Bush has to prove to the world community & the UN security council.
"Again, he doesn’t have to “prove” a thing to the general public. I’ve made my point about that. And this has nothing to do with jingoism, or even anti-americanism for that matter. It’s got to do with facts, not propaganda. Your facts are dated and some are just wrong. "
Doc, so what you are saying is that Bush should be able to proceed as long as he claims he has the facts, and it is irrelevant if he ever actually reveals them to anyone?
How has the US Government become such a knowledgable body that it has such a tremendous awareness of what Hussein is doing that is bad and where he has been doing it?
If it is really so informed and objective about this danger, why don’t they tell the inspectors where to look?
It’s like saying the food-pyramid really is healthy and that no food-producing interest groups had any monetary role in its current incarnation.
I can’t and won’t begin to argue about the atrocities of Hussein’s regime - this is not the type of person we want in charge of a handgun let alone a country - but I do believe that if Bush is willing to declare war regardless of international support (or more severly, international will being opposed) it is important that he shows it is clear and necessary to do so. Afterall, we all must be held accountable for our actions - it goes for the US as well as Hussein.
Say, Bush does NOT have to prove to the world community or the UN Security Council anything.
WE are the target of Hussein and other muslim extremists. WE have every right to defend ourselves.
Read the headlines today on usatoday.com (another liberal rag) and notice that Colin Powell says regardless of France’s and Russia’s threats to veto the proposed UN resolution, we’re going to clean up a little mess in Iraq.
Tharealest:
Ditto what DocT said. I too personally know former Iraqi citizens, and they agree that the best thing to happen to Iraq is to remove saddam.
He pulls women out of office buildings, rounds them up in the middle of the street, his henchmen forcibly round up unwilling spectators, he accuses the women of being prostitutes, and then has each one bend over and then has them beheaded, for God’s sake! In front of other women, men, children!
How can you possibly say that they do not want to be liberated?
Fry the motha fuckas!
Remember the 9/11/01 scene where people
were jumping to their death from the WTC building?
That should be shown on TV every hour on the hour so people don’t forget!
YES!!!
Franks:
Would it make any sense to show all your cards to justify this war?
In other words, suppose Bush lays out all the facts. Every sattelite photo, every bit of classified material indicating all we know as to amounts, types, and locations of weapons.
What would happen then?
Would it not make sense that saddam would attempt to relocate and hide again the weapons that he knows have been discovered?
Or, in desperation, would he grab all weapons inspectors and hold them hostage, in an attempt to stave off an attack?
Or, worst case scenario, suppose he totally melts down and lobs a shitload of missiles loaded with God knows what at Israel?
See what I’m saying? It makes no sense to show all your cards. I voted for this guy, and despite all that goes on in Washington that is unsavory, I would like to think that at a time like this we can trust those that represent us.
If you’re one of those who feels Bush “was never elected”, then I guess I can understand your paranoia to a certain extent.
People saying Bush stole the election has nothing to do with paranoia, it was reported by Greg Palast (a professional) & published in the Guardian (well-known mainstream newspaper) & on the BBC (well-known mainstream TV station). I think thanks to Jello Biafra & Michael Moore, it’s becoming common knowledge that the names of 35,000 African-American people were taken off the lists so they weren’t able to vote. You can probably read more here: www.gregpalast.com
If Bush is making accusations, he must prove to everyone beyond a shadow of a doubt that whatever action is to be taken is justified. That’s how it works in real life.
Ok, let’s clear one thing up.
WE are not making accusations or claims. Iraq claims it has destroyed the banned weapons. THEY made that claim. It is THEIR responsibility to provide proof that this actually happened. They have not. There are literally tons of banned chemical and biological weapons that are unaccounted for. Simply saying, “We don’t have anymore” does not suffice. These kinds of things are well documented, and do not just disappear.
And the issue of not telling all that we know would seem pretty intuitive to me. I’m guessing very few people know where the actual weapons are hidden. If we do know, and we know from a human source of intelligence in Iraq currently, then go and blab to the weapons inspectors, those people will die. It’s that simple. We lose human assets in country. We lose the location of the weapons (since they obviously would be moved).
This is all assuming that the inspectors would get anywhere NEAR those weapons even if they knew where they were. My guess is that they would find several locked doors that mysteriously couldn’t open (and this has already happened in this round of inspections).
Say, do you ever try to make a point or back things up that you post? You seem to be much better at regurgitating what you’ve read and posting links than you are at debating the subject at hand.
No
See DocT, this is why I singled you out, because I knew you would put together arguments in an adult fashion, instead of “let’s bomb’em.” I agree with your point that it is Iraq’s responsibility to prove it has no WMD. That is what the UN Weapons inspections are for right? They go in and look for weapons, and try and verify Iraq’s claims. And if at the end it all doesn’t add up, everyone in the Security Council votes to go in. That’s seems appropriate to me. However, if Bush’s administration wants to cut this process short, he has to provide a reason. You see where I’m coming from? If I’m taking a test, it’s my responsibility to prove I can pass it, but the proctor can’t just come over and snatch it from me halfway through and say “you were gonna fail it anyway” unless he has evidence otherwise. As far as the Iraqi people wanting to be liberated, look, it is not as simple as they do or don’t. I’m sure some do, and some don’t. I know Iraqi people in the US that say it was hell over there and they want the country liberated. I know a couple Iraqi people that were recently deported because they didn’t express the same views. It is not our responsibility to “liberate” anyone. Let’s just worry about disarming this madman.
BTW, the CIA report is from Nov. 2002, it’s March 2003, that’s 4-5 months. The CIA report is a standing assessment of Iraq capabilities for the last 7 years, what’s changed in 4-5 months?
Also, if we have satellite imagery and spy plane imagery of WMDs it would be very easy to alert the inspectors to locations without jeopardizing anyone. Hans Blix has expressed his frustration multiple times that we claim to have imagery of these secret bunkers but we don’t tell the inspectors where to look.
You understand my concern don’t you? 9/11 was so scary to some people, that they are willing to overlook civil liberties being violated if it gives them some comfort. That is completely against American ideals. And it also seems like people are so scared that they want to blow something up to feel better. I expect the American people to be braver than that, and ask the difficult questions. Why should we play a clip of 9/11 over and over again? We all remember the horrors, and we all want Bin Laden’s head in a box…but let’s not let our fear of being attacked again cloud our judgement. If the administration really wants disarmament why can’t the inspections come to their completion?
mamann, you make some good points but you don’t really back them up with facts. “We are the targets of Hussein.”
How are we the targets of Hussein? He has no missile capability to reach the US, and we have no evidence that he has ever sold WMD to terrorists. In fact the evidence we have says that his regime hates both Iran and Al Qaeda. How as the fear of being attacked by Hussein been played up so strongly in you without evidence? Were you afraid of being attacked by Iraq back in say, 1998?
Also, you contend that “worst case he lobs missles at Isreal…” This would be bad, if it were possible. However we accounted for and removed all of their SCUD missles, and the remainder of their arsenal does not have the range to target Isreal.
Good to see we can have a debate without the childish insults going both ways. We absolutely agree on that.
I think part of the reason we disagree is by the method of “proving” they have disarmed. I’m of the mind that they should provide documentation of the destruction and personnel who were there should be made available to us.
If they did this, and if the eyewitnesses gave corroborating stories when interviewed separately, I would be satisfied with the answer. Until that happens, I don’t think we can trust a group of 100 or so inspectors to search a country of that size with any efficiency or efficacy. I think the method I proposed (and the US government) would shift the burden of proof to them, giving them a choice in the matter. The way it’s working right now, and the way they’re playing the game, they have no choice anymore, short of admitting that they’ve been lying for years.
“TW, the CIA report is from Nov. 2002, it’s March 2003, that’s 4-5 months. The CIA report is a standing assessment of Iraq capabilities for the last 7 years, what’s changed in 4-5 months?”
I’ll get back to you on this one. I’ve seen other sources that contradict this, and I’ll have to find them again and verify they’re relatively trustworthy sources to reference.
My honest belief about these banned weapons is that they’re being stored underground somewhere and that recon planes and satellites are virtually useless in this situation. I’d be more inclined to believe that we have human resources on the ground that are giving us “strong clues.”
“You understand my concern don’t you?”
I certainly do, and please don’t believe that we’re on polar opposites of this. I think we both ultimately want the same thing, but our means differ quite a bit currently. I remember 9-11 vividly. That’s precisely why I fully support the disarmament of a man fully capable and willing to arm terrorists who would do much worse to us.
Telling Iraq to prove that it doesn’t have any WMD is Napoleonic Law, that is, guilty until proven innocent. Try proving to somebody that you didn’t steal a TV set or rob a bank or something. That isn’t how reality works.
Say, they had/have WMD. They claim to have destroyed them. They have to prove that this is what was done. Yes, they are guilty until proven innocent, as this isn’t an American courtroom.
Take out Saddam once and for all, finish what your father couldn’t!!!
The UN is spineless. They create resolution after resolution, but never follow up on it. The US/Britain decides to make Iraq make good on it, and gets criticized for it. The US/Britain, once again, has to go in and do what the rest of the UN doesn’t have the balls to do. If Saddam has destroyed them, why doesn’t he give up the information as to what happened to them. Can anyone give a reason as to why he is being so uncooperative? Does the truth hurt?
Why are we still dicking around with this guy? Action is always faster than reaction. We know what Saddam has been capable of. Why wait to see what he is capable of?
A quick apology for the very ungrammatical messages I have been leaving. I live in Japan and the computer I have was brought whilst here. Because of this all of the keys( aside from the letters) are not as they are labled and its a pain in the backside trying to remember which ones are which.
As for the poor spelling… Its just laziness on my part. Again, sorry.
Yes.
The War on Terrorism is focused on oil having countries? Yes, as we all know Afghanistan is OPEC’s most powerful member! The Philippines (FYI we have troops there now training others to root out the terrorists there)? Yes, they are an oil wealthy nation as well. I think most of these people are anti-war because they are anti-Bush. Sad to see a lot of people cannot put politics aside when it comes to national security.
Another problem is that some people are so Pro-Bush that they dismiss genuine argument as “anti-americanism” or just being “anti-bush.” The inspectors today said the inspections are working. The head of that IAEA says that 2 of our accusations about Iraq’s nuclear program have been verified to be false, and that progress determining their nuclear capabilities are moving along well. If disarmament is truly our goal, and war is really a last resort, then why don’t we let the professionals finish what we sent them there to do? If the inspectors finish their work, and Iraq has not done all it needs to do, rest assured that they will tell us that, and then we will have a case to make for going to war. There are people that oppose war under all circumstances, and they make some interesting arguments but i do not agree with them. There are also people that want war no matter what, and I certainly don’t agree with them. But there are people making genuine arguments for both sides and to those people I ask, why not wait for them to finish if they say what they are doing is working?
"If disarmament is truly our goal, and war is really a last resort, then why don’t we let the professionals finish what we sent them there to do?
- This is very simple, There are 100 or so inspectors searching for wepons in a country the size of California. Remember last time we found wepons that he “diddn’t have”? Sure you do, but do you remember that it took four years and the only reason we found anything was thanks to his taddle tale brother in law? Don’t forget that Saddam has complete control of this country and even if we sent 10,000 inspectors in there, without cooperation we’ll never find a thing.
I would like to applaud Doc and BB on thier constant effort to educate the politically challenged on this very delicate subject, especially since you post an anwser only to see the question to that anwser typed over and over again. Your patience is appreciated.
Yes.