Pfft. Double pfft. I don't why you bothered with a half a page post when "I really have no answer as to why we thought it was justifiable to sacrfice a million Iraqis (human lives Kymar!)" would have done just as well. I may seem insistent on "blaming US first", to you, but it's not my fault that in the vast majority of international incidents that I have examined I find the fault lays with the US; often because it was the US that decided to get involved. What would you prefer me to do, close my eyes, pretend it didn't happen like that and if someone brings it up read off my laundry list of excuses (like you)?
Uh, ya mean like Pearl harbor and the invasion of Poland? Or maybe you're thinking about that German thing in August 1914?
Jeez, I thought it was Saddam that justified sacrifice of those people as part of the price of his megalomania. As in: "Lessee here, do I want my palaces, my WMD and other munitions or do I want these expendable children, etc. to actually receive proper medical care and/or not starve to death?"
Ok Max. I'll break it down for you one more time. Not because you deserve it, mind you -- you're one the most frustantingly intellectually dishonest "debaters" I've encountered -- because I've already gone through this with you. Initially yes, the blame is Saddam's. But for crying out loud, did it not become screaming obvious that it wasn't working? It sure did to just about every single aid agency on Earth. (But I'm sure you've got a bevy of disparaging characterizations of those groups.) It's pretty simple. You try something, obviously see it's not working, maybe, (BIG maybe), you care enough about human life that the disastrous impact on innocent humans starts to bug you, and you stop doing it.
"Pfft" is not a response. It is impertinence. If that's all you can manage, then I'll cease expending any effort on you and your posts. I suppose I could ask you to re-read the relevant sections of my post and to respond directly to my arguments, but you do not seem to be capable of doing so. I should add, in passing, that the figure you quote as to Iraqi casualties tied to the sanctions has been disputed. The primary responsibility for the casualties cannot really be disputed: It was fully within the Iraqi government's power at any time to ensure that the oil money was humanely distributed, or, even better, to comply with the UN resolutions commemorating the '91 ceasefire. Much less disputable are the casualty figures for the Iran-Iraq war (ca. 2 million direct battlefield casualties including both sides), and the estimates of lives lost during the anti-Kurdish and anti-Shia campaigns (ca. 300,000). These figures do not include the "regular" victims of Iraqi state terror. You still have not stated what your preferred policy would have been. Apparently, you would be comfortable allowing Saddam - who you yourself have admitted showed no concern for the lives of his own people, much less for anyone else's lives - to have operated without constraints and without threat of military intervention. Given his record, this policy can mean only that you would have been comfortable with his possessing nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, achieving dominance over the Gulf region and the Arab world, through conquest where necessary, and even more actively prosecuting his campaign for the destruction of Israel. The risks of such a policy were not acceptable either to the United States or, for that matter, the rest of the UN - whose decisions and operations you elsewhere defend at all costs, so long as they run counter to US interests. If you have some other position as to how Iraq should have been handled, then you should state it. Containment? Non-involvement? Intervention? Which do you prefer. If containment - be specific about how it would have been enforced, who would have enforced it, what would have been required of Saddam, and how these requirements would have differed from the UN policy of which you have been so critical. If you cannot answer, we will have to conclude that you are incapable of discussing this matter seriously. As you have not chosen to share this examination that you have conducted, its relevance to the current discussion cannot be argued. I would prefer that you demonstrated a capacity to engage specific arguments with specific responses rather than endlessly re-stated generalizations and immature exclamations like "pffft" and "double pfft."
Thanks Max. I expected to get some smart ass remark like this; you didn't disappoint. You wanna go one-on-one like this? You list all the "good" involvements and I'll list all the "bad"? You'd best skedaddle, little boy.
Well, certainly it became screamingly obvious to Saddam that it wasn't working, as he laughed all the way to his aluminum box cache to stuff more US hundred dollar bills in. Get this straight, Saddam Hussein initially saw that his megalomania was decimating the children (among other people) of Iraq. And then he continued to do it. And built his palaces and developed WMD and purchased munitions. He was getting money, in spite of the sanctions, that could have been used to save lives. You saw the $650 million dollars of CASH. Did he spend it on the children of Iraq?