UPDATE: Blogatelle says nice things about this post, and much of the debate continues over there in the comment section.
I’ve not commented much on the impending war on Iraq. Plenty of others have, pro and con, and there have been other, less aggravating topics for me to write about.
Well, with an intro like that, y’gotta figure what’s coming.
One thing that most folks agree with is that Saddam Hussein is a tyrannical murderer (or a murderous tyrant, take your pick). He’s invaded his neighbors. He’s used chemical weapons, both on his own population and on others.
I wouldn’t call him Hitler-like, since that’s both cliche and I frankly think he’s less nuts than Hitler. But Stalin — yeah, there are plenty of similarities there, only on a smaller scale (perforce because he’s had a smaller country to work on).
But very few people, should he suddenly suffer a brain aneurism, would shed many tears. The problem is, does that justify going to war on him and his country?
In some ways, it’s easier to look at the objections before looking at the positive reasons to do so. So that’s what I’ll do.
Bush is just doing this for reasons X, Y and Z. This is the most common complaint I hear. It’s to distract from the economy, or from his business cronies’ misdealings. It’s a way to rally the country behind the GOP. For a while it was to try to avenge his father’s failure to get Saddam the first time; then, abruptly, the armchair shrinks changed it to trying to show up his father. Whatever.
Fact is, though, it makes little difference. The justice or need to go after Iraq is independent of ulterior motives. You can do the right thing for the wrong reasons, and the wrong thing for the right reasons.
And if you believe in democracy, and you think Dubya’s job as President is that miserable, then you’ve got two years to wait to dump the cluck. And only a few months to vote in a Congress that will oppose him on all those domestic issues.
Saddam is only a problem because of the US. Certainly our record in supporting Saddam in the 70s, even to the alleged point of standing by when we knew he was going to use chemical weapons, is to our shame. The realpolitik of supporting bad guys in order to keep worse guys in line is a dubious tactic that usually comes back to haunt one. The history of the US and Afghanistan stands as an other recent example of that.
Nonetheless, it’s irrelevant to this debate. Indeed, you could just as easily (and falsely) use it to argue that if Saddam is a problem because of us, then it’s our responsibility to the world to get rid of him.
Everyone stands against us in doing this. Certainly we need to consider what our allies (and rivals and enemies) think about what we’re doing. Nonetheless, in our own personal lives there are times when we each feel we need to follow a particular course of action, even knowing that our friends disagree with it. Our foreign policy should be influenced by our allies, but it cannot be dictated by it.
For what it’s worth, there’s some question as to how sincere those objections really are. A number of objecting countries are acting as much out of their self-interest as the US is accused of. Others seem to be objecting on the outside more for domestic consumption than out of any serious moral outrage.
We’re persecuting Islam. Saddam, who’s domestically pursued a strongly (and brutally) secular course, has to be struggling not to laugh to be portrayed as a defender of Islam. He fulfills that role only to the extent that he’s been more than willing to fund and supply radical Islamic militants and terrorists, which he’s done for purposes of political gain, not for any religious reasons.
Will the Islamic world see an attack on Iraq as a further assault on Islam by the US? Probably. Should we take that into account? Certainly, but, again, it cannot be the deciding factor — and if we play our cards right in trumpeting again and again how Saddam has been more than willing to kill, torture, bomb and gas his fellow Muslims, we can at least mitigate that perception to some degree.
The US military is against it. It’s ironic that the anti-war movement has shifted, since Nam, from claiming that the military are warmongers that need to be strongly reined in by the People, to claiming that the military are the ones who should be listened to when it comes to evaluating a potential conflict.
There were plenty in the military who objected to the original Gulf War, and to Aftghanistan, and to our intervention in the Balkans, who saw all of those conflicts as potential quagmires that would turn into bloodbaths, both of civilians and of US troops.
The opinions of the Joint Chiefs and the Pentagon certainly should be weighed. But they cannot be the only voices heard.
Congress needs to weigh in on the matter. There’s a long-time conflict between what the President, as Commander-in-Chief, can do militarily, vs. what the Congress, with the power to declare war, can do to restrain the President. It’s a tension between Article II, Section 2, and Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution.
Should the President get approval from Congress before going to war against Iraq? Probably, as a political need, but by law he can send in the troops for 60 days before he has to get actual legislative approval.
There’s some thought that this has actually already been hashed out behind closed doors. Which sounds sinister, but is also something of a necessity if you think about what it would mean to pass a Declaration of War ahead of time as things currently stand.
It’s not right to attack someone until you, yourself, are attacked. That’s certainly a point, and is similarly a point of domestic law (if not international consensus). Still, it’s not as clear-cut as that. There are legitimate arguments that a war against Iraq would be a continuation of previous UN-supported actions. More importantly, there are legitimate, grave concerns over Saddam’s weapons programs — programs hampered to some degree by embargoes, but still (according to some sources) proceeding apace.
Leaving aside whether Iraq has complicity in the events of 11 September (etc.) — an issue that remains hotly debated — the question remains, what would happen if Iraq became a nuclear power? Saddam has demonstrated a willingness to go chemical. He’s fostered a strong bio-warfare capability. He’s certainly pursued nuclear weaponry. Once he has it, it’s too late. Anything he wants, at that point, is colored by the prospect of a mushroom cloud over Riyadh, or Tel Aviv, or wherever a container ship can travel, including New York, Los Angeles, New Orleans, or beyond. Even if you argue that he’d never actually do such a thing, he’ll have the threat. And Saddam’s willingness to use such threats — and follow through on them — is well known.
We should pursue other courses. Like what? Diplomacy? Tried that, failed. Trade embargoes? Tried that, and been accused of genocide. Saddam hasn’t lost any weight over the last decade, but plenty of people have been willing to lay the deaths of thousands of Iraqis on the doorstep of the US.
Ignore him? Sure. If we ignore him, maybe he’ll just sit quietly in Baghdad and be a good world citizen. If we just smile and be nice to him, he’ll be nice, too.
In some ways, this is the most important failure in the anti-war position — what do we do otherwise?
And that’s where the addressing the criticisms becomes the positive reason for taking whatever means necessary, including war, against Iraq. There are very few who argue with a straight face that Saddam isn’t a threat, in the long- or mid-term, if not in the short-term. There are very few who don’t think that, if he doesn’t have an active nuclear development program now, that he won’t pursue one as soon as the hated embargo is lifted. There are very few who don’t think that a nuclear-armed Saddam will be a terrible danger, and one that will be exceedingly difficult to deal with then.
So what do we do? Wring our hands? Hope for the best? Pass firm resolutions to chastise Saddam if he steps out of line?
Hope he dies before he nukes someone?
I don’t look forward to war. I don’t believe there are a lot of other choices we can pursue at this point. Dammit.
Thank you.
You’re, uh, welcome.
I had been pondering a lengthy rant on this same subject earlier in the evening…the “thank you” is for sparing me the skull sweat.
My basic view is this: we know his intentions, we know he has the means, we know he pays the families of the suicide bombers, we know he helped train the 9/11 hijackers. Waiting for him to attack us so we can do battle with a clear conscience is sheerest folly. And irretrievably stupid.
I think it does matter why we pursue a war, because it calls in to question how “right” the result actually is. The information used to argue for war with Iraq is all coming from those with a personal motive to attack Saddam. The primary motives are financial and political. There are basically no arguments used for this war that can’t be used to justify attacking a number of other countries. There is also no one claiming the real threat from Iraq is against U.S. territory. Even those advocating war recognize that Iraq’s weapon delivery systems have a maximum range of a few hundred miles. There is much more evidence that Saudi Arabia was involved in the 9/11 attacks, but they still work with the major oil companies so we put up with them. Iran and Russia (and even several European countries and the U.S. if you go back a number of decades) have all used chemical weapons in the past, but we aren’t attacking them. Add to that the amazingly high cost of this war to a U.S. budget that is already in bad shape, and I’ve yet to see anyone deliver real, verifiable reasons to attack a country which has never attacked us, and was our hired bully until Saddam got greedy with controlling too much oil. IMHO, anyway.
Ah, I understand Seki. Thanks. And as I said, I’d been thinking about a screed on this for a while, and just hadn’t gotten around to it.
wKen, how are these for some arguments that could be used to attack Iraq in lieu of other countries with equally tyrannical heads of state (Zimbabwe comes to mind, but I digress).
I’m not aware of any other nation, with the current regime still in charge, which has used chemical weapons on both portions of its own population as well as on opponents at war, and has threatened to use them on still other occasions. Who also has biowarfare and nuclear weaponry programs, both past and arguably present. I don’t believe Iran qualifies there.
Russia might — but, to be honest, Russia is both less of a threat to us and more of a danger to try to do something about directly — heck, the fact that Russia is able to get away with the shit they’ve pulled in Chechnya, largely because they’re a nuclear power, is all the argument you need to explain why the much less cooperative Hussein regime cannot be allowed to get the same capability.
True, I don’t expect Iraq to start lobbing nukes at the US via SCUD missile. I expect Iraq to threaten to lob nukes at other Gulf states, as well as Israel, once it’s demonstrated that it has the capability. Holding a gun to someone’s head is arguably less of a crime than actually blowing their brains out, but if the threat isn’t credible, it’s meaningless — Iraq’s clear willingness to war on, gas, threaten, and annex neighbors, in a strategically critical area of the world, makes the current regime’s continued existence, especially outside of an embargo, intolerable.
Plus, while Iraq’s missiles are not of a sufficient range to reach the US (or even Europe), nukes can with relative ease ride any of the millions of containers shipped worldwide every year. And are probably more reliable that way than on a missile delivery system.
Saudi Arabia may well turn out to have had more to do with 9/11 than Iraq, if through funding and cultural brainwashing than anything else. It’s less of a smoking gun, though, and, again, a target with more dire consequences (significant disruption of oil supply) than Iraq presents at the moment. Further, the Saudis have been nominally cooperative, and haven’t invaded any of their neighbors recently.
Will the cost (in dollars, if nothing else) be high? Probably. And it’s never good timing for a war, from an economic sense. But, again, the question is, if we don’t do it now, what will the cost be when it becomes even more critical (or what will the cost be if it never happens at all)? Arguing from 1930s Europe is always dicey, but the appeasement of Chamberlain (et al.) was driven by the potential cost of actually trying to stand up to Hitler; the ultimate cost paid far exceeded what it would have been in 1936.
I think it is clearly in our national self-interest to see Saddam gone, regardless of whatever shameful past we have in supporting him. I think the threat he presents to his own people, to the region, and to the world, will continue to grow. Short of figuring out a way to put a bullet into his skull (which he’s proved amazing adept at avoiding), I still don’t see what we can do short of some sort of military intervention.
I like your site. It is interesting. I don’t necessarily agree with all your ideas though, but thats what makes life more interesting. You argue “heck, the fact that Russia is able to get away with the shit they’ve pulled in Chechnya, largely because they’re a nuclear power”… Similar arguments could be used against the U.S. and guess what? They’re the only country (correct me if I’m wrong) who’ve actually used their nuclear weapons against another country.
Of course, America’s might does not reside solely in nuclear weaponry. Y’all got carriers and warships and submarines and planes and bombs and missiles galore. AND you’ve demonstrated a tendency to use these weapons on all and sundry. Put yourself in the shoes of citizens of other countries… Isn’t the U.S. a country we all have to fear because of these tendencies. You also have demonstrated the tendency to interfere with and manipulate the governments of other countries and have even gone so far as to try to remove governments from power, funding, training and supplying arms to forces against the governments of countries you are against. What in hell makes the U.S. any different to these nations that they curse and that they want their allies to support the destruction of.
I would point out that a pre-emptive strike such as the one being considered would result in America abandoning the moral high ground, but I believe that you all have abandoned that high ground LONG AGO.
I’m not sure my host can handle the bandwidth of starting a debate over whether the use of nuclear weapons in WWII was justified. I disagree that creates a moral equivalency between the US and its actions (half a century ago) and those of Iraq.
If the US has abandoned the moral high ground “long ago,” then where’s anyone’s bitch? And if George W. Bush is no different from Saddam Hussein, then everyone better shut the hell up and toe the line, because we’re likely to invade, bomb, gas, and pillage any country that bitches about what we do or who crosses us in any way — just like we’ve done over the past three or four decades to France, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Germany, India, Pakistan, Cuba, Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Libya, Canada, Mexico and New Zealand.
No, you’re (the U.S. that is) not exactly like Saddam. I’d be wicked if I said that, but you do invade, bomb etc. some countrys, for instance Panama and Libya. I would say Afghanistan, but they did have the asshole bin Laden and wouldn’t turn him over… That was justified! I’d also say Vietnam, but I think I’d have to do some reading first. But I strongly suspect that I’d be on safe ground there too. 🙂
Then there are countrys that you don’t attack, but resort to economic sanctions to try and bend them to your will. Then there are those where you supply arms, training etc. to their opposition. Its because of these actions that I say they’ve abandoned the high ground. Not that I’m speaking from any “holier than thou” position, I assure you, because I’m sure that the government of my country would be absolutely EEEE-VIL (as they say on the Power Puff Girls) if they had the power and the might that the U.S. has at their fingertips.
I’m not sure I understand the phrase “where’s anyone’s bitch?”. Help me out with that one, nuh?
As far as the U.S. invading other countries — excuse me? Or carrying out economic sanctions? We’ve abandoned our high ground?
The U.S. didn’t invent war any more than it invented chess. Villifying the U.S. is a waste of time — you’d be better off questioning whether a war against Iraq would accomplish anything.
A good point, dust. It’s certainly worthwhile (particularly for Americans) to consider our past (and present) sins, and strive to hold our elected leaders (and ourselves) to a higher standard, or at least to the standard we espouse.
None of which argues for or against possible war on its merits or drawbacks. Which is also a worthwhile and necessary debate.
Sorry about the idiomatic English, Madbull. Substitute “complaint” for “bitch.”
Ok, no problem…