Talk about war and Bush
Jul. 19th, 2003 03:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johnpalmerRight now, in the news, there is a lot of talk about the war in Iraq. It's starting to get a little bit annoying to me, so I think that I'm going to talk a little bit about the issues.
Now, I don't think it's a secret that I don't approve of most of Bush's actions, so, if anyone wants to skip this, here's a friendly cut tag...
The big thing that people are talking about right now is a really silly matter about Bush including the baseless rumor about Iraq trying to buy uranium from Niger. I agree that the issue is a minor one, but only because the rest of the information that was provided in order to support war with Iraq was flawed badly enough that the uranium claim is unimportant. Someone stole my laptop, and there was a DVD in the drive. If the person who did that was ever caught, I wouldn't expect them to be charged with an additional count of petty larceny for stealing the DVD.
But, I'm getting ahead of myself.
As most of you already know, I have no problem with the fact that Saddam Hussein is no longer in charge of Iraq. However, I do the problem with the way the US went about starting this war.
There are multiple justifications for the US intervening in Iraq, and some of the justifications are, at least, okay, but some don't hold water and all.
First off, there is a question of whether the war is justified under the UN Charter. Something that is not mentioned in the news very much is that members of the UN are not supposed to make war upon each other. Obviously, this does not preclude self-defense, and that is how President Bush has justified the war with Iraq. He has said that it is legal under the UN Charter to attack Iraq preemptively, based upon the idea that they are such a great danger to the US that it is essentially self-defense to attack them first.
Now, the logic showing that this doesn't work isn't that hard. Bush is saying that his intelligence advisers all insist (at this point, "insisted") that Iraq had biological, chemical, and the potential for nuclear, weapons. However, all of the intelligence advisers also said that Iraq was unlikely to use them. (At the very least, they were unlikely to use them before a war broke out. They had clear reasons to fear that the US would attack them if there was any suspicion that they had used such weapons.)
If we are to say that he was supposed to trust his intelligence people when they said that Iraq had chemical or biological weapons, how can we now ignore the fact that the intelligence people also said that they were unlikely to use them? The notion of preemption doesn't seem to apply here. Either his intelligence was trustworthy, and we could not attacked preemptively, or his intelligence was not trustworthy, and we should never have attacked.
Let's forget about the fact that the war was relatively quick, and relatively easy, so the notion that preemptive war was necessary for our defense seems unlikely. The fact of the matter is, the very people that Bush is claiming told him that war was necessary, also told him that war was unnecessary.
I have already mentioned one of my other objections to the logic used in this war. One of the reasons that Bush gave for attacking Iraq is that Iraq was not in compliance with UN Security Council resolutions. However, Bush did not act with the approval of the UN Security Council, and my feelings are that if Bush can say that the UN Security Council mandates do not apply to him, then he cannot say that they must nevertheless apply to Saddam Hussein.
Please note, this does not say that war with Iraq was automatically a bad thing, but it does attack the primary reasons that were given to pursue the war.
I suppose, just for giggles, we could pretend that the war was justified. Even if it was justified, the handling of it is being muffed very badly.
A while back, and my LiveJournal, I posted a link to a news article that was so stunning to me that, if it hadn't been a national news organization, I would have assumed that it was a joke. However, we all now know that it was completely serious.
It didn't really surprise me that, when the United States won the war, the US was in charge of Iraq, without an expectation that the UN would take over. I didn't think this was a good idea, mind you, but it's kind of expected.
(I have seen at least some of the officials in the Bush administration mentioning "blood and treasure"; "after risking our blood and treasure" is the phrase that I remember. I don't know about anyone else, but that phrase infuriates me, and makes me think that the people who are using it aren't really thinking of the lives of our soldiers when they say "blood". As for "treasure", this isn't a D&D adventure, or, in keeping with the times, a pirate movie.)
But, the idea that they were not even going to use the UN weapons inspection team to give legitimacy to any discoveries struck me as damned foolishness. Even today, the arguments I can think of that are in favor of not using UN weapons inspection teams are so weak that, if someone put them forth in a serious debate, I would suspect them of using strawman tactics.
It seems that Bush and his administration are so entirely sure that the Iraqis would celebrate our arrival, and would be so grateful for our removal of Saddam Hussein, that they did not consider other options. Now, this is the type of idea that, if you are correct, is referred to as "bold, insightful leadership". However, if you are wrong, it is "foolish arrogance" instead.
For a decade, Iraq has suffered under debilitating sanctions, and has had US warplanes patrolling areas in its airspace. It is astounding to me to think that our commander in chief didn't consider the possibility that there might be a lot of anti-U. S. sentiment.
Listen, I am not a military strategist, but it has seemed clear to me that, when you are occupying potentially hostile territory, you need the support of an overwhelming majority of the populace. Once you have that, people who would fight against you cannot do so effectively. There are too many eyes watching for them, too many hands ready to grab them, and too few people willing to do so much as speak in support of them. Once it was clear that the US was not going to have that overwhelming support, I think that it was time to decide to turn things over to the UN, who might have a chance of winning overwhelming support. (the other option is bringing in overwhelming numbers of troops... but that doesn't seem likely to happen, and for good reason.)
The removal of Saddam Hussein might have been a good idea, but I think that Bush went about it completely wrong. At the very least, if he had waited until he could get Blix to agree that Saddam Hussein was not cooperating, he would have had a fallback position when he ended up finding no evidence of biological or chemical weapons.
I suppose that he was probably afraid that Blix wouldn't be able to find anything sufficiently damning, and that could have led to an ending of sanctions. But I'm not entirely sure that situation would be as bad as the one that we're in. (Which means, I suppose, that I'm admitting that it was a judgement call for Bush to have decided "it's now, or maybe-never".)
Now, I don't think it's a secret that I don't approve of most of Bush's actions, so, if anyone wants to skip this, here's a friendly cut tag...
The big thing that people are talking about right now is a really silly matter about Bush including the baseless rumor about Iraq trying to buy uranium from Niger. I agree that the issue is a minor one, but only because the rest of the information that was provided in order to support war with Iraq was flawed badly enough that the uranium claim is unimportant. Someone stole my laptop, and there was a DVD in the drive. If the person who did that was ever caught, I wouldn't expect them to be charged with an additional count of petty larceny for stealing the DVD.
But, I'm getting ahead of myself.
As most of you already know, I have no problem with the fact that Saddam Hussein is no longer in charge of Iraq. However, I do the problem with the way the US went about starting this war.
There are multiple justifications for the US intervening in Iraq, and some of the justifications are, at least, okay, but some don't hold water and all.
First off, there is a question of whether the war is justified under the UN Charter. Something that is not mentioned in the news very much is that members of the UN are not supposed to make war upon each other. Obviously, this does not preclude self-defense, and that is how President Bush has justified the war with Iraq. He has said that it is legal under the UN Charter to attack Iraq preemptively, based upon the idea that they are such a great danger to the US that it is essentially self-defense to attack them first.
Now, the logic showing that this doesn't work isn't that hard. Bush is saying that his intelligence advisers all insist (at this point, "insisted") that Iraq had biological, chemical, and the potential for nuclear, weapons. However, all of the intelligence advisers also said that Iraq was unlikely to use them. (At the very least, they were unlikely to use them before a war broke out. They had clear reasons to fear that the US would attack them if there was any suspicion that they had used such weapons.)
If we are to say that he was supposed to trust his intelligence people when they said that Iraq had chemical or biological weapons, how can we now ignore the fact that the intelligence people also said that they were unlikely to use them? The notion of preemption doesn't seem to apply here. Either his intelligence was trustworthy, and we could not attacked preemptively, or his intelligence was not trustworthy, and we should never have attacked.
Let's forget about the fact that the war was relatively quick, and relatively easy, so the notion that preemptive war was necessary for our defense seems unlikely. The fact of the matter is, the very people that Bush is claiming told him that war was necessary, also told him that war was unnecessary.
I have already mentioned one of my other objections to the logic used in this war. One of the reasons that Bush gave for attacking Iraq is that Iraq was not in compliance with UN Security Council resolutions. However, Bush did not act with the approval of the UN Security Council, and my feelings are that if Bush can say that the UN Security Council mandates do not apply to him, then he cannot say that they must nevertheless apply to Saddam Hussein.
Please note, this does not say that war with Iraq was automatically a bad thing, but it does attack the primary reasons that were given to pursue the war.
I suppose, just for giggles, we could pretend that the war was justified. Even if it was justified, the handling of it is being muffed very badly.
A while back, and my LiveJournal, I posted a link to a news article that was so stunning to me that, if it hadn't been a national news organization, I would have assumed that it was a joke. However, we all now know that it was completely serious.
It didn't really surprise me that, when the United States won the war, the US was in charge of Iraq, without an expectation that the UN would take over. I didn't think this was a good idea, mind you, but it's kind of expected.
(I have seen at least some of the officials in the Bush administration mentioning "blood and treasure"; "after risking our blood and treasure" is the phrase that I remember. I don't know about anyone else, but that phrase infuriates me, and makes me think that the people who are using it aren't really thinking of the lives of our soldiers when they say "blood". As for "treasure", this isn't a D&D adventure, or, in keeping with the times, a pirate movie.)
But, the idea that they were not even going to use the UN weapons inspection team to give legitimacy to any discoveries struck me as damned foolishness. Even today, the arguments I can think of that are in favor of not using UN weapons inspection teams are so weak that, if someone put them forth in a serious debate, I would suspect them of using strawman tactics.
It seems that Bush and his administration are so entirely sure that the Iraqis would celebrate our arrival, and would be so grateful for our removal of Saddam Hussein, that they did not consider other options. Now, this is the type of idea that, if you are correct, is referred to as "bold, insightful leadership". However, if you are wrong, it is "foolish arrogance" instead.
For a decade, Iraq has suffered under debilitating sanctions, and has had US warplanes patrolling areas in its airspace. It is astounding to me to think that our commander in chief didn't consider the possibility that there might be a lot of anti-U. S. sentiment.
Listen, I am not a military strategist, but it has seemed clear to me that, when you are occupying potentially hostile territory, you need the support of an overwhelming majority of the populace. Once you have that, people who would fight against you cannot do so effectively. There are too many eyes watching for them, too many hands ready to grab them, and too few people willing to do so much as speak in support of them. Once it was clear that the US was not going to have that overwhelming support, I think that it was time to decide to turn things over to the UN, who might have a chance of winning overwhelming support. (the other option is bringing in overwhelming numbers of troops... but that doesn't seem likely to happen, and for good reason.)
The removal of Saddam Hussein might have been a good idea, but I think that Bush went about it completely wrong. At the very least, if he had waited until he could get Blix to agree that Saddam Hussein was not cooperating, he would have had a fallback position when he ended up finding no evidence of biological or chemical weapons.
I suppose that he was probably afraid that Blix wouldn't be able to find anything sufficiently damning, and that could have led to an ending of sanctions. But I'm not entirely sure that situation would be as bad as the one that we're in. (Which means, I suppose, that I'm admitting that it was a judgement call for Bush to have decided "it's now, or maybe-never".)
