War in Iraq?, version 4.0 (Official Iraq thread)

Here's a great article from CNN and Time.com:

The Poker Player in Chief

George W. Bush abandoned his studied air of mild sedation only once during his prime-time press conference last week. His eyes lighted up when he was asked if he would call for another U.N. vote on Iraq. A poker metaphor escaped from his Inner Cowboy.

"It's time for people to show their cards," he said, as if he actually enjoyed the prospect of a confrontation with France, Russia and the others. The tactic was unexpected; the belligerence, revealing. The President is ticked off, but he is confident, and he is calling France's bluff. Win or lose in the Security Council, he will prove America's power or the U.N.'s irrelevance.

His confidence is understandable. The war against terrorism is going gangbusters. There is optimism about a quick and successful campaign in Iraq. When the President and his advisers peer a month or so into the future, they see only good news: the world a safer and better place without Saddam; the French and Russians, hat in hand, hoping to become part of the postwar reconstruction; the Democrats, suitably daunted, ready to do the President's bidding in Congress; the stock market heading toward the stratosphere; businesses investing and consumers spending; and the thugs of the world cowering, having absorbed a lesson about American resolve.

Talk to a Bush supporter, and you hear giddy things. Talk to a Bush skeptic, and you hear the end of human life as we know it. In Washington last week, almost all the scenarios were extreme. "If you tear up all the rules and toss them in the air," said Ashton Carter, a Defense official in the Clinton Administration, now agonizing at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, "the results can be really good or really bad--but they're definitely going to be really different."

Actually, the likelihood is an unpredictable scatter of good and bad results. But Carter is speaking about the intensity of what is about to occur. The rules that have been violated are those that govern the etiquette of complex international relations--the rules of diplomacy.

The notion, for example, that the President of the U.S. would challenge our oldest allies to a public showdown is quite remarkable. (Presidents usually do the precise opposite: they struggle to avoid any appearance of disunity.) This is a breathtaking gamble, and the question arises: Is it witting or not? Is the Administration's disdain for diplomatic precedent a strategy--a conscious effort to challenge the institutions and arrangements of the past 50 years--or merely a matter of presidential pique?

The flattery, handholding and creative fudgery that are at the heart of diplomacy are the very sort of fancy-pants flummeries that the President abhors. This has been a radical experiment--John McCain's Straight Talk Express taken global--and the results have been dreadful. If we haven't actually lost a public-relations war to Saddam Hussein, we clearly haven't won.

It is true that Colin Powell was allowed to be diplomatic at the U.N. last fall, negotiating a unanimous vote on Security Council Resolution 1441, but that was an exception. Powell's bolder attempts at diplomacy--the attempt to negotiate with North Korea in 2001 and with Yasser Arafat in 2002--have been thwarted by the White House.

Arrogance has filled the vacuum. Significant allies like Turkey are bullied or bribed, or both; they are not consulted and not listened to. Even when the President says he wants to achieve a diplomatic solution, as in North Korea, he does so undiplomatically, against the advice of our allies, refusing to negotiate directly with the North Koreans. "This is a game of chicken," a diplomat told me, "and everyone except the President seems to understand that he is going to blink first."

Bush's plain talk is often bracing. His challenge to the U.N. over Iraq's intransigence is a good thing; it is what Bill Clinton should have done when Sadda

 

War is the easy way out. It's a quick fix. It's just an old solution that has proven to have limited success.

If we plan to fight the war on Terror and the war on Iraq only with military action, we are doomed to fail.

Do all of you really believe it will end with the war against Iraq? Preemptive wars mean that we will be stuck in a perpetual cycle of war. President Bush is a fool if he thinks that War will really stop any sort of violence or hatred against us, it will most likely increase terrorists resolve to kill us.

War is not the answer, only love can conquer hate. I'm not saying I have the solution (aside from more diplomacy, which is working, however slowly), but we have to come up with a better way than war. Give Peace a Chance. Everyone says we have, but why are we SO insistant on going to war?

Why is NOW so important? It's arbitrary, it's a political move, and it's just a pretext to invade Iraq. Anyone in the government who tells you we are fighting this war FOR THE IRAQI PEOPLE is a fool or a liar.

I just believe that a preemptive war is against our ideology as Americans. We are supposed to work with the world together, and we are supposed to use military force only for defense and aid. I honestly don't see why ANY innocent Iraqi civilians should die if there is a good chance that we can stop this without a war.

Continued pressure, increased inspections, we should be working with the UN to pass resolutions that keep putting pressure on Sadham, forcing him to continue to dissarm. I refuse to accept a war that is made simply because we are "tired" or "impatient." The inspections are working, however slowly, and in the absense of any immediate threat form Iraq we should NOT go to war, no matter how impatient that makes Dubya.

And we have to care about world opinion.

EDIT: And for the religous folk, even if you aren't necessarily Catholic, you have to respect the Pope as a man of God, and respect or at least try and find out why even he is opposed to unilateral attack on Iraq.

 

In order to take an educated stance, especially on an issue as grave as this, I believe its importanted to get as much information as you can on a subject in order to come to a thoughtful conclusion. For those of you who think that the U.S. is unjustified in going to war with Iraq, here are some quotes and links to articles that may change your mind. There are also some who no matter what facts they are presented with would rather not be confused with any sort of information that contradicts their beliefs. I hope that truly cannot be said of anybody here. I understand that there are some who don't believe in war no matter what. I personally disagree with that and believe that war should be used only as a last resort, but is justified in certain circumstances including this one. However, I respect those people's opinion, just as long as they are consistant with it and not just when there is a Republican in the White House.

I spent some time doing this and I hope it was not totally in vain. Take a look and try not to close your mind. Just read them and take it in and think about it.

In 1991 Saddam killed 500,000 people when they rose against him. Nobody demonstrated against him then. But now the United States wants to get rid of the dictator, people are demonstrating against it.?
-one of the Iraqi liberation soldiers the U.S. is training at "Camp Freedom" in Hungary

(UK Telegraph: Saddam 'killed missile chief' to thwart UN team)
(The Los Angeles Times: Protesters With Bloody Hands -Max Boot)
(Reuters: Blix - Iraq Banned Weapons Unaccounted For)
(Human Rights Watch: Iraq's Crime of Genocide: the Anfal Campaign Against the Kurds)
(Amnesty International: Iraq: Systematic Torture of Political Prisoners)

(Colin Powell's Special Section - "Iraq: Failing To Disarm" -audio, video, text)

"This is more than a preemptive strike. It is clearly a defensive action. We are defending ourselves and others against this madman."
-Rush Hudson Limbaugh III

(New Zealand Herald: "Evidence of an Iraqi Official Acting as a 'Professional Rapist'")
(CAABU: Pro-war letter to Tony Blair from Iraqi Exiles in UK)
(ABCNews: Is Odai Hussein More Brutal Than His Father?)
(WSJ: Eight European Leaders Stand With Bush)
(UK Guardian: Ten More European Nations Back US on Iraq)
(Washington Post: Now, It's Business That Booms in Afghanistan)

"The Iraqi regime and its weapons of mass destruction represent a clear threat to world security. This danger has been explicitly recognized by the U.N."
-Letter by Eight European leaders in support of the United States


(Center for Non-Proliferation Studies: WMDs in Iraq)
(Washington Post: UNSCOM Tracks Terror Weapons)
(Washington Post: The Unconventional Arsenal)
[link=http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20

 

War is not the answer, only love can conquer hate.

The $1 million question - will Saddam Hussein finally cooperate if we just start loving the guy?


The inspections are working, however slowly

I'd take issue with that.

 

Cheveyo...
"You know what this means?"

It means exactly what the poll says it means - they support the symbolic message behind the action. That symbolic message is telling France to kiss off.

The fine details of what actions were done to convey that symbolic message (changing "French Fries" to "Freedom Fries") is irrelevent to the question. They weren't polling whether people agreed with that specific action.

They were polling agreement with the symbolic message it conveyed.

As was clear from the poll.

 

Nice article; my feelings on war exactly. After NK's take at our own tactics with Iraq, I'm incredibly worried about post-war conditions. Not only what message we are sending across the world, and if India and Pakistan are going to use the notion of pre-emptive security threat to destroy each other, but I'm also worried about having any long-term presence in the ME and what it means economically speaking.

Aunecah

 

aside from more diplomacy, which is working, however slowly

Continued pressure, increased inspections, we should be working with the UN to pass resolutions that keep putting pressure on Sadham, forcing him to continue to dissarm.

The only reason diplomacy and inspections are slightly working at the moment is due to the imminent threat of force. Without that it will go back to the sludge of the 90's. How do you threaten the use of force if the threatened person/regime knows you won't use it? That is the case here. It is impossible to apply pressure and have the inspections and disarmament work if the UN is unable to enforce their resolutions. Where does the pressure come from except from the threat of force? We know that sanctions don't work. If it is known that the UN does not back up it's "serious consequences" or threats, then how do you expect any person/regime to feel pressured?

 

Even Henry Kissinger seemed to recognize that the coming U.S. - Iraq war has the potential to orient the history of the 21st century into the "effort to contain the political, economic and military might of the U.S."

In the bigger picture we have to think about how much the current conflict is the result of the glacial shifts set in motion by the end of the Cold War. The conflict between the Soviet Union and the U.S. is over, but to a large extent the infrastructures that grew up around the exigencies of the Cold War are still lingering, e.g. NATO.

It's very possible that the U.S. - Iraq war will be the catalyst for deciding what the world looks like for the next half-century.

 

It's very possible that the U.S. - Iraq war will be the catalyst for deciding what the world looks like for the next half-century.

Very true, maybe even longer. It is definitely going to shake up the existing international organizations, and maybe some type of new world order is formed.

If nothing else, it will be an interesting next couple of years.

 

I just think that we can work with the world body, rather than constantly (and stupidly) creating this constant "it's us versus them" mentality.

We have little to gain by pissing off the rest of the world, ESPECIALLY our core allies.

 

"Working with" the world body implies some sort of consensus or compromise. In this case, it's a little difficult to compromise.

 

The fine details of what actions were done to convey that symbolic message (changing "French Fries" to "Freedom Fries") is irrelevent to the question.

You're absolutely right, Genghis12, the fact that french fries aren't French has nothing to do with this protest against France.

DOH!

 

I think the 'french' actually refers to the method of cutting the fries into thin strips ...

 

Thin yellow fries, huh? Kind of like the French backbone.

Hey, I couldn't resist! [Han]It's me.[/Han] //shrug LOL

Seriously though, my question remains: what are you who are in the opposition going to do when the war starts?

 

Pray for a quick victory with little to NO civilian casualties and reletively few military casualties on both sidfes.

 

That's what we're all hoping for OWM.

Unfortunately as in all wars, civilian casualties will be unavoidable. They'll happen, and the US will try its best to keep them to a minimum. However, Saddam doesn't care about his own people, and he'll use them in any way he can to inflict the most damage upon them to try to sway international opinion.

 

On the subject of civilians in Iraq, this from a Time magazine article :

The first Gulf War was as relentless and predictable as the tides? waves of warplanes, followed by thousands of U.S. troops, destroyed much of the Iraqi military. The second Gulf War, if it comes, would be more like the Big Bang?hundreds of towering explosions all across Iraq all at the same time. The Pentagon buzz word for this is simultaneity. The plan would have unprecedented numbers of smart, satellite-guided bombs attack a multitude of targets over a great sweep of territory, swiftly followed by U.S. troops seizing key objectives...

...Civilian casualties are a political and military nightmare. Human-rights groups estimate that about 3,500 Iraqi civilians died in the 1991 war. U.S. officials refuse to estimate the numbers of civilian expected deaths in a second Gulf War. It could get extremely messy, with the carnage broadcast instantly around the world. "What appears on al-Jazeera TV in the region is going to determine success maybe even more so than the actions on the ground," says retired Marine General Anthony Zinni, who ran Central Command from 1997 to 2000. "All the explanations afterwards won't counter those first images."

 

These same organizations predicted many more casualites than actually occured in Afghanistan as well.

So where are these 'human rights' organizations crying out on the inhumanities of Saddam Hussein - his torturing murderous and oppressive ways? I don't hear much about it.

 

Is curious - how did we kill 3,500 Iraqi civilians in the Gulf War?

 

Apparently, six members of the UN security council have submitted a proposal for a 45 day deadline for Hussein.

The countries include Angola, Cameroon, Mexico, Chile, Guinea, and Pakistan.

Throw in the U.K., U.S., Spain, and Bulgaria, and you have a passed resolution.

At least until France vetoes it.

I say agree to the resolution, pass it in the council, then force France to veto it.

Either way, the Coalition wins.

 

Interesting, ShaneP -- it's good reasoning. I wonder if we could cut that down to 30 days and give me a good birthday present.

 

Interesting, indeed.

 

what are you who are in the opposition going to do when the war starts?

-Not pray about anything since I am all but a religious, but I will hope that the less possible men and women will be killed (civilians, US soldiers, Iraqi soldiers etc).

-In the better case I will be for the war if new tangible arguments come to me and Un is in the part.

-In the worst case I will remain against it, and against US foreign policy if UN is not in the part.

with all the mixed possible stances, I think I should buy some aspirin in prevision ^^


how did we kill 3,500 Iraqi civilians in the Gulf War?

For exemple There was a very controversial stuff called "the road of the death" where a very large amount of civilians on exodus has been shot by airplanes. Some experts says it was US airplanes (such errors can occurs...), some are dubious and some says this is a manipulation of Saddam for the world opinion...
Anyway this is not a very clear thing .

(i post this by memory so if i am wrong... it's the fault of my memory not mine^^)