posted
The US war in Iraq has lasted longer than the US war against Germany in WWII. If it lasts past the Saturday after Thanksgiving, it will have lasted longer than our war against Japan in WWII.
Of course, the US has had longer wars, and the number of troops involved is lower for Iraq. And we haven't mobilized our economy toward the effort to the extent we did during WWII or the Civil War.
Maybe if we compared wars based on person-years of fighting? Or percent of GNP devoted to the war effort.
Anyone seen any figures like that?
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posted
The GNP statistic would probably be a bit skewed, because for WWII it would not figure a reasonable weekly wage for all those conscripts. If they'd been working and making stuff, GNP would be a lot higher; but this kind of opportunity cost is very difficult to account for. While in Iraq, on the other hand, you have a professional army getting paid what they're worth (one assumes). So any 'percentage of GNP' figure would be biased to counting Iraq as relatively more expensive, unless you were careful.
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We lost over 400,000 people out of a population less than half our current size. Imagine losing san francisco and then throwing in Des Moines for good measure.
Now look at the Soviet losses. It's enough to make an Atheist pray.
posted
No, it has become part of the war on terror, in some part because of the poor post attack planning and execution. It started out as a part of the Neo-Con agenda that was inaccurately - and in some degree dishonestly - sold as part of the war on terror.
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posted
I think Pixiest shows rather nicely that there's really no point in comparing a colonial war to a full-dress struggle for world hegemony with two Great Powers at the peak of their strength. How if we looked at some conflicts of the same type? Vietnam, Korea, the various Latin American interventions, Gulf War I?
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We dropped the bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Three days later, the Soviets broke their neutrality pact and invaded Manchuria. A little later in the day we bombed Nagasaki.
On the 14th, they accepted the terms of surrender.
September 2nd, 1945 was VJ day. Within two weeks the allied occupation of Japan began.
Now, there was still fighting for a while. It wasn't until the spring of '46 for all major units to lay down their arms.
But officially, it was still a peaceful occupation. History considers it that way.
So guess when representatives from 52 countries met to start drawing up the terms of the peace treaty? If the war with Japan was won when all major units stopped fighting in the spring of '46, how long did the peaceful occupation last?
The Treaty of San Francisco was signed on September 8, 1951. Five and a half years later. The terms took effect on April 28th, 1952, which is usually considered the end of the official US occupation. But of course, we still have troops in Japan to this day--part of the peace treaties was that the US could keep its bases there.
So in Japan, we had four years of unfettered fighting lead into six months of limbo into five years of stable occupation.
Now, in this war, we've managed to circumvent the four years of unfettered fighting that resulted in hundreds of thousands of death, but we're dealing with an unstable occupation that includes so-called "insurgents" who actually seem to be a multi-national "force" (While some would try to convince us the war in Iraq is separate from the war on Terror, somebody forgot to convince Al-Quaida of that, since they seem to be willing to show up to fight for their side).
But it seems that because this occupation is far more difficult than that one, that somehow this means we should spend less time there.
We can't even measure the cost of this war in tens of thousands yet, but we're still going on about how wrong every death is, as if war had somehow become something that didn't involve death, that didn't involve sacrifice. ________________________
Here's the point I'm trying to make.
Either the cause is worthy of our time and sacrifice, or it's not. Either the cause is worthy of the lives of our sons, or it's not.
Discuss the reasons for the war, discuss the strategy, discuss what we can do differently. Argue with me, disagree with me, passionately convince me that I'm wrong.
But statistics of time and casualties and cost--these do not persuade, nor should they. We already said we were willing to sacrifice because our cause was just. When we called it war and got out our guns we already said we were willing to let our children die.
If our cause is unjust, it is the motivations, not the number of months or deaths involved that make it so--if our cause is just, then that is the reason for our sacrifice.
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quote:No, it has become part of the war on terror, in some part because of the poor post attack planning and execution. It started out as a part of the Neo-Con agenda that was inaccurately - and in some degree dishonestly - sold as part of the war on terror.
Seeing as how the 'War on Terror' is not very precisely defined, I'm not sure how exactly you can be so precise in excluding Iraq from it, Mr. Squicky.
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posted
Not that this has anything to do with this thread, but does anyone have the statistic
1 out of ____ men (army prefferably) died in WWII. It'd be really useful for a family newsletter (I had a grandpa and 5 great uncles just from my dad's paternal side in WWII).
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posted
Well...for what it's worth, my original question was sparked by a desire to come up with a reasonable way TO compare different conflicts. Somewhere (it's not important) I ran across the factoid that the Iraq war had lasted longer than our involvement in the European theater conflict portion of WWII and that it would soon be longer than the war with Japan. I thought it was interesting, but not very meaningful as a comparison.
I think people seem to jump to all sorts of weird and unwarranted conclusions whenver stuff like this comes up. I assure you, my interest is only in seeing if there is a valid comparison and on what basis one would compare conflicts...
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Rakeesh, It can by using the reasons why the Bush administration has used for including it into the war on terror and the timing for both the push and decision to go to war there.
There was no link to 9/11, no link ot al Queda, no links to terrorism other than sending money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. There appear to have been no WMDs save remnants from the 80s and no active programs to procure or hide WMDs.
Then there is the idea that it's part of the war on terror because "we're fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here". The essence of this may be true now, but it clearly wasn't at the start of the Iraqi War.
Finally, the formulation by key members of this administration of the policy that invading Iraq should be one of the first things done in the event that it could be sold to the public predated the war on terror. Also, based on things such as the Downing Street Memos, we now know that the decision to invade was made very soon after 9/11, before a determination of whether was a part of the attacks or affiliated with any terrorists threatening us.
It served the purpose of this administration to link Iraq with terrorism, 9/11, and al Queda, but none of these were true.
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I have no idea what purpose making comparisons of these sorts between this war and others serves. Simple number to number comparisons are irreparably confounded by the immense differences between this and nearly all the things people try to compare it to. In the ways I've seen it done, there's no point other than to serve as a flimsy support for whatever you go in with.
I believe that rewarding Palestinian suicide bombers for murdering Israelis was reason enough alone to go to war. It also makes the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein an open and public ally to murderous terrorism against one of our allies.
Seems like a pretty clear case of cassus belli to me. Then again, there are those who believe that sponsoring terrorism against an ally-if it's Israel-isn't sufficient reason to go to war. Personally I believe that's an indicator that we're already at war with that party.
Questions of the actual reasons used and publicized for going to war with Iraq by this Administration (and Congress) are valid, and for what it's worth I share some but not all of your concerns. I am now and was then dismayed and disgusted by the Bush Administration's unwillingness to attack Iraq without simply finding (or manufacturing, some would say) other reasons.
I am dismayed and disgusted because there was always a chance that their information was wrong, which leads us to where we are now: at odds with many allies on this issue, allies who could-although whether or not they would, such as the current French-Lebanese example is unclear-help us.
If we had stuck to Iraq on its own merits-open ally and material supporter of terrorists, previous public history of aggressive warfare, constant violations of rules ending the previous war, and an unwillingness to prove-as he was required to-that his nation was not arming or beginning to arm with WMDs-if we had stuck to those things, we would not be in the position we are now.
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posted
This type of comparison, if done on a valid basis, would serve at least one useful purpose that I can think of. Maybe two.
1) It would give people an opportunity to put the war in context of our past experience with war. If this war is no bigger and much less costly or dangerous (to our troops) than prior wars, it's good to know that. People can then do a sort of mental calculus comparing the objectives of this war to those achieved (or not achieved) in past wars. It's not the ONLY perspective from which to evaluate a war, of course, but it is one that shouldn't just be ignored. Sort of a "how does this war fit in relation to our past experiences?" I believe such comparisons, if done with sensitivity to the potential flaws, could be useful because it might give people a context for deciding if this war was really worth it or was way over the top. As I said, this shouldn't be the only datum, but it seems at least possibly relevant.
2) Another possibility that could arise from such comparisons is that people might gain knowledge of how horrifically costly (in dollars and lives) the prior wars were. To me, keeping such statistics "alive" in the minds of people in each successive generation is important because we humans tend to glorify the past and it gets some to wish for the same sorts of opportunities today. Who wouldn't want to be part of The Greatest Generation? But war should not be glorified. It is evidence of so much that has broken. Maybe showing what the cost of REAL world war would be in today's dollars will help reinforce a desire to avoid it.
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posted
Rewarding after the fact the family of suicide bombers against another sovereign power, even a close ally, is at best a tentative cause for war, even back when war was considerably more common. For one thing, the families of the suicide bombers have quite possibly done nothing wrong. Providing incentives for suicide bombers before the fact would be closer, but even then we wouldn't go to war over it in the olden days, we'd just have gone to war if Israel went to war. Additionally, its tricky because it was Saddam doing the awarding, and while he's the ruler, his actions are not always the actions of the state; there are plenty of states where prominent, powerful citizens have given similar support.
Not to mention that if we use that as justification we make it look like we'll go to war over extremely small things (which that is in world politics, like it or not), and make the world even more nervous than it is. At least because we had all the made-up reasons the world just thinks we were stupid and a little headstrong, not a rampaging bull who saw someone wave a distracting flag.
There were reasons to go to war in Iraq, but that's a horribly bad one.
A previous public history of aggressive warfare applies to almost every state on earth if we go back a couple hundred years (or considerably less, in most cases). If we're going to war we at least need to phrase the reason in a way that doesn't make everyone attackable.
We already had good intelligence that Saddam's officials would regularly lie to him, and that the organization of his government was atrocious. Nobody knew what Iraq's WMD capabilities were for sure, and nobody could prove to us they didn't exist because they didn't know enough. Also, we now know that Saddam was on the whole rather cooperative with the inspectors, it just felt otherwise because he was taunting us by prolonging and minorly confounding the inspectors. We reacted more than he expected, but he wanted a reaction. Going after every gnat that bites us is an extremely bad policy. It turned out that even the strong threat of war was enough to get Saddam to comply with inspection -- remember, the inspectors had returned been able to return to the task and were working mostly unhindered until they had to leave to avoid being trapped in a warzone.
Most of the violations of the agreement are cases of being a gnat, but they are both an overall better reason for going to war due to being by nature a proportional response (though under traditional practice of war invasion might be considered a bit much, but there are precedents), and one that he didn't seem about to end (unlike the inspectors, who had just gotten back on track to resolving things for a good long while, at least).
The big thing that makes the world sit up and take notice of Iraq is, that except for thumbing its nose at us a lot, Iraq has on the whole been on a similar level to other dictatorial regimes such as Pakistan (not that this is a good level to be at). Any decent justification should be based as much as possible on a set of qualities inapplicable to any but the most unsavory nations, so as to prove to the world and ourselves that we're not just attacking because Iraq aggravates us.
Treaty violations are a good place to start (though it would have been nice if we had written some big requirements on creating a civil society in Iraq, then we would have had really nice leverage). Other decent areas to talk about are threats to the stability of the region, provided we can articulate what constitutes such fairly explicitly.
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quote:Originally posted by fugu13: Rewarding after the fact the family of suicide bombers against another sovereign power, even a close ally, is at best a tentative cause for war, even back when war was considerably more common. For one thing, the families of the suicide bombers have quite possibly done nothing wrong. Providing incentives for suicide bombers before the fact would be closer, but even then we wouldn't go to war over it in the olden days, we'd just have gone to war if Israel went to war. Additionally, its tricky because it was Saddam doing the awarding, and while he's the ruler, his actions are not always the actions of the state; there are plenty of states where prominent, powerful citizens have given similar support.
Including our ally, Saudia Arabia, where according to Maureen Dowd there were telethons for the families of suicide bombers, on which shows high-ranking members of the ruling house of Saud publicly pledged donations.
A better comedy writer than I could write a great parody of such a telethon, but mine would be more offensive than funny so I'll just imagine it.
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I agree with you about how going to war over such a thing would be perceived. I'm speaking for personal belief here.
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posted
It is so easy to lose perspective on the war. In fact, some of the posts here make it clear that some have forgotten how it started in the in the first place. I found an excellent essay that sums up my recollections in last night's Time magazine Here This war was not without justifications. The President just elected to pick an invalid reason to "sell" it to the people. His timing was also suspect. And a successful outcome is not an unreasonable expectation. But, again, the President has not chosen to recognize or artictulate a reasonable outcome. Nor, has he been willing to provide the leadership to that end. On the day the war started, in a discussion with my wife who was strongly aganst the war, I expressed my doubts, not in the war itself but in the administration who apparently had no "end game" in mind. I feel even more strongly now that the whole affair has suffered from their falure to lead. We don't need an "anti war" President. But, we do need a competent one.
I didn't have much time before, so I'll explain what I meant a little more now.
I shouldn't have used the term cassus belli, among its other definitions is a literal internationall-accepted sufficient provocation for war. Or at least, I should have been more specific: I believe that rewarding suicide bombers of our allies is, in itself, an act of war against our ally and depending on how close we are to the ally in terms of friendship, against us as well.
In practical terms, if you begin a policy of rewardinng the families of suicide bombers long enough, I believe that is incentive before the fact. It's just another reason to become a suicide bomber. It's the same reason suicide ain't covered much in life-insurance policies.
quote:Additionally, its tricky because it was Saddam doing the awarding, and while he's the ruler, his actions are not always the actions of the state; there are plenty of states where prominent, powerful citizens have given similar support.
Whether or not he did it in his capacity as dictator of Iraq is irrelevant to me-again speaking personally here. He was the government of Iraq, for most intents and purposes for one thing.
quote:A previous public history of aggressive warfare applies to almost every state on earth if we go back a couple hundred years (or considerably less, in most cases). If we're going to war we at least need to phrase the reason in a way that doesn't make everyone attackable.
True. A recent history of aggressive warfare, for which adequate compensation and 'apologies' have not been made would be better.
quote:Also, we now know that Saddam was on the whole rather cooperative with the inspectors, it just felt otherwise because he was taunting us by prolonging and minorly confounding the inspectors. We reacted more than he expected, but he wanted a reaction. Going after every gnat that bites us is an extremely bad policy. It turned out that even the strong threat of war was enough to get Saddam to comply with inspection -- remember, the inspectors had returned been able to return to the task and were working mostly unhindered until they had to leave to avoid being trapped in a warzone.
Hindsight is 20/20. No one has ever explained adequately to me why, under the circumstances, taunting and prolonging and confounding the weapons inspectors at all at the time shouldn't have been a gigantic red flag, or why it makes sense to have taken into account, "He may be screwing with us."
quote:Treaty violations are a good place to start (though it would have been nice if we had written some big requirements on creating a civil society in Iraq, then we would have had really nice leverage). Other decent areas to talk about are threats to the stability of the region, provided we can articulate what constitutes such fairly explicitly.
posted
Rakeesh, I wasn't talking about whether the war could be justified on some grounds. I'm entirely convinced that it could have been. This isn't something I've ever disuputed. I was a staunch supporter of the war until I learned of the massive deception pulled against myself, the American public, and the rest of the world. Even now, I'm convinced the U.S. was legally justified in invading Iraq.
I'm saying that it didn't, at its inception, fit under the heading of war on terror. That was just part of the snowjob the administration pulled on us. That it is now part of the war on terror is testament to their failure in dealing with the post-attack situation.
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You used a term incorrectly up there. Giving money to the families of suicide bombers is not "material support" of terrorists. As far as we know, Saddam provided no money or other assistence for the bombers to carry out their attacks. That's the definition of material support. You could make the argument that him joining with many, many other people in taking care of the families of suicide bombers contributed to a culture that induced people into the bombings, but that doesn't constitute material support.
Nor does it, to me, indicate any sort of threat to the United States, which was why we were told invading was so vital.
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edit: As I said, there were plenty of adequate legal justifications for attacking Iraq. However, as I've said many times on this issue and others, having the right to do something and it being a good or responsible idea are often two very different things.
WMDs and links to terrorism were very shaky justifications for war but they had one effect that most of the other more solid justifications lacked. They made Iraq look like a threat. They made invasion seem not just like a good move, but a necessary one.
Take them away and, yes, you've still got a strong legal case for the attacks. However, at that time, with those people, the response from many people (myself included) to the legally justified case would have been "What the crap are you thinking? That's a terrible idea."
And I'm someone who is sympathetic to the neo-con idea of "spreading democracy" as a partial solution to many geo-political problems.
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posted
Well, let me clarify even further then. I'm not speaking in legalese here, I'm not talking about what international laws and standards dictate. When I say something like, "Saddam Hussein gave material support to suicide bombers against Israel," I mean he gave money or material that aided their cause.
Rewarding their families, thus making it easier for the suicide bombers themselves to engage in their murder, and helping to persuade others to join by glorifying it, falls to me under that category.
Nor do I think-and I realize you are not saying this-that threats against the United States are the only reasons we should go to war.
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posted
Hindsight is 20/20, but in this case most nations other than us, the UN, and the inspectors themselves had pretty darn good foresight, so its not a great excuse that we didn't. They were all yelling at us to wait on more feedback on the inspectors now that they had been allowed back in and given significantly more powers.
We knew he was screwing with us, and it was darn annoying, but I strongly hope that the line between extreme annoyance and invasion is a broad one. We need reasons that reflect our responsibility to act commensurately with the impact of our actions.
I do hear you on the 'personally' issue. In an ideal world, there are lots of states (and lots of things in our own country) that would not exist, that we could root out. We're so far from that, though, that I have a hard time talking in terms of "here's what I think is enough to go to war" without including the context of international politics.
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quote:Hindsight is 20/20, but in this case most nations other than us, the UN, and the inspectors themselves had pretty darn good foresight, so its not a great excuse that we didn't. They were all yelling at us to wait on more feedback on the inspectors now that they had been allowed back in and given significantly more powers.
Sure they were yelling at us. Although I don't think they thought it trivial that we were the primary target of terrorist attacks-particularly with WMD-it was not the UN or the European community whose butt was on the line, it was us.
Furthermore, people whose job it is to avoid war-such as the UN and (in this case) weapons inspectors are more likely to have a much higher standard for justification for war than others whose standard is lower. I do not think that means they should be adhered to in every case, though.
'Annoying' depends on the context. We can be 'annoyed' by Chavez, and we can be 'annoyed' by Castro, and we can be 'annoyed' by North Korea. In all cases the current level of threat may be relatively low, but the margin between 'annoyance' and 'legitimate threat' is much, much smaller.
As for international politics...I realize they're necessary, and I realize they're what we have to deal with. But much, much more than domestic politics within the United States, 'international politics' seems to be more about maintaining the status quo and maintaining order than what is actually good and/or right. That's why even though I recognize those things are important, they're not in my perspective primary motivators.
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posted
Iraq had never launched an attack against us with WMD, we had no evidence they had or would be remotely likely to provide WMD to terrorists, and I rather think Iran and Kuwait would be far higher on their list of places to attack with WMD than the US. Our butt was no more on the line than the EU's, particularly in the short term required to finish the round of inspections. Even if the worst of our intelligence predictions were true we were in no near-term danger from Iraqi WMD, the only people saying that were those dealing in political hype.
I think doing what is right is extremely important. But I can list dozens of countries, including the US, doing very wrong things that should not be done. The question is not whether or not what Iraq (or the US, or Russia, or Pakistan, et cetera) was/is doing was/is wrong, or bad, but whether or not it is sufficient motivation to invade, which cannot be answered without consideration of what it means to act (or specifically, invade) responsibly -- a consideration that must minimally include a clear statement of reasons, effective planning for anticipated post-invasion situations and contingencies, and a commitment to take responsibility for the new nation.
Note that this doesn't mean we can't do things over the wishes of the international community -- nothing in what I said states that. However, when we're acting without significant international support our responsibility to act with clarity and dedication is all the more important, two important measures the Bush administration failed miserably at, and which I feel an invasion motivated by payments to suicide bombers would not accomodate.
Every state on this planet is doing or has done things that are wrong or bad. The US is doing some now. Imagine some country whose citizens we have abducted, had tortured, and then discovered were not merely innocent but clearly innocent is more powerful than the US. We have done something very wrong to this country, and perhaps even in this new world we refuse to stop. Temporarily ignoring the nuclear issue, is it not incumbent on that country to not invade (despite what's actually a pretty clear cause for war in international legal terms) because preserving the order (and avoiding an utterly devastating conventional war) is more important than correcting the wrong? Right now the only difference in scenario is no country whose citizens we've done that to has the force available to invade us.
I think things do tend to fall too far in the direction of stability. One of my positions is that there is too little war in Africa. We use aid payments to prop up dictatorships in the name of stability (even when dictatorships are not skimming from humanitarian aid, the aid does stabilize their regime somewhat), when absent support many of those dictatorships would likely be toppled.
Of course, the situation is not nearly even that simple, since part of the reason for the aid payments is to disincentivize dictatorships from allying with distasteful countries like Iran, Russia, or China in order to obtain support.
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quote:Sure they were yelling at us. Although I don't think they thought it trivial that we were the primary target of terrorist attacks-particularly with WMD-it was not the UN or the European community whose butt was on the line, it was us.
Since 9/11 there have been major terrorist attacks on Bali (primarily on Australian tourists) and the London terrorist bombings. I don't think that the idea that the U.S. is the primary target of terrorism colors other countries' perceptions anywhere near as much as it does ours.
And, as fugu pointed out, our butts were clearly not on the line in regards to Iraq.
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posted
squick: actually they thought they austrialians in Bali were Americans, from what I understand.
And they went after London y Madrid because they were perceived to be our lapdogs. They actually succeeded in changing the spanish government to one less friendly to the US with that attack.
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quote:Iraq had never launched an attack against us with WMD, we had no evidence they had or would be remotely likely to provide WMD to terrorists, and I rather think Iran and Kuwait would be far higher on their list of places to attack with WMD than the US. Our butt was no more on the line than the EU's, particularly in the short term required to finish the round of inspections. Even if the worst of our intelligence predictions were true we were in no near-term danger from Iraqi WMD, the only people saying that were those dealing in political hype.
Iran and Kuwait would certainly be more likely targets for them to attack openly. Perhaps not so covertly with any WMD. I disagree about your statements concerning the EU. I believe we are far more hated than the European community by Islamic-fascists in general and by Saddam Hussein in particular. While by appearances the short-term was not dangerous to us, I think we were at the time more than understandably concerned about delaying for the sake of 'the short-term'.
quote:However, when we're acting without significant international support our responsibility to act with clarity and dedication is all the more important, two important measures the Bush administration failed miserably at, and which I feel an invasion motivated by payments to suicide bombers would not accomodate.
I agree with the first. I'm uncertain why you're focusing on the second, however. I have already admitted that by international standards, rewarding and supporting suicide bombers against an ally is not sufficient cause.
quote:Right now the only difference in scenario is no country whose citizens we've done that to has the force available to invade us.
That's true. I don't exempt the United States from this kind of moral judgement. We lack the kind of clear-cut choice between us and the Soviet Union for world dominance. We should not be doing many of the things we're doing-what support I have left for the Bush Administration erodes even further everytime I hear more about things like "trust us, it's tough but humane treatment at our formerly secret CIA prisons in foreign nations, where torture is perhaps allowable."
quote:One of my positions is that there is too little war in Africa.
Couldn't agree more.
quote:Since 9/11 there have been major terrorist attacks on Bali (primarily on Australian tourists) and the London terrorist bombings. I don't think that the idea that the U.S. is the primary target of terrorism colors other countries' perceptions anywhere near as much as it does ours.
The operative word in that paragraph is 'since'.
It is essentially a matter of guesswork as to who would have been the most likely target of a covert WMD strike from Iraq. The most that can be done with any degree of certainty is to put people OFF the list. Most of Europe certainly falls off that list.
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quote:It is essentially a matter of guesswork as to who would have been the most likely target of a covert WMD strike from Iraq. The most that can be done with any degree of certainty is to put people OFF the list. Most of Europe certainly falls off that list.
I don't see why that would be.
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posted
Because Saddam Hussein didn't keep tables of his most hated enemies lying around? I'm not sure if you're being serious or not, Mr. Squicky-I don't mean that to be snarky either, it just seems obvious to me.
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posted
According to the linked casualty listing from WWII, Japan had 2,000,000 military and 600,000 civilian deaths.
That doesn't sit easy with me.
Hiroshima: 140,000 Nagasaki: 74,000 Tokyo Firebombing: 100,000
Total fatalities for just those three incidents: 314,000
I don't know how many of those casualties were military, but considering how non-discriminatory the methods of attack were, I can't imagine its more than a small percentage.
So that's about half of the supposed total civilian casualties right there. From Wikipedia:
quote:By June, over forty percent of the urban area of Japan's largest six cities (Tokyo, Nagoya, Kobe, Osaka, Yokohama, and Kawasaki) was devastated. LeMay's fleet of nearly 600 bombers destroyed tens of smaller cities and manufacturing centers in the following weeks and months.
I'd imagine there were hundreds of thousands of civilians killed in these cities as well.
Hard for me to get the numbers to match up in my head.
quote:Furthermore, people whose job it is to avoid war-such as the UN and (in this case) weapons inspectors are more likely to have a much higher standard for justification for war than others whose standard is lower.
One lesson we should take from this is that we should elect leaders who, like the U.N., also consider it part of their job to avoid war - not leaders who think of war as a tool in the toolbox that we can impose on other nations whenever we think it may help our needs in the long run.
Little about the results of this war was unpredictable. I said myself beforehand that we shouldn't conclude Iraq has WMDs utnil inspectors say we have proof, that we'd come out as the bad guys if we went in unilaterally without solid justification, that we'd incite more terrorism than we'd stop with any invasion, that there was a strong chance of civil war if we invaded, and that we'd probably just be doing Al Qaeda a service by taking their enemies out of power in Iraq so terrorists could move in an take control. How can these things have been apparent to us beforehand, yet overlooked by those in power who are supposed to know what they are doing?
I think the answer is that the Bush administration has viewed all of the same information under the light of mistaken assumptions. They have assumed that we can and should shape the world according to our own design with our military and economic might. They have assumed that it is possible to make ourselves secure from enemies. They have assumed the terrorists are motived only by evil, and not by anything we may have done to provoke them. And they have attempted to force all other data to fit these assumptions, rejecting any that differs from it. As long our leadership leads based on such assumptions, we will continue to get ourselves into more conflicts and find ourselves more and more under threat. Until we change the way we think, until we begin to approach the international community as peers rather than children to guide, and until we begin to see why it is so critical that we do the right thing rather than engage in whatever means we think will achieve the desired ends, we are going to be in trouble. So, in my view, the big question about the Iraq War is this: Did we really learn our lesson? Or have we instead merely convinced ourselves it was some fluke that caused this not to work as planned - that it was just poor planning by Bush, or poor execution, or poor information-gathering - that it will work better next time?
I suspect many people believe is the latter, and that's what worries me the most. It is entirely possible, I think, that we will decide to touch the hot stove yet again, and will yet again wonder afterwards why it keeps burning us whenever we do so.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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Rakeesh, Under the hypothetical situation that we now know is false, Saddam would funnel WMDs to non-Iraq controlled terrorist groups. In that case, I don't see how you can say they wouldn't use them on Europeans.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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If Saddam giving money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers is a reason for the UNITED STATES to go to war, then I believe we have the most grossly irresponsible President of the last couple centuries.
Either way, I don't think the War in Iraq really compares to anything in recent memory. I also don't think of the War on Terrorism as a real war, any more than I'd compare the War on Drugs to WWII. The war on terror won't be over until there's world peace, and I'm sorry but I refuse to give any president unfettered powers for the next couple hundred years.
America didn't go to war itself in WWI or WWII, despite the fact that our allies were getting womped on, until there was either a direct attack, threat or implication of threat, to the US homeland itself.
Imagine the US declaring war on Japan because they gave money to the families of independent terrorist kamikaze fighters that attacked the British mainland. It never would have happened. 1. Because we expect Britain could take care of themselves, and 2. Because they never attacked us.
Even that is a bad example, because there were much bigger threats to us than Iraq, so imagine Albania attacked Britain with kamikaze plans, and our response was to invade Italy. Well, the metaphor doesn't have to be dead on for anyone to get the point. Saddam's crimes might have been bad enough to garner invasion, but there were worse crimes elsewhere that demanded much more attention from us. Israel has shown a willingness in the past to defend themselves more aggressively than any other of our allies, why do they need us attacking Iraq?
FURTHERMORE, if we're going to defend Israel, why the hell did we attack Iraq and not Iran, who actually gives money DIRECTLY TO THE TERROISTS! And supplies them DIRECTLY WITH WEAPONS.
The whole thing boggles the mind and gives me a headache. But I don't see the value in comparing wars, only because I don't think you could ever come up with a system of accurately comparing them in any substantive way. Death for death is one thing, but how do you compare scope? money spent? the effect on the American people? the gains made from the war? the necessity? the cause? and a dozen other things, many of which are subjective.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:I don't see how you can say they wouldn't use them on Europeans.
Fortunately I didn't say they wouldn't use them on Europeans. I said that 'most of Europe'. I mean, Saddam Hussein was not known to have much of a problem with northern, eastern, or many other segments of Europe was he? And nor are they the commonly hated targets of Islamic-fascist terrorist groups.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Imagine the US declaring war on Japan because they gave money to the families of independent terrorist kamikaze fighters that attacked the British mainland. It never would have happened. 1. Because we expect Britain could take care of themselves, and 2. Because they never attacked us.
Imagine that Japan was doing a host of other things, small in and of themselves in terms of threat, simultaneously.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Rakeesh, I think you're making a mistake in assuming that the only way the fictional scenario of Iraq giving WMDs to external terrorist groups would play out is that Saddam would pick the targets.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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