Iraq War A Good Thing?
"After Sept. 11, 2001, and before the start of the military operation in Iraq, the Russian special services, the intelligence service, received information that officials from Saddam's regime were preparing terrorist attacks in the United States and outside it against the U.S. military and other interests." - Russian President Vladmir Putin today during a Central Asian security summit.
Despite all the foibles of Bush, including his glaring inability to speak publicly, I still think the war was in the best interest of the United States. Yes, I know... the original arguement for war has been diluted, but the problem is that Bush didn't make clear all the reasons that justified it, including:
- Not allowing weapons inspections, thereby breaking countless UN resolutions. Those resolutions called for severe action if ignored or broken. The fact that we went in despite not having full UN support is proof positive that the UN is ineffective. It's like a kid in high school with a weekend curfew of 11pm that comes in at 3am and doesn't ever get punished. Pretty soon, that kids' going to ignore the curfew all together, because your parents are all talk.
- Hussein paid cash money to families of suicide bombers in Palestine. That's terrorist support, plain and simple.
- Hussein harbored countless high-level terrorists in his country, such as Abu Zarqawi. Look his name up if you're interested.
- Hussein plotted to kill President Bush, Sr. Now, one thing that enfuriates me is hearing those people that say "We went to war because they tried to kill his daddy." Excuse me, but he's a former President of the United States?! If some rogue country attempted to kill President Carter or Clinton or Ford, I would HOPE that we would kick someone's ass over it!!!
- Hussein terrorized, mutilated and murdered his own people. Often. For instance, take a look at an ESPN report regarding the Iraqi Olympic Teams and how they were brutalized for not competing up to par.
posted by Frog @ 6/18/2004 01:37:00 PM
1 Comments:
"Not allowing weapons inspections, thereby breaking countless UN resolutions. Those resolutions called for severe action if ignored or broken. The fact that we went in despite not having full UN support is proof positive that the UN is ineffective. It's like a kid in high school with a weekend curfew of 11pm that comes in at 3am and doesn't ever get punished. Pretty soon, that kids' going to ignore the curfew all together, because your parents are all talk."
A) The resolutions in question did not actually force a violent response but allowed a variety of responses.
B) The resolutions in question were rammed down the UN's throat by US diplomacy.
C) As recalcitrant as Saddam may have been, the main force blocking inspections was the US - just read Scott Ritter's testimony against the war. The amount of lies that the US government put out was just staggering, and it was not from the intelligence community, who were very forthright about the laughabilty of Bush's charges.
D) The UN is a primary agent in a variety of important fields, but insofar as it's ineffective, that's largely the US' fault for blocking almost all of its actions and generally waging a war on it ever since the organization stopped doing as it said. Further, if Saddam proved the UN "ineffective" (despite the incredible steps towards disarmament created only by peace and inspections), surely the US bombing in direct defiance of the UN would do far worse to the organization.
"Hussein paid cash money to families of suicide bombers in Palestine. That's terrorist support, plain and simple."
A) "Suicide bombers" in Palestine are responding to an unjust and uncontroversially illegal occupation. However irrational and wrong their response may be is irrelevant.
B) This rumor has been challenged a number of places - it turns out that Saddam gave plenty to victims of Israeli atrocities as well.
C) That sure doesn't justify bombing a country, endangering and terrorizing hundreds of thousands of people (15,000 dead in the most conservative estimates, according to Iraqi Body Count), and proving the worst allegations made by al Qaeda true, thus creating a new opportunity for and a new justification and necessity for WMD proliferation and terror in and out of Iraq.
"Hussein harbored countless high-level terrorists in his country, such as Abu Zarqawi. Look his name up if you're interested."
That's flatly false. Virtually all of the terror charges have been disputed; for example, "The first time most Americans heard the name of terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was when Colin Powell stood before the United Nations to make his case for invading Iraq.
While much of Powell's statement turned out to be fictional, Zarqawi is unfortunately quite real." Further, that doesn't justify a unilateral US invasion and the increase in terror created by the war.
"Hussein plotted to kill President Bush, Sr. Now, one thing that enfuriates me is hearing those people that say "We went to war because they tried to kill his daddy." Excuse me, but he's a former President of the United States?! If some rogue country attempted to kill President Carter or Clinton or Ford, I would HOPE that we would kick someone's ass over it!!!"
First of all, this has been questioned; but then, why is killing 15,000 people to avenge one leader, not to mention endangering the US permanently, justified by this?
"Hussein terrorized, mutilated and murdered his own people. Often. For instance, take a look at an ESPN report regarding the Iraqi Olympic Teams and how they were brutalized for not competing up to par."
And far worse... Atrocities we eagerly supported all throughtout the 80s and even after the Gulf War.
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