On the one hand, there are people like this guy who claim that the liberation of the Iraqi people is the main argument for the necessity of this war: (via LGF)
So if people want to talk about containing [Saddam Hussein] and don’t want to go in forcefully and remove him, how do they propose doing something about the horrors he is inflicting on his people who live in such fear of him?”
I did not cite “weapons of mass destruction.” Nor do I believe Saddam Hussein is a direct threat to this country, any more than the creators of the mass graves in the Balkans were, or the Taliban. And as has been evident for a long time, I am no admirer of George W. Bush.
The United Nations? Did the inspectors go into the prisons and the torture chambers? Would they have, if given more time? Did they interview the Mukhabarat, Saddam’s dreaded secret police?
An Iraqi in Detroit wanted to send a message to the anti-war protesters: “If you want to protest that it’s not OK to send your kids to fight, that’s OK. But please don’t claim to speak for the Iraqis.”
And on the other side, I was watching Bill Maher on HBO earlier, and guest Michael Graham said during discussion that (and forgive me for paraphrasing) for him it has nothing to do with the Iraqi people, it’s about protecting the interests of Americans and defending the US against the terrorism that Saddam supports. (To which Janeane Garofalo made some typical comment about our “world view” being wrong because how dare we tell Saddam that he has no right to torture his people anyway? But I digress.)
The point is, from a political standpoint every country does tend to act in self-interest. But I think the moral case for ousting Saddam Hussein is very strong, and it hasn’t been made clearly enough.
On the surface, I’d tend to agree with Graham more. There are many people in the world living in deplorable conditions. And while it’s altruistic to want to “liberate” them, I can understand a dose of skepticism about war based on those grounds. In general, countries go to war to defend themselves against a threat to their security.
Critics argue that the case has not been made that Saddam Hussein poses a threat to the security of the United States – or other UN members, for that matter.
That is just plain false. Every UN resolution that he ignored was a threat, because it weakened the power of the UN to take action against a rogue state. Every cheque provided to the family of a Palestinian suicide bomber was a threat, because it funded and encouraged terrorism which, left unchecked, can only spread. Every time Saddam Hussein juggled Western countries like little balls in the air, driving wedges between them, only served to up the threat.
Nobody in the world – not even France or Russia – actually believed Saddam when he claimed to have disarmed. They all know he has weapons of mass destruction, and they all know he’ll use them. The only people who are Saddam’s cheerleaders are the anti-war protester crowd, and even some of them are beginning to wise up.
Bush knows a war for altruistic purposes is easier to sell, so he dresses it up as being about the freedom of the Iraqi people. And I certainly won’t downplay their oppression. The horrors they have faced in the 33 years of Saddam’s regime are very real.
But if that in itself isn’t a prima facie case for war, self-defense can no longer be denied as an imminent one. So that’s why I say to the Americans, the British, and their allies: go kick butt! And to the Canadian government, shame on us for not being there with them.
Just out of curiousity… how were you watching HBO, since it’s one of those channels which the CRTC, in its infinite wisdom, decrees we plebians should not be allowed to watch on this side of the border?
It’s a secret that cannot be revealed on pain of . . . oh hell, never mind.
The UN is a worthless organization, it is UNworthy, UNreliable, UNrespectable,UNable,and UNwilling. It’s time to create a new coalition of the willing, but to make sure that Germany, France, Belgium, Russia, and China(who failed to control the spread of the mystery SARS virus) are not part of this new coalition.
“Every UN resolution that he ignored was a threat, because it weakened the power of the UN to take action against a rogue state.”
By this definition, the US is a threat because they’re “weakening the power of the UN” by attacking Iraq without their consent. Likewise, Israel is in violation of over TEN UN resolutions. Does that mean they’re a threat? It’s easy to claim that the arguments against Israel are due to bias, but if you say that violating UN resolutions makes you a threat, then by this definition, Israel is a HUGE threat. If you say Israel is an exception, then you’re admitting that violating UN resolutions is not, in itself, a threat.
Every cheque provided to the family of a Palestinian suicide bomber was a threat, because it funded and encouraged terrorism which, left unchecked, can only spread.
Give me a break. This is HARDLY evidence of a threat. Funding Palestinian suicide bombers MIGHT encourage other kinds of terrorism which MIGHT spread to other places and MIGHT end up in the US, therefore Saddam is an imminent threat? This sort of slippery-slope argument is fallacious. We have no evidence at all that Saddams funding of Palestinian suicide bombers in Israel will lead to terrorism of a different kind in America. Even if it did (which we have no evidence for), then it would hardly make him an IMMINENT threat. Why not shoot polluters in the head because their actions are slowly depleting the ozone layer and causing cancer for people in Europe. CLEARLY this person is an imminent threat to all of Europe.
Hussein juggled Western countries like little balls in the air, driving wedges between them, only served to up the threat.
Having countries decide for themselves what their views are instead of following blindly behind the US? Yes, thats the REAL threat to freedom.
Nobody in the world – not even France or Russia – actually believed Saddam when he claimed to have disarmed. They all know he has weapons of mass destruction, and they all know he’ll use them.
Even during the Gulf War, when we knew for a fact he had these weapons and we were at war with him, he STILL didnt attack the United States with them. He may have used them on attacking troops, but never on the US itself. Your claim that we all know hell use them is based on nothing but your assumptions and your opinion. Saddam has had over a DECADE to use these weapons which we all know hell use on the US, and yet he never has. Youre also assuming that he has means of deploying these weapons of mass destruction to reach the US, which we dont know that he has.
But if that in itself isn’t a prima facie case for war, self-defense can no longer be denied as an imminent one.
Absolutely it can be denied. NONE of your arguments have shown Saddam as an imminent threat or shown that this war needs to be conducted in self-defense.
The UN is one sided and run by a large majority of Muslims, therefore the one sided resolutions regarding Israel are defunct and worthless because they fail to fault the Palestinians for any of their crimes against humanity. Israel has consistently said it will not be the first nation to use unconventional weapons and therefore it is automatically not in the same class as Iraq. Continuing along this line, Israel is a democracy. It doesn’t have a savage dictator who already used banned weapons against its own civilians. Finally, on a technicality, the Resolutions against Israel are advisory resolutions, while Resolutions regarding Iraq were considered mandatory.
Israel does not have to respond to resolutions passed by its enemies as it is a democracy in a sea of dictatorships, but Iraq does have to respond, because it has terrorised and gassed, its own people and it sponsors terrorism against a foreign state–that is a casus belli. Unless you are taking the twisted side of Suha Arafat, There is no moral equivalency between Israel and Iraq.
Iraq doesn’t have suicide bombings against its own people or government structure, just government sponsored terrorism against its own people as well as Israel and Kuwait.
Iraq does give money to suicide bombers for their crimes, and yes, that does obviously encourage terrorism the way French appeasement of arabs encourages them more and more to riot because they know they won’t be stopped. Well no more, because the funds will be frozen, Saddam will fall, then the world will go after the other sickos out there.
Finally, the UN has been neutered. It gave Saddam 19 chances, so that proves the UN is impotent, and therefore America acted on the behalf of the willing, as the UN is unwilling to act for anything except to protect arab oil. It’s time to nix the idea of the UN for at least fifty years until the global climate changes and the lust for oil diminishes.
Joe: Likewise, Israel is in violation of over TEN UN resolutions. Does that mean they’re a threat? It’s easy to claim that the arguments against Israel are due to bias, but if you say that violating UN resolutions makes you a threat, then by this definition, Israel is a HUGE threat. If you say Israel is an exception, then you’re admitting that violating UN resolutions is not, in itself, a threat.
Do you mean Security Council resolutions, or General Council resolutions?
I believe that would refer to Security Council resolutions. Israel has ignored 32 resolutions since 1968 and in fact leads all other countries in that regard. A recent study by Steven Zunes of SF University explains all of this. The resolutions Israel violated were either about its annexation of East Jerusalem or settlements in the territories. Israel also ignored UN Security Council resolutions that called for Israel to cease using harsh measures against the Palestinian population and to cease expelling Palestinians.
I think even if the war may do some good in ousting Saddam, if the US went in merely based on that pretext, then it can still be considered an aggressive war. One can of course take a pragmatic approach that the US’ unjust war may have a beneficial outcome, but what is important in judging the actions of the US from a legal or political perspective is the actual reason they invaded, not used ‘evil’ or ‘mad’ Saddam as a pretext (if in fact that is the case, which I think is likely).
Peter: thanks; I googled, and came up with this:
1) The stuff by Steven Zunes is in a Ha’aretz article (http://tinyurl.com/8kdv); he says that, of Security Council resolutions, Israel has flouted most, followed by Turkey and Morocco.
2) The Economist (http://tinyurl.com/8ke0) then makes a further distinction between what it calls “Chapter Six” Security Council resolutions (“deal with the peaceful resolution of disputes and entitle the council to make non-binding recommendations”) and Chapter Seven resolutions (“give the council broad powers to take action, including warlike action, to deal with “threats to the peace, breaches of the peace, or acts of aggression’.”)
… for what it’s worth. Yes, I agree that there probably isn’t a magic correlation between number of Security Council resolutions and bad dudeness.
That’s worth a great deal, considering that the UN is infinitely biased against Israel. Save for the vote to create the state of Israel, virtually every every vote has been against Israel and its right to exist. Some might say the vote to create the state was made with an understanding that Israel would be short-lived. These continuing barrages of resolutions against Israel are but examples of the daily struggle Israel faces in its survival. These resolutions are one-sided, thanks to terrorist regimes like Syria being on the Security Council and Iraq being on the Disarmament council, as well as the massive Arab membership. When one refers to UN resolutions, it might as well refer to Arab, French, Belgian, and German resolutions against Israel. With all that support, the other euro nations won’t rock the boat and they lend their support as well. The US, with the exception of certain specific resolutions, rarely lets the measures pass, because they are always one-sided and include no understanding of Israel’s plight. Since these resolutions are advisory, they are in a section different than Iraq’s, which the UN considers mandatory. Jack Straw blurs this line intentionally for his own antisemitic gain by flouting Israel’s “violations” of these one-sided resolutions, but there is no moral equivalency between a democracy and a dictatorship. The UN therefore fails in both cases because it
(A)passes bogus advisory resolutions against Israel that are one sided,
and
(B) passes real mandatory resolutions against Iraq and then fails to enforce them because France, Germany, and Russia are involved in Saddam’s secret programs.