April 21, 2004
WRONG BUT RIGHT
"We hawks were wrong about many things" on Iraq, writes David Brooks. "But in opening up the possibility for a slow trudge towards democracy, we were still right about the big thing." Absolutely. Mark Steyn rounds up several war doubters in his latest column, and has this as well, from the 9/11 hearings:
Commissioner John Lehman remarked that "it was the policy [before 9/11] and I believe remains the policy today to fine airlines if they have more than two young Arab males in secondary questioning because that's discriminatory."
In other words, when Mohammed Atta's five-man terrorist crew went to check in that morning at Boston, the airline would have been punished by the Federal Government if it had questioned more than two of them. And that still applies today. And, if you were to suggest changing that regulation, you'd be drowned in whimpers from the New York Times, the Democratic Party and the ethnic grievance industry.
Again on Iraq, Johann Hari provides numerical support for the war’s rightness:
Posted by Tim Blair at April 21, 2004 09:29 AMThe Human Rights Centre (HRC) in Kadhimiya has been set up by Iraqis themselves from the ashes of Baathism. They have been going methodically through the massive - and previously unexplored - archives left by the regime, which document every killing in cold bureaucracy-speak. The HRC have found that if the invasion had not happened, Saddam would have killed 70,000 people in the past year. Not sanctions: Saddam's tyranny alone.
"Even once you factor in the war and everybody who has died since, it's not as many people as that," Sama explains. "So this war has indisputably saved lives over the past year. Saddam's victims might not have been appearing on your TV screens, but they would be just as dead."
Does anyone want to hazard a guess about how the Iraqi HRC and their claims will be dismissed?
Will they be blown off as:
1) CIA operatives
2) Misguided and foolish brown people
3) Not being worth the lives of American troops anyway
4) People who fail to realize that the more important pacifist ideal is to just die until there aren't any people left to be violently killed?
But... but... you don't understand. It was the Iraqi Baathists themselves, those MinuteMen of the Middle East, who were doing the killing, not the invading infidel dog scum of the West. That makes it okay.
Posted by: Rebecca at April 21, 2004 at 12:22 PMSaddam's victims might not have been appearing on your TV screens, but they would be just as dead."
Too bad the people from the HRC don't appear on our TV screens.
Posted by: Oktober at April 21, 2004 at 12:50 PMIf we accept the premise that killing is bad, then this sort of scorekeeping approach has zero moral validity.
Before the war, we weren't killing people. Now we are.
This is bad. The only possible justification for killing is self defense. To say that we are not as bad as an evil tyrant is hopefully true - but it's a pretty lousy reference point.
Yes, we are killers, but we're not as bad as those other killers. Wow. Got to do a whole lot better than that, people.
Posted by: Nemesis at April 21, 2004 at 02:28 PMNemmie, your offerings are particularly moronic today. Hey -- whoever is taking care of this fellow, did you forget to give him his Alzheimer's medication?
Posted by: Andrea Harris at April 21, 2004 at 02:33 PMSo Nemesis, if you see your neighbour being bashed senseless, you are just as bad or marginally not as bad as his attacker if you should decide to intervene.
Your morality is beyond comprehension.
If we accept the premise that killing is bad . . .
And the Lefties say that President Bush lacks nuance . . . [sigh]
Needless to say, I don't accept your premise; killing murderous savages in defense of civilization is good.
Before the war, we weren't killing people. Now we are . . . got to do a whole lot better than that, people.
Before the war, barbaric sociopaths were killing innocent people for their own corrupt reasons. Now we are killing barbaric sociopaths for noble reasons.
Can't do much better than that.
Posted by: DrZin at April 21, 2004 at 03:25 PMNemesis - "The only possible justification for killing is self defense."
Er, no: there is also defense of others. Killing is not good, but not always bad - it is the subset murder that should raise hackles. Ask any cop.
You disgusting advocate of murder, Nemesis! I had just gone and accepted your premise that "killing is bad", and then you went and threw this obscene "only possible justification for killing is self defense" qualifier on it out of NOWHERE. What's your defense for that? Now you're suddently saying that killing ISN'T always bad? Is that what you're trying to say, you killing killer of death????
Or. . . wait. So maybe killing is justified in harsh conditions. Okay. I can accept that. Whew! Riding your logic train is a scary ride full of thrills and spills! And I'm totally not just being patronizing and sarcastic, here. But I think I understand you know.
But I'm woefully unprepared to go around killing people that want to kill me. The world is a scary place full of deadly dangers. The other day I saw this guy getting killed by five other guys, and it was really unfair because, like, there was only one guy and he got killed because he didn't stand a chance. I'd sure hate to be surrounded by people who wanted to kill me when I was not in a position to, you know, justifiably kill them back. In that position, I sure wouldn't mind some help. So if it is justifiable for someone to be killed when they are trying to kill someone else, as you said, well. . . just MAYBE. . . it doesn't matter who does the killing so long as it is in defense. I mean, I bet those five guys wouldn't be able to go around killing people one by one if everyone banded together to oppose them.
I know! This is a crazy and dangerous proposition, but think about it! We should protect each other from killing! It sort of totally invalidates your possibly asinine idea that we've gone to a lower moral level by engaging in killing despite no clear threat to ourselves, but it's quite reasonable from your own qualification.
In which case, we're right back where we started. Oh, DAMMIT! You've wasted my time again, you sanctimonious prick! Go you go hell! You go to hell and you die!
Posted by: Sortelli at April 21, 2004 at 04:23 PMNemesis, if you are so friggin' moral, at least be logical about it. If you accept killing in self-defense, then you accept killing, period. "Self-defense" is a gray area. What is self-defense to you is not necessarily self-defense to someone else.
Oh? You disagree? Check out the laws in any US state concerning the limitations on self-defense for the private citizen. And then tell me I'm wrong.
If you take another life, you either have a reason to do so, or you don't. If you don't, you are a murder. If you do have a reason, it needs to be justified, either before a judge, by legal order, with your own conscious, with God, or all of the above -- take your choice.
I believe that we justified in what is happening in Iraq. Whether or not I like it is immaterial. It has to be done.
To say that we are not as bad as an evil tyrant is hopefully true - but it's a pretty lousy reference point.
It may be a "pretty lousy reference point", but by God, it's a lot better than being as bad, or worse! I'd rather have the blood of terrorists on my hands than the lives of innocent people on my conscious.
Speaking of which, you need to find yours. Check in the toilet.
Posted by: JeffS at April 21, 2004 at 04:23 PM'The only possible justification for killing is self defense.'
Half-witted, sanctimonious, self-centred, illogical, inhumane, inhuman moral relativism.
I'm sure you don't mean it that way, Nemesis, because the scorekeeping thing is tacky - but it appears necessary because there are those who insist the liberation of Iraq would be wrong even if no-one had died; and whose shrill complaints increase in volume with each setback, each unfortunate death and each unforeseen contingency dealt with by those who will not shirk their task using facile moral rationales.
The Iraqi Human Rights Commission have done the right thing and gone to primary sources to get the straight facts:
The HRC have found that if the invasion had not happened, Saddam would have killed 70,000 people in the past year. Not sanctions: Saddam's tyranny alone.
That figure (70,000 murders pa) looks out by at least an order of magnitude compared to all other non-partisan reports of the casualties incurred through Husseins repressive military and political actions through the early nineties/naughties, when he was constained and constrained "in the box" by sanctions, missions and inspections. These had limited his capacity for lethal mischief.
Until now I beleived that Husseins worst post-Gulf war atrocities mainly occurred after the rolling up resistance networks blown after the passage of the Iraq Liberation Act, and Chalabis ill-thought out coup attempt. The White House reported that Hussein to have killed somewhat less than 1,000 political prisoner per year over the nineties:
3,000 prisoners at the Mahjar prison from 1993-1998 o 2,500 prisoners were executed between 1997-1999 in a "prison cleansing campaign" o 122 political prisoners were executed at Abu Ghraib prison in February/March 2000 o 23 political prisoners were executed at Abu Ghraib prison in October 2001 o At least 130 Iraqi women were beheaded between June 2000 and April 2001.
Attempting to asess whether the 70,000 figure has any validity is difficult as the Hari article does not state how the HRC derived the figure.
Was it projected on the basis of average annual total of documented political murders committed by Hussein under the sanctions system (1991-2003)?
Was it a literal hit-list or quota for execution for FY2003-4?
Or was it an average number or military/political murders taken by adding up all victims of military/political violence suffered under Husseins reign, including those times when he acted under US tutelage, and dividing them by 25?
We already know that the war has become a strategic failure, save the unlikely event that Iraqi democracy can be made to survive against fascist apparatchiks subverion and fundamentalist terrorists attacks.
Estimates of typical annual political murder numbers, under the containment regime, give the opportunity benefit of regime changing Hussein.
It would be good if some diligent researchers out there could resolve this contradiction.
It is critical that these facts be disclosed so one can make a reliable judgement as to whether the invasion was morally justified, on humanitarian grounds. Posted by: Jack Strocchi at April 21, 2004 at 08:12 PM
Jack:
Shut the fuck up.
You just made the point that it doesn't matter how the numbers were derived, that some retared lefty will still feel the war was unjustified.
Posted by: david at April 21, 2004 at 09:29 PMThe problem is that morally fastidious morons like Nemesis are in the ascendancy, aided and abetted by the battalions of opinion formers recruited during Nam all now hard at work in the media or academia.
These motor flutters are going to win again, I fear, in which case I, like the mighty Ajax, shall fall on my sword.
Meanwhile, Nemesis better learn how to pray with his ass in the air.
Posted by: Theodopoulos Pherecydes at April 21, 2004 at 11:02 PMNemesis -- yoo hoo -- where are you?
Must only have to go to the loo once a day. A shame he had to take his dump here.
Posted by: Tongue Boy at April 22, 2004 at 01:24 AMJack,
You possess the unique talent of spewing the most byzantine, disjointed garbage yet boring us to tears with it. Thank you for your contribution. Come again.
Posted by: Tongue Boy at April 22, 2004 at 01:26 AMActually, I kinda like Jack's logic. (Although how those approximately 600,000 additional bodies that were obviously not political prisoners got into those mass graves is a bit mystifying.) Aside from the fact that the 70,000 to be killed do not obviously have to become "political prisoners" before they're killed, it is perfectly obvious that, while killing 70,000 would be a good reason to stop Saddam, merely killing 1000 "political prisoners" per year is not. I urge Jack to refine his calibrations and tell exactly how many "political prisoners" (non-political prisoners do not count in the bag limit) a dictator may kill each year before he renders himself vulnerable to a rational dismissal.
Somewhere between 1000 "political prisoners" and 70,000 poor, ignorant, powerless sods seems to be the bag limit before the international game wardens can call halt. What, exactly, is the number, Jack?
Posted by: JorgXMcKie at April 22, 2004 at 08:11 AMArgh, I wish I had come back to this old post sooner, if only to cut and paste "They have been going methodically through the massive - and previously unexplored - archives left by the regime, which document every killing in cold bureaucracy-speak." and explain to Jack Strocchi, with small words and pictures, how such information could be used to determine how many Iraqis Saddam had actually been killing and estimate how many would be killed on an ongoing basis.
And then I'd probably slap him around a little more for believing the idiotic idea that the sanctions (which he has often argued were IN ERROR) prevented Saddam from harming his own people when they had only entrenched his power over a poor and starving populace.
Posted by: Sortelli at April 26, 2004 at 03:52 PM