Sean Smith
Member
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2002
- Messages
- 4,925
“The U.S. is acting unilaterally.â€
This is on the face of it false. In Europe alone, the United States has the openly declared support of 18 different governments for its policy against Iraq. Can a Latin expert tell me how to write 18-lateral? 24-lateral? 36-lateral?
“Inspections are working. Just give them more time/more inspectors/etc.â€
Again, this is an objectively false statement. Quoting chief inspector Hans Blix himself, “The results in terms of disarmament have been very limited so far.†Considering that “so far†has been about 12 years, that is quite a statement. Furthermore, no one (to include Blix) is disputing that Iraq has failed to account for the destruction of known, massive stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.
UN inspections work great… when the country being inspected wants them to succeed. This happened in many cases, such as in the Ukraine and South Africa, who sought international confirmation that they have no weapons of mass destruction. The whole inspection regime is based on the premise of cooperation, not opposed investigation. Meanwhile, Colin Powell played audio recordings of Iraqi officials talking about how to fool inspectors. How anyone can state that “inspections are working†under such circumstances boggles the mind.
As was the case in 1990, Iraq only makes concessions when threatened with force, and at the last possible moment, and to the most insignificant degree possible, in order to foster disunity among his foes. This is only a sign of “inspection progress†if you ignore everything that has happened in the Middle East in the last 12 years. For the rest of us who ever read a history book, such behavior is a transparent ploy.
“Iraq is not connected to international terrorism.â€
Now we are getting to the really big whoppers… abject stupidity or bald faced lies. Take your pick. Before Al Qaeda there was the Abu Nidal Organization (ANO), the international terrorist group responsible for hundreds of killings around the world. Not only was it actively supported by Saddam Hussein over the decades, but it is headquartered in Iraq to this day, making it in effect an extension of the Iraqi regime itself. Iraq also, of course, publicly subsidizes the indiscriminate killings of Israeli civilians by various Palestinian terrorist groups. None of the above is disputed by any remotely credible source.
“Iraq does not support Al Qaeda.â€
Of course, merely being a state sponsor of international terrorism isn’t enough to rouse some people to action. They say, in effect, “we only care about the terrorists that most recently tried to blow us up, not the ones that tried to blow us up earlier but weren’t as good at it yet.†This is, of course, an extremely silly position to take. But even if you believe that, it doesn’t matter, because Iraq has, in fact, actively supported Al Qaeda. There is ample evidence supporting this claim, assuming of course you aren’t actively trying to hide from reality.
In February 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell told the U.N. Security Council that Iraq was harboring a terrorist cell led by Abu Musab Zarqawi, a suspected al-Qaeda affiliate and chemical and biological weapons specialist. Powell said Zarqawi had both planned the October 2002 assassination of a U.S. diplomat in Jordan and set up a camp in Ansar al-Islam’s territory in northeastern Iraq to train terrorists in the use of chemical weapons. Powell added that senior Iraqi and al-Qaeda leaders had met at least eight times since the early 1990s.
Then again, if you are determined to believe that Colin Powell, who historically has always opposed rushing into armed conflict, is making all of this up in order to justify a headlong rush into war, then I don’t know what to say. Well, actually I do. Consider the following coincidence as the cherry on top of the sundae: immediately before the 9/11 attacks, Saddam Hussein went into hiding… completely disappeared from sight. Of course, you can read into that anything that you like. But to quote an intelligence officer I worked for, “coincidences are for suckers.†This was reported by that bastion of the radical warmongering right, National Public Radio.
“The war is about oil.â€
Sure it is, for the FRENCH. For the United States, which gets the vast majority of its oil elsewhere, it is a peripheral issue at best. Using oil as a premise, we need to invade Canada and Mexico before we invade Iraq. Soon your burritos and funny little round bacon will be ours, too! Are you scared of American imperialism yet?
If all we cared about was oil, and Iraq poses no real threat, then why not lift the sanctions? Iraq would bust all the OPEC price controls to sell all the oil they could (hey, even French tanks are expensive nowadays!), and world oil prices would fall like a rock. Of course, low world oil prices would bankrupt U.S. oil producers, who due to higher labor and extraction costs can only make money when world oil prices are high. And wasn’t Bush supposed to be the puppet of American oil companies? Oops.
Then again, some poor souls are worried that Bush will outright give all the Iraqi oil fields to American companies. What a great idea! Except for the small problem that the last time that was attempted in the Middle East, the countries the wells were sitting on promptly nationalized them all. What a great investment that would be! Assuming, of course, you don’t mind an investment idea that makes most junk bonds look like a sure thing. I’m sure Exxon would love a deal where they could invest billions of dollars to get oil wells up and running, so they can all be promptly nationalized by Iraq.
“Iraq isn’t the biggest threat. Why not go after North Korea?â€
This is basically a weasel-word evasion of the Iraq issue, since nobody in their right mind would invade North Korea if they had a choice. Nobody will dispute that North Korea is ruled by a scarily insane regime that wipes its bottom on international law whenever it gets the chance, has a leader that makes Stalin look like Teddy Roosevelt, and makes a hobby out of scaring the living crap out of everyone in Asia whenever there is a full moon. The problem is that North Korea is a hell of a lot more dangerous than Iraq is, precisely because we allowed a crazy dictatorship to develop weapons of mass destruction unchecked for 50 years. The fact that North Korea is a dangerously uncontrollable mess is hardy justification to leave Iraq alone to become… a dangerously uncontrollable mess.
“All war is immoral.â€
Of course war is immoral. That’s why it isn’t called, “the really nice international group hug activity.†But the question isn’t if war per se is a good thing, but if it is not as bad as the alternative. If you could ask the people Saddam Hussein gassed, or the people burned alive in the World Trade Center towers, if there are things worse than going to war against Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, I wonder what they’d say.
“Bush is just doing it for votes.â€
Remember his dad? The one who lost the election after winning the most lopsided military victory in all of history? Just checking.
“Protesters are just exercising their Constitutional rights and acting according to their consciences.â€
Sure. I fully support anyone’s right to non-violently protest anything, no matter how stupid and misguided they are. You can protest against granola for all I care. I would suggest, however, that if you want any credibility you don’t join protests whose principle organizers are, literally, communists and rabid anti-Semites.
“The UN has to support military action to give it moral authority.â€
An interesting idea, when you consider the track record of the UN itself.
“The international peace movement isn’t vastly hypocritical.â€
The problem with the statement is that you have to consider who and what in recent history WASN’T considered worthy of protest by the same folks that denounce Bush as a Nazi, baby killer, etc.:
Saddam Hussein, who has invaded Iran and Kuwait, and used chemical weapons on Iraqi citizens, and sponsored international terrorism, and violated UN resolutions continuously for about 12 years;
The Communist Chinese government, which runs over its citizens with tanks;
The North Korean government, which considers it reasonable to reduce its population to actual starvation in order to develop a huge chemical, biological and nuclear arsenal aimed at Seoul, and as a hobby periodically threatens to start World War III;
The Taliban government of Afghanistan, which sponsored terrorism on a vast scale, and committed atrocities of every description against the Afghan population;
The governments of Iran, Syria, Libya, and other open sponsors of international terrorism;
The various Palestinian terrorist organizations, which consider blowing up Israeli school buses some kind of glorious resistance to oppression;
The chaotic genocidal wars that periodically take place in Africa;
President Clinton’s own bombing of Serbian cities, with attendant civilian casualties, and his abject bungling of operations in Somalia, that cost both American and Somali lives unnecessarily.
None of these were considered worthy of “massive†international protests (with admittedly overstated turnouts). Meanwhile, just the possibility of going to war against Saddam Hussein (known terrorist sponsor, two-time invader of his neighbors, violator of international law, and gasser of his own population) is protested wildly as some kind of uniquely evil Imperialist warmongering.
Naturally, to believe any of this nonsense you have to have strongly held prejudices against America in general, or maybe Bush in particular, that are heavily protected from the burdens of objective reality and quantifiable evil. I have no quarrel with anyone who has a conscientious, rational opposition to American foreign policy. If you have a sensible objection, bring it. But don’t expect to fool people with the abject nonsense and outright raving idiocy that dominates most anti-war positions.
This is on the face of it false. In Europe alone, the United States has the openly declared support of 18 different governments for its policy against Iraq. Can a Latin expert tell me how to write 18-lateral? 24-lateral? 36-lateral?
“Inspections are working. Just give them more time/more inspectors/etc.â€
Again, this is an objectively false statement. Quoting chief inspector Hans Blix himself, “The results in terms of disarmament have been very limited so far.†Considering that “so far†has been about 12 years, that is quite a statement. Furthermore, no one (to include Blix) is disputing that Iraq has failed to account for the destruction of known, massive stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.
UN inspections work great… when the country being inspected wants them to succeed. This happened in many cases, such as in the Ukraine and South Africa, who sought international confirmation that they have no weapons of mass destruction. The whole inspection regime is based on the premise of cooperation, not opposed investigation. Meanwhile, Colin Powell played audio recordings of Iraqi officials talking about how to fool inspectors. How anyone can state that “inspections are working†under such circumstances boggles the mind.
As was the case in 1990, Iraq only makes concessions when threatened with force, and at the last possible moment, and to the most insignificant degree possible, in order to foster disunity among his foes. This is only a sign of “inspection progress†if you ignore everything that has happened in the Middle East in the last 12 years. For the rest of us who ever read a history book, such behavior is a transparent ploy.
“Iraq is not connected to international terrorism.â€
Now we are getting to the really big whoppers… abject stupidity or bald faced lies. Take your pick. Before Al Qaeda there was the Abu Nidal Organization (ANO), the international terrorist group responsible for hundreds of killings around the world. Not only was it actively supported by Saddam Hussein over the decades, but it is headquartered in Iraq to this day, making it in effect an extension of the Iraqi regime itself. Iraq also, of course, publicly subsidizes the indiscriminate killings of Israeli civilians by various Palestinian terrorist groups. None of the above is disputed by any remotely credible source.
“Iraq does not support Al Qaeda.â€
Of course, merely being a state sponsor of international terrorism isn’t enough to rouse some people to action. They say, in effect, “we only care about the terrorists that most recently tried to blow us up, not the ones that tried to blow us up earlier but weren’t as good at it yet.†This is, of course, an extremely silly position to take. But even if you believe that, it doesn’t matter, because Iraq has, in fact, actively supported Al Qaeda. There is ample evidence supporting this claim, assuming of course you aren’t actively trying to hide from reality.
In February 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell told the U.N. Security Council that Iraq was harboring a terrorist cell led by Abu Musab Zarqawi, a suspected al-Qaeda affiliate and chemical and biological weapons specialist. Powell said Zarqawi had both planned the October 2002 assassination of a U.S. diplomat in Jordan and set up a camp in Ansar al-Islam’s territory in northeastern Iraq to train terrorists in the use of chemical weapons. Powell added that senior Iraqi and al-Qaeda leaders had met at least eight times since the early 1990s.
Then again, if you are determined to believe that Colin Powell, who historically has always opposed rushing into armed conflict, is making all of this up in order to justify a headlong rush into war, then I don’t know what to say. Well, actually I do. Consider the following coincidence as the cherry on top of the sundae: immediately before the 9/11 attacks, Saddam Hussein went into hiding… completely disappeared from sight. Of course, you can read into that anything that you like. But to quote an intelligence officer I worked for, “coincidences are for suckers.†This was reported by that bastion of the radical warmongering right, National Public Radio.
“The war is about oil.â€
Sure it is, for the FRENCH. For the United States, which gets the vast majority of its oil elsewhere, it is a peripheral issue at best. Using oil as a premise, we need to invade Canada and Mexico before we invade Iraq. Soon your burritos and funny little round bacon will be ours, too! Are you scared of American imperialism yet?
If all we cared about was oil, and Iraq poses no real threat, then why not lift the sanctions? Iraq would bust all the OPEC price controls to sell all the oil they could (hey, even French tanks are expensive nowadays!), and world oil prices would fall like a rock. Of course, low world oil prices would bankrupt U.S. oil producers, who due to higher labor and extraction costs can only make money when world oil prices are high. And wasn’t Bush supposed to be the puppet of American oil companies? Oops.
Then again, some poor souls are worried that Bush will outright give all the Iraqi oil fields to American companies. What a great idea! Except for the small problem that the last time that was attempted in the Middle East, the countries the wells were sitting on promptly nationalized them all. What a great investment that would be! Assuming, of course, you don’t mind an investment idea that makes most junk bonds look like a sure thing. I’m sure Exxon would love a deal where they could invest billions of dollars to get oil wells up and running, so they can all be promptly nationalized by Iraq.
“Iraq isn’t the biggest threat. Why not go after North Korea?â€
This is basically a weasel-word evasion of the Iraq issue, since nobody in their right mind would invade North Korea if they had a choice. Nobody will dispute that North Korea is ruled by a scarily insane regime that wipes its bottom on international law whenever it gets the chance, has a leader that makes Stalin look like Teddy Roosevelt, and makes a hobby out of scaring the living crap out of everyone in Asia whenever there is a full moon. The problem is that North Korea is a hell of a lot more dangerous than Iraq is, precisely because we allowed a crazy dictatorship to develop weapons of mass destruction unchecked for 50 years. The fact that North Korea is a dangerously uncontrollable mess is hardy justification to leave Iraq alone to become… a dangerously uncontrollable mess.
“All war is immoral.â€
Of course war is immoral. That’s why it isn’t called, “the really nice international group hug activity.†But the question isn’t if war per se is a good thing, but if it is not as bad as the alternative. If you could ask the people Saddam Hussein gassed, or the people burned alive in the World Trade Center towers, if there are things worse than going to war against Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, I wonder what they’d say.
“Bush is just doing it for votes.â€
Remember his dad? The one who lost the election after winning the most lopsided military victory in all of history? Just checking.
“Protesters are just exercising their Constitutional rights and acting according to their consciences.â€
Sure. I fully support anyone’s right to non-violently protest anything, no matter how stupid and misguided they are. You can protest against granola for all I care. I would suggest, however, that if you want any credibility you don’t join protests whose principle organizers are, literally, communists and rabid anti-Semites.
“The UN has to support military action to give it moral authority.â€
An interesting idea, when you consider the track record of the UN itself.
“The international peace movement isn’t vastly hypocritical.â€
The problem with the statement is that you have to consider who and what in recent history WASN’T considered worthy of protest by the same folks that denounce Bush as a Nazi, baby killer, etc.:
Saddam Hussein, who has invaded Iran and Kuwait, and used chemical weapons on Iraqi citizens, and sponsored international terrorism, and violated UN resolutions continuously for about 12 years;
The Communist Chinese government, which runs over its citizens with tanks;
The North Korean government, which considers it reasonable to reduce its population to actual starvation in order to develop a huge chemical, biological and nuclear arsenal aimed at Seoul, and as a hobby periodically threatens to start World War III;
The Taliban government of Afghanistan, which sponsored terrorism on a vast scale, and committed atrocities of every description against the Afghan population;
The governments of Iran, Syria, Libya, and other open sponsors of international terrorism;
The various Palestinian terrorist organizations, which consider blowing up Israeli school buses some kind of glorious resistance to oppression;
The chaotic genocidal wars that periodically take place in Africa;
President Clinton’s own bombing of Serbian cities, with attendant civilian casualties, and his abject bungling of operations in Somalia, that cost both American and Somali lives unnecessarily.
None of these were considered worthy of “massive†international protests (with admittedly overstated turnouts). Meanwhile, just the possibility of going to war against Saddam Hussein (known terrorist sponsor, two-time invader of his neighbors, violator of international law, and gasser of his own population) is protested wildly as some kind of uniquely evil Imperialist warmongering.
Naturally, to believe any of this nonsense you have to have strongly held prejudices against America in general, or maybe Bush in particular, that are heavily protected from the burdens of objective reality and quantifiable evil. I have no quarrel with anyone who has a conscientious, rational opposition to American foreign policy. If you have a sensible objection, bring it. But don’t expect to fool people with the abject nonsense and outright raving idiocy that dominates most anti-war positions.