We've been over this territory before, multiple times in fact. At some point between 1998 and March 2003, very probably much nearer the end of that period, SH appears to have reached the reasonable conclusion that use of WMDs would be of little practical value against the US military, but would lead to the collapse of his political strategy. It's harder - in my opinion it's impossible - to answer the question of why SH did not extend full cooperation and offer evidence to the world, if he not only had destroyed his weapons but intended to allow the permanent eradication of his WMD programs. The reason answering this question is impossible appears rather obviously to be that SH never did intend to extend full cooperation and allow the permanent eradication of his WMD capacities. The evidence of terrorist ties is actually rather open and shut - and includes the presence of AQ-linked groups and individuals in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq, open support for anti-Israel terrorist groups like Hamas, the captures and deaths of terrorists like Abu Nidal and leaders from the PFLP (one of whom was killed on the first-night attack on SH's leadership compound), the presence of large numbers of foreigners using terrorist tactics against the US military and Iraqi civilians, and the discovery of terrorist-training facilities with documentation, such as the large camp already described before the war at Salman Pak. During Gulf War I, the Iraqi regime also explicitly threatened to use terrorism internationally, a fact noted with "alarm" by the UNSC in its post-war resolutions. It also appears that exploratory discussions, including the exchange of visits, were held between Iraq and AQ. That those particular discussions may not have led to actual joint operations does not alter the fact that both the intention and the danger were established. The AQ testimony is that the alliances were rejected on OBL's side, but the decision could have been - or may even still be - revoked at any time. As for the evidence of WMD programs, ambitions, and so on, it is plentiful and undeniable. In addition to the previously observed WMD stockpiles and WMD usage, after the war elements critical to WMD programs, including the nuclear program, have been uncovered - items and extensive documentation held in contravention of disarmament agreements and resolutions. The only things still lacking in the picture, and the subject of so much anti-Bush focus, are deliverable battlefield munitions and large quantities of precursor chemicals and toxins. These may have been destroyed or securely hidden: Even if held intact, the core elements would not take up much space, could be made very difficult to find, and could even have been transported outside the country. Your analysis is based on misreading both of the evidence and of my statements. What may confuse you is that I also believe that, independently of such items as those outlined above, SH's refusal to remove any uncertainty about them and his flagrant violations of ceasefire agreements, related resolutions, and other norms of international conduct already provided more than adequate grounds for war at whatever time and under whatever circumstances we chose. Uh... you're worried we might pre-emptively attack the remaining Cherokees? Contrary to your assertions, the text you refer to, from the Congressional Authorization, does not even mention weapons of mass destruction. It does mention consistency with the war on terror and with combatting overall threats to national security, along with enforcement of all UN resolutions - which included issues relating to the liberation of the Iraqi people as well as diverse unfulfilled obligations of Iraq's. There never can be inarguable "conclusions" on such matters. The decisions to go to war, and the precise means and timing, are always issues of judgment or "opinion." It was, for instance, FDR's opinion, after Pearl Harbor, that protection of US interests were better served by going on the offensive both in Europe and the Far East rather than by surrendering or retreating. It was Lincoln's opinion that going to war was preferable to allowing the Southern states to secede. It was Truman's opinion that the threat of Communist expansion warranted military action in Korea. If the other sides had been consulted, they might have urged different conclusions. There is no doubt whatsoever that SH repeatedly violated virtually all elements of ceasefire agreements and related resolutions, not least by maintaining WMD programs and stockpiles thoughout the '90s, and by failing the critical requirement of removing any reasonable doubt as to his capacities and intentions. No, a point you don't seem able to process: Trying to imagine whether Bush could have persuaded the country to go to war in the absence of post-9/11 fears and concerns over Iraq's WMD intentions and capacities is what makes no sense. The change in US policy and perceptions after 9/11 along with the long history of Iraq's WMD and other violations and aggressions were central to the decision, and could not be removed from the calculation, whether based on what was known then or what is suspected now. After 9/11, Bush clearly enunciated an activist policy regarding terrorist threats and WMDs. It was made crystal clear to SH that if he did not come into full compliance with international inspections and monitoring, the standing policy of regime change would be effectuated. No, you appear to demand a particular kind of WMD evidence (and now terrorism-related evidence as well, apparently) that I do not consider central to the case for war. (I have no idea what you expected to find in relation to terrorism - it's a theme you've only recently introduced.) Many Americans apparently view reality differently than you do. It is presumptuous of you to attribute the difference to "denial" or "apathy." You also didn't answer the question as to just how "urgent" and urgent in what way the threat would have had to have been to justify action, in your opinion. Apparently, you would only have been satisfied by the discovery by dangers so "imminent" that that they could be addressed only at an intolerable cost.
I'm sure both Hanson and May will be greatly relieved to hear that Alfonso isn't "inclined" to deal with their arguments. If you don't or can't specify what precisely you read in the Project for a New American Century report or in other material from the "gang"'s "brethren" that led you to conclude that "taking over Iraq was a long desired objective," then I'll just assume that either you haven't really read the report, or, in the unlikely event that you have read it yourself and aren't relying on manipulative secondhand analyses, you've submitted it to a typically prejudical interpretation. Contrary to the assertions of some conspiracy theorists on the Left, the REBUILDING AMERICA'S DEFENSES, the PNAC report that has been most discussed, generally reflected the pre-9/11 consensus that a containment policy regarding Iraq would likely have to suffice for the (un-)foreseeable future. As for the role of 9/11 itself, I have no difficulty acknowledging that the reaction to it and what it dramatically demonstrated - that the US was vulnerable to mass terror events - removed the political inhibition against acting aggressively in regard to SH as well as in regard to other threats. I've acknowledged this many times and in many different ways. Regardless of 9/11, however, I do believe that another war with Iraq became very likely, and was entirely justified, as soon as it became clear that SH and his regime were going to survive the immediate aftermath of Gulf War I, were not going to abide by ceasefire agreements, and were not going to undergo some miraculous transformation in character. In a significant sense, of course, Gulf War I never really "ended," but continued under a phony peace as a mostly low-intensity conflict for 12 years. To the other Presidential "judgments" or "opinions" that I listed above, I could have added another: In the judgment of Bill Clinton, the situation during the '90s justified several acts of war, including the fairly extensive "Desert Fox" bombing, the arming and organization of anti-Saddam rebel groups and preparation of a coup attempt, and the open adoption of an official regime change policy. After 9/11, that kind of ineffective response to a strategic challenge was no longer considered adequate either by the US government or - with the exception of Optional777 and, oh, maybe a few other people - by the US citizenry.
James Morrow: Bush's actions speak louder than his words July 04, 2003 IN George W. Bush's home state of Texas, an alien land whose mere mention is enough to send leftists into sputtering convulsions about cowboys and oilmen, they have a way of describing someone who talks big but never backs up his words. Such a fellow, they say, is "all hat and no cattle", and encapsulates the frustrations many people feel about both former US president Bill Clinton and the present leadership of the European Union with regard to their policies towards Africa. Fortunately, for the millions of people who call Africa home (to say nothing of the White House intern pool), the present US president doesn't live up to the reputation of his predecessor. Instead, at this moment, Bush is packing for a five-nation tour of Africa, six weeks after signing legislation to triple American funding to combat and treat AIDS on that continent. (This prompted rock star and activist Bob Geldof to call the Bush administration "the most radical â in a positive sense â in its approach to Africa since Kennedy". By way of contrast, the ageing musician added that Clinton had not helped Africa much and the EU's handling of the African AIDS crisis was "pathetic and appalling".) But Bush is doing more than simply dispensing taxpayer dollars and touching down in African capitals to feel the locals' pain, as Clinton did in 1998. He is also considering sending American troops to stabilise war-torn Liberia â a move that, when taken with his other money-where-his-mouth-is enthusiasms for helping Africa and Africans, provides a revealing look at Bush's moral and political compass and where US foreign policy is heading. When Bush was campaigning for president in 2000, he was careful to say that, if elected, he would not engage in nation-building. In contrast to the Clinton administration's policy of inserting troops seemingly everywhere American interests were not at stake, Bush said that he would take a more "humble" approach to foreign affairs. All that changed, of course, on September 11, 2001, which among other things led to Bush overthrowing the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein's brutal Baathist dictatorship in Iraq. In both nations, Bush saw that the US had a clear, vital interest in regime change. Yet in Liberia, there are no terrorist cells nor petroleum reserves lurking beneath the surface. (This may be why Bush's potential violation of whatever sovereignty the rebel-infested Liberia has left has not stirred demonstrations around the globe. Somehow banners reading "No blood for palm oil" lack revolutionary panache.) So why bother risking American lives in a potential replay of the 1993 Somalia disaster? First, experts believe that, unlike in Somalia, US troops would have an easy time of it. In fact, demonstrators in the capital, Monrovia, regularly picket the US embassy waving the Stars and Stripes, begging for US intervention. And in the internecine battles between various rebel groups in the country, only the US is considered an honest, neutral broker; while other countries, such as France, have a long and continuing record of military intervention in Africa, their behaviour is widely regarded on the continent as heavy-handed, self-interested and bordering on the neo-colonial. As former US assistant secretary of state for African affairs Herman Cohen puts it, Liberia is a place where "everyone wants to be an American". In short, despite the complaints of Pentagon officials that their forces are spread thin enough already, any action in Liberia would likely be quick and largely painless. A successful action would fit into the Bush administration's evolving view of the global system in which the US (along with any other willing nations or organisations, including the UN) is permitted to insert itself into "failed states" whose governments, if they exist at all, fail to comply with existing norms. Besides the relative ease of sorting out the troubles in Liberia before handing it over to some sort of UN-led interim government (East Timor provides an excellent model for such a system), a US-led effort to stop the mayhem in Liberia would be an unquestioned humanitarian good; over 200,000 people have died in the dozen years of Liberia's civil war. Bush, as a Christian, seems no longer content to let the US stand on the sidelines of human misery, despite his earlier rhetoric about humility abroad. The notion that if the US can save lives somewhere, it ought to do so, rather than surrender power to international talking shops that settle for easy, feel-good solutions that do nothing to help ordinary people, has clearly taken hold in the White House. And it is this that upsets the elite Bush-hating class more than anything else: unlike 99 per cent of professional politicians, and certainly his predecessor, the man does what he says he will do, whether it is saving Iraqis from a genocidal maniac or ordinary Africans from disease and civil war. Those on the Left who are driven mad by the man they derisively call "Dubya" and his use of US power should stop to consider their prejudices â and the alternatives. If they truly care about people, they might find that Bush isn't so scary after all.
I will respond to other points when I have time. Most Americans form opinions on the basis of what they have been told by the media and the government, not on the basis of fact or reason. Most Americans initially didn't think Watergate was a problem, and couldn't imagine Nixon was guilty of any crimes. Most Americans thought Clinton should stay in office despite the claims by his political opponents that he should be ousted. If we use opinion polls as the determinant factor in policy making or justification of a policy or trust in leadership, why the heck did the Republicans waste so damn much time, money, and effort trying to find out the truth of Clinton and his lying ways? Now the Republicans point to the opinion polls as representative of the truth, but denied those same pollsters when the polls told the Republicans that the people loved Clinton during his terms and didn't see a need to have him impeached. This is why I find most people who take political positions based on party lines disgusting, weak minded, and simpletons incapable of independent thought. The same people who scream at one party, or support a party's position blindly always find a way to tell us: "This time is different, or this time is more complicated, or these issues are different, or you are not rational, or you are a communist, or you are UN-American, blah, blah, blah." It is all bullshit, justification, spin and rationalization.....not a search for any degree of truth, just defense of opinion, and fear of thinking that perhaps what they are emotionally invested in is actually wrong. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now, the following is a personal attack on dogmatic right wing and dogmatic left wing thinkers, and their credibility. Imagine someone, a young, naive, impressionable, vulnerable, person, lacking a strong father figure in their life, lacking a sense of self, a person who never completely individuated.... a self confessed former communist, one who surrendered his intellect to the communist principles, who is now reformed and has swung 180 degrees to the right wing. No moderate ground, pure fanatical swing from left to right. What would you think? I am going to tell the reading audience the truth here, which of course some will have to deny....most violently I suspect. Those who have been brainwashed, went through a snapping process. You can look it up on the internet. Snapping is a process by which people go through a sudden and violent shift in belief systems. You can read this book as a primer if you have interest. (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0964765004/002-2626557-2088027?vi=glance) The communists, especially the Chinese and the Koreans mastered these techniques, and these techniques are quite successful on the weak minded. These techniques were used to create a state of mind where one surrendered their own individuality to the state, or a principle, or a government, or a political party. The weak mind simply cannot exist without a sense of being absolutely right. Black and white thinking is the true nature of the weak minded. Uncertainty of what is right, is like a grain of sand in the eye of the weak minded, absolutely intolerable. Once you thoroughly study the snapping process, understand the manifestations, it becomes very easy to spot. Challenging or threatening the core belief systems that get laid down by the person or party who is idolized, creates a most violent reaction, as a person has surrendered their identity for ideology. Their very survival depends on the perpetuation of that belief system, and if that system is challenged, survival mode typically takes shape. I have seen people brainwashed, and I have seen them snap. Instant conversion. The techniques used by deprogrammers to bring a person back to independent thinking, extracting their mind out of the brainwashed state are often extremely harsh and painful. Those "deprogrammers" often have to create a state of severe crisis in which to elevate the normal and natural levels of healthy intellectual doubt back to a state where the brainwashed individual can then be forced into seeing that they in fact are brainwashed. Then the long road begins back to independent thinking. Once the belief systems have been shattered, and exposed for what they are, once someone has come out of the denial process....what replaces those old dysfunctional belief systems. It takes time, a long time for someone to regain control over their own mind once they have been brainwashed. They have to learn to trust their own instincts, their own intellect, their own intuition over the idolized authority figures they have created out of a basic childhood instinct for survival and the need for care and love. Is it any wonder that rarely can you discuss differing points of view on politics and religion with people without becoming overly emotional? These two topics press all the button of authority, certainty, tolerance, and the possibility that the foundation of the beliefs, and subsequent choices made are built on a house of straw, not a house of bricks...that takes time to construct. Also, the majority of people who haven't snapped, adopted a political and/or religious point of view early on in their development, and cease to question its basic premises later on in life. So common to hear, "I was born a Democrat" or "I was born a Republican." When they are "snapped" to the polar opposite side, they often become some of the most vociferous proponents of their causes, and most caustic opponents of their political enemies. One recent public example of snapping is Dennis Miller, the comedian. You can sense the anger and hostility, like a jaded lover. Rather than just take a neutral position and time to slowly come back to zero, these "born" fanatics have to assume some fanatical wing, and they snap and flip dramatically. Beware the person who not only knows what is best for themselves, but projects to know what is best for others. Beware the person who claims to be right in their policy, and also claims to know what policy is right for all others. If you spend enough time with these people, subtly ask the right question, create a few mental challenges, press the right buttons, you can see who they are very easily.
777, How can you say you're not brainwashed? What is truth? How do you even know what the truth is without being there in 1st or 2nd person? Or even more, how do you prove it actually happened... prove that it wasn't your delusionary mind, perceiving it to be true. Without being in Iraq, how can you prove that the war in itself was "true".... what if it was all some movie studio made story for the benefit of the politicians? I haven't been to China and N. Korea, prove to me that they are in "fact" communist... You claim to have a neutral state of mind... what is a neutral state of mind... how can you know you have neutral perception? People have belief systems and they snap if the belief is violated. So what? You have snapped when Wild went ahead and critisized Americans. So that makes to a neutral minded person to talk about neutral mind? Do you really know what a neutral mind is??? Can you explain to me where you stand? If you can, please elaborate...
Hmm... well I wouldn't have any idea, naturally, what relevance to our recent dialogue you believe this "snapping" phenomenon might have, but in my own experience and observation it's just one of many different processes by which an individual and his or her ideology might change. Just to use myself as an example, when I was much younger - in college twenty and more years ago - I experimented with many ideas, philosophies, and lifestyles. It would be possible to give a number of explanations for my having tended to the far Left and associated positions, but it took a couple of decades for me to travel from there to where I am now. The most charitable explanation might rely on Churchill's famous dictum that a young person who doesn't sympathize with the Left has no heart and an older one who doesn't sympathize with the Right has no head, though at the time I certainly didn't feel that I was "surrendering my intellect." The research and argument involved were challenging and stimulating, and, alongside the social opportunities afforded, were among the most personally rewarding aspects of being involved in those circles. In any event, for the last several years and even up to the end of last year, I would have described myself as a moderate with leftist sympathies and an evolving appreciation for libertarian and democratic capitalist perspectives. Various events and realizations led me to recognize that the remnant leftist sympathies had been growing much weaker, and the evolving appreciations had been growing stronger. Speaking for myself, if I "snapped," then I think the term would apply only in relation to some geological time scale. I find on the internet, ET in particular, my strong opinions on the war lead others to try to pigeonhole me, but I don't consider myself fixed on some political dartboard at the very far right. I form my opinions mostly based on reading and on critical reflection on current events than on rightwing radio or TV, which still rather grates against my ears. I've come to feel strong distaste for many Democrats and many of those further to the left, but that started long ago: Even when I was more reflexively supportive of "progressive" policy approaches, I found the Democrats' lack of intellectual consistency, their pandering, and their complete lack of vision dispiriting. The Gray Davis campaign in California was typical in all those respects, almost 100% negative. There are many conservative commentators whose work I follow avidly, yet I still find literate (er, British) leftists like Christopher Hitchens or Oliver Kamm - to name two who supported the Bush Iraq policy for many of the same reasons that I did - more congenial than, say, Ann Coulter or Fox News. My point is that it's natural to work from assumptions about who's on the other side of the computer screen, but it's easy to get it wrong. I have a point of view on the war and on Bush's leadership. You may disagree with it, in whole or part, but I don't believe any of us here has striven harder to ground his opinions in analysis of the facts and evidence, and to answer serious arguments directly and in detail rather than by resorting to pre-fabricated generalizations. Being forced to consider one's own opinions in detail, to re-check the facts and history, is also useful: I feel in much greater command of the subject than I would have been if I hadn't been so actively participating in these discussions, and I'm grateful at least on this count to those who've taken the other side from time to time - not just Optional, but even Trader556, Alfonso, msfe (on the last, more for some of his c&ps than for anything he's said in his own voice) and others with whom I strongly and categorically disagree, and whose posts I may even sometimes find repellent. I hope that at least some of the other participants and lurkers in this forum also find the resultant dialogue, when the exchanges actually rise to that level, to be useful and interesting.