Iraq War Rationale in a Nutshell
Hey. I just realized something: lies.com is the most-prominent war-obsessed weblog that is authored by an actual O’Reilly author. Yay for me!
In honor of that, here’s a nice little Nutshell guide to our reasons for going to war with Iraq. It’s from minimumeffort.com, courtesy of daypop: A warmonger explains war to a peacenik.
April 5th, 2003 at 12:16 pm
AN ADULT EXPLAINS WAR TO A PEACENIK
By Anonymous
PeaceNik: Why did you say we are we invading Iraq?
WarMonger: We are invading Iraq because it is in violation of Security Council resolution 1441 and sixteen other resolutions as well as the cease-fire that ended hostilities in 1991. A country cannot be allowed to violate Security Council resolutions.
PN: But I thought many of our allies, including Israel, were in violation of more Security Council resolutions than Iraq.
ADULT: This is true, but those were Chapter VI resolutions, which require negotiations between two parties. Chapter VII resolution are demands on a SINGLE party and those resolutions are backed by force, specifically authorized in 1991. That force was put on hold by Iraqi agreeing to the terms of a cease-fire. They have since violated those terms. The main point is that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, and the first sign of a smoking gun could well be a mushroom cloud over NY.
PN: Mushroom cloud? But I thought the weapons inspectors said Iraq had no nuclear weapons.
ADULT: That’s correct and right now we agree with them. But they also said that they no nuclear program in ’93 and we since found out that they did. Hussein’s son-in-law gave us a lot of frightening information and then Hussein had him executed. The UN inspectors, led by the one and only Hans Blix, also said North Korea had no nuclear program and we now know that this wasn’t true. We know this because they now actually have nuclear weapons. But anyway, what we’re worried about short term is biological and chemical weapons.
PN: But I thought Iraq did not have any long-range missiles for attacking our allies or us with such weapons.
ADULT: They wouldn’t be able to hit us with such a missile, but they could hit Kuwait or Israel. The fact that he has those missiles at all is a violation of the cease-fire agreement. But the direct risk to the US is not Iraq directly attacking us, but rather terrorists networks that Iraq could sell the weapons to.
PN: But couldn’t virtually any country sell chemical or biological materials? We sold quite a bit to Iraq in the eighties ourselves, didn’t we?
ADULT: That’s true, we did. Personally I think that makes us more responsible to settle this, not less. Look, Saddam Hussein is an evil man that has an undeniable track record of repressing and murdering his own people since the early eighties. He gasses his enemies. Everyone agrees that he is a power-hungry lunatic murderer.
PN: We sold chemical and biological materials to a power-hungry lunatic murderer?
ADULT: Yes. We thought at the time that Iran was the bigger threat. They had clearly declared themselves a belligerent nation and we were terrified of their fundamentalism spreading throughout the Middle East. We think it’s important that we fix some of the problems of our failed policies. Remember, Hussein is the one that invaded Kuwait.
PN: I’ll call that pre-emptive first strike for political reason right now. And it does sound bad. But didn’t our ambassador to Iraq, April Gillespie, know about and green light the invasion of Kuwait?
ADULT: I’ve heard rumors like that, but mostly from conspiracy nuts. Never made much sense to me. The idea of Hussein controlling that much of the world’s oil was never an acceptable outcome to the US. And since we turned around and gave that oil right back to the Kuwaitis and even the Iraqi it’s hard to say that we just wanted the oil for ourselves. But I’d like to just stick to the facts here. As of today, Iraq could sell its biological and chemical weapons to Al Quaida, and in fact has already taught members of Al Quaida how to make Ricen. The French were actually the first to find out about this, but they decided not to tell anyone. We don’t know why they kept quiet about that. It’s like they kept that information to themselves to avoid helping the American case at the UN. I’ll tell you though; it sure pissed off the Brits when they found ricen from that same terrorist in London. But the French are our allies so I’m sure they have their reasons. A small side note, Osama Bin Laden himself released an audiotape calling on Iraqis to suicide-attack us, some say this suggest they have shared motives but it was never critical to the case.
PN: Osama Bin Laden? Wasn’t the point of invading Afghanistan to kill him?
ADULT: Well, yeah, to kill him, and if not that then put him on the run and deny him a state to give him sanctuary. Actually, it’s not 100% certain that it’s really Osama Bin Laden on the tapes, though voice analysis suggest it is. But the lesson from the tape is the same: there could easily be a limited partnership between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein unless we act.
PN: Is this the same audiotape where Osama Bin Laden labels Saddam a secular infidel?
ADULT: Yeah. But sometime the enemy of your enemy is your friend. Hell, if Hitler and Stalin can sign a peace treaty and agree to split up Poland, I’m sure Osama and Hussein can get a few yucks out of killing a few Jews and westerners together. But you’re missing the point by just focusing on the tape, like I said that’s a side note. Powell presented a strong case against Iraq.
PN: He did?
ADULT: Yes, he showed satellite pictures of an Al Quaeda poison factory in Iraq.
PN: But didn’t that turn out to be a harmless shack in the part of Iraq controlled by the Kurdish opposition?
ADULT: No. Who told you that? Actually we just bombed the hell out of it and Special Forces moved in. we got a lot of good intelligence out of there. It was technically Kurdish land but it was land under Sadam’s influence. He controlled who was there and could have kicked him out if he wanted. He didn’t want to. And a British intelligence report…
PN: Didn’t that turn out to be copied from an out-of-date graduate student paper?
ADULT: Parts of it were and the report wasn’t out of date. The Brits were pretty embarrassed by that but nothing in it was inaccurate. And reports of mobile weapons labs…
PN: Weren’t those just artistic renderings?
ADULT: Described to us by defectors, yes. And reports of Iraqis scuttling and hiding evidence from inspectors…
PN: Wasn’t that evidence contradicted by the chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix?
ADULT: No. Who told you that? Blix has sometimes been critical, and he called the report inconclusive, but Blix really isn’t the guy we wanted anyway. We had a bunch of choices and the French nixed them all. The French insisted on Blix being the inspector. This Blix guy – we all knew he was a political animal. He’s the inspector that gave the thumbs up to Korea and called them nuclear free and well… we know that one didn’t turn out true don’t we? Blix was also the one that gave an upbeat verbal report on the progress of inspections and then released a 90 page document listing all the violations they found a few hours later after the cameras were off. Weird behavior, if you ask me. I don’t know why the French insisted on him so much. But they’re our allies and I’m sure they have their reasons. But there is plenty of other hard evidence that cannot be revealed because it would compromise our security.
PN: So there is no publicly available evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?
ADULT: You’ve seen what we were willing to make public. But there is not a single intelligence agency in Europe that does not consider Iraq armed to the teeth with chemical weapons. I don’t know why France was so unconvinced. Their intelligence agency knows Iraq has chemical weapons so why didn’t the leaders of their government? Same for the Germans. But they’re our allies and I’m sure they have their reasons. Of course now that I think about it, I’m not sure why the French and Germans were so convinced time would have solved this dilemma. No one at the UN was ever confused by the inspector’s capabilities. It’s not their JOB to find evidence. The inspector’s job is to supervise a country voluntarily disarming. If the country is not cooperating then it doesn’t matter how long the inspectors are there, “More time” wouldn’t have made a difference. But the French are our allies and I’m sure they had their reasons. But I’ll tell you what, I sure do wish those other countries put half the pressure on the Iraqis to disarm as they did on us not to enforce the resolutions. Think might have ended up differently. Makes you wonder those people’s motives were. But there are allies…
PN: Well, if we had intelligence on the weapons in Iraq, why didn’t we tell the inspectors where some of it was?
ADULT: We did. We told them a bunch of places. But I guess they had better leads, because they rarely acted on them. We did tell them where to find those medium range missiles, though. You think that would have led them to take our intelligence more seriously. But anyway, this is hardly the point… if we didn’t know any better you’d think Blix has an agenda of his own. I know he’s on record awfully pissed off about the Kyoto treaty and other anti-American politics, but… no. He’s a pro. Anyway, that’s not the point…
PN: So what is the point?
ADULT: The main point is that we are invading Iraq because the violation of the cease-fire, sixteen other resolutions and as well as the most recent resolution 1441 which threatened “severe consequences”, which we all understood to be a continuation of hostilities. If the Security Council does not act, the Security Council will become an irrelevant debating society.
PN: So the main point is to uphold the rulings of the Security Council?
ADULT: Not anymore, no. That time has come and gone. Going to the UN for legitimate issues regarding war was a relatively new experiment started by George Bush Sr. Since the UN refuses to uphold its own resolutions the chances of anyone going back there is pretty unlikely.
PN: So the UN ruled against us?
ADULT: I guess you can say that. It did feel like a personal slap in the face. But what it actually did was refuse to uphold its previous resolutions. We weren’t willing to do that and neither were 45 other countries.
PN: Is that the Coalition of the willing? Who’s that?
ADULT: Well, in alphabetical order they’re Afghanistan, Albania, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Hungary, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom and Uzbekistan. Some are extremely involved, but most are just helping out with logistics. We also have fifteen other countries, mostly in the Middle East who are not willing to have their name mentioned for obvious reasons.
PN: I thought public opinion in all those countries was against war.
ADULT: Countries vary on that. Many have public opinions against the war, others don’t – those mostly in Eastern Europe. They have the freshest memory of what its like to live under an oppressive regime. But it’s probably not a good idea to define what the right thing is by opinion polls. I don’t have to get into the crimes against humanity that has public approval. Nope, public opinion just isn’t always right.
PN: So it’s the decisions of leaders elected by the majority that is important?
ADULT: Sometimes, yes. But mainly it’s just trying to do the right thing.
PN: But George Bush wasn’t elected by voters. He was selected by the U.S. Supreme C…-
ADULT: That’s kind of debatable isn’t? Probably best to discuss that another time. If you really want someone to blame, blame all those people who voted for Nader. They really tipped the scales. But I guess what goes around comes around. Those Ross Perot voters put Clinton in office in ‘92.
PN: So if we do not support the decisions of the president, we are not patriotic?
ADULT: No. I never said that.
PN: So what are you saying? Why are we invading Iraq?
ADULT: As I said, because they have weapons of mass destruction that threaten us and our allies and they have agreed under penalty of force not to.
PN: But North Korea actually has large amounts of usable chemical, biological, AND nuclear weapons, AND long range missiles that can reach the west coast AND it has expelled nuclear weapons inspectors, AND threatened to turn America into a sea of fire.
ADULT: That’s true and they’re pretty scary. But they don’t have twelve years of resolutions and cease-fire violations. So, for the foreseeable future that’s a diplomatic issue. Let’s hope it stays that way.
PN: So why are we invading Iraq instead of using diplomacy?
ADULT: We spent a long time on diplomacy. Frankly a lot of us feel that if France made it clear that they would enforce those resolutions then maybe Hussein might have felt more willing to comply and this whole thing could have been avoided. But in the long run this might be best because at least we can get rid of Sadam, and he can stop torturing and murdering his people. Unfortunately we have to fight a war to do it. To be honest with you, a lot of us who wanted regime change were pretty nervous that Sadam would comply with the resolution and then we would have been stuck with him!
PN: But wouldn’t a pre-emptive war against Iraq ignite radical Muslim sentiments against us, and decrease our security?
ADULT: In the short term, that’s possible. And I would exactly call this a pre-emptive war. Aren’t you listening? Either way, we must not allow the terrorists to fundamentally change the way we live. Once we do that, the terrorists have already won.
PN: So what is the purpose of the Department of Homeland Security, color-coded terror alerts, and the Patriot Act? Don’t these change the way we live?
ADULT: I hope not essentially. If they do we’ll have to pull them back. But you have to remember, this is new to us. We’re doing the best we can. If we don’t do something we get beat up by the press, if we do do something, we get beat up by the press. If we mention duct tape in a list of suggestions if you want to feel more prepared, then all of a sudden everyone’s claiming that’s the only thing we’re doing. But that’s a whole other topic. I thought you had questions about Iraq.
PN: I do. Why are we invading Iraq?
ADULT: This isn’t sinking in at all, is it? Are you trying NOT to listen? For the last time, we are invading Iraq because the world has called on Saddam Hussein to disarm, and he has failed to do so. He must now face the consequences.
PN: So, likewise, if the world called on us to do something, such as find a peaceful solution, we would have an obligation to listen?
ADULT: I don’t quite know what “peaceful solution” means in that context. What do you think we’ve been trying to do? Don’t you think that take two parties to do that? Hussein could have put an end to this at any time by just doing what he agreed to do. Why are you more outraged by us than by him?
PN: I don’t know. But back to my question, would we have an obligation to listen to the United Nations if it told us to do something?
ADULT: Well, if we agree to certain terms and even agree that the world may use force if we don’t abide by them, and then we in fact don’t abide by them, I think the world would have an excellent case to use force against us. Regardless of how many of them really wanted to follow through.
PN: Oh… I still don’t get it.
ADULT: I don’t think you want to.
PN: … Fascist!
ADULT: Hmmm. I think you might want to let the adults handle this.
October 2nd, 2003 at 10:31 am
Pretty nifty