Viewing Thread:
"A Query for the Pro-War Lobby"

That is, those tubthumping pro-war ladies and gentlemen who never allow hard facts to get in the way of a good days crowing.

Here's a thing or two about your remarkably ill-thought through blusterings;
You're all saying "See! See! Told you, stupid hippies" and conveniently forgetting that at no point did "Anti-War" mean "Pro-Saddam"

The reasons for going to war are still invalid. NO womd found or used, NO UN approval, civilians injured in the thousands etc etc

And just what the hell has happened to Saddam then? I thought we weren't stopping until he was dead?
So where is he?

I hope that some intelligent pro-war people will take the time to respond to this. Doubtless the more moronic among them will take another opportunity to ignore the entire question and respond with their usual reality-free tirade...

Miserableman wrote:

> Are you being sarcastic, or do you really believe this? Are you from
> Texas?

I'm not being sarcastic, just a little sadistic and satirical. I really believe that, because its true. Unless you interpret the world in a different way to me of course. And finally I'm not from Texas. Try the Home Counties, where the middle class think they're better than everyone else with out-of-place Porsche Boxsters sitting outside semi-detached houses.

Miserableman wrote:
> The example is not valid, because by going to do a GNVQ you're not
> actively defying the frantic pleas of the Government to stop. Imagine
> you said to your son that he needed to earn a living, and he came back
> a week later and said he was going to move to Amsterdam and become a
> male gigolo, hmmm?

Come on now! That's just disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing. You don't have to be totally for or against something to be putting the wrong emphasis on it.

> There is no distinction. Iraq were beginning to provide the necessary
> level of co-operation before the invasion, Blix was winning them over
> (albeit Western pressure will have had something to do with it). The
> job of the UN team was to find the missing WMD - that's why they did
> suprise inspections, that's why they tried to do interviews with Iraqi
> scientists in private, that's why they took papers away.

No, I really can't see the similarity between two rouge states (granted, of varying "rogue-ness") being examined by the UN’s weapons inspectors. Saddam was playing games, much like he did for 12 years, much like he'd still be doing now unless action was taken. #1441 demanded a surrender of WOMD, not to begin a game of hide and seek with them.

> Oho, so you advocate invasion of another country just because you
> don't agree with how they govern themselves? Isn't this tabloid
> diplomacy? It sets an extremely dangerous precedent - how do you
> decide who is Western-value-friendly and who isn't?

Ermmm... so Hitler should have been allowed to slaughter the German Jew's because that was how he chose to govern his own country? Saddam should be allowed to torture and kill his detractors while starving his supporters, all the while edging back into the swing of his scheme of ethnic cleansing among the Kurds?

The way I see it.

Saddam is a tart. Iraqi people need to be helped.

USA / UK see this. But 'Saddam is a tart' is not a legal reason to go and save the Iraqi people. So they invent the 'womd' stuff and all that in order for the war to be legal.

Dr Gonzo wrote:
> Come on now! That's just disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing.
> You don't have to be totally for or against something to be putting
> the wrong emphasis on it.


I do think the US/UK were wrong when on one hand they bleated until everyone got sick of it about 'UN resolution 1441' and on the other hand completely ignored the will of the UN, I think it is a hypocrasy worth highlighting and a distinction worth making.


> No, I really can't see the similarity between two rouge states
> (granted, of varying "rogue-ness") being examined by the
> UN’s weapons inspectors. Saddam was playing games, much like he did
> for 12 years, much like he'd still be doing now unless action was
> taken. #1441 demanded a surrender of WOMD, not to begin a game of
> hide and seek with them.


I can't really contest whether the Iraqi's were playing games - Blix said he was making progress, but we all know they are more than likely to be mucking around. In any case, the UN had a second resolution in the works but the US and UK forced the war through anyway. One has to question what was so desperately urgent that they couldn't wait for the rest of the UN? Clearly there were ulterior motives, and disregarding what they were/are, I don't agree with the way the coalition has played this war out, and that, more than anything they've done in Iraq, is what worries me about this war.


> Ermmm... so Hitler should have been allowed to slaughter the German
> Jew's because that was how he chose to govern his own country? Saddam
> should be allowed to torture and kill his detractors while starving
> his supporters, all the while edging back into the swing of his scheme
> of ethnic cleansing among the Kurds?


Britain didn't declare war on Germany until Germany invaded Poland, which happened too long after Germany invaded Czechoslovakia and Britain said "okay you can go that far, but if you take Poland we will have no choice but to act". What Hitler was doing to the Jews was of little consequence to Chamberlain when faced with 5 million heavily armed German soldiers. Granted there are better examples you could have used - NATO involvement in Bosnia is a recent example of a coalition intervening on almost purely humanitarian grounds. But that was a lot more clear cut - Yugoslavia had fallen apart and the Serbs were conducting a horrifying policy of ethnic cleansing. The US were right to intervene there, I doubt even Milosevic would disagree. Of course with Iraq, it becomes a lot stickier. What gives the US the right to decide how other governments should govern their people? Taking Iraq in isolation is not an option - once you invade one country, you set a precedent that lines up a dozen more. It doesn't matter whether you see it this way or not - those countries see it that way, and are frantically arming themselves in pre-emption of the US knocking on their door. This will inflame their neighbours, who will build more arms. You only have to look at North Korea to see this happening - look at the rhetoric coming out of Pyong-Yang, see how it threatens to pull Japan out of its pacifist constitution for the first time since the second world war.

And the US hardly has a gleaming record on human rights. 900,000 Vietnamese died in the war there via US carpet bombing, and the Agent Orange they sprayed there to kill the forests was recently found to contain very high levels of cancer causing agents. Not long afterwards the Khmer Rouge in neighbouring Cambodia killed 10% of it's 10 million population, supported by the US because of its anti-Vietnam stance. The US recently reaped the seeds it sowed in Iraq and Afghanistan in the 1980's, when it supplied weapons to the Taliban and Saddam Hussein to fight off Russia/Iran respectively. Those same weapons were used against US forces in the recent conflicts. September 11th should have been a time for the US to learn from its mistakes, learn why it is so hated in the wider world and recognise that it could not longer consider itself invulnerable, but it seems that learning is as far away as ever, the hatred is growing again and more terrorists attacks can't be far off.

Miserableman wrote:
> Britain didn't declare war on Germany until Germany invaded Poland,
> which happened too long after Germany invaded Czechoslovakia and
> Britain said "okay you can go that far, but if you take Poland we
> will have no choice but to act".


too long after = not long after

tired :O/

Miserableman wrote:
> What Hitler was doing to the
> Jews was of little consequence to Chamberlain when faced with 5
> million heavily armed German soldiers.

That wasn't the point. Historically it is one of the things we look back at with horror. Just because it is a government doing whatever to its own people has no effect on how we react to the actions.

> What gives the US the right to decide how other governments
> should govern their people?

US chose the means to achieving something most of the world wanted to achieve. You've said getting rid of Saddam is generally good - what gives you the right to decide how he governed his own people? While Human Rights aren't a black and white criterion, the grey area isn't as big as you're making out.

> Taking Iraq in isolation is not an option
> - once you invade one country, you set a precedent that lines up a
> dozen more. It doesn't matter whether you see it this way or not -
> those countries see it that way, and are frantically arming themselves
> in pre-emption of the US knocking on their door.

Yes and no. You can't say what precedent this has sent until a decade down the line. Yes, someone like North Korea could see this as a need to increase there arms. Or, they could see the ease with which the US steam rollered through Iraq and decide they'd better not tempt them. The Tri-party talks during the week and the subsequent problems are only the introduction to the beginning of the opening act.

> The US recently reaped the seeds it sowed in Iraq and Afghanistan in
> the 1980's, when it supplied weapons to the Taliban and Saddam Hussein
> to fight off Russia/Iran respectively.

Long after the respective situations changed though. Okay, maybe they should have been aware of the dangers of arming volatile groups, but you can't then blame them for everything the training and guns did - at some point the individuals take the blame.

Mess wrote:
> It's important to look at the bigger picture here. The Middle East
> has always been a bit of a crazy, backwards place

WTF? This is an area where the first civilizations started many thousands of years ago. Egypt? Babylon? Assyrians? Persia? These were the first urban centres and the first areas with governments and laws not based on pure tribal rule. Let's not forget the fact that when Europe was reeling from the Dark Ages with the colapse of the Roman Empire it was the Arabs, notably the Saracens, that preserved mathematical and philosophical theories and the Romano-Greek heritage. Did you know our numbers are based on Arabic numbers, and not as you well know Roman numerals.

*SLAP*

The bigger picture here is this, to my mind anyway;

For the first time in a very long time a group of nations have acted in a pre-emptive attack to destroy a threat before it materialised.

This is, to my mind again, majorly important. Every nation which harbours, supports and equips terrorists has seen what happened. Every nation making WMD in secret and that is trying to hide it, saw what happened. Every nation that is thinking of attacking unjustly another nation has seen what happened.

Attack us, in fact even just consider it, and we will anhilate you and nothing you can do will stop us. You will be dead or captured, your armies driven back in defeat and surrender, and your people will be largely thanking us for doing so.

That is a powerful message, and one that needed sending way before now. Another important aspect, that the anti-war lobby forgets in every single discussion, is that Iraq was given 12 years to comply, as the Taliban were given 1 month to hand over Bin Laden, as Grenada was given 2 months to change, and Iraq a month to withdraw in 1990, and so on..... We have never once said "s0d diplomacy let's attack", we have always pursued diplomacy to death before attacking.

Whatsmore, I genuinelly believe that actions such as those taken in Iraq, Afghanistan e.t.c are paving the way for a finer world, one where dictators and terrorists have no place, where there is more equality.

We can speak, in the comfort of our "western central heated running water et al" homes all we want of how violence achieves nothing. But see the Iraqi people, see those in Afghanistan. Violence has led to freedom because nothing else would work. In Somalia, abandoned by the UN, the same needs to happen to achieve a working peace for it's people.

It is nigh time that the West, led by America and the UK, took on those who make life miserable and terrible for millions of people, and in the current governments of those two nations, and others, we have those with the will to act, not just utter senseless words and sanctions, but the will to do what is right.

Dr Gonzo wrote:
> That wasn't the point. Historically it is one of the things we look
> back at with horror. Just because it is a government doing whatever
> to its own people has no effect on how we react to the actions.


So what is your point? Oooh, terrible things happen? Saddam Hussein is somewhere a long way down the list of 'bad things to happen to humanity', even in your lifetime.


> US chose the means to achieving something most of the world wanted to
> achieve. You've said getting rid of Saddam is generally good - what
> gives you the right to decide how he governed his own people? While
> Human Rights aren't a black and white criterion, the grey area isn't
> as big as you're making out.


Nothing gives me the right to decide how Saddam Hussein runs Iraq, that's the point. It also applies to you, George Bush, Tony Blair and anyone else outside of Iraq.

That grey area is enormous, much much bigger than you clearly realise. You only have to look around the world at Muslim countries like Indonesia to see how incensed their population are with the US administration - they see Bush and co as persuing a war against the Islamic world, and whether they're right or wrong, they're *furious* about it. When undertaking an operation as big as the total invasion of another country you are going to create an enormous fallout, the effects of which you may not see for decades. And if the coalition pursued a policy of mass-invasions/government replacement, the consequences would be as unpredictable as they are severe. It is the apparant total disregard the US government has for these consequences that bugs me above anything else. The foreign policy they show signs of pursuing has every chance of triggering World War III, yet you get nothing but 'shock and awe' from the Americans. One wonders if there's any tact left in that government, they'll need it to deal with the Koreans.


> Yes and no. You can't say what precedent this has sent u.€âGîT

> Yes and no. You can't say what precedent this has sent until a decade
> down the line. Yes, someone like North Korea could see this as a need
> to increase there arms. Or, they could see the ease with which the US
> steam rollered through Iraq and decide they'd better not tempt them.
> The Tri-party talks during the week and the subsequent problems are
> only the introduction to the beginning of the opening act.


You don't seem to know how North Korea operates. North Korea can do nothing but talk war - it gets the US to cough up money, some of which goes to feed its people and some of which goes on making more weapons. The US invasion of Iraq only strengthens North Korea's case, but it doesn't really change the dynamics of the situation. I would agree with you, but recent history has demonstrated that military powers facing the overwhelming might of the US army have often chosen to fight to the death, rather than choose a relatively simple get-out-of-jail option. The obvious example is the Taliban, who were told "Hand over Osama, or we'll kick all of you out of government". They chose to die fighting rather than give over a known terrorist. This shows that the sensible option is not always taken by foreign governments opposed to the US.


> Long after the respective situations changed though. Okay, maybe they
> should have been aware of the dangers of arming volatile groups, but
> you can't then blame them for everything the training and guns did -
> at some point the individuals take the blame.


It does raise questions about the moral standards of the US government though. Do the American administration really have any right to stand on a pedestal and dictate to the world what is right? Would you trust a Policeman who gave guns to two rival street gangs so they could eliminate each another? Neither would I, and I have similar reservations about trusting world peace to the Americans.