Richard III
Duke of Gloucester
Originally posted by Cloudyvortex
Richard, Saddam has weapons. He had them in the past and there is nothing to even suggest that he has destroyed them. If we don't destroy them (the weapons) now, he will either use them (unlikely) or sell them (inevitabley). This is very cold of me, but if someone is to die (and someone is going to), better an Iraqi than me. I guess you are one of the few (well, few in any position of power) who honestly believe that Saddam (for the last time, it isn't a country, state, or nation, but a strongman and his millions of slaves) does not have weapons.
You are by no means stupid, just naive. You also probably feel the same way about me.
Whatever.
Quite the contrary. The real difference between our positions is that I'm not so flippant, and I don't look at life as being about "me or an iraqi" until it's necessary to do so - particularly given the history of Allied indifference to the Iraqi people.
Naive would indicate a lack of experience with this sort of thing. You're over a decade younger than me, and it shows. Because I've seen this movie before. I remember predicting at a dinner table in June that Iraq would invade Kuwait - and I didn't have the CIA's resources. I remember the US responding to Saddam's threats by insisting that border disputes between Iraq and Kuwait were not a concern of the United States, and not doing a thing to prevent a war when warnings were available from better sources than my dinner table. I remember Bush saying that the invasion was no big deal, only to correct himself and insist that "this will not stand" after the Thatcher meeting. I watched, incredulous, as hundreds of thousands of troops went to defend Saudi Arabia, an authoritarian and backward monarchy that supported terror (and obviously still does) from a thug of equally questionable morals.
I watched the US obliterate Iraq with a bombing plan designed to destroy "the head" of the country, only to learn later that US forces achieved all goals more quickly, and killed fewer civilians if the air force had actually focused more on the targets the army wanted - namely soldiers and tanks in the desert, far from any civilian settlement or facility. I laugh, now, when I hear the old statement by Colin Powell about how "first we're going to cut it off, then we're going to kill it" - because I can now read dozens of accounts from his colleagues about the bombs wasted on targets near civilians that would have been better used doing what Colin said he aimed to do.
I watched as all this happened to help "liberate" Kuwait - only to find Kuwait is now ruled by the same autocrats that ruled it before, with the difference being that half the Kuwaitis now hate the country that liberated it. I remember the stories confirming that high ranking military leaders beleived that "liberating Kuwait was not worth the life of a single American soldier" - and I agreed.
I remember changing positions from anti-war activist to silent observer as I watched the 24th Mech and Co. advance up the Euphrates beyond Kuwait's borders to accomplish what I thought WAS a worthwhile goal, only to see them stopped and ordered to sit on their hands as Saddam crushed domestic resistance. Oh, and I remember how Saddam Hussein was Adolf Hitler moving into the Rhineland months before, but suddenly Saddam Hussein should be left in power because the stability of the region (!) was too important to jeapardize, and Saddam was stability.
And I remember how we in the west oppose the use of WMD and acts of aggression, except if it's against Kurds and Iranians - although we're quick to complain about the Kurdish deaths when it's convenient years later. And I remember the Kurd situation being left in stasis, because resolving it might actually require getting the same justice for the Kurds in Turkey, and we can't have that.
And best of all, I remember a decade of cruise missle attacks and sanctions. Yes - sanctions! Wasn't good enough to let them work in 1990-91, but waiting over a decade is no skin off our back once the fat f*cking Emirs aren't threatened. We've waited a decade now, and look how successful those were, too? Successful at making life short and miserable for millions of Iraqis, but we kept them going, presumably, because they've been so useful at preventing Saddam from getting WMD, right? Yet another case of the Iraqi people suffering for Saddam. Fantastic policy.
The trick here, Cloudy, is to be a little more skeptical. Do I want Saddam dead? Yes. I've wanted that as a conscious wish since I was 14 (in 1984). I thought he was an enemy of civilization the moment I understood the history of the Iran-Iraq war, and I still think the same today. Do I want Iraq liberated? Yup. Do I beleive that bad history is a reason to avoid good policy? Nope. But as citizens, our first job is to think, not to endorse. After what I've seen, I'm not signing on for anything until I'm convinced it's going to be done for the right reasons, and done right. I'm getting there, but I still need a lot more of both.
R.III
