Jean Chretien said yesterday that war in Iraq is not necessary, because Bush already won:
A war against Iraq over banned weapons is not necessary because the U.S. has already won, Prime Minister Jean Chretien told ABC Television in an interview broadcast Sunday.
He said credit should go to President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair for putting pressure on the Iraqi regime by moving 250,000 troops into the Gulf region.
“The president has won,” Chretien said in an interview taped Saturday for the ABC news program This Week with George Stephanopoulos. “I have no doubt about it. He won.”
The danger of delusional victory is that it has a way of coming back to bite you in the ass. Say the world agrees with Chretien and decides that Iraq has been successfully contained and disarmed. Say they then decide to back off. Everyone will be happy, under the delusion that they made peace . . . but saying it’s so doesn’t make it so, as we’ll find out all too soon when Saddam launches one of the many weapons he keeps claiming not to have against the Western powers who were so cheerfully sure of their victory.
In 1991, everyone thought we won too, remember? So the cardinal rule was broken: nobody bothered to finish the job. That’s why we’re now in this mess, twelve years later.
Chretien may enjoy living in la-la-land. But it’s the Americans who are the realists here. They know that victory isn’t just a declaration on a TV show; it involves a price. And unlike Canada, they have the moral fortitude to be willing to pay it, if necessary.
So if 1991 was an incomplete victory, why has Hussein not launched “one of the many weapons he keeps claiming not to have against the Western powers” in the decade between then and now?
The “mess” we’re in today has more to do with the current US administration than with anything Hussein has done.
why has Hussein not launched “one of the many weapons he keeps claiming not to have against the Western powers” in the decade between then and now?
Because he has been too busy launching them against Kurds and Shi’ites.
And since when are the US, or anyone else interested in what happens to the Kurds, Shi’ites or any other locally oppressed minorities?
With the obvious exception of Israel vs. Palestine. But you can’t bring one (Israel) to the forefront without bringing the other one as well.
Why on earth would Saddam launch a unconventional weapons on a western power? Do the words ‘deterrence’ or ‘containment’ mean *anything* to you?
You’d have to argue he is simply ‘crazy’ or ‘insane’, which is evidently not the case. And I find it offensive that the Kurds are brought up again and again as evidence of Hussein’s cruelty when we stood by and let it happen just because we preferred Hussein staying in power over the the Shi’ites or Kurds (since they are Islamicists which could align with Iran).
Here’s why we are going to war:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/03/08/MN242495.DTL
You’d have to argue he is simply ‘crazy’ or ‘insane’, which is evidently not the case.
Well, that’s the whole point. That precisely is the case.
He may be a cruel bastard and perhaps somewhat mad, but Saddam is no fool. If he’s nervous now about what the US might do to him, I’m sure he realizes what would happen if he launched even a minor attack against the US. Nobody questioned the US invasion of Afghanistan after 9-11, and I doubt anyone would question an invasion of Iraq if Saddam actually launched an attack against the US. Other than that, the US’ humanitarian argument seems to be a little too selective to be taken seriously. I’m all for helping people, but based on the arguments advanced for war, there is probably some ulterior motive for war rather than to “help” the Iraqi people, whom apparently everyone seems to speak for. The US has been a little bit too eager for it from the outset.
Papa didn’t finish, Junior will.