March on D.C.Follow

See. This is the part I just don't get. You accept that the war is "legal". But then talk about an assumed trust that was violated somehow. Um... Exactly what was that trust? You talk about the military being used for "good reasons" as part of that assuption. Ok. Great. Then you say you understand why invading a country is needed. Great. So where's the problem? How is it, that after saying all of this, you can then decide that some kind of trust has been violated?


We're left with the assumption on your part that even though Congress voted to authorize this war, and therefore the war is "legal", that somehow, despite that, it was not done for "good reasons". Ok. But then you need to support this allegation. How do you arrive at that conclusion? If it was done for "bad reasons", then one has to assume that the entire US Congress is in on the plot to perpetrate this "bad" thing, right?

So the issue is whether this is truely a "bad thing", or whether we've got a case where one person says it's a bad thing (for whatever reasons). From where I'm standing, I'm leaning towards the latter. Congress has to defend its decisions. You don't (or at least havent yet). That automatically tips things a bit against you.


How about this. You've now admitted that the war is legal, so lets examine the other part of your claim. What about this war is "immoral", or a "violation of an assumed trust that you'd be called only for good reasons"?

Should be simple. You must have spent some time thinking about this right? Give us your reasons.

Actually. I can trim this down even more. If it's not about "legal" or "illegal", but whether we went to war for "good reasons", then the driving question is "what reasons were used, and are they good or bad reaons?".


I asked that question sorta obliquely earlier (with a warning sign even!). But EP apparently chose to ignore it. I'll ask it again:

What do you *think* the reasons for this war are, and why do you think those are bad reasons to go to war?

Ok. Your first one is correct. The second is complete hogwash. Your local news agency may have done a hundred stories about people who believed they had huge secret stashes of WMD, and Bush may even have said that he knew they "had WMD" (he didn't say huge stockpile though), but those were *not* used as a rationale for the war, and therefor cannot be used when arguing againt the reasons we went to war (Congress has the power to declare war, not the president, and certainly not your local TV news channel).

Here is the text of the Congressional Resolution authorizing the use of military force in Iraq. Listed are the 22 reasons Congress judged to be sufficient justification for war.

Um... Nowhwere is there any mention of Iraq currently possessing *any* WMD, but less huge stockpiles of WMD.

When I say (over and over in fact) that most people who are opposing the war because we went to war for "false reasons", or "based on a lie", are wrong, this is why. Most people don't actually know why we went to war. They assume it's about those things because that's what everyone on TV told them it was about. But that's a **** poor way to judge something...




Well... Not realy. Here is the transcript of Han's Blix's report to the UN, on the state of weapons inspections and Iraq's compliance with UN resolutions. This was the report that you are claiming came up with "nothing".

Some Excerpts. Keep in mind that the terms of the cease fire agreement require that Iraq provide the proof of weapons disarmament, not that the UN search around and find them in spite of the Iraqi government. The fact that we're still searching 11 years after the fact is itself a violation of the cease fire, but even ignoring that, there are several problems.

---
...Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament which was demanded of it...

---
The document indicates that 13,000 chemical bombs were dropped by the Iraqi air force between 1983 and 1998, while Iraq has declared that 19,500 bombs were consumed during this period. Thus, there is a discrepancy of 6,500 bombs. The amount of chemical agent in these bombs would be in the order of about 1,000 tons. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we must assume that these quantities are now unaccounted for.

---
The discovery of a number of 122 mm chemical rocket warheads in a bunker at the storage depot, 170 kilometers southwest of Baghdad, was much publicized. This was a relatively new bunker, and therefore the rockets must have been moved here in the past few years at a time when Iraq should not have had such munitions. The investigation of these rockets is still proceeding.

---
There are strong indications that Iraq produced more anthrax than it declared and that at least some of this was retained over the declared destruction date. It might still exist.

---
As I reported to the council on the 19th of December last year, Iraq did not declare a significant quantity, some 650 kilos, of bacterial growth media, which was acknowledged as reported in Iraq's submission to the Amorim panel in February 1999. As a part of its 7 December 2002 declaration Iraq resubmitted the Amorim panel document but the table showing this particular import of media was not included. The absence of this table would appear to be deliberate, as the pages of the resubmitted document were renumbered.

---
The Al-Samud's diameter was increased from an earlier version to the president 760 mm. This modification was made despite a 1994 letter from the executive chairman of UNSCOM directing Iraq to limit its missile diameters to less than 600 mm. Furthermore, a November 1997 letter from the executive chairman of UNSCOM to Iraq prohibited the use of engines from certain surface-to-air missiles for the use in ballistic missiles.

---
In addition, Iraq has refurbished its missile production infrastructure. In particular, Iraq reconstituted a number of casting chambers which had previously been destroyed under UNSCOM's supervision. They had been used in the production of solid fuel missiles.

---
Also associated with these missiles and related developments is the import which has been taking place during the last two years of a number of items despite the sanctions, including as late as December 2002. Foremost among these is import of 300 rockets engines which may be used for the Al-Samud II.

Iraq has also declared the recent import of chemicals used in propellants, test instrumentation and guidance and control system. These items may well be for proscribed purposes; that is yet to be determined.

What is clear is that they were illegally brought into Iraq; that is, Iraq or some company in Iraq circumvented the restrictions imposed by various resolutions.

---
So far, we have reported on the recent find of a small number of empty 122 mm warheads for chemical weapons. Iraq declared that it appointed a commission of inquiry to look for more. Fine. Why not extend the search to other items? Declare what may be found and destroy it under our supervision.

---
The recent inspection find in the private home of a scientist of a box of some 3,000 pages of documents, much of it relating to the lacing enrichment of uranium, support a concern that has long existed that documents might be distributed to the homes of private individuals.


EDIT: Put some marks between single paragraph points, and multiple ones for clarity.

And those are just the bits that can be quickly one-shot lifted from the text. There's a heck of a lot more that has to be read in context in order to understand what's being said. The short of the report is that Iraq is not complying with the cease fire agreement, and Iraq is not handing over materials, and Iraq is in fact actively hiding everything they can while pretending to comply, but we've caught them doing this over and over and they can't be trusted, but hey, the UN Security Council pays the bills on this one and we'll keep doing this for as long as you tell us to...




That's one lopsided way of looking at it. A more fair assessment is that the UN body as a whole decided that the violations in Iraq did not warrant military action and the US (and several other countries) believed that it did. No one, on either side tried at any point to argue that Iraq was in full compliance. It was about degrees.

The fact that we've now found that many of the nations who didn't want to deal with Iraq militarily were also benefiting greatly from not only the Oil for Food scandal, but their own past financial dealings with Iraq only adds more suspicion in this case. Did those nations oppose action on some moral grounds? Or were they simply looking after their own interests both politically and financially?


There's really no absolute right and wrong here. By law, we had sufficient cause for war. The only question was whether we should actually go to war. Not surprisingly, the nations and factions that had much to lose by going to war were opposed to it, and those with much to gain by going to war were in favor of it. There's no doubting that there's a lot of politics involved here. But I think it's incredibly misleading to imply that the US did it for political/economic gain, but everyone else involved had purely altruistic goals. Everyone had their fingers in the pie. Both those for and those against the war.




Again. Evidence "of WMD" is not, and never was a requirement for the war. Violations of sanctions was. Violation of cease fire agreement was. Those actions in combination with past actions by Iraq was yet more justification. Assumptions about what Iraq would do once sanctions were lifted were. And interestingly enough, all of that stuff is in the Resolution signed by congress.

The whole patriotism angle is BS as well. I don't know of *anyone* who said that, except the Liberal talking heads. I'm serious here. Did anyone ever actually imply that you were unpatriotic if you didn't agree with the war? Or did you just hear a bunch of people claiming that if you disagreed with the war, you'd be viewed as unpatriotic?

Cart leading horse here. You can't base your arguments about Republican positions and tactics based on what the Dems *said* the Republican tactics would be. You have to base it on what they actually were. And I'm not aware of anyone using patriotism and/or 9/11 as an argument for going to war with Iraq. It was used as a reason why we should take Iraq more seriously, but not in a "they killed a bunch of people so let's get them back" kind of way, but a "Gee. A guy in a cave with some followers managed to kill 3000 people, imagine what a guy with one of the worlds wealthiest nations and access to biological, chemical and maybe nuclear weapons might do?


And in case you don't think that was the argument, let me point you at The 2003 SOTU speach

Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike?

If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.

Pretty clearly not talking about weapons currently in a stockpile, but saying that if we wait until there is a stockpile, we'll have waited too long.

But hey! You can keep believing what some guys blog said instead if you want. The facts are out there if you choose to look at them.






Again. It really wasn't. Vietnam was based solely on politics. Iraq wasn't. Iraq was based on actual violations of law. Iraq was based on actual human rights violations. Iraq was based on an actual potential threat represented by Saddam against the US.

Certainly there were political aspects, but as you say, there always are. But honestly, the only thing that makes this seem more political then other conflicts is that we've got a lot of political interest among nations and groups who didn't want war. Realize that those nations weren't opposed to war for moral reasons (they'll claim so of course1). They opposed the war for financial reasons in almost every single case.

So pick your side carefully here. It's not nearly as black and white as you might think. I just think it's absurd to look only at the weakest points of one side of an argument, while ignoring the strong points, and not really looking at the arguments on your own side at all. And that's what it looks like you are doing. You aren't assessing a pro-con argument for the war. You're just looking for reasons to be against it and ignoring all else. That's pretty darn one-sided though...

Edited, Tue Sep 27 23:56:46 2005 by gbaji

Very intelligent and thorough reply gbaji. Id have to say that i am a bit hurt at your perception of me though. I beleive you think me as a eager young democrat or liberal left wing that is feeding my brain with political tidbits from the daily show or CNN. If you look at the sanction violations that Iraq had, none of them were recent, and the sudden pedal to the medal push to invade Iraq based on these was completely uncalled for. Yes there were discrepincies in paperwork, and hell no i dont think that iraq was all peaches and cream, but i beleive the line to declare war should be a bit greater. If you remember, when bush first started focusing on Iraq, he laid out a list of things that Iraq MUST do or else we would act. Unfortunately for bush Iraq complied. Then, due to declining political favor, we rush to war.

My question to you gbaji is, what exactly happened between iraq letting our inspectors in and us going to war? Did iraq give us the finger and declare aggression towards us? Im looking for that reasonable trigger that took us from comprimising and working as a civilized nation to invading a country. And i know that congress backed it, and as stated above you would have to be more than a bit naive to think that wasnt at least partially or majorly political.

So basically we have a war, that was legal justified in congress by a few "they left out this many of that here", but had no aggresion towards the US or our allies AND showed efforts to work with us and the UN to resolve these problems. Then we have a war that is justified to the people by using scare tactics (WOMD) and propaganda(the stuff you beleive i base my opinion solo on). So there we were, sending our troops off to kill innocent people for the sake of this war mongering idiot, hooked on the crack of patriotism, and bound by the ropes of bad politics.

Also, let me ask you a question, do YOU think the war was justified. (not just "did congress say its ok").

It's going to take months for gbaji to recover from that date rape thread, huh?

"blahblahblah he makes long posts omg!"

O RRY!?

Katie, do you honestly beleive bush didnt have an agenda to go to iraq, this man wanted to finish his dady's job since he was just a wee little frat boy.

I beleive i addressed gbaji's post a couple replies up, this last one was a reply to katie's response that we are just trying to blame someone, which implies bush isnt rightly to blame.

wow, you really have lost all intelligence in debate, i wonder how long your avatar will buy you rate ups with crap like this.

F[/b]uck off EP. Just F[b]uck Off.

Which bit of "Fu[i][/i]ck Off" are you struggling with?

I'm just calling it as I see it though. Maybe you've thought this out more thoroughly. But so far, everything you've said is stock "got this right out of some liberal talking head's mouth" stuff. You may not view your ideas in that way, but they're suspiciously identical to every other misinformed person's ideas, right down to the "we went to war because Iraq had stockpiles of WMD" fallacy...




Actually. I took care to *only* include those things that were found after inspectors were let back in. There's a whole ton of historical stuff in the report that I skipped over because it was about things found in 1995. Every single thing that I quoted from that report involved a new discovery or development that occured within the last couple years of inspections.




Great! Then say that. I have absolutely no problem, and in fact, a whole lot of respect for someone who opposes the war because they don't believe that the actions of Iraq justified the action we took. If you start with the Congress Resolution for war, and go through the list and say "Nah. I don't think that was enough reason", then that's a wonderful reason to oppose the war. I don't happen to agree with you. The entire body of the US Congress does not happen to agree with you, but I can fully respect your position and will *never* say it's a "bad" one to have.

You know what the problem is. In the two years we've been arguing this issue on this board. And the same time I've had similar discussions/arguments off this board. And in the 2 years I've seen the discussion debated on various panel shows on TV and the Radio. I have never once, in all of that time, heard someone say that they were opposed to the war for that reason.

Not once. They might eventually get swung around to it if they are forced, but every single one starts their argument exactly as you did. They say the war was "illegal", or "unjust" or "based on a lie". And every single one says that it is those things because Iraq didn't have WMD. Every single one. Don't you find it the least bit odd that every single person who argues against the war uses that same argument, and yet the presense of WMD was not actually a determining factor for war? Do you think that's a coincidence?





Lol. Yeah. I do remember. But I remember the facts. You remember what someone told you to remember and you think it's the truth.

Let's look at the facts.

The document is UN resolution 1441. The very one you are referring to. Just in case you think that this isn't significant, or the UN thinks that Iraq has complied up to date, let me quote this part:

Deploring also that the Government of Iraq has failed to comply with its commitments pursuant to resolution 687 (1991) with regard to terrorism, pursuant to resolution 688 (1991) to end repression of its civilian population and to provide access by international humanitarian organizations to all those in need of assistance in Iraq, and pursuant to resolutions 686 (1991), 687 (1991), and 1284 (1999) to return or cooperate in accounting for Kuwaiti and third country nationals wrongfully detained by Iraq, or to return Kuwaiti property wrongfully seized by Iraq,

Recalling that in its resolution 687 (1991) the Council declared that a ceasefire would be based on acceptance by Iraq of the provisions of that resolution, including the obligations on Iraq contained therein,

Just to be clear. This is the UN saying that Iraq to date, has failed to meet the terms of the ceasefire agreement from 1991. Note that there's a whole lot of issues here. Continued connections to terrorist groups. Continued mistreatement of civilian populations. Continued failure to return property seiezed in Kuwait during the 91 invasion of that country. I specifically didn't even mention the part where they talk about WMD inspections. Just making sure you realize that this is about multiple things, and multiple failures to comply with the cease fire agreement, and that you understand that the UN as a body officially states in this resolution that Iraq has failed to comply.

Go on and read the numbered parts. They're interesting. I'll toss out just this section:

3. Decides that, in order to begin to comply with its disarmament obligations, in addition to submitting the required biannual declarations, the Government of Iraq shall provide to UNMOVIC, the IAEA, and the Council, not later than 30 days from the date of this resolution, a currently accurate, full, and complete declaration of all aspects of its programmes to develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and other delivery systems such as unmanned aerial vehicles and dispersal systems designed for use on aircraft, including any holdings and precise locations of such weapons, components, sub-components, stocks of agents, and related material and equipment, the locations and work of its research, development and production facilities, as well as all other chemical, biological, and nuclear programmes, including any which it claims are for purposes not related to weapon production or material;

4. Decides that false statements or omissions in the declarations submitted by Iraq pursuant to this resolution and failure by Iraq at any time to comply with, and cooperate fully in the implementation of, this resolution shall constitute a further material breach of Iraq's obligations and will be reported to the Council for assessment in accordance with paragraphs 11 and or 12 below;

So. They're required to provide full documentation, and any false statements or omissions will be considered a material breach of the resolution. Got it.

Wait! Didn't Han's report say that there were ommissions? Let's see...

On 7th of December 2002, Iraq submitted a declaration of some 12,000 pages in response to paragraph 3 of Resolution 1441, and within the time stipulated by the Security Council. In the fields of missiles and biotechnology, the declaration contains a good deal of new material and information covering the period from 1998 and onward.

Ok. That's the "full disclosure" required by 1441.

...Regrettably, the 12,000-page declaration, most of which is a reprint of earlier documents, does not seem to contain any new evidence that will eliminate the questions or reduce their number.

... <whole bunch of stuff about discrepancies between what is reported now and what was found in earlier documents and investigations. Lots of this is the stuff I quoted earlier> ...

As I reported to the council on the 19th of December last year, Iraq did not declare a significant quantity, some 650 kilos, of bacterial growth media, which was acknowledged as reported in Iraq's submission to the Amorim panel in February 1999. As a part of its 7 December 2002 declaration Iraq resubmitted the Amorim panel document but the table showing this particular import of media was not included. The absence of this table would appear to be deliberate, as the pages of the resubmitted document were renumbered.

Oops!!! Let's go over this. Iraq is required to submit a final document of their WMD programs by 1441. Failure to do this constituted material breach of the resolution (which in turn is linked to the cease fire agreement of 1991). Also, falsification of the document constitutes a material breach. So they submit their new report. It's got lots of new stuff. It looks like what we asked for. But here we find a glaring example of falsification. They took a document that had been discovered earlier, and which indicated a discrepancy in the amount of biological weapons materials they had. Hans has the earlier copy. but the new one in the new report removes the table with the discrepancy and renumbers the pages!!!


Um... That shows two things. First. It's a clear material breach of resolution 1441. Also, it shows the thinking of Iraq. They aren't trying to clear up these discrepancies by finding the materials, or figuring out where they went. They are clearing up discrepancies by hiding them. They removed the data from the report that indicated a discrepancy.


How on earth can anyone say that they were in compliance? The first thing they did after 1441 was lie to us again. This is likely the most damning thing in the whole report, since Hans Blix states very clearly that it could not have been an error. They didn't miss a page. They renumbered an entire document in order to conceal the fact that they'd removed a page of data. That is clearly willfull falsification of the document. The very document required by 1441, and which the wording of 1441 says a falsification means a material breach of the resolution. The very resolution that is an affirmation of the cease fire agreement from 1991, and is intended to give Iraq "one last chance" to meet the terms of that cease fire agreement.


I ask you. When the other side so clearly violates a cease fire agreement, not once. Not twice. But continuously for 10 years, and then you give them one last chance to comply, and they *still* violate the terms, blatantly. At what point do you realize that they're never going to comply? How many more chances do we give Iraq?

You are free to argue we should have given them more chances. You are free to say we should have let inspections continue and maybe Iraq will someday come around. Again. I disagree with you, but you're certainly free to hold that opinion. But I think it's completely wrong to say that the US had "no" justification for war.




I think I've answered that. They were given one last chance to come clean. They presented us with a document that was supposed to be as accurate as possible and was absolutely not supposed to be falsified in any way. We could debate the discrepancies between the document and other sources, since those aren't inherently violations of the resolution. But there's absolutely zero doubt that the Iraqi government falsified this document in order to cover up discrepancies.

You ask what they did. That's what they did. Was it dramatic? Nope. But the whole point of the excersize was to allow Iraq to show that they were not going to continue running us around in circles as they had for the last 10 years. Iraq didn't do anything "new" after inspectors were left back in. But that's exactly the problem. They continued to do the same things they'd done for 10 years. They continued to decieve and conceal rather then inform and comply. And that's *exactly* why we went to war.


Maybe that just seems a bit too cerebral for most people. There is no huge triggering event. No attack by Iraq. No explosions. Nothing people can point to and get angry about. But does that make it "wrong"? So it's ok to invade a country if they do something that makes the population really angry, but it's not ok to invade if they do something equally harmful, but that's done in such a way as to not **** people off as much? Isn't that kind of a bizaare litmus test for war? Are you suggesting that violence done out of anger is ok, but violence done out of logical analysis is not? Isn't that backwards?





Yes. I do. And I'll tell you why. It's justified because for once, someone actually looked at the obvious future and took action to head it off. After 9/11, everyone wondered why we dind't "do something" to prevent it. After WW2, everyone wondered why we didn't "do something" to prevent it. History is repleat with examples of nations leaders knowing *exactly* what someone is up to, knowing exactly where it will likely lead, but taking no action because it wasn't politically convenient to do so.


So yeah. If just once, a leader is able to take advantage of a political situation, and a set of legal conditions to take action to head off a very obvious future threat, then that's a good move IMO. Is there anyone in the world that actually thinks Saddam would ever actually have stopped trying to make WMD? Is there anyone who actually believes that having built them, he would not use them? Is there anyone who can argue that in a post 9/11 world, the idea of handing said weapons to a terrorist group to use against us would never occur to Saddam?

It's an inevitable process. And the more stubornly Iraq refuses to comply with the UN resolutions, the more obvious that processes ultimate outcome becomes. If, after 10 years, we still can't get an honest answer out of Iraq, and still cant get an honest accounting of their weapons, their weapons programs, or their personel involved in those weapons programs, then why the heck would anyone think that doing it for another 10 years will change anything? At some point, the UN will tire of the sanctions and resolutions. The Oil for Food thing was just one indication of this. Saddam actively used the sanctions we imposed to punish his own people harshly. Instead of realizing this and condemning him for it, the response was to lift the most powerful of the sanctions (which was exactly what Saddam wanted from the beginning of course). We can go down a laundry list of the UN making an ultimatum to Saddam, Saddam ignoring it, and the UN backing down. Given that pattern, why think that there could be any result to this other then the UN eventually giving up on inspections and giving up on sanctions even in the absense of full compliance. Again. That's exactly what Saddam wants. And, barring our intervention, that's exactly what would have happened.


And where would that leave us? In 10 or so years (I actually believe that the UN would have dropped sanctions and inspections in about 5 years, but that's just a guess), Iraq would go right back to building WMD. Within a couple years of that point, they'd have enough to become a threat to those around them. With resolutions dropped at this point, no one would legally be able to do anthing about it, because there's no longer a cease fire agreement contingent on Iraq not having WMD. Saddam likely would then use terrorist groups as delivery systems for his weapons. Of course, he'd deny any connection to any damage done, and since we'd have *no* actual information about the programs, the exact materials used, the exact process of development, and so on, there would be no way to proove that that batch of VX gas was developed in Iraq, and therefore no way to do anything about it.

It would be a really really bad thing. I don't think most people understand what made/makes Iraq different from the other nations in the region. For the most part, none of the nations in the ME have the internal technological or industrial capability to build WMD. They must import materials and personel to make them. Iraq did not. It had advanced science capability, advanced industrial capability, and it was all controlled by a dictator willing to use brutal methods to achieve his goals. What this means, is that if Iran (for example) tries to build a nuclear bomb, or a batch of Anthrax, our intelligence sources can see that because we can track the movement of the materials and personel and equipment needed to make and use those weapons. In the case of Iraq, we *can't* track that stuff. It's also part of the reason why we didn't really know for sure how many weapons they built, or how many they had. They were constructed purely internally, so it was much harder to figure out what they were doing.

If this scenario were to play out (and it was a pretty likely one), you'd essentially have a dictator with absolute control over his people and borders, with the internal capability to construct WMDs, with no ability for us to track those WMDs, who also happens to have a pretty serious beef with the US and a bunch of other nations. We'd be dealing with him and his sons for the next 50 years. Again. This is a really "bad thing"(tm).


And that's not even considering the whole ME/terrorism angle. Most experts will tell you that the reason people turn to terrorism is a lack of franchise in the local government. In most cases, this anger is turned toward the government in power over them. However, this *only* works in a democratic system. So in places like Isreal and the UK, we see terrorist groups like the IRA and the PLO operate within those nations and with specific local political goals, utilizing attacks designed to target the respective governments with power over them.

But what happens if you are in and aware of the "global village" of the modern world, but you are disenfranchised within your own country, and that country is also run by a brutal dictator? Terrorism against that leader is useless. You're just killing peole he doesn't care much about anyway, and he'll just use that to turn things against you. What feeds ME terrorism is that situation. They need to take some action, so they direct their actions outward at the western world. The reasons they do this vary, but the cause of their anger, and the reason they join a terrorist group in the first place is pretty standard.


And guess what? The Iraq war has a chance to help with that. Not in the short term. In the short term, we'll see *more* terrorism there. But that's because we've now got a democratic government in place, so they're now vulnerable to terrorism. Look longer term. A democracy is vulnerable to terrorism, but also less likely to produce it. Or at the very least, less likely to produce terrorism that directs its actions against foreign nations (like us!). The objective here is twofold. First off, you give the terrorists a target that isn't us. Secondly, you give the people an environment that they hopefully feel they are invested in. This will decrease the number of angry, disenfranchised people in the next generation. That's a good thing. It will also hopefully stand as an example to the other nations in the area and their leaders and may serve as a tool to help push for more democracy in the region. That's also a good thing.


So yeah. The war is justified in my mind. It's justified in the short term just in terms of stopping what Saddam was doing. It's justified in the long term as a more forward looking approach to the Middle East. At least it *is* a plan. So far, sitting around ignoring it hasn't worked, right?

Edited, Wed Sep 28 21:49:31 2005 by gbaji

Look Tricky. If you don't understand the subject, just say so...

Nicely put gbaji, i just think your giving bush to much credit, or perhaps im not giving him enough. I beleive with the way this cabinet went about the war people cannot help but take a step back and go wtf.. I guess i was just more optimistic as to working with nations, perhaps i have become to idealistic in the last few years, but when lives are at stake i say why not go the extra mile to save them. Yes, iraq was a problem, but i expect more out of the president. I expect the US to go to war when all other avenues have been exhausted. I expect the president to sit and think about every dead soldier, dead civilian, and every tax dollar spent before signing the ok. There are good reasons to go to war, and yes Iraq was leading up to trouble, but do you not think there was a better way to go about it? Or do you think that the rush into that specific course of action was not greatly influenced by political favor.

As a soldier i am a weapon, i am a tool used for destruction, but i am a tool that should be used with great caution and when there are no other options. So yes, the quick haste to war did violate the trust i had, and yes that is based on my interpretation of when we should go to war. But i guess i should ask you a different question:

Do you think there was no other way? Do you think we explored enough avenues to warrant so many deaths. We argue it so callously but remember how many thousands dont get to have this conversation because we took this route.