you are correct. The war never ended, because the US chose not to allow it to come to an end. And in reality, in some sense, the war never ended either, since the bombing and killing of the Iraqis (through the murderous sanctions) never ended.
However, the part of the war in which Iraq was actually putting up a fight was over almost immediately. The rest of it was just beating a dead horse.
The UN originally authorized member states to use force to stop Iraq from taking over Kuwait. That was done. The UN certainly never authorized the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Thus under the UN charter the war (or the second part of it, if you want to be picky) was an act of aggression, the "supreme crime" of Nuremburg, and should be treated as such.
Hey, man, argue with Francis Ford Coppola about it. I'm just quoting the appropriate quote.
However, I think the quote is pretty deep. Just ask yourself, which do we see more explicitly displayed on prime-time television, sex or violence? How many murders (real and fake) does the average child witness on TV? How many sexual acts?
For that matter, think about it: why do we use the word "fuck" as an expression of hatred? I for one have certainly never used the act as an expression of hatred. What kind of twisted culture uses a word for sex as an expression of rage?
I was using "us" in some abstract, general sense. I have never supported this war, and spoke against it on slashdot at the time. I meant "us" the American people.
it's about changing the middle east so the middle east doesn't breed that which created 9/11, got it?
You have yet to explain how invading Iraq is a means of changing the Middle East in this way. Given all the lies the Bush admin has told us, might it not be wise to be a little skeptical on this count?
How does the invasion of Iraq make us safer? How does it lead to a Middle East which doesn't breed terrorism?
If your answer is simply that we're "building democracy," again I suggest you look beyond the Bush rhetoric and propaganda. In order to create our version of democracy in the Middle East, it will have to be imposed and maintained by military occupation. It will collapse if we turn our back on it (every indication shows that a truly democratic government in Iraq would be vehemently anti-US, thus unacceptable), and while we maintain it, it will consist essentially of puppet dictatorships operating in the name of "democracy." So you are talking about the perminant military occupation of the entire Middle East, which will certainly cause more resentment, resistance, and terror than we've ever seen. How does this help?
As I've said, invasion, occupation, and colonization of the Middle East has always led to increased strife, violence, and terror. Give us one reason to believe it will be different this time.
but does this fact mean we stop fighting pedophilia? stop fighting hard drugs? stop fighting terrorism?
no, we redouble our efforts
Of course we need to continue fighting the ills of society. But we need to do so in a way that is effective, i.e., one which actually reduces the problem.
If you are "fighting" in a way which makes the problem worse, or even in one which fails to make it any better, you need to change your approach. It's no good to keep beating your head against a wall harder and harder just because it didn't knock the wall down the first time.
Of course we need to continue making an effort. But we need to make right effort. We need to try very hard to do things which will make the problem better, not worse.
The thing is, 9/11 merely demonstrated that there exists a problem. It does not define what the solution to that problem should be, nor does it affect the analysis of the solution that much.
Regardless of the severity of the problem, continuing to do what in the past has made it worse is not a reasonable attempt at a solution. Indeed, it is exactly the opposite.
To simply throw out everything we know about history, and then turn around and make the same mistakes again, all the while saying "but it's different this time!' is sheer folly.
the turks are reponsible for everything in the middle east vis a vie the ottoman empire too, but that analysis is just as useless
That analysis is useless because Turkey isn't doing much of anything right now.
However, if Turkey were trying to repeat the mistakes it made during the Ottoman Empire which caused problems in the Middle East, that analysis would be pretty relevant, wouldn't you say?
Once again, it's not a matter of whose fault it is, it's a matter of what sort of actions have, historically, made the situation worse, and which ones have made it better. In the past, invading, occupying, and colonizing the middle east has created far more problems than it solves, and you still have not given us any reason to think this time around will be different.
the point where you think that the problem can be fixed through invasion, occupation, and military dominance. I think that's a sure way to make the problem worse.
Furthermore, I think we clearly disagree on the causes of the problem. If the Middle East were just sitting there being sick, that would be one thing, but it's not. It sounds a little fishy if you mug a man, beat him up, then say that you have to perform radical surgery to fix the wounds you've caused him, don't you think?
My response is that what we've done in the Middle East so far has always made the problem worse, and right now I don't see us doing anything different, just more of the same.
This is perfectly analagous to the "war on drugs." We have a drug problem. So we have a "war on drugs," which has the net effect of making the problem worse. So then we say, "hey, the problem is getting worse, so we need to fight the war on drugs harder."
That's completely backward thinking. If what you're doing is making the problem worse, you don't need to do more of the same, you need to do something else.
Of course the world does not revolve around the US. But if you have a long history in which the people of a region keep on getting messed with, and there is a lot of turmoil and strife in that region, you have to consider whether the interference is causing the turmoil and strife.
In this case, Iraq is actually a made-up country, divided along arbitrary lines because of the details of British imperialism. It shouldn't even be one country at all. In order to maintain it as one country, the west has installed a series of dictatorial regimes. And then we wonder why it's fucked up.
I give all kinds of credit to the people of the Middle East. The way I see it, they've been trying, off and on and with much difficulty, to achieve some sort of progress. But every time, we just keep fucking with them, making it harder, and we need to take responsibility for that.
More importantly, though, blame is irrelevant. It doesn't matter whose fault it is, that's not my point. My point is that historically, western intervention has not improved matters in the Middle East. In practice, it has made them worse. Why should we think it will be any different this time?
What we are doing in Iraq is not making the situation better, and there is no reason to think it will. This is not fixing the problem. When the British did similar things, that did not fix the problem either. You should always beware of solutions which cause more problems than they solve.
"Each and every problem we face today is the direct and inevitable result of yesterday's
brilliant solutions" - Henry Bergman, architect
It's not a matter of taking it seriously or not taking it seriously. It's about taking it accurately or inaccurately. In this case, they deliberately misinterpreted the intelligence to serve their pre-existing ends. I personally suspect they did the same thing with 9/11.
They need to get it right, not way too far on one side or the other!
many people want to talk about politics. There's nothing wrong with them doing so, and if you don't like it, set your preferences to exclude the politics topic from the homepage.
No, what is really being objected to is the political slant of this story./. never claimed to be objective about politics. It's clear from the way the mods are falling in this discussion how the majority of slasdotters feel about the subject. We should be able to express our opinions about this just like anything else.
when something like 9/11 happens, don't be surprised if the us responds militarily.
Once again, "9/11-Iraq, 9/11-Iraq" Haven't we seen enough of this? Isn't it enough that Kerry bitch-slapped Dubya for it the other day? Over and over, the same thing.
If the Invasion of Iraq had had anything to do with responding to 9/11, you would have a point of some sort. But it didn't. There were plenty of other actions to be taken that had much more to do with 9/11, and they weren't taken, because the admin wanted to use it as an excuse to do what it's been wanting to do from day one anyway. This has nothing to do with 9/11. It's a strategic move, nothing more, and not a defensive one either.
How does the invasion of Iraq reduce terrorism again? How does it help deal with the causes of terrorism? How does it, in fact, do anything but stir up more hatred against the US, while providing an ideal breeding ground for terrorist networks?
Of course the US does good and bad in the world. At the moment, it happens to be doing bad, and we have to stop it.
If you really want to be intellectually honest, you need to look at the global strategic realities and realize that power systems need to do whatever it takes to keep them in power. At some point, maintaining dominance becomes the overriding priority of any dominant power system. At this point, it will do anything to justify its strategically necessary moves to maintain dominance. This has nothing to do with the goodness and badness of the people involved, it's a simple institutional reality.
the Middle East, I'd have to say, you must be using some definition of "fix" with which I'm not familiar.
Yes the Middle East is fucked up. The question you have to ask is, how did it get that way? Turns out, if you look at the history (for example, of British interferance in the early 20th century), it got fucked up because of precisely the sort of thing we're doing there now. It is pretty clear at this point that we're going to leave Iraq a smoking ruin, probably in the midst of civil war. The only question is when, and how bad will it be when we finally realize it.
You do not fix something by doing more of the same thing that broke it in the first place.
This is precisely why we need to break this whole one-party dominance trip the Republicans are on now.
It's bad enough that the Dems and Reps are pretty much the same party at this point. But it's even worse that the Reps are trying to take over every branch of government. This completely breaks the system of checks and balances, as if it weren't broken enough already.
We need to go in the opposite direction as fast as possible. That starts with getting a Democratic president now, so that we'll have some sort of check on the Republican Congress.
In the long term, this means we need to move beyond the one-party-two-names system and develop some real alternatives. But we have to take that one step at a time, and the first step is to break the Republican stranglehold on power.
That said, I agree completely that congress failed miserably in this regard. Sen. Byrd stood up at the time and waved a copy of the Constitution, saying "our job is not to rubber-stamp the president's resolution, our job is to protect the text of the Constitution!" Nobody listened. Kerry is as accountable for that as anyone. But at least he no acknowledges that going into Iraq was a mistake. That's a start, and right now, it's good enough for me.
Sad to say it, but the strategists behind this move actually are thinking globally. If your global objective is domination and you are willing to use whatever means necessary, the obvious strategy is to control the energy resources. If you have to offend a few people in order to do that, so be it. At some point the oil is going to start getting scarce, and at that point whoever has military bases on top of the remaining oil reserves wins.
Not that I think this justifies what they did, of course, I don't think global domination is a legitimate goal. But if you think it is, this move makes perfect sense.
Continue with the current plan of UN inspections which would have never brought forward any conclusive results.
You cannot possibly know that. Since it is becoming increasingly apparent that there were no WMD, it seems quite likely that further investigation would eventually have proven this fact. At the very least, since it turns out we had no evidence to credibly suggest he did have WMD, wouldn't it have made sense to at least try?
More importantly, none of this excuses the fact that Bush lied to the American people.
I think, assuming you're not being sarcastic, the "buddy" makes it hard to tell and you never know around here. But assuming you meant it, thanks, I appreciate it.:-)
to click on the article. Some nerds care about politics. You can't possibly argue that the president lying to the American people doesn't matter, can you?
I'm sorry, but you've got the case factually wrong.
Kerry did not make the choice to go ahead with military action. He made the choice to leave that up to Bush. There's a huge difference.
Now, granted, leaving such a decision up to Bush is a horrible mistake. But a vote to authorize the president to make the choice whether or not to use force is not the same as a vote for the use of force.
"We train our children to drop fire on people, but we won't let them write 'fuck' on the sides of their airplanes, because it's obscene." -- Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now
No, I'm sorry, but if you want to start a war, for whatever reason, the burden of proof is on you to show that it is justified. The first Gulf War had ended twelve years earlier, and Iraq was not considered a credible military threat to anybody. Before you go and attack a sovereign nation and depose its government and kill large numbers of people, you had better be prepared to meet a very high standard of proof.
Unless there was some reason to believe that he did have weapons, there was no reason not to simply continue with the inspections. Anyone with any sense knew this at the time -- why do you think Powell tried so hard to convince the UN that Saddam really did have WMD?
Even if you feel that at some point something had to be done, why that particular point, if there was no evidence of WMD? And why this particular action -- even if something had to be done, why did that "something" have to be invading and taking over the country?
More importantly, this is no excuse to lie to the American people. If the war was justified regardless of whether Saddam was building nukes, why not just say that? Why lie to us about it?
The answer, of course, is that the American people would never have accepted going to war unless they felt threatened. So basically, Bush tricked us into going to war, and now he wants us to be OK with that because he thinks the war was justified anyway. That just doesn't work for me, and I think a lot of the American people feel the same way.
Slashdot Mirror
Have you seen the post count on this story?
Thanks for the plug! Glad you liked them.
However, the part of the war in which Iraq was actually putting up a fight was over almost immediately. The rest of it was just beating a dead horse.
The UN originally authorized member states to use force to stop Iraq from taking over Kuwait. That was done. The UN certainly never authorized the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Thus under the UN charter the war (or the second part of it, if you want to be picky) was an act of aggression, the "supreme crime" of Nuremburg, and should be treated as such.
However, I think the quote is pretty deep. Just ask yourself, which do we see more explicitly displayed on prime-time television, sex or violence? How many murders (real and fake) does the average child witness on TV? How many sexual acts?
For that matter, think about it: why do we use the word "fuck" as an expression of hatred? I for one have certainly never used the act as an expression of hatred. What kind of twisted culture uses a word for sex as an expression of rage?
I was using "us" in some abstract, general sense. I have never supported this war, and spoke against it on slashdot at the time. I meant "us" the American people.
You have yet to explain how invading Iraq is a means of changing the Middle East in this way. Given all the lies the Bush admin has told us, might it not be wise to be a little skeptical on this count?
How does the invasion of Iraq make us safer? How does it lead to a Middle East which doesn't breed terrorism?
If your answer is simply that we're "building democracy," again I suggest you look beyond the Bush rhetoric and propaganda. In order to create our version of democracy in the Middle East, it will have to be imposed and maintained by military occupation. It will collapse if we turn our back on it (every indication shows that a truly democratic government in Iraq would be vehemently anti-US, thus unacceptable), and while we maintain it, it will consist essentially of puppet dictatorships operating in the name of "democracy." So you are talking about the perminant military occupation of the entire Middle East, which will certainly cause more resentment, resistance, and terror than we've ever seen. How does this help?
As I've said, invasion, occupation, and colonization of the Middle East has always led to increased strife, violence, and terror. Give us one reason to believe it will be different this time.
no, we redouble our efforts
Of course we need to continue fighting the ills of society. But we need to do so in a way that is effective, i.e., one which actually reduces the problem.
If you are "fighting" in a way which makes the problem worse, or even in one which fails to make it any better, you need to change your approach. It's no good to keep beating your head against a wall harder and harder just because it didn't knock the wall down the first time.
Of course we need to continue making an effort. But we need to make right effort. We need to try very hard to do things which will make the problem better, not worse.
Got it? ;-)
Regardless of the severity of the problem, continuing to do what in the past has made it worse is not a reasonable attempt at a solution. Indeed, it is exactly the opposite.
To simply throw out everything we know about history, and then turn around and make the same mistakes again, all the while saying "but it's different this time!' is sheer folly.
That analysis is useless because Turkey isn't doing much of anything right now.
However, if Turkey were trying to repeat the mistakes it made during the Ottoman Empire which caused problems in the Middle East, that analysis would be pretty relevant, wouldn't you say?
Once again, it's not a matter of whose fault it is, it's a matter of what sort of actions have, historically, made the situation worse, and which ones have made it better. In the past, invading, occupying, and colonizing the middle east has created far more problems than it solves, and you still have not given us any reason to think this time around will be different.
Furthermore, I think we clearly disagree on the causes of the problem. If the Middle East were just sitting there being sick, that would be one thing, but it's not. It sounds a little fishy if you mug a man, beat him up, then say that you have to perform radical surgery to fix the wounds you've caused him, don't you think?
My response is that what we've done in the Middle East so far has always made the problem worse, and right now I don't see us doing anything different, just more of the same.
This is perfectly analagous to the "war on drugs." We have a drug problem. So we have a "war on drugs," which has the net effect of making the problem worse. So then we say, "hey, the problem is getting worse, so we need to fight the war on drugs harder."
That's completely backward thinking. If what you're doing is making the problem worse, you don't need to do more of the same, you need to do something else.
In this case, Iraq is actually a made-up country, divided along arbitrary lines because of the details of British imperialism. It shouldn't even be one country at all. In order to maintain it as one country, the west has installed a series of dictatorial regimes. And then we wonder why it's fucked up.
I give all kinds of credit to the people of the Middle East. The way I see it, they've been trying, off and on and with much difficulty, to achieve some sort of progress. But every time, we just keep fucking with them, making it harder, and we need to take responsibility for that.
More importantly, though, blame is irrelevant. It doesn't matter whose fault it is, that's not my point. My point is that historically, western intervention has not improved matters in the Middle East. In practice, it has made them worse. Why should we think it will be any different this time?
What we are doing in Iraq is not making the situation better, and there is no reason to think it will. This is not fixing the problem. When the British did similar things, that did not fix the problem either. You should always beware of solutions which cause more problems than they solve.
"Each and every problem we face today is the direct and inevitable result of yesterday's brilliant solutions" - Henry Bergman, architect
They need to get it right, not way too far on one side or the other!
No, what is really being objected to is the political slant of this story. /. never claimed to be objective about politics. It's clear from the way the mods are falling in this discussion how the majority of slasdotters feel about the subject. We should be able to express our opinions about this just like anything else.
Once again, "9/11-Iraq, 9/11-Iraq" Haven't we seen enough of this? Isn't it enough that Kerry bitch-slapped Dubya for it the other day? Over and over, the same thing.
If the Invasion of Iraq had had anything to do with responding to 9/11, you would have a point of some sort. But it didn't. There were plenty of other actions to be taken that had much more to do with 9/11, and they weren't taken, because the admin wanted to use it as an excuse to do what it's been wanting to do from day one anyway. This has nothing to do with 9/11. It's a strategic move, nothing more, and not a defensive one either.
How does the invasion of Iraq reduce terrorism again? How does it help deal with the causes of terrorism? How does it, in fact, do anything but stir up more hatred against the US, while providing an ideal breeding ground for terrorist networks?
Of course the US does good and bad in the world. At the moment, it happens to be doing bad, and we have to stop it.
If you really want to be intellectually honest, you need to look at the global strategic realities and realize that power systems need to do whatever it takes to keep them in power. At some point, maintaining dominance becomes the overriding priority of any dominant power system. At this point, it will do anything to justify its strategically necessary moves to maintain dominance. This has nothing to do with the goodness and badness of the people involved, it's a simple institutional reality.
Yes the Middle East is fucked up. The question you have to ask is, how did it get that way? Turns out, if you look at the history (for example, of British interferance in the early 20th century), it got fucked up because of precisely the sort of thing we're doing there now. It is pretty clear at this point that we're going to leave Iraq a smoking ruin, probably in the midst of civil war. The only question is when, and how bad will it be when we finally realize it.
You do not fix something by doing more of the same thing that broke it in the first place.
It's bad enough that the Dems and Reps are pretty much the same party at this point. But it's even worse that the Reps are trying to take over every branch of government. This completely breaks the system of checks and balances, as if it weren't broken enough already.
We need to go in the opposite direction as fast as possible. That starts with getting a Democratic president now, so that we'll have some sort of check on the Republican Congress.
In the long term, this means we need to move beyond the one-party-two-names system and develop some real alternatives. But we have to take that one step at a time, and the first step is to break the Republican stranglehold on power.
That said, I agree completely that congress failed miserably in this regard. Sen. Byrd stood up at the time and waved a copy of the Constitution, saying "our job is not to rubber-stamp the president's resolution, our job is to protect the text of the Constitution!" Nobody listened. Kerry is as accountable for that as anyone. But at least he no acknowledges that going into Iraq was a mistake. That's a start, and right now, it's good enough for me.
Not that I think this justifies what they did, of course, I don't think global domination is a legitimate goal. But if you think it is, this move makes perfect sense.
You cannot possibly know that. Since it is becoming increasingly apparent that there were no WMD, it seems quite likely that further investigation would eventually have proven this fact. At the very least, since it turns out we had no evidence to credibly suggest he did have WMD, wouldn't it have made sense to at least try?
More importantly, none of this excuses the fact that Bush lied to the American people.
I think, assuming you're not being sarcastic, the "buddy" makes it hard to tell and you never know around here. But assuming you meant it, thanks, I appreciate it. :-)
to click on the article. Some nerds care about politics. You can't possibly argue that the president lying to the American people doesn't matter, can you?
Kerry did not make the choice to go ahead with military action. He made the choice to leave that up to Bush. There's a huge difference.
Now, granted, leaving such a decision up to Bush is a horrible mistake. But a vote to authorize the president to make the choice whether or not to use force is not the same as a vote for the use of force.
"We train our children to drop fire on people, but we won't let them write 'fuck' on the sides of their airplanes, because it's obscene." -- Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now
but it still sounds like pretty good grounds for impeachment to me. It really doesn't matter if he's tried, we just want the guy out of office!
Unless there was some reason to believe that he did have weapons, there was no reason not to simply continue with the inspections. Anyone with any sense knew this at the time -- why do you think Powell tried so hard to convince the UN that Saddam really did have WMD?
Even if you feel that at some point something had to be done, why that particular point, if there was no evidence of WMD? And why this particular action -- even if something had to be done, why did that "something" have to be invading and taking over the country?
More importantly, this is no excuse to lie to the American people. If the war was justified regardless of whether Saddam was building nukes, why not just say that? Why lie to us about it?
The answer, of course, is that the American people would never have accepted going to war unless they felt threatened. So basically, Bush tricked us into going to war, and now he wants us to be OK with that because he thinks the war was justified anyway. That just doesn't work for me, and I think a lot of the American people feel the same way.
"Great thing about politicians, though, you can always tell when they're lying: their lips move."