy us.Their intellectual, one world government and peaceful negotiation theories just don't work with our enemies.

Again, "c", nice post.

Thanks, Ted. I enjoyed your history points and also your pointed history of the exalted UN--

Still need to apologize for the phony "professor" post that I thought was obviously ridiculous, but apparently it was close enough to rhetoric that a lot of us hear... Got some good emails from guys wanting to set me straight!

And they made me wonder- if I did not already agree with them, could I have been persuaded? You have made a few comments about the futility of it all, and I think you're right. But our cats and dogs chase their tails and look what fun they have!

despoticmachine:

Ideas and arguments please.

How is it that you don't care enough about our troops to engage in adult dialogue about their safety? You are certainly free to disagree but for everyones sake do it with some evidence.

Well, first, give us evidence that isn't heavily laden with misinformation, bad science, leading questions, and assumptions that America Is Evil (TM).

Second, grant us the possibility that we aren't foaming at the mouth right wing lunatics who crouch on their roofs with a sniper rifle, waiting for the Muslim Invasion. That most of the people on this forum have made an intelligent, informed decision on this topic, who might actually, and that we are turned off by diatribe and drivel sugarcoated with political correctness.

Finally, consider the possibility that you might bit a teensy bit off mark, and might rethink your basic premises, instead of spewing your hate and bitterness at us.

More bluntly: Argue with intelligence and maturity, or don't complain when the adults tell you to go to bed.

Bah! You left wing trolls make me puke. You claim to have facts, logic, and reasoned arguments, but it all gets down to one basic fact. For whatever reason, you hate western civilization (or America, etc -- insert your choice here), and want to do your best to pull it down.

Since your premises, assumptions, and logic are built on this emotional problem of yours, everything else that follows is usually garbage, because it is destructive in nature. Our assumptions are also emotional, but they are constructive in nature. This include the fact that this side is willing to fight wars....because the alternative (yes, yours) is destructive.

These are the funniest trolls yet. Unfortunately, they are also a major part of the problem in Iraq. It's their obsession with failure that makes it possible. Be part of the solution or get out of the way, stop being part of the problem. A course of action has been committed to, how about trying to make it work?

Well said, Aaron!

Aaron,

Questioning our countries leaders is never a problem. It is a duty. It's why we vote. It's why this country exists in the first place. At what point did questioning our Iraq policy become a "major part of the problem in Iraq"?

"Be part of the solution or get out of the way, stop being part of the problem. A course of action has been committed to, how about trying to make it work?"

Only by questioning policy will we get to a solution. Dialog first...action second when you have a solid plan. Right?

Do I think I am smart enough to know what's the right solution? Of course not, I don't have all the facts. Nor does anyone on this blog. Do I think our leaders are smart enough to come up with the right solution. Yes...they are some seriously smart people who I hope mean well. Do I think think they have the courage to actually change course on a broken policy / course of action? I would say highly doubtful as it's an election year. (that would go for dems too)

....and that is part of the frustration that many in the pro-war on terror but anti-war in iraq camp feel. Our current course of action is a failed policy, we need to fix it and not pretend it's working and hope stuff works out and pass the buck to the next administration...whoever that maybe.

What is your proposed solution to make it work Aaron?

thanks
/hj

hugh jorgan

By asking that question Aaron has to convinced it is a "failed policy".

So first you have to prove it is a "failed policy". Not imperfect,Not without problems but failed.

Constantly questioning our leaders during WWII and our commitment of troops would have been quite a "duty". Too bad all those undutiful types rallied 'round the effort to defeat the aggressor fascist forces back then. Thank god we now are more nuanced and critical and cynical of our President's motives and methods!

Ok. Back from a wonderful day of snowboarding. Now lets talk about more death.
Is there a point where there's too much collateral damage when nation building, protecting the world from people with weird hair and beards?
I don't know. I really do like to read these points, over here on the right. I love the fact that you are willing to kick ass for what you believe in. But I do question that we are kicking the right ass. We have not stopped al queda, we have only pissed tehm off and proven to them that they can piss us off quite effectively, cause endless blogs justifying the continued killing and all that... up here in my elitist left wing idiot fantasyland.
Why do you think I'm obsessed with failure? Because I think our pres is a dork does by no means suggest that I expext America to fail, in fact, my great fear is that Bush is causing a lot more trouble, negativity, death and fear than any of you can imagine.
Nevermind. You wouldn't understand. I'm wrong. You jerks are right. Let's kill first, talk later...like the Bible tells us.

We have "pissed off" Al Qaeda???? What, pray tell, did the "dork" Bush administration do in 7 1/2 months to get them so very 9-11 and 3000 civilian dead angry at us?

Gosh, we should be very careful now not to anger them any more...

"kill first" and NO "talk later" is what the enemy is about. Are you confused from too much snowboarding?

We are engaged in "protecting the world from weird hair and beards"?? ???

Satire, right? And I bit. Serves me right

Do those seven questions have any relationship to George Carlin's seven words you can't say on television?

Here are seven questions to answer his questions:

1. Was war in Iraq worth damage to our international credibility, and the damage done to key, longstanding friendships?

2. How did taking on a removing Saddam Hussein from power make it any safer to live in Dayton, Ohio, or Tulsa, Oklahoma (anyplace else in the United States, for that matter)?

3. How many casualities will be too many?

4. Would you be willing to forego repairs to interstate highways and health care assistance for the poor and elderly to pay for the war?

5. Was the War in Iraq worth stretching our military to almost its breaking point, and the call up and extended duty for reservists and National Guardsmen?

6. If Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction, and did not have conclusive ties to terrorist groups, then what made Iraq such a grave and gathering threat?

7. (This question is for the armchair warriors of both genders between the ages of 18-35) If the war was so freaking important to fight, then why didn't you quit your jobs and enlist?

To the rest of you -- Saddam Hussein was contained, or have you missed David Kay saying for the last three months that the administration should just own up to it?

Finally, to claim that war in Iraq would send any sort of message to the rest of the Arab world:

They got the message. We are unable to invade one country, topple a largely defanged regime, and pacify a country that had lived under an iron boot for three decades. The rest of them can pretty much do whatever they want.

Hugh Jordon:

Only by questioning policy will we get to a solution. Dialog first...action second when you have a solid plan. Right?

Well, now, just how long has the US been in a dialog with Islamic terrorists? How many times have we negotiated a peace in the middle east?

Just how long do we talk before you accept that the action time is well past? Give us your decision parameters. How many murders? Is there a level of rhetoric?

Give us something, man, because we've been there and done that. Time and again. I'd list dates and casualty figures going back 25 years, but I think you know those by heart.

So a newly reorganized host of terrorists arise (Al Quadea, y'know) comes up and kills a bunch of people. Time and again. And you want "dialog and then action". Please!

When are you going to decide decide on whether to sh*t or get off the pot? 'Cause that's what the rest of the world has done. If you don't like the solution, work out a plan that prevents Al Quadea from killing more innocent people with the fewest casualties on either side.

I would really like to know.

In response to Captain Salty:

1. The only "friendships" affected by war in Iraq obviously didn't matter enough.

2. Saddam no longer has the power to finance terrorism. We have sent the message that leaders and nations that do so will be punished.

3. How many innocents must die before we intervene?

4. We don't need to forego anything. We do need to cut unnecessary spending (NEA, welfare, social security).

5. Refer to #3. What is the Army for, if we're not able to use it when necessary?

6. Iraq did possess WMDs. This is not debatable -- they were used on its population. Also, several terrorist training camps were found in Iraq. Please define "conclusive ties to terrorist groups." Finally, Iraq already invaded Kuwait once, was on track to obtain nuclear weapons, and repeatedly flouted UN regulations. The point was that Iraq wasn't an imminent threat, but since 9/11 happened we can no longer wait for threats to become "imminent."

7a. It wasn't necessary, thank God. The US and allies intervened before Iraq became the next Germany. I don't think there's a person on here, however, that would decide not to enlist if events had transpired similar to what happened from 1935-1939.
b. Hussein was only contained because he had 150,000 soldiers on his border ready to attack. France and Germany were well on their way to stopping any UN-led attempt at "containing" Iraq, which made the Coalition necessary.

I'm sorry, but if this is the best the left can come up with, you guys just need to quit now.

Captain Salty:

Nice try.....well, no, actually, that's a lousy try. You are dodigng the original questions. You only confirm Mr. Hitchen's statement, and add nothing to an intelligent conversation.

Try again. Answer the questions directly. I suggest adding supporting argument immediately after the answer.

On a personal note, looking at question #7 -- many people did indeed join the military after this war started. Many others were already in the military. Still others help the war effort at home, in their own fashion. Not everyone can or should be in the military.

I suggest that you keep your lips zipped on this subject. No one can question the motives or rationale of other people if they don't know their situation. Because, even you are a veteran, you come across as a sarcastic jerk, flinging feces on everyone.

This detracts from the rest of your argument.

http://victorhanson.com/index.html

Victor Davis Hanson has a small essay which is worth reading.

1. Do you believe that a confrontation with Saddam Hussein’s regime was inevitable or not?

NO

2. Do you believe that a confrontation with an Uday/Qusay regime would have been better?

NO

3. Do you know that Saddam’s envoys were trying to buy a weapons production line off the shelf from North Korea (vide the Kay report) as late as last March?

I DON'T BELIEVE ANY MORE WMD CLAIMS FROM WAR SUPPORTERS.

4. Why do you think Saddam offered "succor" (Mr. Clarke’s word) to the man most wanted in the 1993 bombings in New York?

IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE FACT THAT WAS A WRONG AND A DISASTER OF EPIC PROPORTIONS.

5. Would you have been in favor of lifting the "no fly zones" over northern and southern Iraq; a 10-year prolongation of the original "Gulf War"?

YES; NO.

6. Were you content to have Kurdish and Shiite resistance fighters do all the fighting for us?

YES.

7. Do you think that the timing of a confrontation should have been left, as it was in the past, for Baghdad to choose?

IRAQ WAS FAR TOO WEAK TO CONFRONT (IE INVADE OR EVEN THREATEN) ANY OTHER COUNTRY. THE IDEA OF A "CONFRONTATION" IS ALREADY RIDICULOUS UNLESS IT MEANS A PRE-EMPTIVE, U.S., UNILATERAL ATTACK.

HOPE THIS HELPS CHRIS!

4. SHOULD BE :

IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE FACT THAT THE WAR WAS A WRONG AND A DISASTER OF EPIC PROPORTIONS.

Hi Jeff S...

Sorry..I should have clarified. I meant policy dialog amonst ourselves at the gov't level NOT with the terrorists. You are correct: you can not dialog with something that has no central command & control and that is fanatically bent on another peoples destruction.

We need to have an open and honest dialog about a failed (or failing if you prefer) policy and how to best move forward. If you didn't do that at work you'd get fired wouldn't you? Gov't is no different.

Once that has happened and we've got a new plan of attack, it's my hope that many of the anti iraq intervention crowd will get behind it and allow us to move forward more agressively. Obviously, many won't given the polarization that's happened in this country over the past year and a half. Again, to relate it to the workplace....you've got to consensus build first then act.

It really sucks, but given the direction things are going over therre it's like we've got to start over and completely rethink our Iraq policy.

Hope that clarifies my position somewhat.

Hugh:

Thanks for the clarification. So, I really hate to start off with.....

I disagree with your statement:

We need to have an open and honest dialog about a failed (or failing if you prefer) policy and how to best move forward.

You believe that dialog within the government is necessary for a solid plan to deal with terrorism, because the current plan has failed/is failing.

Hugh, I have to ask again -- what are your decision parameters? What is your definition of "failure"?

By one definition, 600 American military casualties (plus those from our allies, and the civilians) after 1 year in Iraq is a failure of a plan, without sufficient dialog, in your view.

By another definition, 3000 casualties in New York City is failure of another plan, one that had decades of dialog, military and covert action, diplomatic efforts, congressional legislation, trials, etc. This included discussions within the Federal government.

So when you go on to say "If you didn't do that at work you'd get fired wouldn't you? Gov't is no different", which plan would you hold the government accountable for?

And please note -- I am NOT pointing fingers at any one administration. In hindsight, we started to have this problem with the occupation of the US Embassy in Tehran by radical students.

My point is that even within the Federal government, there is a time to sh*t or get off the pot.

But let's say we have that further dialog, as you suggest:

Once that has happened and we've got a new plan of attack, it's my hope that many of the anti iraq intervention crowd will get behind it and allow us to move forward more agressively. Obviously, many won't given the polarization that's happened in this country over the past year and a half. Again, to relate it to the workplace....you've got to consensus build first then act.

Hugh, I'm sorry to say this, but this is a trifle naive. The polarization in this country started well before 9/11. Remember the Gore-Bush presidential campaign? I'm still reading current comments about how "Bush stole the White House".

And as to building consensus.....well, what do you consider a consensus? A congressional vote? That's what Bush had before the war started. A popular vote? A percentage in the polls?

I'm sorry, Hugh, but you don't offer a rational approach to the problem. Or a plan. A plan has definite objectives and goals, a defined strategy. This is more of a group hug session.

And I haven't even discussed labeling a plan involving world wide strategy on multiple fronts as a "failure" in it's first couple of years. It took us 50 years to pull down the Soviet Empire....and we did it without an exchange of nuclear weapons. Perhaps you could look at this plan in that light.

Where are the Weapons? Where are the AQ ties....
If those questions are your rational for war why didn't Bush say this stuff in the first place?
Bush lied. Where the ends justify the means will be for history... but Bush and co lied and over 600 of our troops you people claim to support have died thinking there were avenging the deaths of those killed on 9/11 they didn't die for "could be's" or might be. All you War hawks that were beating the war drums were lied to just like the rest of us but you can't bring your self to terms with it becuase your have blood on your hands too. You fell responsible for being mis-led and know you need to justify the deaths of thousands of people. Good luck with that.

Hugh, questioning policy also involves evaluating the merits, effectiveness, reasons for inadequate effectiveness, and alternatives. Your starting over idea is silly at this point in time. Before scapping a strategy take look back at the assumptions it was based on and the reason those assumptions were right, wrong, and of greater or lesser a factor than expected. The strategy may be sound, but aspects may not be executed properly or the environment may have changed. So far the only weakness I can see in the strategy is that we haven't developed a good global PR front. I don't even know that this is mistake because we know our PR capabilities are poor and even when all the logic and support is in our favor, most in the world aren't receptive. It's likely that our best chance at good PR is to wait for people to see the results of our actions. However, people are hyper-focusing on the short-term costs and as a result are increasing the frequency and effectiveness of attacks on us (and Iraqis and the Coalition) adding up to needlessly increased overall cost.

I suggest reading Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done by Ram Choran and Larry Bossidy.

Inspector Gadget:

Sorry that your learning disability has kicked in. So, in hopes that maybe this time you'll get a clue, here is the justification for war (courtesy of Dave S.) in handy bold-faced type for emphasis:

"1) Gulf War I ended with a cease-fire.

2) One of the conditions of the cease-fire was that Iraq would allow unfettered access by UN weapons inspectors.

3) Iraq threw the weapons inspectors out. At that point, the cease-fire was violated and the war was automatically back on. No reasons needed, no approval had to be sought. By Iraq's choice, the state of war resumed.

That's the argument I've always used. F*ck WMD, f*ck terrorist ties, it's all irrelevant. Iraq broke the cease-fire."

Sorry, that's Ram Charan.

You also need to objectively consider differences in you original expectations; their importance and how they affect your current state and future course of action.

JeffS--

Snicker, snicker, you miss the point.

Hitchens' questions are loaded, not worth answering. Who the hell cares if they tried to buy an off-the-line weapons production system from North Korea? It's not worth going to war over.

Probably a year and one month ago, most of you were screaming and hollering about Saddam's mushroom cloud. Since it wasn't there, not even the facilities to manufacture a thimble of mustard gas, you had to grab onto "freedom for the people."

So, please don't let me get in the way of you sitting with crossed arms, answering every answer with "sorry, that's sooooo stupid," and looking at each other with smug looks.

Denial, I hear, is a stone groove.

Captain Salty:

Another lousy try.

You still haven't answered the questions. Please note that I did not call your answers "stupid". I said they were not appropriate.

You are still flinging sh*t. Your meaningless drivel and self-righteous sneering does not change that fact, and it is a stupid way to change the subject. Sh*t flinging is also a form of denial, by virtue of not wanting to discuss the subject.

(Yes, I used "stupid" in the above paragraph deliberately, but for your tactics, not your answers.)

Go back to your hole until the next full moon. Or hang out at DU, if you really want to fling sh*t.

Eugene Koontz:

Congratulations for a honest effort. Please note that you represent the minority of those representing the liberal perspective here.

And that is the point which Christopher makes.

Thanks for the confirmation.

Nobody expected much in the way of WMD. I was pretty sure they wouldn't find any stocks, finding WMD was only important in that we'd better know what to do with them if they were found. Hell if it was about WMD and everything was so sure, we would have just blown 'em up.

Hey Hitchens and all you other pro-war types: more excellent news out Iraq today! The Shiites are in open revolt and we lost nine guys (7 soldiers, plus two marines) during the last 24 hours. The Salvadorans also lost 4 men. That brings us to a new total of 611 Americans killed in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Plus more than 3,400 wounded, many of whom may require years or even decades of medical care. And all that comes on top of the 18,000 medical evacuees from the Iraq theater, as well as the dozens of suicides, self-inflicted wounds and PTSD casualties suffered during this glorious campaign.

If we keep losing guys at this rate, we'll easily hit 1,000 dead in time for the November elections. Awesome! And the number of wounded will nearly double. Gosh, that's wonderful progress! I hope we have more successful military operations like this in the future.

My question for Hitchens is this: If the Iraqis are so damn happy with the "freedom" we have given them, how come they keep killing us? How come they burn and multilate the bodies of dead Americans? I mean, now it's the Shiites, who aren't exactly holdovers from the Hussein regime, so that whole argument that this insurgency is just leftover Baathist elements is ludicrous and patently false. We are on the verge of a full-scale armed revolt across Iraq. What is our response going to be -- should we kill more Iraqis now that they have the "freedom" we gave them and are using it to eject us from their country? Do we now kill more Iraqis in order to "liberate" them? This is insanity!

Let's face it -- Iraq is an unmitigated disaster for the United States. We should not have invaded, and we should get out as soon as possible. Just pull out and go home tomorrow. Whatever it takes. It's not worth one more dead American. I don't care if all the Iraqis kill all the other Iraqis in the resulting civil war. Maybe Iraq, like our own country and nearly all other modern Western nations, requires a civil war in order to purge the regressive elements for it's society. I don't know, and neither does Bush, Hitchens or anyone else. But I can tell you this -- it's not our fight, and it never has been. We need to bring our people home NOW! We also need to vote Bush and his band of lunatics out of office in November, and get on with the real work of building a stable and prosperous planet. May God help us all. John

Aaron,
I was just thinking on a point you touched upon and have some questions for you: do you think the dissent and strong opposition to this administration's war efforts, now that they have been underway for awhile, affect perceptions and events on the ground in Iraq? Does the barrage of criticism about failed efforts become somewhat self-fulfilling, especially in a region where appearances and strength are respected?

Could this election year cycle of extreme partisanship undercut our chances of success in Iraq and in the proliferation chase, too?

How does a democracy not discourage dissent and still encourage war and foreign policy unity at the same time? Are we having a problem b/c Bush has not made a better case for his strategy, or because the party out of power must be fiercely oppositional to win back the presidency and Congress? (Maybe why Hitch can't persuade his Democrat friends with any line of questioning)

Obviously, it is no longer customary for politics to stop at the water's edge and this affects foreign relations. Now we have other governments expressing their preferences for our elections. Any thoughts about this, as well?

John:

You are a left wing moonbat with delusions of grandeur.

"Delusions of grandeur"? Yes, if you really think taunting us with Iraqi casualty figures while mocking their deaths at the same time will make us think you are anything but a sh*t flinging monkey, with your nose up some rich bastard's butt.

More and more, behavior like yours convinces me that our current plan is a success, if half-wits like you have to fly in, make noise, and crap on people to make your point on this war. If you hate it, it must be working.

Regarding your exultation of Allied casualties -- go to hell!

Aaron, I hadn't seen John's comments, but those are the kind I'm asking about

Okay, since I can't afford the bandwidth necessary to host a playground for every troll and crybaby on the internet who want to rehash yet again every push button discussed-to-death subject re the war in Iraq, several persons have been banned: john (for being a hysterical crybaby; wow, people get killed in a real war, who knew?), pj, es, jm, lk, puchi, Bean, upyernoz, zubbie wubbie, Captain Salty, Good For the Gander, despotic machine, and Eugene Koontz (for using too many all caps).

It's time for some people to admit a very basic fact. Containment of Iraq under Saddam Hussein exposed us to al Qaeda, and gave al Qaeda excuses to attack us. Containment, which was a policy of sanctions, weapon inspections, no-fly zones and basing in the middle east, was not risk free as witnessed by the number of terrorist attacks on U.S. targets since the end of the Gulf War. The cost of containment was something like 3000 american lives, not to mention the hundreds of Africans killed in the embasy attacks in 1998. Given the high price we have already paid in lives lost and economic damage, doing nothing about Iraq would mean those people died for no reason. It is unlikely that the death toll from operations for the War on Terror and OIF will exceed the pre 9/12 total barring some huge catastrophe. Moreover, containment of indefinite duration involves exposing ourselves to significant risk for an indeterminate amount of time.

c:

If I can comment on your question to Aaron....

I am distrustful of any government that quashes dissent for any reason. I prefer our government to be accountable.

At the same time, I don't trust the people who create or foster that dissent, since unity in war is important to victory.

But I don't think it's critical to have unity, just important. It would show resolve on our part, and not give the perspective of weakness. That would save casualties on both sides.

What the problem is, as Aaron put it earlier, that these characters aren't part of the solution, and they won't get out of the way.

That makes our jobs harder. I just hope those anti-intervention whiners can sleep with themselves, knowing they might reduce the casualties if they just shut up, and helped speed up the process.

Aaron:

I would agree & disagree with you at the same time. Naive? I think you read a little too much into my statements, and blogging generally doesn't leave much room for detailed clarity on my part. lol. I certainly would agree that going all the way back and start from scratch is naive, but having strategy sessions about what the hell to do next I'm sure is probably already happening at various levels. Naively, I do find myself wishing the gov't would fess up to it so we can again believe they are smart enough to know when to call a spade a spade.

Would better PR help? Interesting idea but probably too late at this point. We've already killed our credibility over the WMD crap and I would imagine many folks even in the US would only roll their eyes. Actions would speak louder than words...but given the dangerously fluid nature of Iraq these days I fear that some of the actions we are taking are leading us into an ugly cycle of tit for tat violence of the type that mired Ireland for decades & continues to ensnare Israelis and Palestinians. There can be no winner, only losers, when that starts. And if it does start all the good things that we *have* done in Iraq will be quickly forgotten.

1. What's a confrontation? Like Scott Ritter, I favored the return of weapons inspectors. It now seems that inspections, despite the interruption that came when we used them to spy on Iraq, did in fact destroy Iraq's WMD. (See also 5.)

2. See 1.

3. No, and I haven't managed to confirm it by Google search. I did find a story about North Korea taking Saddam's money earlier and laughing at him. Note that last March we invaded.

4. Farg if I know. Let's ask him. You can prove it in court, right?

5. Sure, if it meant getting inspectors back in with the power to do their job. I see someone's already made this point.

6. I thought we were fighting for them. Don't imply that the war served our national interests without proof. As for the argument that we needed to protect Iraqis, does that include the people of Falluja? (Does anyone know why they rejoiced? I'm not being sarcastic, I'd really like to know. Try as I might, I can't explain it by saying they feared someone else -- it seems like they truly hated their "liberators".)

7. Baghdad never chose to confront the US. Saddam invaded Kuwait after we told him we didn't care. At least, he apparently heard it that way.

"Containment of Iraq under Saddam Hussein exposed us to al Qaeda, and gave al Qaeda excuses to attack us." You mean the troops in Saudi Arabia? I'd have probably removed them. I don't see how they helped inspections. We didn't need Saudi help to crush the Iraqi army. I'd have said, "If the house of Saud wants us, they'll have to give us a lot more in return."

c, in response to your questions the answers are generally yes. I'm too tired to elaborate now (and I'm not much of one for detail), but maybe I'll adress them more specifically in the morning.

If people understood the war better there would be much less dissent, and dissent would fall on deaf ears. The echo chambers the dissent creates drive the terrorists strategy and appeals to radicals, making mobs grow and be more excitable and easier for them to manipulate. It also drowns out voices of reason. It's a difficult decision to give away some of your strategy: it may help keep radicals level headed or it may give the enemy valuable information for it's own strategy. However, going back to before the war and reinforcing some of the reasons would probably be helpful.

John - The Shiites are not in open revolt, only Al Sadr's relatively small faction. Do you even know who Al Sadr is?

ATM - good point about the sanctions. As you can read here, the Iraqi sanctions were listed second only to the presence of US troops on Saudi soil (to contain Saddam) by bin Laden as reason to declare jihad on the US in his 1998 fatwah. And, as this gentleman points out:

'The Clinton gang's little genocide in Iraq--nearly a million put to death in order to "contain" a tin-pot dictator--was a recruitment bonanza for terrorists like Al-Qaeda. Muslim men were angrily pouring into Al-Qaeda's training resorts from all over the globe to partake in a jihad against the Americans for what we were doing to the Iraqis. Even before 9/11, Bin Laden routinely invoked the suffering of the Iraqis (more so than he did the Palestinian cause) to justify his attacks against the United States. '

In sum, continuing the sanctions in order to indulge Saddam in his ruthless pursuit of power was not an option. Allowing a resurgent Saddam without any sanctions to constrain him also was not an option. Only the ignorant, those deeply in denial, or both think otherwise.

Omar:

Sanctions and bombing runs to force weapons inspections were also given as reasons in al Qaeda's manifesto.

Omar:

Oh yeah, removing troops in response to al Qaeda's demands probably would not be sufficient to appease. But it would be seen as an attempt to appease them, and would leave us open to further attacks until we capitulate in the manner of their choosing.

Hi JeffS,

Don't apologize for disagreeing w/me. Many do. ;-)

Hugh, I have to ask again -- what are your decision parameters? What is your definition of "failure"?

Failure is not having clearly defined strategic & tactical objectives prior to going in. Failure is not having a definable exit plan. Failure is watching a regional strategic plan get hamstringed by poor post-conflict tactical planning in the first phase of implementation. Failure is destroying a country to save it then leaving it to them to rebuild.

By one definition, 600 American military casualties (plus those from our allies, and the civilians) after 1 year in Iraq is a failure of a plan, without sufficient dialog, in your view.

Yes & No. No: Those casualties figures, while obviously beyond horrible for the family's involved & our country, are actually amazingly low for what has been accomplished so far in Iraq. Yes: In hindsight though, the whole concept of actually invading a country on false pretenses is a failure. In my view we preempted the wrong country. Why not N.Korea? Talk about a whack job leader and imminent threat. Why not Iran? Why not at least pretend to try to resolve the Israeli / Palestinian issue? There were so many other, more pressing issues than iraq.

By another definition, 3000 casualties in New York City is failure of another plan, one that had decades of dialog, military and covert action, diplomatic efforts, congressional legislation, trials, etc. This included discussions within the Federal government.

Agreed.

So when you go on to say "If you didn't do that at work you'd get fired wouldn't you? Gov't is no different", which plan would you hold the government accountable for?

Both. Failure, while never good, in and of itself can lead to good things if treated as something to learn from.

I'm sorry, Hugh, but you don't offer a rational approach to the problem. Or a plan. A plan has definite objectives and goals, a defined strategy. This is more of a group hug session.

No one dies from hugs. Maybe you're on to something? Seriously though...what is not rational about asking that we have a new strategy? Not rational is thinking that what we are doing over there is working and continuing to do it. I agree, a plan needs to have finite objectives and goals and a defined strategy. What my point is is that the hoped for objectives of our original "plan" have failed and we need a new plan. I don't have a plan, do you? Getting out while we still can might be a good idea. Stupid, but in the long term perhaps smart. Regardless of what the administration says though you really believe we'll pull out any time soon?

And I haven't even discussed labeling a plan involving world wide strategy on multiple fronts as a "failure" in it's first couple of years. It took us 50 years to pull down the Soviet Empire....and we did it without an exchange of nuclear weapons. Perhaps you could look at this plan in that light.

Agreed. That plan was "simple"...containment. Do you believe that we can "contain" terror? I certainly don't. It's stateless. Do you really believe that "pre-emption" has worked in Iraq though? We've created a terrorist wet dreamland. Easy access to guns and fanatics. We've exceeded even OBL's dreams by going in there. Which is a whole different conversation... Net net, we're wasting our time talking about Iraq when the real problem, team osama, still waits and plans.

btw...thanks for the intelligent debate. I think we've hijacked the thread though. sorry all.

Falluja profitted greatly under Saddam and I believe had tribal ties. Now they're just common folk and aren't too happy about it. Given their annimocity, they were likely low on the list for reconstruction efforts.

1. Do you believe that a confrontation with Saddam Hussein’s regime was inevitable or not?

Big word, "inevitable". Absolutely not.

2. Do you believe that a confrontation with an Uday/Qusay regime would have been better?

"Better". Odd question. Better than attacking Saddam, presumably? Irrelevant.

3. Do you know that Saddam’s envoys were trying to buy a weapons production line off the shelf from North Korea (vide the Kay report) as late as last March?

"Trying to". Wow.
But as to the question: Yes, and uranium from Niger. Irrelevant.

4. Why do you think Saddam offered "succor" (Mr. Clarke’s word) to the man most wanted in the 1993 bombings in New York?

Irrelevant.

5. Would you have been in favor of lifting the "no fly zones" over northern and southern Iraq; a 10-year prolongation of the original "Gulf War"?

Perhaps.(But irrelevant).

6. Were you content to have Kurdish and Shiite resistance fighters do all the fighting for us?

Really, really stupid question. Irrelevant.

7. Do you think that the timing of a confrontation should have been left, as it was in the past, for Baghdad to choose?

Another really, really stupid question. And irrelevant.

Yawn.

Nemesis - I think most would agree that such a flippant post does not add to the debate and uselessly clogs up space. If self gratification is what turns you on, there are websites dedicated to that kind of activity.

Hugh -

We've created a terrorist wet dreamland.

See my post above. We have eliminated a key propaganda mainstay for Al Qaeda recruitment by eliminating the sanctions against Saddam.

Or, are you objecting to the terrorist activity in Iraq right now? Would you rather the terrorist activity were taking place over here? As Hitch said here, "But in my experience, dud theories die only to be replaced by new and even dumber ones. The current reigning favorite is that fighting al-Qaida in Iraq is a distraction from the fight against al-Qaida".

Must be nice, how any question you don't like the answer to is deemed "irrelevant."

Hugh:

I see your point, and it's well thought out. But I can also see where we diverge. You think the plan has failed. I don't think it has failed, but I'm also reluctant to change horses in the middle of a war, if you will pardon the metaphor.

My operational experience is that a half baked plan executed immediately and vigorously is far better than executing a perfect plan -- or even a reasonably accurate plan. This translates fairly well to strategic operations, although "immediately" might not apply. The key point is not to dally around the conference table too long.

Perhaps the plan has failed, and perhaps not. We simply don't know, and won't for years. But now is not the time to fall back and regroup, as you imply. That is the surest way to lose the war, and have more casualties, here and abroad.

As to your statement:

Agreed. That plan was "simple"...containment. Do you believe that we can "contain" terror? I certainly don't. It's stateless. Do you really believe that "pre-emption" has worked in Iraq though? We've created a terrorist wet dreamland. Easy access to guns and fanatics. We've exceeded even OBL's dreams by going in there. Which is a whole different conversation... Net net, we're wasting our time talking about Iraq when the real problem, team osama, still waits and plans.

The Cold War was not "containment" -- it was avoiding a direct confrontation between the USA and USSR, which would have been nuclear, no doubt about it. That's why there were a lot of "brush wars" around the world. Vietnam, Nicarauga, and Africa, all come to mind. We fought that one through client states, other nations blood spilled on their land. And on an economic level as well.

No, my point there was, that strategy lasted over 50 years, through multiple Administrations. No one knew where it was going.....but we stuck to it, even when we had massive failures, like in Vietnam. I recall that the collapse of the Soviet Union caught many people off guard.

"Contain" terrorism? Please! I don't recall anyone claiming to be able "contain" terrorism. And I wouldn't believe them if they did.

The strategy is to destroy their support bases, because terrorism can't survive without support -- money, training, weapons, intelligences, and so on. This war is fought on several fronts. Some are on the front page, some aren't. Some are covert. Some are minor. All of them, combined, are intended to destroy the ability of terrorists to operate. Will they work? If anyone knew that, I'd vote for them as President.

The way I look at this, there's a road we have to travel. It's long and dark, and we don't know where it goes. Our only mode of transport is a hungry tiger. We have to ride it to the end without being eaten along the way. Not an easy task, but not an impossible one, either. We've done it before, and I am confident that we can do it again, even if people aren't comfortable with the ride.

And the bottom line is that Osama and his ghouls will be waiting no matter what we do. I'd rather be in a position of influence (diplomatic or military) than be waiting for the next here at home, such as is happening in France and Spain.

No matter, this is a long ramble, and I hope it is worth the bandwidth. Thanks for your patience.

Good points, Aaron and JeffS. And good night. Or day

I don't normally post to blogs like this, but my personal dislike of Christopher Hitchens means i will succumb just this once.

Firstly you have to remember what and who Hitchens is. Hitchens was a Marxist (indeed, a Trotskyite), not only in the 'seventies (when it was just about excusable) but in the 'eighties (unusual) and throughout the 'nineties (i.e. AFTER the fall of the Berlin wall). Does this strike any of the readers of this blog as an intelligent or moral political commitment? And don't give me any of the 'well he's changed his mind now' thing: he has NEVER apologised, and has NEVER backtracked from any of those political commitments. So: remember, when you ask your glib questions: Hitchens did and does think that the war in Vietnam was American imperialism, he did and does think that Clinton's attack on the Sudan was a war crime, and he did and does think that the first war in Iraq was wholly and completely unjustified (check out some of his books of essays for proof of this). He is also the man who said (extremely recently) October 2000, "To use 'vile' for 'viable' might look like misfortune, but to employ 'inebriating' for 'enthralling' looks like carelessness, especially in someone with his booze and cocaine record." In the same column he remarked, "Seeking to explain away his wastrel life and his obnoxious manner--nagging problems that persisted until his mid-40s--Bush invites us to believe that he mutated into finer personhood after having a personal encounter with God." speaking of Bush. Do you all agree with THIS as well? Or will you see, as less biased minds do, that Hitchens is a political whore of the first order, who simply jumps on any bandwagon that passes? He was a Marxist when it was fashionable, now he is 'pro-war' when it is fashionable. Perhaps he will shift back to Marxism later on, who knows? In any case, his 'political position' is completely incoherent and makes no sense at all: I do not for the life of me see how you can support the second but not the first gulf war.

Hitchens 'questions' (which i don't believe for a minute he has actually 'asked' any anti-war person, a penchant for being 'economical with the actualite' being one of Hitchen's most notable characteristics) are rhetorical, play to the gallery, and are essentially meaningless.

'Do you believe that a confrontation with Saddam Hussein’s regime was inevitable or not?'

What sort of confrontation? Between whom? Define inevitable? Do you mean soon or in twenty years, or what? If you mean a confrontation between the Iraqi people and Saddam, then the answer is 'probably' If you mean the Iraqi people and the Iraqi regime then the answer is 'yes'. But if you mean: do you think a war between the United States and Iraq was inevitable (what he actually) means, then the answer is clearly 'no': just ask colin powell and 'condi' both of whom clearly thought so in 2000. What evidence does he have (apart from Bush's desire for a war) that war was inevitable?

'Do you believe that a confrontation with an Uday/Qusay regime would have been better? '
oh please less of your euphemisms. You mean 'war'. And the answer is probably not. For the Iraqi people. The question implicitly admits, incidentally, that war with Iraq was 'not good' or else the 'better' aspect of the question would have been meaningless.

3: yes i knew that. So what? Kay didn't think that Saddam was pursuing WMD (the reason for the war, as we have been told), and in any case, Saddam was allowed to have weapons. What state isn't? What's your point?

4: who cares? There are terrorist living in the US in the UK, in Spain, in France....almost everywhere in fact. A state terrorist (Pinochet) was given exclusive private healthcare in the UK until recently until the Spaniards had him arrested: Margaret Thatcher was outraged. Whats your point?

5: Given, Hitchens, that you opposed (and still do) the first Gulf War, and that, therefore, if you had been in charge, there would not have BEEN any 'no fly zones' will you accept that your question is totally meaningless?

6: What do you mean 'for us'? They fought for THEM!!!! What breathtaking arrogance and self-involvement!!! you accept, therefore that this was was about the US and US interests? Otherwise the question is meaningless. If the question is: should Bush (senior) have stabbed the resistance in teh back in '91, then the answer is clearly 'no'. But as i look at the papers i see the 'Shi-ites' doing quite a lot of fighting nowadays AGAINST us. Do YOU support THAT? If not, why not?

7: again, please, when you mean 'war' say 'war'. Since this question relies upon an affirmative response to question 1, and i have not given that, then as usual a rhetorical ploy.

The fact is that, as Colin Powell and 'Condi' proclaimed, Saddam was contained by 2001, as we now know for sure (and we do know it). The real threats were from Al-Qaeda and its sponsors, specifically those in Saudi, Pakistan and Egypt. However those are our allies so naturally we have done everything in our power to help them.

The US is not a global policeman, and it is not incumbent upon the US to invade every totalitarian regime. Go through all teh above questions and substitute 'China', or 'Vietnam' for all of them: they fit as well. Why shouldn't the US invade Vietnam after all? is it not a totalitarian regime? or what about Cuba?

The fact is that, like Poland and Russia, totalitarian regimes are essentially unstable, they fall, and US interference normally makes things worse, as it now has done in Iraq.

As for some of these other responses:

'No. I have my own reasons for supporting Bush's actions. Several in fact. Some do not concide with Bush's, some do. So what? It accomplished and is accomplishing what I wanted done. And that is all that matters to me.' Well good for you. There are also the suffering Iraqi people, but many of them don't even have DVD players and are therefore only technically members of the human race.

C'mon guys. You can see thru a man like Hitchens. He writes for Vanity Fair (aptly enough). He is only interested in his own cash book and his only messy ego. His political views have no consistency, no sense, no meaning. Neither does his life. He is just an aging alcoholic who thinks that by flattering the powerful they will buy him drinks. He may be right.

Your blog is called "Hitchenswatch"? Someone is a little bit of a monomaniac on a certain subject, isn't he? And everyone knows Hitchens is a leftist. We also notice he seems to have a rudimentary survival instinct, unlike most of the rest of his ilk. Go lecture someone else.

"Kay didn't think that Saddam was pursuing WMD (the reason for the war, as we have been told), and in any case, Saddam was allowed to have weapons. What state isn't? What's your point?"

Kay absolutely believed and documented how Saddam was pursuing WMD. All Kay said was that there did not appear to be vast stocks of WMD available for immediate deployment.

What state isn't? What a mind bogglingly vacuous statement. The terms of the 1991 cease fire were that he could not pursue the acquisition of such weapons. It is akin to saying one shouldn't worry if a murderer who, by some bureaucratic slip up, managed to be paroled and was found, against the terms of his parole, to be stockpiling assault rifles and grenades. Of course that man is going back to prison, either in a police wagon or a hearse.

To those quoting David Kay re not finding WMD in Iraq:
Kay also said in this last report that Iraq was perhaps more dangerous than ever. He said that, WMD caches or no, conditions there warranted the removal of Saddam from power.

He said that Saddam was definitely pursuing WMD and most likely would achieve them as soon as strong international pressure eased up. (In light of recent UN corruption revelations, just how strong were the sanctions and 'pressure', anyway?)

He maintained that Iraqi WMD could yet be found, hidden in the country or spirited off to safe-keeping elsewhere. He came to the unequivocal conclusion that this war was necessary. One gets the feeling that Kay found caches of evil but knew they would not be UN recognized

ah "c", you are still at it. good for you. Kay is always misquoted by the oppos.

Do you think that these people really think good ole Saddam was going to become the George Washington of Iraq after sanctions were lifted? At least he had his oil deal with mendacious Chirac to provide funds as soon as Chirac got the UN to lift the sanctions. And then Saddam could have provided for the chilren and built schools and taken care of the people. The army could have helped build the power grid and water system and turn their swords into plowshares

Ted, Good comments on the Saddam we all know and love! But didn't you know that George Washington is no longer an honorable figure of history?!

(from The New York Times, 12 November 1997, by Kevin Sack)

"NEW ORLEANS--By the reckoning of John Riley, the historian at Mount Vernon, there are about 450 schools in the United States named for George Washington.

Now there is one fewer. Following a policy that prohibits school names honoring "former slave owners or others who did not respect equal opportunity for all," the Orleans Parish School Board voted unanimously on Oct. 27 to change the name of George Washington Elementary to Dr. Charles Richard Drew Elementary."

Perhaps you should amend your example and use "the Dr. Drew of Iraq"--?

c,

aaaghhhhhhh

The answer to the first question is "no." Which makes the rest of the questions inoperative.

doncoop:

Your answer(s) get an F. You didn't even try.

Perhaps you could explain why the answer to the first question is "no?"

I offer for your perusal an op-ed from the Washington Post by Steve Hadley, deputy national security adviser to President Bush dated Feb. 28, 2003.

One year later, and almost none of this is true. What will it take for you people to see these Bush-Cheney folks are all liars and are using your extraordinary talents, commitment and determination for their own ends? That their real goal is the exercide of power and how best to profit personally from that exercise? That they don't really care about Iraq or the people who have to fight this war on either side? When will you wake up?

Now, let's play a game. Let's see who can come up with the most lies, half-truths, untruths, obfuscations, fabrications, falsehoods, and outright inventions in this one article. I counted 28. I bet you all can come up with more.

And don't give me the "it was impossible to predict" bs. These guys knew, THEY KNEW, that the military mission they were seeking to achieve was not possible to do with the force they had assembled. Not just invasion, but occupation. They knew their force wasn't sufficient. But the political ramifications of moblizing the reserves, having a long buildup over many months with UN inspectors running around Iraq finding nothing, was unacceptable. So they went and commenced the invasion, even though our forces hadn't been properly redeployed following the diplomatic debacle with Turkey. They attacked too soon with too few men and poor strategic intelligence, and have refused to admit since then that their planning efforts were, well, criminally negligent. The current disaster in Iraq was born of this planning shortfall.

So I ask you -- even if war with Iraq was justified (which I don't for a second believe), isn't it clear that the White House was not prepared to win the peace? And by losing the peace, aren't we just guaranteeing ourselves more heartache in the long run? More hatred of the U.S., more terrorist attacks, more death? And who do I turn to when terrorists blow up something in the U.S. -- and they will -- to say invading Iraq didn't make us any safer? Who will be responsible then? I hope it isn't lying SOBs like Bush or Steve Hadley or Hitchens. Cuz then I know we will have lost for real.

The Plan for a Postwar Iraq

By Steve Hadley
Friday, February 28, 2003

If Saddam Hussein refuses to disarm and makes war inevitable, it will be a war of liberation, not occupation. As President Bush said in his speech to the United Nations last September, "Liberty for the Iraqi people is a great moral cause and a great strategic goal. The people of Iraq deserve it, and the security of all nations requires it."

Securing this liberty and sustaining it in a post-Hussein Iraq will be a huge undertaking. But we are well prepared. Planning has been underway for months, across every relevant agency of the U.S. government.

The goals for which we plan are clear. First, along with our coalition partners, we must ensure the rapid flow of humanitarian relief into Iraq. The current humanitarian situation in Iraq is tenuous. For food, most Iraqis rely on rations from the oil-for-food program. But the Iraqi regime's manipulation of the program has led to mortality and malnutrition rates worse than before the Persian Gulf War.

Hussein has a history of manufacturing humanitarian crises. We must be prepared for this -- and we are.

The U.S. government is stockpiling nearly 3 million Humanitarian Daily Rations to meet emergency food needs. We are also stockpiling blankets, water containers, essential medicines and other relief items capable of helping up to a million people. Much of this material is already in the region, and more is on the way.

To distribute these and other materials, we will rely primarily on civilian relief agencies. We are counting on the efforts of international organizations such as the United Nations and the Red Cross and Red Crescent, as well as various nongovernmental organizations. These groups have the expertise, personnel and equipment that can literally mean the difference between life and death. We will fund and facilitate their efforts to the greatest extent possible.

In circumstances where no U.N. agencies or nongovernmental organizations are available, the U.S. military may be required to provide limited relief. Such relief will be under the guidance of civilian experts, with the goal of getting civilian agencies into these areas as quickly as possible.

To coordinate all this activity, the U.S. government is training a 60-person civilian disaster assistance response team, the largest in U.S. history. Made up of humanitarian emergency professionals from several agencies, the team will soon have representatives in Kuwait, Turkey, Jordan and Qatar.

We will also work to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure, which for years has been mismanaged and neglected. Early efforts will include restoring electricity and clean water, as well as addressing the immediate need for medical care and public health.

Over the longer term, we will assist the Iraqi people in creating a more stable and more vibrant economic system. Specifically, we will help them create a modern system of taxation and budgeting, stabilize the dinar, and resolve debt and reparations obligations.

A critical part of the reconstruction effort will be ensuring that Iraq's natural resources are protected from acts of sabotage by Hussein's regime and that they are used for the benefit of the Iraqi people. Iraq's natural resources belong to all the Iraqi people and -- after decades of being used to build palaces and weapons of mass destruction -- will finally be used for their benefit, not Hussein's.

Finally, a post-Hussein Iraq should be truly free and democratic. The United States will not seek to dictate to the people of Iraq the precise character of that regime. But no one should be interested in simply replacing one dictator with another. The goal -- which we are confident we share with Iraq's people -- is an Iraq that is moving toward democracy, in which individual rights are protected regardless of gender, religion or ethnicity.

Assisting and rebuilding a post-Hussein Iraq will require an enormous effort. Success will be possible only by working with Iraq's neighbors and the international community. And, most of all, we will need the support of Iraq's people. The United States will work to win that support.

Many are already asking how long America is prepared to stay in Iraq. The answer is straightforward: We will stay as long as is necessary, but not one day more. We will, from the outset, draw free Iraqis into the task of rebuilding their country, and we will transfer responsibility to Iraqi entities as soon as possible.

This is an awesome responsibility. When future scholars look back on the history of the Middle East at the beginning of the 21st century, instead of asking, "What went wrong?" they may instead ask, "Why did it go right?" If they do, one of the answers will be that the free nations of the world understood that their values and their interests pointed in the same direction: toward freedom.

The writer is deputy national security adviser to President Bush.

John, thanks, that's very nice, but could you maybe not post entire articles here? For one thing, I don't want any copyright violations committed here. (It is a gray area whether or not entire posted articles are still copyright violations even if you cite the author, and I don't feel like being the lab rat to find out.) Next time find the url, link it, and post an excerpt; or if it isn't on the web, tell us where to look it up. Some of us are ambulatory, and have an inkling of where to find a public library.

John,

What part of that article isn't true? As far as I can see the administration has at least attempted to provide everything that this article said they would. So where's the lie?

Thanks John, nice article.

"Oh yeah, removing troops in response to al Qaeda's demands probably would not be sufficient to appease. But it would be seen as an attempt to appease them, and would leave us open to further attacks until we capitulate in the manner of their choosing." -ATM

Until we capitulate? What could we possibly do that would satisfy Al-Qaida? I thought they opposed the House of Saud. They clearly hate us, but their "plan" for us seems to call for a war between America and the Islamic world. And I wouldn't have removed troops from Saudi Arabia immediately. I would have told Saud that if they wanted us there they'd have to (at minimum) stop breeding terrorists to kill us. I don't care what the Al-Qaida manifesto says, that seems like an inherently good plan. Meanwhile, I'd concentrate our military/intelligence resources on finding Osama. Not pull out the special unit looking for him and send those personnel to Iraq.

I put quotes around 'plan' because I have no clue how they expect it to work. Unless they really want a palace revolution in Saudi Arabia, and I don't know exactly how that would work either.