If we lose more lives because we waited to get involved in Iraq, will the press and the naysayers then say, "Dumb administration policies. Why didn't we get him when we SUSPECTED that there was a problem? What did the administration know and hold back from saying then that would have saved the taxpayers money and the military lives now? Why did we wait?" You bet they would say it.
Josh, thanks for your concise reply! I suppose that we differ in that I do not believe that the Iraqi people can, as you put it "take their problems and solve them". I'm a little baffled why you would put it this way as Iraq is a totalitarian regime. This means that Saddam along with his extended clan (known as the Baath party) rules all aspects of life. Anything and everything Saddam says goes. Anything anyone else says is worth half a camel's fart. Again, I simply do not understand how you can ask a people who are ruled with an iron fist to simply "do something". Actually, some of them tried. You know what happened to them? The were exposed to a cocktail of lethal gas. All of them. Saddam wanted to make a vivid example to all that this was the consequence of challenging him. Women, children, old men, no one was spared. Sarin gas doesn't ask questions. It just kills. Even to this day after a few generations the people who weren't killed are trying to deal with a thousand and one medical problems. I saw a documentary where a team of Western doctors were trying to help them. One of the doctors said that as a result of the exposure, their DNA was changed. There wasn't much he could do he said. Science hasn't advanced enough to be able to reverse this. So telling the Iraqi people to 'do something' is (if you will excuse me) extremely naive. Now, in reply to your question why should the US take them out and why now. First the US should do this because it is the only nation able to do so. Who else in the civilized world has a stronger and more able army? And why now you ask. Well actually I was wondering the same thing. I can't for the life of me understand why they haven't done this years ago. Now is a bit late but still not tragically late. Now I want to end with one caveat. I do not like war. Actually I abhorr it vehemently. I think it is vile and repugnant. But unfortunately there are times when it is necessary. If you look at history there were wars fought against people who all agree should not have been allowed to proceed in their plans. Personally, I can tell you that I know what it feels like to be under bombardment. I know what it feels like to draw the curtains at night for fear that a tiny ray of light would give away the position of the city. I know what it feels like to be shaken from sleep from the sound of bombs landing and AA blasting away into the sky. I'm sharing this with you so that you don't think I'm some wuss who is armchair quarter backing. Yes, war is hell. It should be avoided to the utmost. But it should not be ruled out. Sometimes, unfortunately, it is necessary. I believe this to be one. In any case, I still respect your right to hold a different opinion. That is what makes the world a place worth living.
Some very good arguments in these threads. I see some of your points, about preemptive attacks. Policing the world etc. And it is much easier for you and I and many of us sitting here in our nice houses, green grass and few cars in the garage, to say go and kill them and we can we can. Some may agree some may disagree about the posts here. The above answer was a simple one after a string of posts. If you haven't done so, please take few minutes and read the sequence of some of the latest postings on this thread. eg the C-span senate hearings and some of the articles on the the real threats against our country. We do not have to attack Iraq, at least not for the reason politicians want us to believe. War is an ugly mess. I have lost a close friend on the WTC attack and family blood defending against the Nazis. Tough to describe my feelings and the feeling of all around me. But I also want to get more information of the why's and what's behind the puppet show (world wars and geopolitics) http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=7621&perpage=6&pagenumber=9 fascinating, what happens behind the scenes http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=7621&perpage=6&pagenumber=10 In Iraqi War Scenario, Oil Is Key Issue http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=7621&perpage=6&pagenumber=11 next post 101 response to Babak Searching For the Saddam Bomb http://www.theamericancause.org/pat...ingforprint.htm As far as Kosovo, that was another mess (but corridor 8 was too important to the west) also see http://www.iht.com/articles/54905.html article 54905. But here we didn't do anything when 1200 mostly elderly were slaughtered. (it needs subscription to get in) some related info also here: http://www.counterpunch.org/monbiot2.html And maybe if this was never the case, we wouldn't have the WTC? Bush Sr. In Business With bin Ladin Family via Carlyle Group http://www.vigo-examiner.com/Oct0101c.htm There are many ifs and buts and infinite scenarios. But in politics all is planned. Yes, we do follow multiple polices as you correctly stated above, and many hidden agendas. And it is a doubleedged sward. Some will say we didn't act and some will say that the following mess was because we didn't leave them alone. But, if one looks back we have been messing around with just about every nation in the world. There is something wrong with what is happening. Why so many hate us? This IS the greatest country in the world in many respects, for sure militarily, but we have a lot of space for improvement. Unless we destroy every single human being on this earth that has an opposing view of us, AND completely leave harmless the rest, we will not be safe the way we are going. A child barely escapes our bombings, his family's bodies are scattered all around him, blood all over the place he asks what happened, and the next survivor tells him: It was those American planes that destroyed all you had. That child is the one we should be afraid tomorrow, coming here with a briefcase size nuke and take my city down. And the same child can be a us citizen survived of the WTC disaster. 15 out of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, that child will want Saudi Arabia leveled, and will also ask why if we knew so much about the attacks, we let them happen. Not easy answers, but attacking because we just can, and we can level them all?... I'm not sure that is the best way to go. Regardless the opposing opinions, many have posted very good arguments for many sides. Thank you for reading and posting Josh
As I said before it is easy to say attack Irak "we need to remove that dictator" and the Iraki won't be able to do it??? What is scarry in this story is that you really think Irakis are stupid and have no memories and a guy like Bush think that by changing a leader then Irak will change... They will have to put into power a real dictator because if they put a democrat I don't think that he will be in favour of the Us... WHY?????? The answer is very simple THE EMBARGO OF THE US KILLED and MURDERED many innocent civilians (500,000 children and more than 1,5 million person died)... these are not my words but those of people from the UN... I think that like Jews hated german (and are still hating) after what happened during second world war Irakis also hate american after what they have done to their country ... You can say whatever you want of Saddam, but the killings perpetrated by The US are far more important than those of Saddam and the slow bleeding of the Iraki people has more to do with the US policy than with Saddam... Last but not least, I really believe the arguments about Saddam can do harm to the other countries is a very silly argument... But except Josh, RS7 Bryan and Candle , none of you took into account the lives of innocent civilians and children... You are talking about the bloody dictator Saddam but none of you talked of those killed as if they had no importance??? a bit scary
Babak ...So telling the Iraqi people to 'do something' is (if you will excuse me) extremely naive.... No offense taken. I was replying on a more general sense. If they ask for help from western nations we should consider giving them. When the situation reaches unbearable limits, uprisings do happen and topple the dictator at the top. ...Actually, some of them tried. You know what happened to them? The were exposed to a cocktail of lethal gas. All of them. Saddam wanted to make a vivid example to all that this was the consequence of challenging him. Women, children, old men, no one was spared. Sarin gas doesn't ask questions. It just kills... If I recall the facts correctly the gas was used against the Kurdish, that were seeking independence, and they were helping Iran when in war with Iraq. And at that time we the United States of America were fully in support of Saddam. And yes war is hell and that is the last thing we should opt for not the first. But I also think we have other way greater priority problems that we need to deal with before we go out there. Thank you for the response. Just a thought and a question: how would/should we respond if China tomorrow goes in and topples Saddam (for humanitarian reasons of course) and they set up their own puppet gov't? or Russia? After all they are members of the UN punishing Iraq for defying un resolutions. I just hope that cool heads prevail. Josh
traderfut2000, You point out that the embargo on Iraq has hurt the civilian population. If this is so it is only due to the totalitarian regime of Saddam. While he is busy building palace after palace, children are dying for want of medicine, running water, etc. While he is busy buying himself and those around him a lavish lifesyle, the Iraqi people are choked economically. While he is busy diverting proceeds of oil sales towards arms purchases, chemical and nuclear research, his people are left to fight for a meager living. The embargo (actually it isn't a real one since you can find anything you want in Iraq - the only consideration is price) is the only thing that has kept Saddam's bloody ambition in check. I find it extremely manipulative that you mention the embargo but do not mention the FACT that the money that Saddam has is used to first provide for Saddam then for those that keep in power and then for a program for him to gain further power. Your reasoning is extremely similar to the Taliban Foreign Minister when he was interviewed on a documentary (before Sept 11 2001). He was asked why the Taliban used the soccer stadium in Kabul to stage medieval punishments (such as beheadings, cutting off hands, arms, and hangings). His reply was to this effect: "If they don't like that we use the stadium for this purpose then other countries should come and build us a new stadium so that the people have a place to play soccer." Nice logic.
good luck trying to talk reason to Traderfut, Babak.. it's not like anyone is claiming that the US or the West has never screwed up (not even me, and i'm one of the US's biggest cheerleaders).....but if all you read is Traderfut's vitriol, you'd think that the US was the scourge of mankind and that the Arab world and Islam's shit does't stink.... unbelievable.... Traderfut, what the hell goes on inside that head of yours??
which is the most MORAL choice: 1. Attacking Iraq a la gulf war II, and getting rid of Sadam and ending the U.N. sanctions. ( the current stance of the Bush administration ) 2. Maintaining The U.N. Sanctions indefinitely. This is the status quo. Sanctions have been in effect for 11 years with no effect except the suffering of the common people in Iraq. 3. Assasinating Sadam Hussein and his close officials. Results in a handfull of casualties instead of thousands, and spares the common people of Iraq from death and misery. Also causes the U.S. political problems for decades to come and invites attacks on U.S. politicians. 4. Doing absolutely nothing, lifting the sanctions from Iraq, and pretending like nothing ever happened. Reduces the current tension. Leaves Sadam in power with total victory over the west who couldn't stand up to him. He gains respect, power, and the chance to rebuild his military. He becomes a force to be reckoned with in the future with totally unknown consequences. Ok pacifists and partisans, which option would YOU choose ? Lets see if you can give a straight anwer.
Anyway, this guy is not a taliban and apparently he has the same reasonning as me... But you are the true talibans accepting he killings of innocent people in Irak and saying that the US has no responsibility )) The Deaths He Cannot Sanction Ex-U.N. Worker Details Harm to Iraqi Children By Michael Powell Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, December 17, 1998; Page E01 NEW YORK—There is no easy way to make this argument as bombs and missiles rain down. No fashionable way to rebut those intent on vengeance against a nation run by the likes of Saddam Hussein. So Denis Halliday offers only a quick instruction in the mathematics of death, of the pure and deadly efficiency of the United Nations sanctions he helped oversee in Iraq. Two hundred thirty-nine thousand children 5 years old and under. That is the latest -- and most conservative -- independent estimate of the number of Iraqi children who have died of malnutrition, wasting and dysentery since sanctions were imposed at the behest of the United States and Great Britain in 1990. Halliday, a tall and proper Irishman, is by temperament uncomfortable with emotion. But the deaths and suffering -- and he'll hate this word -- haunt him. "We need to talk ugly: We are knowingly killing kids because the United States has an utterly unsophisticated foreign policy," Halliday says. "No matter how bad this bastard Saddam is, how can we justify that? "And the catastrophe of more bombing will only make matters much worse." Halliday is an outcast, as close to stateless as an international civil servant can be. He announced his resignation as the U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Iraq in August, a dramatic move that met with wide media coverage almost everywhere except in the United States. In careful, clinical language, he offered a most compelling narrative of destruction: The allied bombing in the Persian Gulf War devastated Iraq's infrastructure, systematically destroying power stations and water purification systems. Uranium-tipped armor-piercing shells further contaminated the water supply in the southern part of the country. And the American and British-led decision to clamp U.N. economic sanctions on Iraq compounded the problems. "No one wants to acknowledge the amount of nonmilitary damage, the destruction of cold food and medicine storage, the power supply," Halliday says. "I went there to administer the largest humanitarian challenge in U.N. history. I didn't realize our level of complicity in the suffering." According to preliminary numbers in a study conducted by Richard Garfield, an epidemiologist at Columbia University and a specialist on the health effects of the embargo, the death rate for Iraqi children age 5 and under has spiraled up, nearly tripling since sanctions were imposed in 1990. At that time, child deaths in Iraq were on a par with much of the Western world.
"There is almost no documented case of rising mortality for children under 5 years old in the modern world," Garfield says. "When the U.S. hit a bomb shelter in the Gulf War, it admitted a grave mistake and changed its rules . . . yet these sanctions are resulting in about 150 excess child deaths per day." U.S. officials usually dismiss such talk of American responsibility as so much agitprop. They say that Iraq is a conspirator in its own decline. And they add that the country is now allowed to pump enough oil to stave off the worst suffering. Under the oil-for-food program, Iraq can sell $5.2 billion worth and use some of that money to buy food, medicines and limited medical technology. That allows Iraq to buy about one-third of the food and medicine it purchased before the war, according to Halliday. Then-U.N. Ambassador Madeleine Albright went on CBS's "60 Minutes" in 1996 and assayed a defense of the toll taken by sanctions. A reporter stated that some estimates placed child deaths in Iraq at half a million (Halliday uses the same figure), and asked if the price was worth it. "I think this is a very hard choice," she replied, "but the price -- we think is worth it." More recently, Albright returned to "60 Minutes" as secretary of state and advised reporters that "you can't lay that guilt trip on me. . . . I believe that Saddam Hussein is the one who is responsible for the tragedy of the Iraqi people." Halliday wades warily into this moral calculus of blame. He is not inclined to defend Saddam Hussein and senior Baath Party officials, and he acknowledges problems in the distribution of food and medicine. And Iraqi officials have, on occasion, insisted on ordering sophisticated medical machinery when wiser people would zero in on basic medicines and foodstuffs. There are a few streets in downtown Baghdad, he concedes, that seem strikingly cosmopolitan, full of well-fed shoppers. That, however, is but to concede the obvious: In all tragedies, even more so in authoritarian nations, the poorest and most rural suffer worst. What's more to the point, say two other U.N. inspectors who spoke on condition of anonymity, is that even the best-run sanctions program could not deliver enough food and medicine to ameliorate all the suffering. Halliday seizes on that point, extends it. Let's suppose that sanctions have contributed, through poor nutrition, stunting and dysentery, to but 100,000 deaths. "I've been to hospitals where they have enough heart medicine for two patients and there are 10 who need it. How do you count that? How do you spread it?" He leans across the table toward a visitor. He uses a word he has hitherto danced around. "These are criminal calculations." He refused to talk about them at first, the four leukemia kids. It seemed one of those maudlin stories the press favors, Dickensian puff pastry that will only encourage those who favor a more punitive policy to dismiss Halliday as a "damn bunny-hugger." He relents, finally, and tells of his visit to the Saddam Hussein Medical Center in Baghdad. Once a modern hospital, it's now filled with dust, baking in the heat of an infernal summer. The air conditioning rarely works. He found four children there, three girls and a boy, gravely ill with leukemia. There was not enough medicine for all of them. So he broke his first rule in Iraq: He searched for medicines on the black market, traveling by car on the hot dusty track to Amman, Jordan. He describes his next steps in a clipped, weary monotone. "I walked back into the hospital. . . . We went to the ward, we had picked up some presents for Christmas. We found that two of the children were already dead." He didn't go to hospitals much after that. He had no solutions. And he "didn't want to be one more foreigner gawking with no answers." He recounts this in his sun-filled apartment on the East Side of Manhattan. He is 57, with bred-in-the-bone reserve. He was an assistant secretary general at the United Nations. It's considered bad form to publicly rebuke a member nation. "I used to lecture my staff about such things." He chuckles at himself. "Now I talk a lot about ends justifying means." The leukemia incident wasn't the only time he bent the rules. Frustrated at the rising death toll in late 1997, worried that the United Nations lacked the will to stand up to the United States, he took the highly unusual step of lobbying France, Russia and China to relax sanctions. And one long night in Baghdad, he typed and retyped an uncharacteristically passionate letter to his boss, Secretary General Kofi Annan. "I wrote a very nasty letter, probably too nasty," he says. "I said that we were managing a process that was resulting in thousands of deaths. I told him you have to stand up and speak." The letter fed a growing sense that he needed to leave. But he refused. His staff needed a leader, and enough could be done in the margins of sanctions policy to save thousands of lives. Since his departure he's traveled a lot -- on his own dime, he says -- to New Zealand, Iceland and all over Europe. He was invited even to Great Britain to sit on a government-sponsored panel and criticize that nation's policy toward Iraq. He has refused to return to Iraq, though, even when invited by Saddam Hussein. He doesn't want to appear sympathetic to the regime. In this country, he's found himself appearing mainly on talk radio shows and college campuses. The establishment press and Congress paid far greater attention to the resignation of a different U.N. official: UNSCOM arms inspector Scott Ritter. Ritter's narrative of Iraqi deception and the apparent willingness of the Clinton administration to look the other way resonated in a nation that has lived with the unfinished business of Saddam Hussein and Iraq since the end of the Gulf War. Ritter, the war hero, has come to function as sort of a doppelganger, his outsize personality and tougher prescriptions overshadowing Halliday's. "You can't match Ritter. He's a hero, he's got a great message to sell," Halliday says. "I play as just some jaded U.N. official. I can't match his sex appeal." The jokes conceal a tension that ran through relations between the humanitarian staff and the arms inspectors in Iraq. The arms inspectors are convinced, based on voluminous documents and intelligence sources, that Iraq still harbors at least the raw stuff of weapons of mass destruction: poison gas, biological weapons, perhaps worse. It's a history best paid notice: Saddam Hussein has used some of these weapons on his own people. But Halliday says he found it nearly impossible to get the arms inspectors to work with his staff, and to persuade them to allow some technology into the country, to repair energy and water systems. "I would drive home through raw sewage, watching children all but bathe in it," Halliday says. "But they wouldn't meet with us. They seemed worried we'd convert their cowboys into bunny-huggers." His doubts about the UNSCOM mission run deeper. It's a dangerous world, in which companies and nations across the so-called civilized world hawk the most murderous weapons, legally and illegally. To insist on staying inside Iraq until every weapon is destroyed seems a fool's errand, he says. "The inspectors destroyed tons and tons of arms and that was great," he says. "But they need a timetable." Nor is getting rid of Saddam Hussein necessarily the answer, he argues. The dictator's son, for one, is far worse, he believes. As are the many thousands of young Iraqis who have no access to Western thought and education, and who increasingly believe that Saddam Hussein is too moderate. "Beware what you ask for," Halliday says. "Killing Saddam does not necessarily solve anything." Some American officials argue that there is an exile movement with hooks deep into Iraq, and that a carefully coordinated guerrilla movement could establish power someday. Weeks after that interview, Halliday called again. He's worried that the United States appears intent on war, he's flying to Washington to hold a few meetings. Hours later, he's in Washington. The civil servant's reserve is slowly falling away. He confesses he's getting radicalized, that he feels the need to speak more deeply, more passionately. Of late, he's taken to asking American audiences if they could survive on some beans, some rice, a little yogurt and impure water. "I feel somewhat guilty for abandoning my colleagues in Iraq during this talk of bombing," he said a week ago. "Now I see the American generals talking about possibly 10,000 more Iraqi deaths. This is not a strategy, it's simply to the point of madness. "One day, we'll all be called to account and clobbered in the history books." © Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company