Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler OT: politics

The UN was headed our way??? Um...I don't think so. For one, some of those countries had much to hide. For example, banned materials/products (including weapons) they were selling to Iraq in secret..against the UN resolution they signed.

Look, Iraq was big business to many of these countries and they didn't want that money flow to stop. I think the unraveling oil-for-food scandal is just another example of this.

Okay, it's a bit a late, so this may not make an ounce of sense, but here's my somewhat off-the-wall take on Bush and his approach to the Iraq situation (just try to hang with me here):

Let's say Bush wants to get from point A to point B, so he decides to build a car. Fine, that makes sense--can't really argue with him there. Now, Bush has never built a car before. However, people who have built cars before advise him that he's going to need various types of metal alloys, rubber, and plastic and a team of good engineers and mechanics to fit it all together, plus a lot of gasoline. "Screw that," Bush says, "that sounds waaaaay too complicated." Nope, Bush just has a "gut feeling" that even though he's never built a car, never driven a car, in fact can't even pronounce "Saab" correctly, that he knows how to build a car. He has some good (i.e. wealthy beyond all imagination) friends who own a bakery, so he decides to give them the business and build his car out of doughnuts and frosting instead. "Besides," Bush figures, "it's a long trip, and if I should get a hankerin' for some grub, I can just take a bite out of my neat little doughnut-car." And, well, lo and behold, the damn thing just don't work. Go figure.

Okay, so like I said, it's a bit late.

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But the real point of invasion always was and still is the people of Iraq.

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No disrespect intended, but - bullshit. It could possibly be the greatest benefit of the war (only time will tell), but it definitely wasn't the main reason for the war. Otherwise the Bush administration would've been saying so from the get-go. Instead it was "imminent threat" and "weapons of mass destruction" and "ties to Al Qaeda" - and then FINALLY when all those weren't enough it became the Operation Iraqi Freedom we all know and love today.

This never was and never will be a primarily humanitarian mission. The US needed to gain another stronghold in the region, and in the process conveniently depose of someone who'd worn out his welcome. The fate of the Iraqi people is and always has been completely secondary to the benefit of gaining more control in the area and also gaining more control over the flow of oil. Let's face it, if the Middle East wasn't the huge oil producing region it is, we wouldn't have much of an interest in the place. What happened after we toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan? Haliburton and Chevron got their wet dream of finally being able to build a pipeline through the country. Installing a US-friendly Iraqi government in a country sitting on a huge oil reserve was I'm sure more on the minds of the administration than the livelihood of the people inhabiting the country.

Now let's say that saving the people of Iraq from a cruel dictator was the main reason for the war. There is a problem with that angle. And that problem is Africa. Whether by massacres and genocide, disease and epidemics (AIDS), cruel dictatorships or just plain malnutrition, the state of living for the average African is far more dire than the average Iraqi. Take Rwanda. The Congo. Sudan (hey, if we're going to right a wrong, how about we build a new pharmaceutical plant to replace the one we blew up, so the Sudanese people can receive treatment for various diseases, like TB, at a price they can actually afford, rather than dying by the thousands from treatable diseases). Anyway, my point is, the US has never been altruistic when it comes to using it's might. And though there are millions of Africans truly struggling for survival every day, who are far more deserving of a better way of life than those whose main struggle is for rights and not survival , they are denied that chance because they have little to offer the US in return.

If Iraq was not sitting on top of oil and not in the hotbed that is the Middle East, and if Saddam was just as cruel, no, if he were twice as cruel, we would not have invaded, plain and simple.

Adam, the US cannot feed the world.

Why is Africa such a mess? Corruption, religious war - jihad for Sharia in Niger, Chad, Mali, Nigeria, and on and on. Iraq was a threat, the sanction regime was breaking down thanks the the French, Russians and Germans, and if the Ba'athists had the full flow of oil revenues, do you doubt they would have had an armory of WMD?

I think the idea of democratizing Iraq is farcical, but at least the Ba'athists are out of power.

You think the US is not motivated by altruism? Why did we go into Somalia under Clinton? You may have forgotten but it was because of the famine and all those babies with distended bellies and flies feeding off their eyes. We went in with food and they hacked our guys to pieces. Why? Because our guys were Christian and the fattest part of the bell curve of the distribution of normative values in that part of the world is Jihad coupled with the governmental system of repose in that part of the world - warlordism.

You may see yourself as a highly evolved, tolerant and loving person, and figure that everyone else would be the same if their bellies were full. That is a materialist delusion which does not give religious fanaticism its due.

There's evil in the world, it's at war with us. Take a stand. Tolerance is the hallmark of liberalism, but tolerance of evil is folly.

I wasn't aware that I was taking the stance of tolerating evil. If anything, I'm speaking out against the tolerance of evil if it's in a part of the world we're not interested in.

keeping quite to this point--maybe we propped him for the same reason people buy bose, easy, and best uninformed choice at the time?

Ok... I've been laying low for a while because of what I perceived as a complete lack of civil discourse and tolerance for people who have a different opinion. I am a Republican, and I really resent being labelled racist, homo-whatever, hate the poor, intolerant, etc... I am none of those things. Since THIS discussion seems to be one in which we can freely express our opinions without getting flamed, I'll toss in my .02 on a few topics. KC listed them out, so I'm going to rip him off

1. Preemption. We change the doctrine of the last x amount of years by hitting first.

BigWill listed MOST of the prior attacks on us that have been going on since 1970. Exactly how many times does one need to be attacked before retaliation is not considered "preemption". They took shots at us for years, and we did nothing. If we had attacked back in 1960, then THAT would have been preemption.

2. Unilateralism. We don't wait for the proper process to happen. The UN was headed our way, it just would have taken a little while. Yeah, yeah, how many more would die, but still. Procedures should be followed, or we should pull out of the UN, and cause even more people to hate us.

The UN was NEVER going to "head our way". 2 points here. #1, the UN supported Gulf War. Saddam signed a cease fire agreement that provided for unlimited inspections. If he really had none, he would have let us look anywhere and everywhere that we wanted. Nothing to hide, right? He didn't. When hostilities resumed after the violation of the cease fire agreement, the original (UN approved) Gulf War started up again, correct? Sounds legal enough to me.

Second, individuals in the French, German, and Russian governments were receiving kickbacks from Saddam and the oil for food program. As long as Saddam had a lock on Iraq, those people were guaranteed a supply of free money. They were NEVER going to vote to remove him. He could have killed 3 million more people on camera, and they would not have voted to remove him. The UN is corrupt, period. We should not trust the destiny of the American people to them.

3. We were lied to. We are still lied to. The revisionism is amazing. Now our primary motivation for going into Iraq was to remove Saddam. A year ago, our primary motivation was because of the "WMD."

We were not lied to. Every intelligence agency in the world knows Saddam had, used, and was still developing other WMDs. They were there. Sooner or later, they will turn up. He had plenty of time to hide, or move the ones he had before we rolled in. Maybe the UN called him, and told him that they couldn't stall the US any longer? Another point. Given the desire of about 50% of the American population to be politically correct at all times, the President can't simply come on TV, say "Saddam violated the cease fire agreement, leaders all over the world are being bought off, and oh by the way, we need to go hunt down and kill these radical Islamists wherever and whenever we can.". The liberal press would have a field day with that. I listen to what Bush said prior to the war. If you heard anything other than what I just typed in quotes when you listened to him, then you just missed his point. The story was the same, beginning to end. It's just hard to put that in a sentence that meets the PC standard. He said the same thing, with the same intention repeatedly. It was clear as a bell, just as I typed it, and it never changed.

4. WMD. Since when does everything need to be an acronym?!

I agree. WTF?

5. A lack of a plan for the peace. Sure we won the war. Uh, now what? Let's make it up!

Uh, lets apply this to the fire department. "Uh... we're sorry sir, we can't come out there and put that fire out at your house because the architect hasn't called us with the new floor plans yet." Basic rules of emergencies. Handle the situation at hand first, then deal with the aftermath. Basic rules of business. Avoid "analysis paralysis". Do not spend so much time analyzing that the opportunity you were examining passes you by. Bush's plan for peace was simple. Take out the dictator. Stop shooting. Leave.

6. The War on Terror. Uh, what happened to Osama? Good lord, we're pulling people out of Afghanistan to go to Iraq!

Did you notice that we stompped all over Afghanistan, and not one peep from the radical Islamic community. We went into Iraq, and they're coming out of the woodwork. Maybe we struck a nerve? Based on their reaction alone, I'd say we're getting warmer. We've plucked a nerve to be sure. We MUST be doing something right.

7. North Korea. They've got ICBMs and Nukes. They've said so. We know it. They're irrational as hell. You know why we're not touching them? 'Cause under the Bush doctrine, they should be little piles of radioactive ash.

It worked with the Soviet Union. Now our President does lunch with their President. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

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2x6, you don't sound like a Democrat - though all those pictures of you, the Clintons and Gore rubbing elbows leaves little room for doubt. LOL

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I just hope he took a shower afterwards!

Adam wrote:

"I wasn't aware that I was taking the stance of tolerating evil. If anything, I'm speaking out against the tolerance of evil if it's in a part of the world we're not interested in."

Hello Adam

I think the point is the US cannot right every wrong in the world. We have to be guided in our conduct by our national interest and threats to our national interest. The US gives billions of dollars in food and credits to the world. A non trivial percentage of our largesse is stolen by corrupt elites, much is then sold rather than given to starving people. International food aid to Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, IRAQ, are cases in point. The US couldn't really intervene militarily in Rwanda because there are no effective regional cooperative groups and how were we supposed to project force to Rwanda surrounded by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda? How come Rwanda's neighbors tolerated the murder of hundreds of thousands of Tutsies by Hutus? Why do you fault US intervention in Iraq and fault us for not intervening in Rwanda?

How about Somalia? We went in to save that region from anarchy, systematic murder, rape, and starvation, and our soldiers were attacked and hacked to pieces. Why? Because it's better to starve than be humiliated by the infidel Christians.

It's a weird world and many hate the US not for the reasons you find to criticize our society, but because of our religions and secular society.

Man, I absolutely love this post!

Been away for a while, so I wanted to pick and choose a few things to take shots at:

1. "i dont think i could handle another flip-flop.." Bigjohn - If you can't handle another flip-flop election, how are you going to handle 4 years of flip-flops?....So far, that is Kerry's modus operandus, so it's fair to assume that we should expect that from a Kerry/Edwards administration. "I voted for the $87 Billion before I voted against it."

2. kcarlile - You already took a beating over your statements about the UN "coming around" and staying within procedures, but I have to hit you up on that one too. You REALLY need to rethink your stance on the motivations and credibility of the UN. The corrupt and self-serving actions of the major powers within the UN have been exposed for all to see. Their credibility is severely damaged after 10 years of being defied without repercussion. Over time, their role in these different scandals will further damage their credibility. The UN has never acted in the best interest of the US. US interests cannot be their only driver, but they have an obligation not to act in direct opposition to the interests of one of it's largest members and by far the largest contributor. Everyone wants to have this utopia with a unified governing body that maintains the peace between nations, but people need to reconsider their views of the UN being this body. They have done absolutely NOTHING to deserve that level of respect from us.

3. 2X6, you are definitely the local scholar on affairs in Africa. I will definitely admit my ignorance in that arena.

4. jtmccoy - You REALLY have to avoid posting that late at night.

5. Adam - You have swallowed the left conspiracy theory hook, line, and sinker. Do you truly think that we are going to come out of this with some kind of unending supply of oil? Yes, we might come out of this with a good trade partner once the country settles down. But, as we ALWAYS do, the US will leave Iraq a sovereign nation free to do with their oil what they see fit. The only ones with blatant interests in hijacking their oil are the UN members, who are very pissed off that we busted up their party.

6. I'm kind of getting tired with the whole dialog about why we didn't attack such and such banter. The only reason we outright invaded Iraq is because we had permission. However much no one wants to believe it, the UN resolutions gave us the permission to enforce the consequences of Iraq's defiance. Given the evidence we had at the time of Iraq's thread, along with the existing UN resolutions, the US made a choice to finally enforce the resolutions of the impotent UN....something that was long over-due.

We all need to face it; we did it because we could. We would love to beat the crap out of all of the dysfuntional regimes out there, but it's not practical.

7. As a final note, I want to throw out another thought. I am getting sick and tired of hearing about this crap about Bush not winning the election. That seems to pop up a lot when a Democrat gets really wired up and wants to scream about Bush. The problem is the fact that they're wrong. Studies following the election show that Gore would NOT have won based upon ALL of the different recount variations that he requested in his lawsuit.

That issue may seem a bit arbitrary, but it was on my mind. I like the Beasties Boys, but their recent cd has numerous songs bitching about Bush, including statements about him not being elected by us.

OK....that's my 2 cents.