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I know there already are various Iraq threads up, but I honestly do not think such a long statement fits as a post (to Ming). I also hope it leads to, if for a few posts, a good arguments about Iraq, instead of the tired tirades. Finally, I can use this a s reference next time someone asks me about Iraq. So lets go:
As I see it, there are 4 main arguments about going to war with Iraq right now. They are 1) The Saddam-Osama WMD axis. 2) The UN's honor argument 3) the Kinght of Freedom arguemnt 4) The New WM's Burden argument.
1. This argument is probalby by far the one most Americans use to suport this war. The lastest NYTimes poll found that 42% of those answering believed Saddam had some connection himself to 9/11. NOw, the basic arguemtn goes as follows: a) WMD, even bio-chem, in the hands of terrorist can kill hundreads of thousands of Americans. b) Osama and Saddam both hate us, so they will work in concert c) The cost of not acting (hundread of thosands of Americans dead form a WMD attack) is much higher than inaction.
I must say I find this argument the least compelling of all by far So lets start: a) What about the worst case scenerio of going to war? Let me use a plausible one:
The war goes longer than expected, perhaps 3 months. IN that time, strong Iraqi resistance in key cities lead to massive Iraqi casualties, and heavy American ones. The lenght of the war cause mass protests around the world, and in pro-US muslim states the regimes come to the brink of collapse, and this is most likely in Pakistan. Al Qaeda uses the chaos to launch more attacks and still gets it's hand on Iraqi WMD, either cause the Iraqi regime in its last days gives them to Al qaeda, or they get it in the chaos. Hundreads fo thousands of Americans still die in an attack., but this time world sympathy is zip, since people will state you reap what you sow. Now, is this plausible outcome probable? NO, it isn't, but neither is the worst case scenerion given to us to justify this war. first, read onefootinthegrave's post about WMD and the difficulty in using them, and then look at history. The world has already seen a WMD terrorist attack, in Tokyo 1995. 11 people died. Then take the instances Iraq itself used WMD: can any tell the the date when an Iraqi SCUD full of VX landed in the middle of Tehran and killed 100,000 Iranians? No, you can't cause it didn't happen. During 8 years of bloody conflict in which iraq did fire SCUD's at Tehran and used chemical weapons against Iranians, such a "worst case scenerio" never came up. Or take the use of WMD against the kurds. How many Kurds die? 100,000, one million? no, about 5000 for the most publiziced attack, and attack carried out by a professional military with years of experience in the use of WMD, that waited for the best possible circumstances, and used military grade equipment, such as especially made munitions and aircraft.
Where then does the idea that Al Qaeda, lacking all the experience, equipment, and frankly, quantities Iraq had will somehow carry out an attack orders of magintude more detructive than any use of the weapons ever had? Hell, you can hardly point to 100,000 killed by chem weapons in WW1. And as for Biological weapons: the most deadly atatck using them in the alst 50 years was the anthrax mail attack: 8 killed. The next worst in modernity were Japanese experiements against the Chinese, but just as with the case of Iraq, these were attacks carried out by professional militaries with the resources and equipment to maximize the effectiveness. No, biological attacks with the hope of causing tens fo thousands of deaths at once are even less plausible than atatcks with Chemicals, and we have just gone oevr the plausibility of that.
As for the Saddam-Osama links: we are given 2, the Zarqawi cell, and Ansar Al-Islam. Now, on Zarqawi: the best I have heard is that he might have been involved in the killing of the US diplomat in jordan, and may, or may not, still be in Baghdad. Hardly a causus belli in my book. The there is Ansar. How is anser different from the Kashmir seperatist groups trained by Al Qaeda and given direct aid by Pakistan? I mean that in this way: such groups do have links with Al Qaeda, but there has never been any intelligence about these gorups either being able or willing to attack targets outside their area, ie. Kashmir. Ansar has attacked enemies in its area, the Kurds, but no intelliegnce has been shown that this groups has ever planned, or has the capability to carry out attacks against the US or Europe. Much the same could be said of the Chechens. How many attacks against US and EU tagerts have the Chechens, with extensive ties to Al Qaeda, carried out? A link to Al Qaeda does not make you part of it, or mean that you share their capabilities. Another case of "not enough"
2. The seocnd most popular argument is that the UN's honor is at stake if it does not back its previous words with actions, since then its words will be empty. I feel a slight bit of agreement with this, but many other facts more than overcome that. The UN is bypurpose a slo, deliberate body. MOst of the conflicts of the world today have seen little UN actions, and that is because for most of these, the 5 great powers felt no need to get involved, or where on opposite sides and cancelled each other out. Is this an dieal outcome? NO, but it is the way the system is set up and the only reason why the US senate approved, as compared to the League. If no action has been taken against Iraq for 12 years it is because for 12 years no one saw the expense of war beign worth it. Sad but true. NOw, many veto members till hold that view, and as such, have all the power, and legitimacy in slowing the system. Thin of it as the Senate fillibuster. It is there for a reason, so nothing too radical, one way or another, is done. The other reason i ahve against this argument is this: the UN charter does not allow for "posses": the only legitimate source of action is the UN Sec Council Actions outside this authority may be sucessful, but of questionable legitmacy. If the US goes along without the suport of the council (which actually means, the support fo the five veto powers) then its action is a detrimental to the "honor of the UN" as the Iraqi actions.
3. I feel deep symapthy for this arguement, that of freeing the people of Iraq form a dictatorship. To me this is the most valid. But it is still not enough. All governments rest on legitimacy, the mandate of heaven,a s the Chinese would say. Iraq's regime has lost that mandate. But what mandate does the Us ahve to come in and put another one in? What lies in question is the legitimacy of whatever we out in power. Without legitimacy, sucha governemnt may have a very short life. The argument then for freein Iraq rest on our ablity to replace dictatorship wwith somehting better, not something worst, the worst being anarchy. The cost of this, in money and probalby lives will behigh, and they course must be steady, But I don;t feel the Amercian people yet knw this. everyoen said the Us would stay the course in afghanistan. Its beena year sicne we won there: when did you last hear a report on Karzai and what he is doing? Without firm, long etrm, and expensive support, the situation in Iraq may, in 10 years, e as bad, or worst. Can we make it better? Yes, I think we can, but I don't think, that at this point, even with all the forces in place or coming into place, the US population is aware of what will be asked of them, and to ask after they have been thurst into a situation they might not have wanted is a dangerous thing to do.
4. The last agrument, the one least talked about, and the one i think most drives the admin. Back in 1992 Cheney, with the help of lowe echelon staffers, such as Wolfowitz, Perle, and Armitage (all of them now high echelon staffers) put together a policy and startegy revwie in which they set out their view of how the US should act after the Cold War. In it they basically state that the uS should always be "proactive", 'taking out issues befor ethey start". They also felt that US military might can be used to shift political balances out way, and "fix' entire araes, such as the ME. In this argument, once we amke Iraq a shining democracy, Egypt, Syria, Lybia, and Saudi Arabia will all follow, as local democrats, bouyed with our success, drive away the corrupt rules. A fine dream, but is it real? Who are our enemies today? Today our enemies are Islamic militants. We are told democracy will stamp them out. Did this happen in Iran? Back in 1979, when the corrupt Shah feel, the government that took over immidiately was a huge mixed bag of revolutionaries, some Communists, socialists, liberals, free marketeers, and the clerics. The clerics had the strongest following and were able to bring all the toher groups in line, or drive them out of the coolition. Today, liberals and democracts in the ME are weak, much weaker than fundamentalists. Why would a revoltuion in Saudi Arabi aply any different? If liberals are able to bring down the regimes, what stops conservativce clerics from bringing them down in the first few months of the revolution? Back in the early fifties, the emergence of a ofreign military force that reshaped the Arab world came in, Israel. The failure of the old regimes to deal with the situation and the new changes head to their downfall, the Hashemite king in Iraq, the Khadive in Egypt. Did democracy take hold? No, it didn't. If the Us uses it miliatry force to place a democracy within, does that not make democracy a foreign import brought about only by foreign force, thus de-legitimizing the value of it? An attack on Iraq "makes true" all the fears of the fundamanetalist, and noe of the hopes of the liberals anywhere outside of Iraq. Now, could the Cheney view still coem true? It is plausible, but the opposite is also plausible. Given that the conseuqnces will be immense either way, should the war be driven by phases of the moon and weather reports?
As I see it, there are 4 main arguments about going to war with Iraq right now. They are 1) The Saddam-Osama WMD axis. 2) The UN's honor argument 3) the Kinght of Freedom arguemnt 4) The New WM's Burden argument.
1. This argument is probalby by far the one most Americans use to suport this war. The lastest NYTimes poll found that 42% of those answering believed Saddam had some connection himself to 9/11. NOw, the basic arguemtn goes as follows: a) WMD, even bio-chem, in the hands of terrorist can kill hundreads of thousands of Americans. b) Osama and Saddam both hate us, so they will work in concert c) The cost of not acting (hundread of thosands of Americans dead form a WMD attack) is much higher than inaction.
I must say I find this argument the least compelling of all by far So lets start: a) What about the worst case scenerio of going to war? Let me use a plausible one:
The war goes longer than expected, perhaps 3 months. IN that time, strong Iraqi resistance in key cities lead to massive Iraqi casualties, and heavy American ones. The lenght of the war cause mass protests around the world, and in pro-US muslim states the regimes come to the brink of collapse, and this is most likely in Pakistan. Al Qaeda uses the chaos to launch more attacks and still gets it's hand on Iraqi WMD, either cause the Iraqi regime in its last days gives them to Al qaeda, or they get it in the chaos. Hundreads fo thousands of Americans still die in an attack., but this time world sympathy is zip, since people will state you reap what you sow. Now, is this plausible outcome probable? NO, it isn't, but neither is the worst case scenerion given to us to justify this war. first, read onefootinthegrave's post about WMD and the difficulty in using them, and then look at history. The world has already seen a WMD terrorist attack, in Tokyo 1995. 11 people died. Then take the instances Iraq itself used WMD: can any tell the the date when an Iraqi SCUD full of VX landed in the middle of Tehran and killed 100,000 Iranians? No, you can't cause it didn't happen. During 8 years of bloody conflict in which iraq did fire SCUD's at Tehran and used chemical weapons against Iranians, such a "worst case scenerio" never came up. Or take the use of WMD against the kurds. How many Kurds die? 100,000, one million? no, about 5000 for the most publiziced attack, and attack carried out by a professional military with years of experience in the use of WMD, that waited for the best possible circumstances, and used military grade equipment, such as especially made munitions and aircraft.
Where then does the idea that Al Qaeda, lacking all the experience, equipment, and frankly, quantities Iraq had will somehow carry out an attack orders of magintude more detructive than any use of the weapons ever had? Hell, you can hardly point to 100,000 killed by chem weapons in WW1. And as for Biological weapons: the most deadly atatck using them in the alst 50 years was the anthrax mail attack: 8 killed. The next worst in modernity were Japanese experiements against the Chinese, but just as with the case of Iraq, these were attacks carried out by professional militaries with the resources and equipment to maximize the effectiveness. No, biological attacks with the hope of causing tens fo thousands of deaths at once are even less plausible than atatcks with Chemicals, and we have just gone oevr the plausibility of that.
As for the Saddam-Osama links: we are given 2, the Zarqawi cell, and Ansar Al-Islam. Now, on Zarqawi: the best I have heard is that he might have been involved in the killing of the US diplomat in jordan, and may, or may not, still be in Baghdad. Hardly a causus belli in my book. The there is Ansar. How is anser different from the Kashmir seperatist groups trained by Al Qaeda and given direct aid by Pakistan? I mean that in this way: such groups do have links with Al Qaeda, but there has never been any intelligence about these gorups either being able or willing to attack targets outside their area, ie. Kashmir. Ansar has attacked enemies in its area, the Kurds, but no intelliegnce has been shown that this groups has ever planned, or has the capability to carry out attacks against the US or Europe. Much the same could be said of the Chechens. How many attacks against US and EU tagerts have the Chechens, with extensive ties to Al Qaeda, carried out? A link to Al Qaeda does not make you part of it, or mean that you share their capabilities. Another case of "not enough"
2. The seocnd most popular argument is that the UN's honor is at stake if it does not back its previous words with actions, since then its words will be empty. I feel a slight bit of agreement with this, but many other facts more than overcome that. The UN is bypurpose a slo, deliberate body. MOst of the conflicts of the world today have seen little UN actions, and that is because for most of these, the 5 great powers felt no need to get involved, or where on opposite sides and cancelled each other out. Is this an dieal outcome? NO, but it is the way the system is set up and the only reason why the US senate approved, as compared to the League. If no action has been taken against Iraq for 12 years it is because for 12 years no one saw the expense of war beign worth it. Sad but true. NOw, many veto members till hold that view, and as such, have all the power, and legitimacy in slowing the system. Thin of it as the Senate fillibuster. It is there for a reason, so nothing too radical, one way or another, is done. The other reason i ahve against this argument is this: the UN charter does not allow for "posses": the only legitimate source of action is the UN Sec Council Actions outside this authority may be sucessful, but of questionable legitmacy. If the US goes along without the suport of the council (which actually means, the support fo the five veto powers) then its action is a detrimental to the "honor of the UN" as the Iraqi actions.
3. I feel deep symapthy for this arguement, that of freeing the people of Iraq form a dictatorship. To me this is the most valid. But it is still not enough. All governments rest on legitimacy, the mandate of heaven,a s the Chinese would say. Iraq's regime has lost that mandate. But what mandate does the Us ahve to come in and put another one in? What lies in question is the legitimacy of whatever we out in power. Without legitimacy, sucha governemnt may have a very short life. The argument then for freein Iraq rest on our ablity to replace dictatorship wwith somehting better, not something worst, the worst being anarchy. The cost of this, in money and probalby lives will behigh, and they course must be steady, But I don;t feel the Amercian people yet knw this. everyoen said the Us would stay the course in afghanistan. Its beena year sicne we won there: when did you last hear a report on Karzai and what he is doing? Without firm, long etrm, and expensive support, the situation in Iraq may, in 10 years, e as bad, or worst. Can we make it better? Yes, I think we can, but I don't think, that at this point, even with all the forces in place or coming into place, the US population is aware of what will be asked of them, and to ask after they have been thurst into a situation they might not have wanted is a dangerous thing to do.
4. The last agrument, the one least talked about, and the one i think most drives the admin. Back in 1992 Cheney, with the help of lowe echelon staffers, such as Wolfowitz, Perle, and Armitage (all of them now high echelon staffers) put together a policy and startegy revwie in which they set out their view of how the US should act after the Cold War. In it they basically state that the uS should always be "proactive", 'taking out issues befor ethey start". They also felt that US military might can be used to shift political balances out way, and "fix' entire araes, such as the ME. In this argument, once we amke Iraq a shining democracy, Egypt, Syria, Lybia, and Saudi Arabia will all follow, as local democrats, bouyed with our success, drive away the corrupt rules. A fine dream, but is it real? Who are our enemies today? Today our enemies are Islamic militants. We are told democracy will stamp them out. Did this happen in Iran? Back in 1979, when the corrupt Shah feel, the government that took over immidiately was a huge mixed bag of revolutionaries, some Communists, socialists, liberals, free marketeers, and the clerics. The clerics had the strongest following and were able to bring all the toher groups in line, or drive them out of the coolition. Today, liberals and democracts in the ME are weak, much weaker than fundamentalists. Why would a revoltuion in Saudi Arabi aply any different? If liberals are able to bring down the regimes, what stops conservativce clerics from bringing them down in the first few months of the revolution? Back in the early fifties, the emergence of a ofreign military force that reshaped the Arab world came in, Israel. The failure of the old regimes to deal with the situation and the new changes head to their downfall, the Hashemite king in Iraq, the Khadive in Egypt. Did democracy take hold? No, it didn't. If the Us uses it miliatry force to place a democracy within, does that not make democracy a foreign import brought about only by foreign force, thus de-legitimizing the value of it? An attack on Iraq "makes true" all the fears of the fundamanetalist, and noe of the hopes of the liberals anywhere outside of Iraq. Now, could the Cheney view still coem true? It is plausible, but the opposite is also plausible. Given that the conseuqnces will be immense either way, should the war be driven by phases of the moon and weather reports?
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