UN authorizes `all necessary measures' in Libya

[Wezil]

I was speaking in general terms, and further went on to say the couple of examples this has happened are exceptions, not the rule.

Which is all I was saying but you chose to argue with me about it? Geez.

All of which have extenuating circumstances -- like for Afghanistan, both committed to it pre-election and they STILL managed to bicker about it extensively as they argued about HOW it should be done.

Oh come off it. Harper was eager to extend the mission and the Liberals came to him with a proposal (the training mission) both parties could agree to. It was done over coffee and is one of the reasons voters like myself are so ****ing pissed at both of them. How dare they push me toward the NDP.

[Wezil]

Btw Asher,

Why would you oppose Dion's Green Shift when clearly he was just doing in duty and proposing alternate policy to the Conservatives? How do you know what a politician's real intentions are if you can't trust anything they say? What is your secret?

[Asher]

Which is all I was saying but you chose to argue with me about it? Geez.

All of which have extenuating circumstances -- like for Afghanistan, both committed to it pre-election and they STILL managed to bicker about it extensively as they argued about HOW it should be done.

Oh come off it. Harper was eager to extend the mission and the Liberals came to him with a proposal (the training mission) both parties could agree to. It was done over coffee and is one of the reasons voters like myself are so ****ing pissed at both of them. How dare they push me toward the NDP.

Revisionist history...

It was a campaign promise Harper made in 2008 to pull out of Afghanistan.

[Wezil]

800 troops left behind to further the occupation is not "pulling out".

[Asher]

Btw Asher,

Why would you oppose Dion's Green Shift when clearly he was just doing in duty and proposing alternate policy to the Conservatives? How do you know what a politician's real intentions are if you can't trust anything they say? What is your secret?

It was an election promise that was very detailed in specifics of how it would be implemented and even included a timeline. It had formal documentation backing it up. This is more than just a blowhard comment as the opposition in legislature or citizen advocacy group.

[Asher]

800 troops left behind to further the occupation is not "pulling out".

Ah, so now we're playing semantic games.

Here was his promise:

"We're planning our withdrawal of Canadian troops from Afghanistan in 2011. At that point, the mission... as we've known it, we intend to end it, " Mr Harper told reporters in Toronto.

He said that by 2011, Canadians will have been in Kandahar for six years. He acknowledged that neither the public nor the troops themselves had any appetite to stay longer and that only a small group of advisers might remain.

Go ahead and continue trying to paint this was some kind of Liberal-Conservative instance of cooperation. I've got better things to do so I'm taking my leave.

[Wezil]

It was an election promise that was very detailed in specifics of how it would be implemented and even included a timeline. It had formal documentation backing it up. This is more than just a blowhard comment as the opposition in legislature or citizen advocacy group.

So he really really meant it.

[Wezil]

Ah, so now we're playing semantic games.

Here was his promise: ""We're planning our withdrawal of Canadian troops from Afghanistan in 2011. At that point, the mission... as we've known it, we intend to end it, "

You are the one playing semantics. The quite clear impression is that we are leaving not staying on in a different role.

Go ahead and continue trying to paint this was some kind of Liberal-Conservative instance of cooperation. I've got better things to do so I'm taking my leave.

I've always got better things to do but watching you squirm was amusing. You were off your game tonight.

[Wezil]

Sorry for the threadjack everyone.

We now return to our scheduled programming...

[notyoueither]

Except he implements economic policies he railed against before becoming PM. Was he wrong then or is he wrong now?

I don't think that there was a Great Recession at the time that Harper said that, nor that all of Canada's economic and political allies would agree to all push the lever on spending in an effort to head off far worse.

So, it might have something to do with the situation and not the ideology.

BTW, I'm pretty sure there are professional economists who argue that what has been done was the best policy for the circumstances.

[Zevico]

You seem to not be understanding my argument. I'm sure America had the best intentions in supporting Iraq, they didn't mean to piss people off.

Sure they did. The question is who and why. And you're not answering (because you can't be bothered thinking about it, or perhaps you don't know).

What I'm arguing is the result of their decades of good intentions are laid bare before us. They support one regime to topple another, then later come in to topple the regime they supported. Each time they do this, there's bloodshed and each time it costs the Americans countless dollars better spent elsewhere.

Now this is just plain nonsense. You clearly have no idea why they supported Iraq and you clearly have no idea why they invaded it afterwards.

I'm sure Rumsfeld had it all planned out from the beginning: first we help out Iraq, then we invade it; huzzah. The man was clearly some kind of fortune telling god, because that's the only way the Americans would have known this would have happened. No one took him to be silly enough to invade Kuwait then, but that's what he did post the Iran-Iraq war.

But leaving that aside--assuming the Americans somehow knew Saddam was that erratic (and there were indicators of poor planning and performance here and there, perhaps not out of the ordinary in such a regime)--the question remains--was supporting him justified or not?

You simply can't be bothered examining the reasons for the Americans' support for Iraq past a simplistic level. Your responses so far come in platitudes and bromides, not cogent analysis.

The reasons are obvious -- it is none of their concern. I don't buy the human rights argument, because the US knew Saddam was a war criminal long before they decided to invade Iraq under proven lies and false circumstances, desperately trying to inaccurately label it part of the "war on terror".

The human rights "argument" was simple naivete and never the real reason for going to war; the real reason was (and you can look at either Bush's speeches, or the Act authorising the war if you wish)--national security. Put shortly, the Americans were concerned that Saddam was an erratic decision-maker who would get nukes and then decide to go traipsing down Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

Oh, that certainly makes your case stronger than supporting him was the good thing to do, doesn't it?

My "case" was never about Saddam being good or bad in the first place, as I made perfectly clear. The Americans chose the bad over the worse, because they thought they had to make that choice to attack Iran. You seem convinced that was the wrong choice but you can't be bothered explaining why. To you it is "obvious," but not obvious enough for you to provide a clear answer instead of a platitude.

[notyoueither]

It's like criticising Nixon for going to China. The politician did something that people who voted for him never would have thought possible and would have impaled Johnson for doing. But what he did was right for the time and lauded by just about everyone, eventually.

BTW, I'm waiting for the Liberals to deal with the aftermath of corruption and to get their act together. We had good economic management from Martin and Chretien precisely because they are Liberals and have the ability to say no to the forces that push government spending up. When the Tories try to do it they lose elections. When the Liberals actually do it it helps them stay in power by splitting off soft c Conservatives, Red Tories, etc.

[Asher]

My "case" was never about Saddam being good or bad in the first place, as I made perfectly clear. The Americans chose the bad over the worse, because they thought they had to make that choice to attack Iran. You seem convinced that was the wrong choice but you can't be bothered explaining why. To you it is "obvious," but not obvious enough for you to provide a clear answer instead of a platitude.

There were three choices: "nothing", "bad", "worse". They chose "bad". And in doing so, paid a great price economically and angered more people in the world.

You keep coming down to choosing between Iraq and Iran, which is nonsense.

Why was it the wrong choice? Because it served nothing, it cost a lot, and it killed people. America is not safer today for having sided with Iraq, then subsequently invading it. But they are certainly poorer for it.

I'm pleased to see you're keeping up with the Australian stereotype of blindly cheerleading the American war machine.

[Zevico]

There were three choices: "nothing", "bad", "worse". They chose "bad". And in doing so, paid a great price economically and angered more people in the world.

This begs several question and contains several flimsy assumptions.

What was the consequence of doing nothing? Why did the Americans think their support for Saddam was better than doing nothing? They did so because, in their view, an Iraq controlled by Iran--a possibility--was worse than helping the Iraqis. Helping the Iraqis preserved the desirable stalemate between the two countries which led to a cessation of hostilities. Not helping them involved the risk of losing Iraq to Iran, or a weaker Iraq. Iraq was a necessary counterbalance to Iran's power. If Iran has too much influence, it will begin to throw money towards 'revolutionary' causes everywhere, much as the Soviets did, and engage in a proxy war against American interests everywhere. It has done precisely this, incidentally, effectively lighting every tinderbox in the Middle East. Its 'ability' to do so, however, would pale in comparison to an Iran in control of Iraqi oil fields (or much stronger influence in Iraq--e.g. a religious Shia Iraqi regime, assisting Iran in its revolutionary aims) with its eyes cast on Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

That was the outcome the Americans feared. Was it a reasonable fear? Well, in the scheme of things oil is pretty damn important to the global economy, and lighting a tinderbox in the oil-filled Middle East (not to mention attacking Western targets with impunity) would be a consequence of a strengthened Iran. Which is precisely what it is doing today.

So as between doing nothing and helping Saddam, helping Saddam was a reasonable decision. There was no other method of ensuring that Iran's expansionist proclivities failed.

Moreover, it is not as if the Baath Iraqi regime went to war in the hope of conquering Iran (an impossibility as Iran is much bigger). The Baath's members were being assassinated, and revolution being formented, by pro-Iranian and Iranian-funded Iraqi groups. They also funded the Kurdish militia. It was proxy war against the Baath; the Baath decided to turn things up a notch to prevent further activity. My point in saying this is not that the Baath was morally justified (Baathism is akin to Nazism, Arab-style, with socialist economic policy). My point is that the decision was a reasonable one for the Ba'ath to take. No one was prepared for Saddam to strike Kuwait later; people thought the Baath were brutal dictators, but not as grossly incompetent as Saddam proved to be. (Even if they knew this, however, it would still be better to risk a 'greater Iraq' than a much more powerful 'greater Iran.')

You keep coming down to choosing between Iraq and Iran, which is nonsense.

I made no such claim and do not claim as much now.

Why was it the wrong choice? Because it served nothing, it cost a lot, and it killed people. America is not safer today for having sided with Iraq, then subsequently invading it. But they are certainly poorer for it.

America is safer for having siding with Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war, as explained above.
Moreover, its decision to invade Iraq was based on the view that Saddam (1) would shortly possess nuclear weapons [as most intelligence agencies affirmed--presumably they were the 'liars' in your fantasy]; (2) that Saddam was grossly incompetent and likely to make for Kuwait given the opportunity (and he tried again in 1994, incidentally); (3) if and when Saddam would obtain nukes, the US could not credibly deter Iraq from invading Kuwait, absent perhaps the positioning of a permanent and sizable military force in Iraq and Iran (whose continued presence would always be subject to very big question marks). To me it is point (3) which is perhaps the weakest in the argument, but the argument is not that bad on balance. Point (2) was made out and as to point (1), well, it was the best info they had and they had to go on it.
All this is not to say that the occupation was a resounding success of course.

I'm pleased to see you're keeping up with the Australian stereotype of blindly cheerleading the American war machine.

Pablum. I for one think the Libyan intervention is poorly thought out. There are serious questions to be raised about the outcome the Americans seek here and I don't see them being answered.

[SlowwHand]

It isn't an American thing, and I would imagine that it's more thought out than you know. Everything else, I agree with you.