You ruin your argument when you conflate being anti-war (anti-American Empire?) with being pro-Saddam (or pro-bin Laden, as they were saying a year ago). "Meet the new boss; same as the old boss." How many eggs have been broken to make this distasteful omelette, and how many more will follow?

I think the worst argument I've seen on Samizdata in favor of war has been, "I can't stop the State from stealing my money, so I should at least get something GOOD out of it." Reminds me of PJ O'Rourke's, "*This* is the way to waste government money," after he'd just watched a videotape of a missile being launched -- "hell's own hard-on," as he put it. Some crimes are just more exciting than others -- until the gun of the State is pointed at *you*. Those calling for the "liberation" of the Iraqi people should have been the first ones on the front lines. And if you wouldn't steal from me to send your kid to school, what the hell makes it moral to steal from me to kill people?

Posted by damaged justice at May 14, 2003 02:29 PM

Those calling for the "liberation" of the Iraqi people should have been the first ones on the front lines

Oh the Chickenhawk argument. It has such a nice fascist ring to it, a la 'Startship Troopers'.

And note how "liberation" is in scare quotes. Sure, I suppose the current state of the Iraqi people is just as bad as under Ba'athism... is that the point you are making or do you just like the look of quotation marks?

The fact is people opposed the liberation of Iraq for many reasons, some of which were entirely rational, such as that it would lead to all sorts of nasty things back home (meaning the US or UK) such as PATRIOT act and the like, a concern I also share...

...but many opposed it for quite different reasons. What Gabriel wrote is entirely correct about the people who opposed the liberation on the grounds of either 'it is a soverign state' (so frigging what?) or 'what about the poor Iraqi people?' (yet these same 700,000 people did not feel the need to march though London protesting the 300,000 people that Iraqi groups claimed were slaughtered in the aftermath of the 1991 uprising in Iraq).

If those last two were not the reason for your position, I would suggest Gabriel was really not talking to you, but if you dislike the fact some of the shit being thrown by him is landing rather too close to you, well, it is hardly Gabriel's problem if you insist on standing next to such people. Consider yourself intellectual collateral damage in an entirely 'Just War' of words.

Posted by Perry de Havilland at May 14, 2003 02:51 PM

Mass graves from 1991 do not mean unquestioned authority to unilaterally invade in 2003, it means Bush the father failed in 1991.

Bush and Cheney and etc. before the war said the risks to the US of inaction are greater than the risks of invasion. Does anybody still believe that after no WMD's of any sort are found and after we learn that known, but unprotected, nuclear facilities were looted and sacked, and also that Al Qaeda is alive and apparently as lethal as ever?

Posted by Calvin at May 14, 2003 03:08 PM

Hello; I'm still waiting for people to protest a suiside bombing by carrying a placard that says, "Not in my name." (I'm especially waiting for some muslims to do this.)

Posted by mike at May 14, 2003 03:11 PM

"Does anybody still believe that?"

You betcha. But that's because the battle for Iraq was part of the progress of winning the war. It was an essential step, and without victory in Iraq there was only a poor chance of winning the war. Now the chance of winning the war is excellent.

Posted by Steven Den Beste at May 14, 2003 03:13 PM

Too many of the anti-war types are too absorbed with their anti-Bush agenda. Letters to the editor here locally reflect that as you read these "peace activists" wail about the looting of Iraqi museums or the bombed out infrastructure in Iraq.

These same individuals, however, remain silent about the mass graves, the freed prisoners (including children), etc. One has to wonder about their true sense of compassion and morality.

Nobel Peace Prize receipent, Elie Wiesel was quoted last month as stating:

""If some European countries put as much pressure on Saddam Hussein as on (US President George W.) Bush, there would have been no war," he told a press conference in Montreal. "

The same holds true for too many in the peace movement.

Dan Tracy

Posted by Dan Tracy at May 14, 2003 03:14 PM

It is very simple.

Those who opposed the war decided that in their non-judgemental world that the slaughter of Iraqi's by their own leadership is a "cultural" issue and none of our business.

Now if this had been a country administrated by a western power (read the US or England) and these things were going on their cries would be loud.

A similar arguement is going on about the sanctions. Now that the war is won the groups that clammored for the end of sanctions are saying otherwise and France and Russia have changed their tune.

Apparently its ok for all those iraqi children "killed" by sanctions to die now because the US can be directly blamed instead of US sanctions.

You know it would be much easier to say. "Yes I was wrong about the war, if I truly knew or believed that this slaughter was going on I would have supported the war, but not the people running it."

However that isn't possible because in then end like the great congressman from the west coast who visited Iraq before the war, the people opposed will take any dictator's word over George Bush's.

It's a form of psycosis

Posted by Peter Ingemi at May 14, 2003 03:15 PM

Yes Calvin, I believe it. Especially when I see Syria folding and N. Korea despearatly trying to make a deal and the Paks cracking down. Iraq wasn't a decisive battle in this War, but I have yet to see any solutions to the War on Terror from the anti-war side (and denying that such a War is occuring is not a solution).

But don't think I am naive, the war wasn't fought for human rights or because WMDs. It was fought to send a message that we replace regimes that support terror or own WMDs, to give us leverage over the Saudis with the oil and to give us a base of operations (a beach head) in the area. Perhaps you can critique the generalship of this operation, but you are fool if you don't provide us an alternative or a traitor if you support doing nothing until an a-bomb hits London or Seattle.

Posted by Lazarus Long at May 14, 2003 03:18 PM

How much of your vitriolic hatred is directed at George Bush Sr. for promising the revolting Shi'ites support and never delivering it?

Some of those protesters you level so much contempt towards could have opposed the war because they feel that government can't deliver on their promises to "bring freedom to those parts of the world " any better than they can deliver on all the promises they make on the home front. Our governments have gotten rid of one unstable dictator, but they certainly haven't established much stability to replace him. Baghdad is still without power, still without law and order, and the people there are still without any concept of who is in charge. The US government is failing Iraqis now just as much as they did in '91.

Why do you pro-war libertarians, who are rightly distrustful of government when when it comes to domestic projects, become the same kind of glaze-eyed government worshippers that socialists are when it come to international adventuring and dragon slaying?

Posted by Neil Eden at May 14, 2003 03:20 PM

Scare-quotes: good. "E" in American Empire: better. Changing the subject to avoid thinking to hard about people massacred in your name: priceless.

Orwell described opponents of the war on Hitlerism as objectively pro-Nazi. It is entirely correct to describe their contemporary equivalents in the same terms.

Posted by Nicholas Packwood at May 14, 2003 03:23 PM

Scare-quotes: good. "E" in American Empire: better. Changing the subject to avoid thinking too hard about people massacred in your name: priceless.

Orwell described opponents of the war on Hitlerism as objectively pro-Nazi. It is entirely correct to describe their contemporary equivalents in the same terms.

Posted by Nicholas Packwood at May 14, 2003 03:24 PM

> You ruin your argument when you conflate being anti-war (anti-American Empire?) with being pro-Saddam

Actually, he's quite accurate.

Certain arguments are both anti-war and pro-Saddam. Other arguments are anti-war and Saddam-neutral. Others are anti-war and anti-Saddam. (I think that most of the "anti-war" positions are actually "anti- some fantasy of American Empire", a fantasy that tells us more about the protestor than it reflects reality, but that's a tangent.)

A lot of people used arguments from the first group. If they didn't "intend" to be pro-Saddam, they shouldn't have been.

Posted by Andy Freeman at May 14, 2003 03:24 PM

"Mass graves from 1991 do not mean unquestioned authority to unilaterally invade in 2003, it means Bush the father failed in 1991."

I would argue that such state mass murder would both justify intervention, and mean that Bush the father failed in 1991. One conclusion certainly does not preclude the other.

And though many now argue that the "failure" to find WMD means the casus belli was a sham, it should be remembered that Saddam's Iraq had been directed by the UN Security Council to prove that it had destroyed its WMD (the existence of which UN inspectors had demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt). Iraq did not comply, which alone was justification for presumption of continued possession. Nor is the searching over. . . .

Posted by Cronaca at May 14, 2003 03:28 PM

Though I disagreed with those who opposed the war because they felt it wasn't in the best interest of the US or the war on terrorism, I could at least respect their opinion. However, I could never respect the views of one who claimed to be protesting on behalf of the Iraqi people -- particularly now that the war is over, the massive civilian casualties predicted by war opponents at the war's buildup never materialized and the brutality of Saddam's regime has come into clear focus.

Bottom line, the casualties inadvertantly inflicted on the Iraq people as a result of our war against Saddam Hussein cost fewer Iraqi lives than are found at EACH of the mass graves described above, and there are likely to be many more mass graves uncovered in the future. That means that, if Gulf War II never occurred, more Iraqi civilians would have died in ONE Ba'ath party crackdown. The fact that the "anti-war" crowd STILL insists that THEY are the ones on the moral high ground is as baffling as it is disgusting.

Posted by Sean at May 14, 2003 03:28 PM

"Mass graves from 1991 do not mean unquestioned authority to unilaterally invade in 2003, it means Bush the father failed in 1991."

I would argue that such state mass murder would both justify intervention, and mean that Bush the father failed in 1991. One conclusion certainly does not preclude the other.

And though many now argue that the "failure" to find WMD means the casus belli was a sham, it should be remembered that Saddam's Iraq had been directed by the UN Security Council to prove that it had destroyed its WMD (the existence of which UN inspectors had demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt). Iraq did not comply, which alone was justification for presumption of continued possession. Nor is the searching over. . . .

Posted by Cronaca at May 14, 2003 03:29 PM

"it means Bush the father failed in 1991"

Bush I stopped short of taking Saddam out in 1991 b/c he didn't have the support of the international community. He thought he needed it. I didn't disagree with his decision at the time. He was wrong and I was wrong. But that doesn't mean one shouldn't correct mistakes. We just did that. But if we fell short (not finding WMD, etc), it was b/c we delayed action and allowed the US to be influenced by the "international" outcry and desire to protect tyrants like Saddam by those whose only real interest was financial (France, Russia, UN oil for palaces program)

KJ.

Posted by KJ at May 14, 2003 03:30 PM

Attention, sour critics of US action in Iraq,
listen to yourselves, you have become
nightmare scolds whose loathing of humanity is
only outdone by your blind hatred of the US or
do you just admit to GWB?

Posted by Fred at May 14, 2003 03:30 PM

"How many eggs have been broken to make this distasteful omelette..." Well, it looks like fewer Iraqis were killed in the recent war than are reckoned to be buried in this one grave alone. "...and how many more will follow" If you add in the saving of tens of thousands of lives annually who were being killed by a combination of UN sanctions (not "US sanctions": UN sanctions) and Saddam's administration thereof I suppose the answer is "many fewer broken eggs than would have otherwise been the case".

Posted by Rob Hinkley at May 14, 2003 03:33 PM

"Mass graves from 1991 do not mean unquestioned authority to unilaterally invade in 2003, it means Bush the father failed in 1991."

I would argue that such state mass murder would both justify intervention, and mean that Bush the father failed in 1991. One conclusion certainly does not preclude the other.

And though many now argue that the "failure" to find WMD means the casus belli was a sham, it should be remembered that Saddam's Iraq had been directed by the UN Security Council to prove that it had destroyed its WMD (the existence of which UN inspectors had demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt). Iraq did not comply, which alone was justification for presumption of continued possession. Nor is the searching over. . . .

Posted by Cronaca at May 14, 2003 03:33 PM

"it means Bush the father failed in 1991"

Bush I stopped short of taking Saddam out in 1991 b/c he didn't have the support of the international community. He thought he needed it. I didn't disagree with his decision at the time. He was wrong and I was wrong. But that doesn't mean one shouldn't correct mistakes. We just did that. But if we fell short (not finding WMD, etc), it was b/c we delayed action and allowed the US to be influenced by the "international" outcry and desire to protect tyrants like Saddam by those whose only real interest was financial (France, Russia, UN oil for palaces program)

KJ.

Posted by KJ at May 14, 2003 03:37 PM

You make the same mistake that is always made when arguing with liberals . . . you attempt to use logic to show the inconsistency of their viewpoints. Logic smogic. It's just plain anti Americanism. Whatever the government (espescially one led by a republican president) wants to do, these people will oppose it until the slobber runs down their chins and drops onto their Lands End shoes.

Thanks to cable TV, blogs, and the internet news outlets, the liberals' choke hold on the American media has been permanently broken, and the signs of their resulting desperation are everywhere. Expect to see liberals engage in more extreme and outrageous conduct (witness the Texas House democrats fleeing acrosss the Red River into Oklahoma to shut down the Texas House) as time goes by.

How hard would it be for the liberals to say "Thank God Saddam is gone. He was a butcherous tyrant and the world is now a better place." But no, their hatred for all things embraced by mainstream America trumps all compassion.

Posted by Redman at May 14, 2003 03:39 PM

it means Bush the father failed in 1991.

Straw men do not stand on their own, Calvin. Bush the father did not fail; the UN failed, as they did so often where Iraq is concerned. Troops well on their way to Baghdad stopped short because the UN asked us to. . .thus the first of many times the UN would fail the people of Iraq. You choose to ignore that, don't you?

And yes, Al Qaeda is alive, but I wonder about their lethality.

Oh. You mean the twenty+ who died from the attacks two days ago. If we hadn't invaded Iraq, that wouldn't have happened, is that what you're saying? Calvin, Al Qaeda, Hammas, the PLO, and all of the other terrorist groups have but three goals: Eliminate Israel, destroy the United States, and convert everyone who's left to Islam.

What would you have us do, Calvin? Cry? Whimper? Shut the door, turn off the lights, pull up the sheets, and wish them away? If it would work, I'd do it. . .but even you know it won't.

Calvin, GWB learned from his fathers mistakes: Don't trust the UN.

He's also learned this: People are liars, especially murderous thug dictators.

And anyone with half of a functioning brain cell should know this: If someone says they're going to kill you, you should take them seriously.

Posted by Loyal Citizen Victor at May 14, 2003 03:39 PM

Wow, is there an echo in here, or what?

Posted by E. Nough at May 14, 2003 03:41 PM

Hm. I thought 42 comments in the time it took to pick up a Greek salad was good going.

Posted by S. Weasel at May 14, 2003 03:43 PM

While it certainly true that anti-war and pro-Saddam should not be conflated, it is also true that the anti-war/not-anti-Saddam crowd (well, not "crowd", maybe "remnant" is a better word) weren't too eager to push the anti-war/pro-Saddam/anti-American dog off the bed. And now they complain because they have fleas?

Posted by Tongue Boy at May 14, 2003 03:44 PM

It was never about the invasion of Iraq, it was never about "not in my name," it was about promoting the hatred of the United States and the furtherence of organizations like ANSWER, the Stalinist Front organization. Most of the organizations were fronting for Marxists and they didn't care about anything except trying to demoralize the United Statesand fill their coffers with money. The still have a plan, its the same one from long ago, they want to try it one more time, they want Stalin, Pol Pot and the others back, once wasn't enough. Read a little history, look at who they are, read the web sites and their pamphlets and what they are saying. They are not the "useful idiots" as Lenin used to call them, that was the marchers... but behind them is the bloody organization and all it stands for, we've seen them before, they've been around since 1917.

Posted by Ron at May 14, 2003 03:45 PM

I think we got the message, Felix, though you won't find many takers on the notion that the Iranian theocracy is notably superior to Saddam's thug state.

I think the anti-war libertarians' moral message boils down to Lincoln's quip that if one man enslaves another, no third man should object. Were there practical reasons to object? Sure, but the arguements were not frequently made and almost always enveloped by moral outrage of war itself. But can anyone seriously, soberly look at the killing fields, the torture chambers, the children's prisons and say that removing the regime that created them all was a morally squalid act?

As for the mass graves, I say let George Galloway climb down into them and handle the effluent of the villain that has paid him so handsomely for his slavish, craven support.

Posted by Jeffersonian at May 14, 2003 03:49 PM

I think we got the message, Felix, though you won't find many takers on the notion that the Iranian theocracy is notably superior to Saddam's thug state.

I think the anti-war libertarians' moral message boils down to Lincoln's quip that if one man enslaves another, no third man should object. Were there practical reasons to object? Sure, but the arguements were not frequently made and almost always enveloped by moral outrage of war itself. But can anyone seriously, soberly look at the killing fields, the torture chambers, the children's prisons and say that removing the regime that created them all was a morally squalid act?

As for the mass graves, I say let George Galloway climb down into them and handle the effluent of the villain that has paid him so handsomely for his slavish, craven support.

Posted by Jeffersonian at May 14, 2003 03:49 PM

Boy, what a busy thread.

So, three points.

1:: If mere brutality was a reason for mounting invasions, we've have re-invaded after putting Pinochet in power. We'd probably have invaded Cuba. And we'd certainly invade the US Prison system where people convicted of minor crimes get raped and infected with aids daily.

This was never supposed to be about invading a brutal dictatorship because of their human rights record. While I laud and celebrate the idea of the US as a global human rights police man, we're going to have our hands full if this is our criteria for war.

2:: Show me the democracy, baby? Left to their own devices, with fair one-person, one-vote elections, and there's every chance Iraq will be governed by an Islamic Theocracy. Don't like it? Well, better find some plausible alternative to democracy... oh, wait.... we have one of those here, it's called the Supreme Court.

(remember: Gore wins a fair recount. Yes, he was also an asshole trying to manipulate the process for his own ends and therefore probably isn't much better than Bush, but that's the way the cookie crumbles).

3:: If this is about "liberation" we should have some metrics for what a "liberated" people looks like, in terms of access to government, perhaps education, health care (if that's part of the package), freedom from oppression, freedom of speech etc. Perhaps a constitution.

Whatever metrics we find for "liberation" we should apply at home also.

Posted by Able at May 14, 2003 03:55 PM

Is it just me or does it seem like these NIONers and Upper West Siders are parochial, narrow-minded and have an odor of European neo-colonialism about them?

"Why, Saddam is just a product of his culture!"

"How dare the imperialist Americans impose "democracy" on these benighted, culturally pure darkies, er, I mean souls?!"

"The problem isn't Saddam but the violation of Iraq's territorial integrity by the Bush war machine."

"Of course, the Haliburton fascists in charge of the U.S. genocide machine would protect the Oil Ministry and not the National Museum."

"Wow, they found mass graves?! Okay, now what about the looted artifacts?"

Yes, these are made-up quotes but I'd bet you a dollar to Sunday you wouldn't have known that had I not told you. I've heard a lot worse from these backdoor racists.

Posted by Tongue Boy at May 14, 2003 04:00 PM

Those calling for the "liberation" of the Iraqi people should have been the first ones on the front lines

Oh the Chickenhawk argument. It has such a nice fascist ring to it, a la 'Startship Troopers'.

In other words, you have no actual response to it.

The fact is people opposed the liberation of Iraq for many reasons, some of which were entirely rational, such as that it would lead to all sorts of nasty things back home (meaning the US or UK) such as PATRIOT act and the like, a concern I also share...

... but if you dislike the fact some of the shit being thrown by him is landing rather too close to you, well, it is hardly Gabriel's problem if you insist on standing next to such people. Consider yourself intellectual collateral damage in an entirely 'Just War' of words.

Um, if we're to be considered "standing next to such people" for opposing your war, aren't you standing next to Ashcroft and his PATRIOT Act? If I'm responsible for left wing idiocy, you cannot claim to be innocent of that right wing idiocy.

Perry's War means Perry's Patriot Act.

Posted by Scott Cattanach at May 14, 2003 04:09 PM

La, la, la, they can't hear you.

Posted by Hungry Valley at May 14, 2003 04:17 PM

Able's points are as follows:

1: We can't take out every thug regime, so why Iraq?

True, there are lots of evil leaders similar to Saddam. We cannot possibly send armies all over the world to take them out. But just b/c you can't do "everything" doesn't mean you can't do anything. You choose your spots based on some mix of national interest, collateral damage, other achievable goals and the ability to define the objective and win. Somolia clearly was a bad choice. Bosnia (yes, even Clinton could make a right decision at times) and Iraq were good choices, for many reasons, though neither may end up the utopia critics will claim it has to become for the evil American president to get credit for the decision.

2. Democracy has not surfaced.

It is very early. A little patience today, though impossible in the day of satelite 24/7 news, is required. Japan was in worse shape than Iraq, and it took 7 years. But US help obviously worked.

Aside: Every newspaper, even Miami and NYT, found that Bush would have won the recounts. The Supreme Court did its job -- 7 justices said all chads had to be counted the same under the equal protection clause. Dems in Florida didn't want to do that. BTW, the Constitution, fairly construed (even by justices who don't make stuff up based on political belief), places limits on democracy.

3. We need metrics.

I'm sure some fair, neutral university poly sci center will come up with one, no doubt similar to the fair, unbiased and rational criteria used in the Mommy Index of countries recently published.

I wonder though, will "oportunity" be the basis for those metrics, or will "results."

KJ

Posted by KJ at May 14, 2003 04:17 PM

"While it certainly true that anti-war and pro-Saddam should not be conflated."

Not so fast. In fact, some of the anti-war types were pro-Saddam. The pro-Saddam sorts (I am thinking ANSWER) provided critical organizational support to the anti-war movement, by all accounts. In other words, many anti-war protestors were perfectly content to associate with pro-Saddam supporters in order to advance their cause, and never uttered a peep of repudiation of ANSWER and their pro-Saddam confreres. If you allied yourself with a pro-Saddam group, relied on it, and never repudiated it, then I fail to see why you should complain when you are thereafter associated with its goals.

Further, the anti-war types never proposed a workable alternative to war. In other words, the policy they proposed would have left Saddam in power indefinitely. They might not have preferred this outcome, but it is the outcome the worked toward. If you don't want to be tagged as pro-Saddam, you should have some realistic way of getting rid of him.

Posted by T. Hartin at May 14, 2003 04:18 PM

Please would the pro-war libertarians be a bit more understanding of where the anti-war libertarians are coming from?

The history of U.S. libertarianism (and its old-right roots) is one of principled isolationism and vehement opposition to overseas entanglements and military adventurism

Their stance has repeatedly been shown to be correct. Think of the Civil War, WW1, the cold war (and its various hot outgrowths) etc. In each case the policy of aggressive militarism, interventionism etc can now be clearly seen as mistaken and as having had disastrous consequences in terms of human lives, wasted money and the extension of domestic State power (just as the libertarians had predicted).

Yet in each case, the motivation of those who advocated interventionism included (just as with Iraq) the goal of bringing liberty and the supposed protection of vital U.S. interests.

In fact the similarity between some of the arguments and rhetoric of the pro-war libertarians re. Iraq and of the pro-war pro-State Conservatives at the time of WW1, the cold war etc is uncanny.

Against that background, it is hardly surprising that anti-war libertarians express profound scepticism that things will be any different this time around.

Posted by cydonia at May 14, 2003 04:18 PM

"Besides, the Iranians were ready to get of Saddam for us a few years ago but we supplied Saddam with chemical weapons to help him defend himself. "

Uhhh... yeah, I guess you must be French or German then. That's the only way that "we" would make sense. In the Iraqi disclosure on their chemical weapons program, the US didn't show up at all. Guess which countries did.

Posted by Bill at May 14, 2003 04:25 PM

So far nobody seems to have noticed an important point:

These people were apparently killed during the post-Gulf War I uprising. The discovery of their bodies now is a rather gruesome reminder to the people of Iraq: "This is what happens to people who are naive enough to trust the US government."

Posted by Ken Hagler at May 14, 2003 04:32 PM

The psychosis of the left wing Bush haters is very deep. It must be way more difficult to quit than smoking. Only a few percentage of the left wing have gotten their sanity back even after the liberation scenes. Sad. Very Sad and Very Sick.

Posted by mhw at May 14, 2003 04:38 PM

Those calling for the "liberation" of the Iraqi people should have been the first ones on the front lines

Oh the Chickenhawk argument. It has such a nice fascist ring to it, a la 'Startship Troopers'.

In other words, you have no actual response to it.

If you accept the Chickenhawk/Starship Troopers criteria, then those people without military experience cannot express an opinion, either for or against, military activities.

The Chickenhawk arguement is facetious because it is a requirement imposed on only one side of the issue. It's a typical Leftist technique-- to impose requirements on one side of an issue that aren't imposed on other sides. Funny how the extra requirements are never made on Leftists.

Posted by Raoul Ortega at May 14, 2003 04:39 PM

(Re: Chickenhawk argument) "In other words, you have no actual response to it". The chickenhawk argument (no civilian is entitled to advocate the use of force) is totally fatuous, Scott. In every modern democracy I can think of the armed forces are under civilian control. The armed forces are controlled by the civilian population via the orders of the civilian government and that is an entirely Good Thing. I suspect those advocating the chickenhawk argument ("how dare he advocate force, he's not a soldier!") would also be quick to respond to a hawkish soldier thus: "but of course he advocates force, he's a soldier so must want to kill people/raise the army's profile/secure funding for his unit!".

Posted by Rob Hinkley at May 14, 2003 04:48 PM

Damn you and your coddled, self-centered and twisted minds.

Damn you for giving aid and comfort to every future Saddam by siding with a government that with "wartime necessities" like the Patriot Act (and future part II) and a war that will never end (at least not until all Bad Men are removed from power - which is giving the govt a blank check for future wars) is removing some of the only examples of free countries available to the oppressed of the world.

Damn you because, thanks to you, people being oppressed by their governments (including whatever thug we install in Iraq) will never know that freedom is even a possibility.

Posted by Scott Cattanach at May 14, 2003 04:48 PM

Scott: In other words, you have no actual response to it.

Actually Scott I have made my case against the feeble 'Chickenhawk' argument before, ad nauseam in fact, and I do not feel like going over it again considering it is one of the least compelling and trivial positions out there. There were many arguments against the armed libertarian of Iraq that were sound and deserved respect, even if not agreement, you even made a few yourself, but 'Chickenhawk' is not one of them. If you want to know my 'actual response', and that of some other people, well, look at the comments here. I feel no need to repeat my views on that over and over again.

Posted by Perry de Havilland at May 14, 2003 04:48 PM

>Mass graves from 1991 do not mean unquestioned >authority to unilaterally invade in 2003, it means Bush the >father failed in 1991.

Curious. Now how exactly did he "fail"?

Couldn't have been by not unilaterally invading Iraq and deposing Saddam, could it?

Interesting that you characterize that as a "failure" and yet denounce George W. Bush for correcting that "failure".

Not that being critical of the assorted Bushes have anything to do with this.

-M

Posted by Matt Edens at May 14, 2003 04:54 PM

>2:: Show me the democracy, baby? Left to their own devices, with fair one-person, one-vote elections, and there's every chance Iraq will be governed by an Islamic Theocracy.

That's why it will not be a simple majority. That wouldn't sit with the Kurds and Sunni. It will have to be representative of all the different groups. That's why we have THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE! And speaking of which...

>Don't like it? Well, better find some plausible alternative to democracy... oh, wait.... we have one of those here, it's called the Supreme Court.

You see? You keep tipping your hand. This isn't about "Give Peace a Chance!" It's about "Gore 2000."

Spoiled trustfund crybabies and sore losers.

Posted by Mick_McMick at May 14, 2003 04:55 PM

At the risk of being politically incorrect (and how ironic THAT would be in a self-avowed libertarian forum), posting pictures of the contents of mass graves dug circa 1991 and saying "the killing has been stopped" in 2003 is like the ANSWER crowd posting a picture of the smoldering ruins of the Mt. Carmel compound outside Waco TX, and asking, in 2003, "Mr. President, has the killing stopped yet"?

In either case, there is the clear implication that the horrific killing depicted so graphically has continued on into the present day, as well as an additional implication that any recently taken actions against the alleged perpetrators were 1) justified, and 2) effective in stopping it. (In the Waco case, of course, the "recently taken action" would have been the replacement of Clinton by Bush, I suppose...)

Thus can "true" pictures be made to lie.

A further irony is that, if the reported date is accurate, the people in the graves are those who took Bush the Elder at his word, when he exhorted them to rise up and oppose Saddam. Surely they expected US help that never came. And almost as surely, many -- perhaps thousands -- of them were killed by weaponry that Saddam acquired by virtue of being one of "our guys."

We don't need more evidence of how bad a guy Saddam has been throughout his career. Nobody is claiming that he is a misunderstood victim of circumstance. He's a thug. The continuing -- and for me, the insufficiently answered -- question is, what justification under its own constitution and traditions does the US have for making a pre-emptive strike to remove the ruling regime in a soverign country? If it turns out that the alleged justification proves false, what will the US do to address the mistake?

I don't think that "Saddam is a bad guy" is sufficient reason for the Iraq war we just prosecuted. "Hitler is a bad guy" was insufficient reason for the US to get into WWII -- for that, we needed the direct attack on Pearl Harbor. I also think that the US was founded on the principle that government power must be restrained, especially the ability to make war, as even wars fought for "morally just causes" have the effect of reducing both social and economic freedom at home, and enlarging the government (more or less permanently). So clearly, the people who founded the US did not want the politicians to be able to plunge us into war on flimsy, overly general, or unexamined premises. Lawyers can find loopholes -- that's what most of them do to put bread on the table (not to mention that classic collectors' car in the garage) -- and many of them have been working overtime to make a case that the Iraq war was prosecuted completely according to the letter of the Constitution. Even if they can be shown wrong eventually, the damage that the US will be able to do while the current thinking dominates will be considerable. But the spirit of the constitution is a different thing entirely. It is clear that the things the US constitution authorizes it does for the good -- especially the safety -- of the American people and for no other people on the earth. The only authority the US government has to operate militarily overseas is in the service of making us -- the Americans -- safe. "Making the world a better place," by ridding the world of one more dictator, or by undertaking various humanitarian military missions around the world, is too vague an excuse to fall within the constitution's focus on America and Americans. This isn't an argument you can likely make in court, whether a court of law or a court of impeachment. It is the kind of argument that can best (perhaps only) be made in electoral court -- on election day, with the jury issuing their decision as ballots in the voting booth.

We can all rejoice that a bad guy was put down. But if we let stand that the US can go to war for false reasons, for reasons that are inconsistent with the authority vested in the government by the people via the constitution, and without sufficient congressional debate or proper congressional declaration, then we must accept that there will be plenty of wars ahead that won't end so quickly or so happily.

If you really want to say "not in my name," you have a moral obligation to register to vote, to vote for people who won't play so fast and loose with the constitution or the warmaking power, and to do your part as voter to endorse a governmental approach that will let you sleep at night. Voting may not be as fun as wilding during a peace march, or as publicly visible as a sit-in. But it is the central way our institutions provide for people to take control of their government. Up to this very day, people have fought and died for the right to vote, or been threatened and killed for attempting to exercise that right. Voting to rein in the government does NOT mean you don't care about people in foreign lands, or that you endorse the evil perpetrated by a thug like Saddam. It does mean that you won't give the US government the power to stick its military nose into foreign conflicts, and that you demand that other, preferrably more peaceful, probably voluntary, non-governmental approaches and means be used to promote peace and order outside the US borders. Please think about casting such a vote, the next time you have the chance.

Posted by James Merritt at May 14, 2003 04:57 PM

Felix, whose love of civil debate apparently led him to try to clog up the site with his own voice, needs to look up his dates. USA helped Saddam marginally in the mid-80s. The big old cold war was still on, Iran had basically declared on us already, geopolitics were entirely different, and Saddam hadn't yet gone berserk on the repression/genocide. He was our best bet to retain influence in that conflict, AT THAT TIME. Felix, you've said a hundred times here that "12 yrs ago" we were arming Saddam. 12 years ago we were FIGHTing him. His war with Iran was over 15 years ago. The two-plus years between 1988 and his Kuwait invasion were a long time, then, and those years, after we helped him against Iran, changed things. Saddam changed the dynamics of the relationship. Not GWBush. Facts matter, a little, to some folks, Felix. But you will just keep on making up things that sound cool to you, won't you?

Posted by Buddy at May 14, 2003 04:57 PM

Scott is totally divorced from reality. I guess he thinks whatever 'thug' is installed by the US will kill hundreds of thousands like the baathists did, with CNN somehow not noticing. Perry did have a response by adding "... a la Starship Troopers", which elegantly and, unlike your lengthy diatribes, briefly, made a powerful point about CIVILIAN control of the military.

Posted by hark at May 14, 2003 04:59 PM

Wolf Bierman, a poet of national renown, called the German Anti-Iraq War movement "Hurra Pazifisten" and "Nationalpazifisten" or National Pacifists in recognition that many in the peace movement were less interested in "peace" and more interested in opposing western democracy as symbolized by the US. As long as the peace movement limits its opposition to policies of the United States, and fails to sufficiently condemn the acts of war of others it lacks credibility and it takes sites against democracy.

Posted by Holger Uhl at May 14, 2003 05:01 PM

oops... I did not intend to delete ALL of felix's comments, just the nine zillion repeats, which I assume was our server burping, not him spamming us. Sorry.

Posted by Admin at May 14, 2003 05:02 PM

>Their stance has repeatedly been shown to be correct. Think of the Civil War, WW1, the cold war (and its various hot outgrowths) etc. In each case the policy of aggressive militarism, interventionism etc can now be clearly seen as mistaken and as having had disastrous consequences...

Are you saying the South will rise again? You think slavery should be reinstated? A new Kaiser should be appointed to rule Europe? The USSR should be reincorporated, and this time appeased until it encompasses the globe?

Isolationism doesn't work, because there will always be hungry monsters more than willing to come TO YOU, and take what you have, and stop you from running your life the way you want to live it.

What puzzles me is that these same liberals complained bitterly about GWB's early policy of less intervention and foreign entanglements. They foamed at the mouth about sinking the bulldinky Kyoto treaty and the World Court sovereignty giveaway. Then, after 9/11 they call for isolationism and "respect for sovereignty" of terrorist-sponsoring tyrants.

Posted by Mick_McMick at May 14, 2003 05:03 PM

From the thread Perry pointed to:

Here we are presented with several insights into the 'mind' of a man who not only seems to presume to know what passport I hold and what I may or may not have done (I have seen a real war up close and personal, I wonder if Robert McCormick has?), but also does not believe in civilian control of the military: i.e. he thinks the only people with any right to have an opinion how a volunteer military is used, is the volunteer soldiers themselves, rather than the people who pay for them. Presumably Robert McCormick feels that fireman are the only ones with the moral right to call out the fire brigade.

This is a straw man. The "chickenhawk" argument isn't that only the military can decide which wars to fight. It is a claim that while Perry will demand the war, consider it a crime not to fight the war, and dance in the streets after the war, Perry will clearly not personally risk so much as a hangnail for the freedom of people in Iraq. Its only when others die that this is a Good War. His own previous military service is not relevant here.

Saddam out of power and 100 US Marines dead is a fair trade. Saddam out of power and Perry harmed is not.

Nobody is saying that you have to have joined the military, or that you have to join now. The NeoCons are being condemmed for making an obsession out of a war only when they can do so in absolute safety. I'm not even talking about people who think it is a sad necessity to fight but won't go, its the cheerleaders who are chickenhawks.

And I also don't buy the "since The State exists, they might as well fight this war" claim, since it can be used to justify anything the left or right wants. After all, since its just a given that The State will resistribute income (do you see it stopping any time soon?), they might as well distribute it the way the Socialists see fit. Since the govt will spend billions anyway, we might as well get "free" healthcare out of it.

Posted by Scott Cattanach at May 14, 2003 05:04 PM

Maybe I missed it, but I don't recall the Bush adminstration arguing to depose Saddam because of his treatment of the Iraqi people. The argument I heard was that Iraq presented an immediate threat to the safety of the United States.

That argument was supported by a detailed list of chemical weapons he possessed and the belief he either had or was close to getting nuclear weapons. So far, no MWDs have been found in Iraq. Since that arguement hasn't panned out, the justification for the war has switched from the immediate threat to the US to how we needed to free the Iraqi people.

No doubt Saddam was a bad guy - there's lots of bad guys in the world we'd all be better off without. Using that rational we have a long list of countries to invade, some of them our allies. But that's not the reason the American People were given for the war. Face it, they lied.

Posted by Jon G. at May 14, 2003 05:04 PM

Why is it that anti-Bushies can't bring themselves to admit they were wrong? They should admit they were selfish, ideological, irrational, and uninformed, but I'd settle with wrong. Even if every bad intention attributed to the Bush administration is correct, and the new Iraq will be no more than a puppet regime so Bechtel and Haliburton can make a few billion and the U.S. gets access to oil reserves, isn't it pretty clear by now that the Iraqi people are far better off? I think it's clear by the anti-war crowd's response to the last month that the well-being of the Iraqi people is not very important. It's the "process", not the results.

Posted by Ryan at May 14, 2003 05:09 PM

That argument was supported by a detailed list of chemical weapons he possessed and the belief he either had or was close to getting nuclear weapons.

Technological illiterates and WMD
...The FTI media failed us again in the runup to the US invasion of Iraq. In order to have had the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) claimed for Iraq, they would have had to have a GE - pre-Welch - in their country. Technology needs all the parts to work. If an essential part is missing you have to make it or buy it.

Before we blew it to smithereens, Iraq had many areas where they had a "first-world"/state-of-the-art infrastructure. But they had bought rather than made it - which meant that they were dependent on outside suppliers for spare parts.

As the embargo stretched out, the chance that an irreplaceable part had gone missing somewhere along the technological "food chain" became practically infinite. So even if we "knew" that they had everything to make WMD at one time, (after all, went the joke, we had the receipts) we could not know what had been lost.

Technologically we "knew" nothing - but every missing piece of information would have been further evidence that WMD production had become impossible. So all the predictions that Iraq had the capability of making WMD in anywhere near the quantities claimed had less basis in fact than the Sunday morning football betting lines...

Posted by Scott Cattanach at May 14, 2003 05:12 PM

To Neil Eden: apparently your complaint is that, after Saddam spent 25 years wrecking Iraq, it's taken us six weeks to get the power back on in Baghdad. Patience, grasshopper.

To those who claim that the inability to find WMD now obviates the original reason for going to war: please recall that Saddam used chemical weapons on his on people -- an incontrovertible fact. Whether or not we can find them now, Mr. Hussein had them and had demonstrated his willingness to use them in odious ways. Our inability to find them may reflect on our own limitations/competence (always possible), or Saddam's cleverness (he was that), or Iraq's inability to maintain these weapons sufficiently to stock them. There is clear evidence that Saddam expected his generals to use chemical WMD against us. I would suggest that the WMD argument really is moot -- Saddam had them before and was willing to use them.

To those who claimed that GHW Bush failed in 1991: please recall why. The correct answer is, he was constrained by the Arab states in the region. Please recall that Syria stated bluntly that if we moved on Baghdad, they would switch sides and fight. The Egyptians told us that they would withdraw their forces, and the Saudis told us that they would close our access to their bases. The Arab states promised GHWB that if we limited ourselves to the liberation of Kuwait, plus a good spanking of Iraqi forces, that they then would contain Saddam. They failed to do so. One could correctly question whether GHWB should have believed them, but that was the hand he was dealt.

Posted by Steve White at May 14, 2003 05:17 PM

All "human shield"-types so dedicated to stopping the killing should hop on city buses in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem.

Posted by Jim at May 14, 2003 05:20 PM

To Jon G. -- Yes, the Bush administration's rationale for attacking Iraq was that Saddam's regime posed a threat to the United States. (Several reasons were given for this -- Saddam's support of terrorism, not limited to Al Qaeda; Saddam's REFUSAL TO COME CLEAN about his weapons of mass destruction, in defiance of the entire UN Security Council; and so on).

But I do not recall being told, even once, that we were attacking Iraq *solely* (or even "primarily") because it posessed weapons of mass destruction. So I'm afraid I don't buy your argument that we were lied to.

As to the incalculable human benefit to the Iraqi people of ridding them of Saddam, I don't recall it being emphasized before the war either. So what? Is it a crime to bring it up now? Personally, I see it as a "fringe benefit" of doing what the Unites States had to do for its OWN well-being -- an enormous fringe benefit, to be sure, and one we can be quite proud of. But that's not why we went to Iraq, and I'm not aware that the Bush administration is now claiming that it was.

One more thought. France, Germany, Russia, and others made it quite clear, as recently as March, that six months of searching for weapons of mass destruction were insufficient. Why is it so terrible that it's taking the US military a while too?

Frankly, if no WMD were *ever* discovered in Iraq, I wouldn't feel betrayed; I'd feel puzzled as hell. We *know* that Saddam had them; he told the UN so in 1991. We *know* that he still had them in the mid-nineties, because UN inspection teams wrote about them. We *know* that he claimed, in 2002, not to have them any more, but refused to tell us what he had done with them. Could Saddam have been so collossally stupid as to have destroyed the WMD, and refused to prove it to anyone? I can't believe that.

I do expect that we'll find WMD -- perhaps buried deep underground, perhaps hidden in the cellar of an elementary school, perhaps shunted across the border to Syria (or even Iran). But I'm not holding my breath waiting for them, and I don't see why I should.

DJS
Medford, MA

Posted by Daniel in Medford at May 14, 2003 05:23 PM

To Neil Eden: apparently your complaint is that, after Saddam spent 25 years wrecking Iraq, it's taken us six weeks to get the power back on in Baghdad. Patience, grasshopper.

But, but, but the government hasn't failed, it just hasn't been given enough time and money. Just another year and another 50% budget increase and our social programs will work. Honest. We mean it this time.
Posted by Scott Cattanach at May 14, 2003 05:24 PM

One more comment on the Florida recount...besides Bush wininng all the recounts, It will never be known who did not vote in the Panhandle due to early "projections" of the winner. It is an hour behind and a heavily military area. One can reasonably assume Bush would have widened his lead and won the election...so I hope the liberals don't let this go...It will cost them in '08!!!

Posted by Matt at May 14, 2003 05:24 PM

James Merritt asks: what justification under its own constitution and traditions does the US have for making a pre-emptive strike to remove the ruling regime in a soverign country?

The answer is straight-forward: should that country become a manifest threat to us, we are permitted to defend ourselves, and to do so pro-actively.

Those who make Mr. Merritt's argument generally do so in a pre-9/11 mindset: they wonder what bombers, what aircraft carriers, what tanks Saddam would have used to attack the United States. Failing to see any, they conclude that Saddam was not a direct threat to us. But 9/11 showed us that terrorism, particularly terrorism that is aided and abetted by a nation-state (e.g., the Taliban in Afghanistan), can strike at the most powerful countries.

Saddam had numerous connections to many different terror groups -- and now we're learning that he had connections to al-Qaeda. Given Saddam's relentless push to build portable WMD (e.g., small nuclear weapon, smallpox, etc), his willingness to use these (e.g., gas the Kurds), his desire to be the next Saladin, and these connections, how long before a never-before-announced terrorist groups has such weapons and uses them against the US?

So for Mr. Merritt, two questions -- first, if such a scenario occurred -- Saddam sponsored terrorist group blew up a US city -- who would you blame, and how would you respond?

Second, why should a country that is aiding, abetting, and planning terrorist acts as a weapon against others enjoy sovereign immunity? I would appreciate a response that does not cite the Treaty of Westphalia.

Posted by Steve White at May 14, 2003 05:25 PM

One more comment on the Florida recount...besides Bush wininng all the recounts, It will never be known who did not vote in the Panhandle due to early "projections" of the winner. It is an hour behind and a heavily military area. One can reasonably assume Bush would have widened his lead and won the election...so I hope the liberals don't let this go...It will cost them in '08!!!

Posted by Matt at May 14, 2003 05:25 PM

Well I usually do not comment too much.

But I get so tired of these people saying the Supreme Court gave the election to Bush. First and foremost, Florida Election law states, on a close machine count, Run the votes through the machine again and that vote is official. In Effect, the Florida Supreme Court was trying to change election law after the fact, nice I thought the US had went to third world status over night.

Secondly Democrats sent lawyers to Florida with one agenda, Keep the Military absentee votes from being counted. Because they knew that military typically vote one way, Republican.

Lastly, the Supreme Court just told Florida, you are not allowed to handcount a couple of districts, you must count all of Florida in the same manner. The Dems figured that the would not be able to catch up if all of Florida was counted, and you know what they were right. Several Major newspapers hired an accounting firm to count those votes and Bush still won Florida. If Gore would have won, it would have been a huge story, but since he did not, hardly any press.

My god, next I will hear from some of you people is that the CIA was behind the 9/11 attacks. Paranoia will destroy ya.

Sorry for the rant, but I get tired of hearing this election nonesense.

Posted by James Stephenson at May 14, 2003 05:27 PM

@Jon G

National security, protection of US interests (Israel, et al), and Iraq's possession and development of WMDs were the strategic impetus. The failure of Iraq to present evidence of their destruction was the legal justification. The oppression of the Iraqi people was used from day one (September 12, 2001, that is) for moral justification.

The burden of proof lay with Saddam, not the US.

You, sir, speak from your rectum.

Posted by Rube at May 14, 2003 05:29 PM

Nonesense = nonsense. Not sure how I missed that, I apologize for my own shortcomings =^).

Posted by James Stephenson at May 14, 2003 05:31 PM

So Scott's position is that because I personally did not topple Saddam Hussain, I have no right to ask the all volunteer military I helped pay for to do it. Does that mean some guy in a wheelchair who has never been in a military also has no right to express his views on the subject because he will not be at risk, just a cheerleader? So what?

This is a non-argument and really makes no sense, so I will wait for you to come up with one that is worth while before sticking my oar back in the water.

Posted by Perry de Havilland at May 14, 2003 05:31 PM

Steve White, anyone "might" strike at us w/ box cutters and stolen airliners. You need to do better than that to justify a war, unless you want to explicitly claim we can invade anyone anytime we want to w/ nothing better than a hypothetical that could apply to anyone.

And you haven't proven Iraq had any better link to Al Qaeda than anyone else had, or a better link than we had to Saddam.

Posted by Scott Cattanach at May 14, 2003 05:33 PM

Becuase if they don't find MWDs in fairly significant quantities it means the Bush Administration lied. Maybe your comfortable with going to war based on lies. I'm not. I don't care whether the administration is Republican or Democrat. LBJ lied about the Tonkin Gulf. George Bush lied about Iraq. The American people deserve to be told the truth and deserve the respect of the government to base their decisions on that truth.

From George Bush's speech giving Saddam 48 hours 'to get outta town'.

The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other.

The United States and other nations did nothing to deserve or invite this threat. But we will do everything to defeat it. Instead of drifting along toward tragedy, we will set a course toward safety. Before the day of horror can come, before it is too late to act, this danger will be removed.

The United States of America has the sovereign authority to use force in assuring its own national security. That duty falls to me, as Commander-in-Chief, by the oath I have sworn, by the oath I will keep.

Read at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030317-7.html

There was also Colin Powell's speech to the UN.

My second purpose today is to provide you with additional information, to share with you what the United States knows about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction as well as Iraq's involvement in terrorism, which is also the subject of Resolution 1441 and other earlier resolutions.

Saddam Hussein has never accounted for vast amounts of chemical weaponry: 550 artillery shells with mustard, 30,000 empty munitions and enough precursors to increase his stockpile to as much as 500 tons of chemical agents. If we consider just one category of missing weaponry--6,500 bombs from the Iran-Iraq war--UNMOVIC says the amount of chemical agent in them would be in the order of 1,000 tons. These quantities of chemical weapons are now unaccounted for.

As for time to search for WMDs. That's what Hans Blix asked for and we denied.

Speak from my rectum eh? Nice reBUTTal.

Posted by Jon G. at May 14, 2003 05:39 PM

Perry, not that you didn't personally (and single handedly) topple Saddam, but that you risked absolutely nothing yourself. There's a difference.

The man in the wheelchair, a grandmother, etc have no business obsessing over a war and questioning the morality, courage, etc of those who disagree.

Since you helped pay for the military, demand they give you the weapons you bought so you can go free the world yourself.

Your "they're volunteers" argument is the Star Trek Mirror Universe equivalent of your chickenhawk strawman. You basically claim that only the people at risk from fighting you war have no business voicing an opinion ("you volunteered, so shut up and obey").

How 'bout we split the difference and make the next Iraq war a volunteer specifically for the war only affair. If any Marine wants to stay home and defend his physical homeland, no govt can make him go overseas.

Posted by Scott Cattanach at May 14, 2003 05:43 PM

Hey Felix - give it a rest. Go back on your meds.

Cydonia wrote:
"The history of U.S. libertarianism (and its old-right roots) is one of principled isolationism and vehement opposition to overseas entanglements and military adventurism."

That's certainly true. Lindbergh was even taken in by them. Fortunately, "US libertarianism" hasn't been running things. Imagine WWI and WWII without US intervention? Imagine the National Socialst Democratic Republic of Greater Euope.

I do have to agree that the "policy of aggressive militarism" in the Civil War was mistaken. They should never have fired on Ft Sumter.

Posted by Mike at May 14, 2003 05:45 PM

It says much about the confusion of the anti-Bushite left that they're reduced to advancing Kissinger-speak realpolitik arguments against the Wolfowitz-Cheney-Bush plan to liberalize the middle east.

Comical, really, to hear left-libs decrying "chaos" in post-Saddam Baghdad and urging the need for "stability" in the middle east...

Posted by Tombo at May 14, 2003 05:48 PM

Scott: "you volunteered, so shut up and obey"

Exactly. They freely contracted to fight the wars that their employer (the state) sends them to fight, so yeah, shut up and obey... you would be a funny sort of libertarian if you did not think contracts freely entered into actually matter.

Posted by Perry de Havilland at May 14, 2003 05:56 PM

@Jon G

Yup, more than ever. We gave Hans Blix two more months to let Iraq show him the WMDs, not to look for them. They didn't do it. We took care of it. We haven't even had one month to look for them on our own, and you're already saying it took too long. Oh, but there I go bringing logic into it again.

The burden of proof was on Iraq, not the US

Those numbers, btw, were provided by the UN, not the US. That they were repeated by the US is not remarkable.

Posted by Rube at May 14, 2003 05:56 PM

perry, scotts response is soooooo predictable. i will e-mail it to you and i bet I am right :)

Posted by songster at May 14, 2003 05:58 PM

Perry "Nuremberg Defense" de Havilland writes:

so yeah, shut up and obey...

Its a funny sort of libertarian who is so insistent that others obey The State, contract or not.

Posted by Scott Cattanach at May 14, 2003 06:00 PM

OK... let's rewind a few years here.... I may be totally wrong, but I strongly reckon the people on the recent peace marches would've been far more likely to have been a) informed, and b) bothered about Saddam's gassing of the Kurds. None of our oh-so-defenders-of-humanity governments did anything but say "ooo... aren't you naughty" at the time.

Now, unless politics has undergone a sea change (unlikely), or it just takes people a long time to react, I don't think Saddam's inhumanity towards his subjects *really* had that much to do with anything. It may help those who were in favour of the war crow at those who opposed it, and it may help provide retrospective justification, but as a motivation for the politicians? The same ones who seemed happy to deal with Saddam while he was gassing Iranians, torturing his own people etc.? I'm sorry, I don't buy it at all.

If the US & UK governments had consistantly presented the war as one of liberation from the start; emphasised Saddam's inhumanity, argued that this was an intolerable situation, & perhaps said "yes, we dealt with him in the past, but now we realise this was a mistake and we'd like to see democracy spread across the globe, and particularly the middle east; it makes sense for all of our sakes", then YES, anti-war protesters would've been pretty stupid, although even then, I think strong grounds for doubting the genuineness of such words from the mouths of politicians would've been in order.

Under the circumstances; changing goalposts several times, & then finally producing Saddam's human rights record (which anyone involved in amnesty international would've known about for years) with a flourish when people failed to be convinced by the more conventional arguments, was remarkably unconvincing to anyone with an intial anti-war bias.

I'm not denying the end result is almost certainly better than Saddam's rule, even with the current state of semi-anarchy, and is likely to remain so for a while... but stopping cruelty and political repression were NOT the criteria presented to the public, or the French or Russian governments, until very recently. If human rights & democracy truly were the overridingly important things they now appear to be, why did they not get more mention in the run up to the war?

Posted by A_t at May 14, 2003 06:01 PM

"The "chickenhawk" argument isn't that only the military can decide which wars to fight. It is a claim that while Perry will demand the war, consider it a crime not to fight the war, and dance in the streets after the war, Perry will clearly not personally risk so much as a hangnail for the freedom of people in Iraq."

I want to note that this argument also applies in reverse: that is to say, those who argued and protested most vehemently against war did not themselves have any possibility of suffering the consequences of that position. Surely it must be easy to argue against deposition of a totalitarian dictatorship, when one lives under the protection of a liberal democracy. They do not go to Iraq to confront Saddam or protest him, or even to try to help in any way.

US out of Iraq and 100,000 Iraqis dead is an acceptable trade. US out of Iraq and themselves dead is not. Chickendoves.

The only other point was re: metrics. See http://www.freedomhouse.org/research/freeworld/2000/methodology.htm for what I think is a comprehensive and reasonably fair system of metrics.

Posted by Abraham Liebsch at May 14, 2003 06:03 PM

songster, why is "unpredictable" a good thing in your book? People who oppose gun control can be predicted to say guns don't kill, people do. We keep saying it because its true.

Its like saying libertarians are sooooo predictable because they oppose conservative and liberal state interventions (The War excepted in some quarters).

Consistency means some level of predictability. Sorry that bothers you.

Posted by Scott Cattanach at May 14, 2003 06:05 PM

Abraham, many of the so called chickendoves are also objecting to the War Party's Patriot Act and the fearmongering that goes with the Act and the War. If my own safety was the most important thing on Earth, I'd be perfectly happy with the government rounding up anyone with skin darker than a paper grocery bag and locking them up forever. I'm not demanding perfect safety, the War Party is by justifying wars on hypotheticals (Saddam might get WMDs maybe years down the road and might ignore deterence and use them).

Posted by Scott Cattanach at May 14, 2003 06:10 PM

For the record, my comment above about rounding up people wasn't a claim that anyone is a threat to me because of their skin color - I was referring to a "Japanese internment" style response to anyone who could possibly be Arab.

Posted by Scott Cattanach at May 14, 2003 06:15 PM

Maybe I should ask you whether you are proud of the mangled bodies in Saudi Arabia being pulled from the wreckage of yet another Al Qaeda mass murder attack?

After all...it was your mindless support for George W. Bush's irrelevent war in Iraq, at the expense of finishing the job of cracking down on the people who actually attacked us.

But I have absolutely no guilt or remorse over my opposition to an Iraqi invasion. I had nothing to do with Saddam's crimes.

And, quite frankly, many opf those people who died...were killed long before jackasses like you suggested we should invade Iraq and take out Saddam Hussein.

Many, it would seem, were killed back when Saddam was a bulwark against the Ayatollah and Donald Rumsfeld was shaking his hand.

Therefore, isn't the blood on your hands as well?

Posted by Hesiod at May 14, 2003 06:16 PM

>Those calling for the "liberation" of the
>Iraqi people should have been the first
>ones on the front lines.

I don't know about you, pal, but I *am* on the front lines. People flew jetliners full of people into buildings full of people 25 blocks from my office. And 6 blocks from my wife. Liberating (no quotes) Iraq was one battle in a war on an ideology of hatred that wants to come to _my_ city and kill _me_.

Posted by John Henderson at May 14, 2003 06:16 PM

Not taking Saddam out in '91 was a serious tactical error. Telling the Shi'ites we'd back them up if they revolted, then not doing it, with the consequence that many were slaughtered...that was bad. I can't blame anyone but Saddam for the mass graves, but there's no question we have some culpability for failing our promises.

Of course, the only apology in any case was to go in and topple Saddam.

I'm not bothered that our justification for war seemed a moving target (except that I'm disappointed that our PR skills weren't sharper). In the end, I'm convinced the real reason was something we couldn't say aloud.

Basically, "the whole Middle East is a great savage sinkhole of political unrest. Meddling in a half-hearted way got us September 11. So, let's go in and make clean spot and...see what happens."

Posted by S. Weasel at May 14, 2003 06:20 PM

Many, it would seem, were killed back when Saddam was a bulwark against the Ayatollah and Donald Rumsfeld was shaking his hand.

Therefore, isn't the blood on your hands as well?

Hesiod, war is the santification of government - its born again with its sins cleansed and forgotten. Amen.
Posted by Scott Cattanach at May 14, 2003 06:20 PM

I never said that your safety was the ONLY thing important to you, or that you value it above all else, just as that is obviously not true of "chickenhawks" either. I was merely pointing out that like chickenhawks, chickendoves had no possibility of suffering the consequences of their positions, should they be carried out.

"Therefore, isn't the blood on your hands as well?"

Perhaps. But I live in the real world, and the sad but true fact is that doing the right thing sometimes means having getting your hands dirty.

Posted by Abraham Liebsch at May 14, 2003 06:24 PM

I don't know about you, pal, but I *am* on the front lines.

No you're not. Would Fox News let some movie actor say in public that he's as much a hero as any soldier who took part in the invasion because he lives in NY and therefore