The Iraq War retrospective Thread

[Thecla]

Then you are not looking.

You're certainly looking, but, like the Bush administration, you're not finding much. I know they found plenty of palaces, but where were Iraq's chemical weapon's manufacturing facilities, it's bioweapons labs, it's nuclear enrichment plants? Never mind the aluminum tubes most likely intended for short-range rockets, but portrayed by the Bush administration as for centrifuges, or the trailers most likely used for the production of hydrogen gas, but claimed by the Bush administration to be mobile bioweapons labs.

If possession with intent or actual use of WMD were your only criteria for war then we'd have very few wars.

Now wouldn't that be a terrible thing.

Their actions were highly suspicious, and when by UN mandate they were to submit to weapons inspections they dodged, they lied, they obfuscated, and they harassed them. It was unclear what they were doing, and Saddam wanted the facts of Iraq WMD to be a mystery. They had them and used them in the past, and it was logical to conclude that given the materials purchased that they would make them again.

You like to connect dots too, I see. Is it a secret weapons program or a bunny rabbit??

To try a third time, I think I understand your support for the war as basically along the lines of: "let's take the bastard out now and be done with it". Going back to my original comments, there was no immediate threat to the US from Iraq, and no credible evidence at the time that such a threat existed. Nothing you've said has demonstrated otherwise. It was not a necessary war, or --- as people seem to like to say now, contrary to how it was portrayed at the time --- it was "a war of choice". If you feel that it was nevertheless the right thing to do on that account, we'll just have to agree to disagree on that point (or maybe disagree to disagree if you don't agree to disagree). You're 100% wrong but, hey, you think I'm 100% wrong also.

But a couple of final comments on this:

(a ) You might argue that there was some necessity in an immediate invasion, because the Bush administration had to strike while the iron was hot in the post-9/11 climate of fear and anger in the US. If they waited too long for the shock to wear off, then the american people would return to their politically somnolent ways, and it would no longer be possible to persuade them to support the starting of a dubious war by the US. Probably, there's a lot of truth to this. (Plus, Bush's approval ratings got a significant bump, as always happens when any country goes to war.)

(b ) You seem remarkably forgiving of a government that presents a fraudulent case for war when its views happen to correspond to your own.

You seem to be against removing one of the most tyrannical brutal dictators of this decade.

Rats! You switched rationales again; and I was barely keeping up with the last one.

Even you must admit that the suggestion that if you oppose the war you somehow support Hussein is little better (maybe worse) than 5th grade sophistry.

Of course Hussein was a brutal dictator who gassed his own people. He also started one of the mostly deadly wars in modern times against Iran (incidentally supported in the later parts, at least, by the US). The small story that sticks in my mind is one related by John Burns (a consistently great reporter on Iraq) in which Hussein had the middle tooth of some underling pulled out with pliers and forbade him to have it replaced by a false tooth so it would act as a constant reminder of Hussein's authority.

I don't have any better answers than anyone else about how the US and the international community should best respond to the human rights violations, atrocities, and genocides throughout the world (Darfur, Burma, Zimbabwe, just to mention a few of the current ones). But however that's done, it has to be done with some form of international cooperation (however poorly that works sometimes) and with honesty. You'll forgive my cynicism in believing that the Bush-Cheny administration was not using WMDs as a cloak for a secret mission to rescue Iraqi's from tyranny.