Popularity of anti-war movements in the modern era is a reflection of the culture of instant gratification. Rather than looking at the long term costs and benefits of a conflict, people only want to think about war itself, which is, of course, most unpleasant in many ways.

People these days have no tolerance for sacrifice. That's why so many people have huge debt problems. People don't think about what's going to be best in ten years (or 300), they only care about what's best in the instant itself.

That this short-sighted worldview so often successfully takes the guise of morality is a sad reflection of our times.

An interesting article. gave you read the one i posted yet? (about israel)

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Visit my site Antiwar Homepage

quote:

Originally posted by Izzy (specifically french) foriegn policy (towards iraq)

^^^^^^ x trillion.

yeah...france has always got something to do that is agaist america stands for...

>JM<

fuck shirac

chirac
a rhyme
im frdrunk#
maybe not a good idea to discuss plitics in such a state

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"Those are my principles, if you don't like them... well, I have others.”

Of course France has its own reasons for not wanting war with Iraq, and they're not all about being on a moral high ground. But anyway, some things are not quite correct in this article.

quote:

Consider for a moment the current French position — and, no, I don't mean prone. This week they announced that containment works. The French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, declared, "Already we know for a fact that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs are being largely blocked, even frozen. We must do everything possible to strengthen this process." Well, if France knows for "a fact," then France also knows for a fact that Iraq has such weapons programs. After all, you can't block or freeze what doesn't exist (if you don't find this logic compelling, go right now and tell your wife that your longstanding efforts to bed Filipino hookers have been "largely blocked, even frozen" by her constant inspections into your bank account and that she therefore has no reason to take a more aggressive posture towards you. Then, see what happens). So, if France knows for "a fact" that these programs exist, then it knows for a fact that Iraq lied in its weapons declaration. Because, you see, the Iraqis themselves insist they have no weapons programs to halt. In short, France wants to keep inspections going because that's the best way to keep Iraq in a permanent state of non-compliance. I could have sworn that when the U.N. said Iraq had one last chance to cooperate with the U.N., it didn't mean it had one last chance to make the U.N. look stupid by playing keep-away.

If the programs are blocked or frozen, that means Iraq has put an end to them, which means they aren't going on any more. Therefore they have existed, but exist no longer. The only way they can be completely erased is killing those Iraqi scientists who gained information from those programs.

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Well, color me doltish because we know Saddam Hussein has tons of chemical and biological weapons he's hiding behind his back. President Bush — another alleged dolt — was right when he said this feels like the replay of a bad movie. What's so insulting is that the French and the Germans seem to expect us to take their arguments seriously.

Well, where are they then? You only said that France confirmed Iraq HAD those programs. And as far as I know, UN inspectors can go anywhere anytime, so with little help from Bush who is certain about those weapons and their whereabouts, those weapons can easily be found. That is of course, if there are any.

quote:

For example, there's the crowd that insists there's no proof that Saddam Hussein has nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons — while simultaneously arguing that we shouldn't disarm Saddam because he might use those weapons on us in retaliation. "Don't shoot! He's unarmed! And if you do he might shoot back" is an argument fit for a world where clocks melt, hands draw each other, and people take Barbra Streisand seriously.

Ok, if there's no proof he has WOMD, that doesn't mean he doesn't have them. So then there are two options. Either US attacks, finds no WOMDs, and therefore it attacked a sovereign country for no reason whatsoever, or they do exist and Saddam launches them in retaliation, and kills thousands of people. In both scenarios US intervention is a failure.

quote:

I don't want to rehash all of the same old tired antiwar arguments (see here and here), but just to be quick: If we wanted Saddam's oil we could have taken it in 1991 when we won the first Gulf War. For that matter, if we were the oil-hungry empire these buffoons keep saying we are, we could have taken Kuwait's and Saudi Arabia's while we were at it. Or — if we wanted so badly to get Iraq's oil to flow through America's "Big Oil" — we could simply agree with Saddam that we'll lift the sanctions if he gives us the oil contracts. He's indicated more than once that that would be fine with him.

It is true that Saddam indicated it would be fine with him to sell his oil to the americans. Americans however did not want that, but they wanted to gain ownership of the oil fields themselves. And there's a big difference between the two.

quote:

And just to set the record straight: The sanctions regime has improved the health of all Iraqi children not under Saddam Hussein's thumb. In the Kurdish North — where American and British, but not French, planes prevent mass slaughter — there is no mass starvation or child-health crisis. Saddam, and not sanctions, has killed hundreds of thousands of children in order to score propaganda points, which have in turn been manfully presented to the world community by Mr. Chirac in exchange for fat oil contracts. In effect, the French (and Russians) do not want a war-for-oil because the current peace-for-oil allows them to collect billions from the corpses of dead Iraqi children.

Sanctions and no-fly zones are different things. While it is true that American planes are helping people in the Kurdish north of the country, the sanctions are not helping them in any way. And it's not a peace-for-oil program, it's a food-for-oil program. Iraq is not giving oil just to maintain peace, it's giving it's oil in exchange for food. I'm not for complete lifting of sanctions, because Saddam does have expansionistic tensions, but I am for free trade of food and medicines, which is currently going on.

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1+1=10

anyone who's antiwar on this iraq issue is a spineless fool, being held up only by the starch in their smug business shirts.

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c o n : f u s e d

I don't want to call into question the impartiality of this organisation, but anyone who tries to pass this off as "news" must closely resemble a goose born without a left wing:

On George Bush:

quote:

He's turned into a great orator, although I must say I miss the occasional malapropism. And he's a hell of a leader; he shows real nerve and conviction — both in his toughness on the terror masters, and in his insistence that we defend our moral standards by tending to the sick and suffering, by opposing human cloning, by outlawing "partial-birth abortions," by rescuing drug addicts, and by trying to turn prisons into an opportunity for rehabilitation. It's been a long time since we've heard a president elevate the tone of public discourse so effectively.

I think the phrase "ignorant wanker" sums him up a tad more accurately actually Mike. But just because they're mid-upper-class, republican-voting, NRA members who support capital punishment and wars they don't have to fight in, they're still entitled to an opinion without being derided as clueless rednecks right?

quote:

If you go into every situation saying there's absolutely nothing worth fighting over, you will inevitably end up on a cot sleeping next to a guy named Tiny, bringing him breakfast in his cell every morning, and spending your afternoons ironing his boxers. Or, in the case of the French, you might spend your afternoon rounding up Jews to send to Germany, but you get the point.

Cute analogy, but I don't get the connection. Is he suggesting that if we don't bomb Iraq even further into the stone-age, that we're eventually going to become Saddam's bitch? Had someone taken one too many irrational paranoia tablets before turning up to work one morning? If he seriously considers Iraq as any serious threat to his own wellbeing then I can only cast serious aspersions on his sanity. The only influence Iraq will ever have on his every day life pertains to the cost of the petrol he pours into his SUV on his way to his anti-abortion Church group.

And accusing the French of being anti-semitic (he says something similar later on) because of deeds committed 60 years ago is similarly at odds with any rational foundation in the real world. So the French keiled over easily in WW2 and handed over the Jews to the Nazis, but what does that have to with the proposed war on Iraq? That he is deriding a current action (or inaction) based on something that happened 60 years ago (when all the people responsible are either dead or at least long retired from their officialdom) is the equivelent of rejecting a war on Iraq because of the injustices prevelant in the US during the 17th century Salem witchtrials. By continually referring to the second world war - as the Americans are quite fond of doing it seems - he is crudely "stereotyping" an entire nation, and I shouldn't have to tell you that stereotypes are generally perpetuated out of ignorance and it would seem that this is no exception. Wonder if he could point out France on a map?

(Note: you needn't point out my own stereotyping of the American right as a response to my own condemnation of stereotyping. I'm being post-ironic in my method, which makes it intellectually viable of course. )

quote:

Consider for a moment the current French position — and, no, I don't mean prone. This week they announced that containment works. The French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, declared, "Already we know for a fact that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs are being largely blocked, even frozen. We must do everything possible to strengthen this process." Well, if France knows for "a fact," then France also knows for a fact that Iraq has such weapons programs........ So, if France knows for "a fact" that these programs exist, then it knows for a fact that Iraq lied in its weapons declaration.

France acknowledges that Iraq has some weapons programs, France acknowledges that these weapons programs are being frozen. I think the author was trying to hint at some hypocracy on behalf of the French by raising this point, but I fail to see anything hypocritical about it. It's only hypocritical if you assume that broken UN resolutions necessitate war, when, in reality - unless you're a man with a fourth grade education who recently bought his way into presidency with his dads money - this is not the case. The war on Iraq - as I have stated many times - may be barely justifiable on legal grounds, but this line-ball justification does not extend to the compulsion to go to war (in the sense that acknowledgement of broken resolutions compels one to attack the offender) and it most certainly does not extend to moral justification.

Irrespective of this, if our author will just step down from his moral high-horse for a second, if he feels such outrage at the Iraqi contempt for Resolution 1441, perhaps he can justify the UN resolutions and treaties that the US has violated over the years and attempt to fit them into his neat little "good vs evil" schemata?

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In short, France wants to keep inspections going because that's the best way to keep Iraq in a permanent state of non-compliance. I could have sworn that when the U.N. said Iraq had one last chance to cooperate with the U.N., it didn't mean it had one last chance to make the U.N. look stupid by playing keep-away.

Ah yes, non-compliance. As good an excuse as any to explain why after weeks of searching the UN inspectors have come up with nothing apart from 11 ageing, empty scud missiles. If the US is so certain that Iraq has a "smoking gun" so to speak (that is, a weapons program that we don't already know about and that hasn't already been frozen) then perhaps they could save us the bother and just tell us where they are? If they don't have evidence specific enough to include a general location, then it's all conjecture and hear-say. It wouldn't stand up in an international court.

Besides, Hans Blix rated the level of Iraqi co-operation with the inspections a "B" grade in his own words. Bush responded by saying that the grade must either be a pass or fail, but to my knowledge Dubbers, a B is a pretty solid pass. Blix stated that Iraq had allowed unfettered access to the sites the UN wished to visit. A US official (it may have been Rumsfeld?) responded by saying that Iraq should progress from passive co-operation to pro-active co-operation, but I don't remember reading anything about that in the UN resolutions. Seems like a case of "make up the rules as we go along, so that we can bomb Iraq no matter what happens" to me.

Blix did admittedly state that Iraq was not allowing the access to scientists that the UN was looking for, which is obviously something that needs to be addressed, but I'd hardly consider it an infringement serious enough to go to war over.

quote:

For example, there's the crowd that insists there's no proof that Saddam Hussein has nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons — while simultaneously arguing that we shouldn't disarm Saddam because he might use those weapons on us in retaliation. "Don't shoot! He's unarmed! And if you do he might shoot back" is an argument fit for a world where clocks melt, hands draw each other, and people take Barbra Streisand seriously.

Firstly, I can't ever remember reading the "but he might use WMDs against us" argument as a justification for the antiwar stance. I'm not antiwar because my world-view is so narrow and self-centered that I can only consider issues such as this in terms of how they effect me (as this author seems to be doing) but rather because I recognise that thousands upon thousands of innocent people will die as a result of what amounts to - at the end of the day - a rather poor excuse for some militant muscle-flexing. I don't oppose it because I possess some irrational, egoistic fear that Saddam Hussein might target me as a result of this war, and if this is your main reason for opposing a war on Iraq (i.e. you consider this threat more important than the loss of Iraqi lives) then you may as well jump the fence to the pro-war movement, because you haven't got anything to fear. As evil as Saddam is, and as much as he would like to bomb your house (having the international notoreity that you do) he just doesn't have the means.

Secondly, if he finds this perspective self-contradictory, I can only ask him how he would classify his stance: "We can't find a smoking gun, yet we insist that there is one there. Rather than allowing the UN inspectors a couple of months to find the smoking gun - or to make their job even easier by being a little more explicit with the vast amounts of highly reliable evidence we have - we shall label them incompetant, accuse the Iraqi's of hiding 64,000 scud missles and an anthrax manufacturing plant in Ahmed's back yard and start a war at the cost of billions of dollars and thousands of lives on the ground of something that UN Inspector Dave may or may not have seen back in '93. So, as you can see, the fact that we cannot find any weapons gives us all the proof we need that Saddam Hussein is an evil liar with so many weapons that we simply don't have time to stand back and watch them be destroyed by trained inspectors, so we must act blindly and quickly. I'm sure that levelling a Muslim state will do much to prevent future acts of terrorism and that with Hussein gone we can continue to fund despotic leaders in their genocidal quests, much as we did before that whole Kuwait thing. Yipee! Cheap oil for all!"

Or something like that.

quote:

I don't want to rehash all of the same old tired antiwar arguments (see here and here), but just to be quick: If we wanted Saddam's oil we could have taken it in 1991 when we won the first Gulf War. For that matter, if we were the oil-hungry empire these buffoons keep saying we are, we could have taken Kuwait's and Saudi Arabia's while we were at it. Or — if we wanted so badly to get Iraq's oil to flow through America's "Big Oil" — we could simply agree with Saddam that we'll lift the sanctions if he gives us the oil contracts. He's indicated more than once that that would be fine with him.

The fact that the oil was not taken while the opportunity was there, in no way undermines the assumption that this war may very well be about oil. Especially with the Venezualan situation being as it is, you couldn't exactly disagree that the US could use an Iraqi oil-field or two just now (that is, even if oil wasn't originally a consideration in this war, it may very well be now).

I don't think that oil in itself would cause the US to go to war with any nation, but it could very well be the deciding factor separating a declaration of war (a la this scenario) and a more diplomatic resolution (a la North Korea).

quote:

If war is "always" a failure, than we failed when we stopped Hitler and the Holocaust. It was a failure when the slaves were freed and it was a failure when America broke from England. And — if you're of a lefty bent — it was also a failure when the Bolsheviks beat the White Russians and it was a failure when Castro pushed Batista's troops to the sea.

But war is the result of a failure of diplomacy and so should only be employed in such circumstances where room for negotiation - or any other diplomatic gestures - no longer exists. World War 2 only occurred because there was no hope of negotiating with Hitler, the war of Independance only occurred because neither side was interested in conceding to the other. In this situation though, there is still much room for the diplomatic approach in the push for an amicable resolution. Why the Americans feel it must be resolved in the coming weeks is quite beyond my comprehension. What does it matter if the disarmourment takes 6 weeks, 6 months or 6 years? What exactly is Saddam going to be able to do in the meantime with his hands tied behind his back as they are? Why couldn't the US just stand back for six months and allow the UN to do their job? Rremember, the inspections pre-1998 were incredibly successful, and this war wouldn't be quite the walk-over it is likely to be if it wasn't for the extent to which Iraq was disarmed in the post Gulf-War inspections.

Can someone tell me, given that there is still room for diplomacy, why war is the most preferrable of all available options (justifying the cost in terms of money and of human life in your answer)?

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And just to set the record straight: The sanctions regime has improved the health of all Iraqi children not under Saddam Hussein's thumb. In the Kurdish North — where American and British, but not French, planes prevent mass slaughter — there is no mass starvation or child-health crisis

I find that incredibly hard to believe. The World Health organisation has blamed the 12 years of sanctions for 100,000s of Iraqi deaths, a disproportionately large amount of them aged under 5 (I can find the articles if you like). Whether the deaths are confined to certain areas of the country or not, there is little doubt that the sanctions on Iraq are killing its people.

quote:

Saddam, and not sanctions, has killed hundreds of thousands of children in order to score propaganda points, which have in turn been manfully presented to the world community by Mr. Chirac in exchange for fat oil contracts. In effect, the French (and Russians) do not want a war-for-oil because the current peace-for-oil allows them to collect billions from the corpses of dead Iraqi children. So when the French now say they are in favor of sanctions and continued inspections, they merely mean they are in favor of preventing the U.S. from changing the status quo and depriving the French of blood money. One would not normally associate the word "chutzpah" with a country so hostile to its Jews, but there you have it.

I'll pass over the idiotic "anti-semitism" claim once again, and just address the rest of the article.

The first argument sounds suspiciously like the "guns don't kill people, people kill people argument" to me. Regardless of how evil Saddam is, he couldn't feed his own people even if he wanted to as the situation stands at the moment. True, he is going to invest large amounts of money pursuing his own agenda rather than those of his people (as he has done in the past) but by easing the restrictions on sanctions there is little doubt that the plight of the Iraqi people will improve. The sanctions don't hurt Hussein, they only hurt the Iraqi people. If the US/UN know this, why do they persist with sanctions?

Also, I fail to see how the fact that Russia and France are buying oil (if indeed they are - it's certainly not anything that I've read about) could do anything but help the Iraqi people. There may be people dying in Iraq, but to implicate France and Russia in that for putting money into the Iraqi economy seems a tad silly. More money means more food I would have thought.

Besides, once again the author has taken the highground, but once again he does so hypocritically. Aren't the US large purchasers of Iraqi oil Mike? No, no need to answer, I'll save you the bother of actually doing any research and I'll tell you myself:

In January 2002, 11.4% of US oil imports were from Iraq ( http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/outrage/nogas.htm ) and even in November 2002 (the most recent figures available) the US imported 11,413,000 barrels of crude oil from the state of Iraq ( http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/...xt/table_35.txt ). Or, in case I haven't spelt it out bluntly enough, the US have consistently been the greatest importers of oil from Iraq under the sanctions (accounting for up to 70% of all oil sales from that country) whereas French purchases have consistently fell (rightly or wrongly) since the Sept 11th attacks (down 30% in 2001 and down a further 41% in the first half of 2002) and total purchases in 2001 amounted to just $US 160 million. By constast, as of September 2002, "1,418 American contracts were pending before the Sanctions Committee, amounting to $3.97 billion" ( http://www.transatlanticjournal.com...th/francei.html ).

Gee, curse the French and their propensity for profiting from the deaths of Iraqi children.

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But there is a positive moral to this story. The irony is that the very fact that so many members of the peace-at-any-cost school now favor sanctions proves that the threat of violence has its uses.

Sure, violence does have a way of getting people to see your point of view, but would it be right to pull a gun on someone just to get my own way though? Would it be right to fly two airliners into two very large buildings to prove that violence is a more effective negotiating tool than diplomacy? No-one denies that war gets results, but it's the costs (both pecuniary and philanthropic) that dictate that war is not the answer in the presence of a more diplomatic alternative.

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France is doing what it thinks is best for France — not the world, not America, not humanity, but France.

Firstly, he is making this argument on the assumption that France will flip-flop on their stance at the conclusion of the war, which - to me - is not something he has any right to say at this stage. To suggest that France is looking after it's own interests when it is against this war (when it would have much to gain from having Hussein deposed and the Iraqi oil market opened up to foreign investment) is ludicrous. What reason would they have to oppose the war other than upon some principle? They certainly can't gain from their pacifist stance economically.

Besides, it certainly isn't like the US to act in its own interests with a complete disregard for the rest of humanity, is it?

quote:

anyone who's antiwar on this iraq issue is a spineless fool, being held up only by the starch in their smug business shirts.

Really? And which division of front-line infantry will you be fighting with monsieur iron-balls?

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http://eschatonnow.blogspot.com/

I'm sorry for not reading thewhole post, I will only reply to this part:

quote:

Originally posted by Renegade Cute analogy, but I don't get the connection. Is he suggesting that if we don't bomb Iraq even further into the stone-age, that we're eventually going to become Saddam's bitch? Had someone taken one too many irrational paranoia tablets before turning up to work one morning? If he seriously considers Iraq as any serious threat to his own wellbeing then I can only cast serious aspersions on his sanity. The only influence Iraq will ever have on his every day life pertains to the cost of the petrol he pours into his SUV on his way to his anti-abortion Church group.

In case you really haven't undestood the analogy:
In this case, lest we do something to ensure Iraq will not attack any other country, we might end up having complete nations destroyed and millions killed. Not every war has to include someone turning into a bitch.
He is saying that who should know better than the French that if you don't stop a small, growing trouble, it could grow bigger then you.

Just in case you want to play a little-head , Hitler could have been stopped fairly easily by Britain and France when he was elected councelor in '33 , self-proclaimed himself Fuhrer in '34 (If I recall correctly) or even in '37 or '38, merely a year before the 2nd great war had begun, when already there was abuse and propaganda against the Jews by the government, terror against the opposition (Either political or civillian) by the government, and even racist laws, yet again, by the government. Germany has also begun it's conquest of eastern Europe in those years, Czechoslovakia for example.

These were all ignore in order to "Save peace" , and the result - Millions eventually murdered in the Ghettos, gas chambers or battlefield ... Thus, SAVING PEACE?

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Check My Music

hrmm, i pretty much love going to europe, but i dont know how it would be to live there, but one thing i do have to say that i truly do hate about most, NOT ALL, but most, europians in general, is that they are the most ethnocentric fucks on this planet, thats about it. But then again, most, but NOT ALL, united states citizens are pretty damn gun-ho also about being part the USA. oh ya, and the prices of water in france suck also.

Renegade and Drug_tito, those were both excellent posts
btw renegade, it just occured to me, seeing how much time and thought you put into your post it would be pretty cool if you could email the guy who wrote that, see what he says and all... anyways its not really that important, we enjoy it here at TA just as much.

quote:

Originally posted by Renegade Cute analogy, but I don't get the connection.

oDrori made a nice reply.

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The war on Iraq - as I have stated many times - may be barely justifiable on legal grounds, but this line-ball justification does not extend to the compulsion to go to war (in the sense that acknowledgement of broken resolutions compels one to attack the offender) and it most certainly does not extend to moral justification. Irrespective of this, if our author will just step down from his moral high-horse for a second, if he feels such outrage at the Iraqi contempt for Resolution 1441, perhaps he can justify the UN resolutions and treaties that the US has violated over the years and attempt to fit them into his neat little "good vs evil" schemata?

as for justification of war, what good are laws if the arent to be obeyed? of course it doesnt mean laws are fixed as a constant but rather have the possibilty to be altered/enhanced/eliminated, until such laws are changed one should give them validty by obeying them. if i am correct i think resolution 1441 calls for use of force, im probably wrong but it has at least a consequence if it is not obeyed.

quote:

Ah yes, non-compliance. As good an excuse as any to explain why after weeks of searching the UN inspectors have come up with nothing apart from 11 ageing, empty scud missiles. If the US is so certain that Iraq has a "smoking gun" so to speak (that is, a weapons program that we don't already know about and that hasn't already been frozen) then perhaps they could save us the bother and just tell us where they are? If they don't have evidence specific enough to include a general location, then it's all conjecture and hear-say.

in the state of the union adress, bush hinted that would release facts of saddam's WOMD program, this message was reiderated by Powell, i think the date is set for Feb 2nd (?). anyways about the whole UN inspectors issue Arbiter made a nice point in another thread http://tester.tranceaddict.com/foru...?threadid=88016

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What does it matter if the disarmourment takes 6 weeks, 6 months or 6 years? What exactly is Saddam going to be able to do in the meantime with his hands tied behind his back as they are? Why couldn't the US just stand back for six months and allow the UN to do their job?

i would be inclined to agree, seeing as the partial success of pre-'98 inspectors, however i fear an exact repeat of 1998 where they were expelled and it was as if we had to start agian from the beginning, seems like a cycle is repeating over and over. it only delays the confrantation of the actually problem, which is that we can't trust saddam. who is to say when he gains a trustable status, to some europeans it could be a matter of years while others, like me, feel that the inspectors (or rather monitors) should stay there indefinitely until saddam does not rule iraq (by what ever means that happens)

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Can someone tell me, given that there is still room for diplomacy, why war is the most preferrable of all available options (justifying the cost in terms of money and of human life in your answer)?

because i belive one should never negotiate (ie diplomacy) with a terrorist. it is proof that saddam, by his own order, committed terrorist acts in the past and aides terrorism today (i have posted proof here before of iraq government money aiding terrorist organizations such as hamas and islamic jihad).

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The first argument sounds suspiciously like the "guns don't kill people, people kill people argument" to me.

just wondering what you opinion is. whats wrong with that arguement?

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The sanctions don't hurt Hussein, they only hurt the Iraqi people.

actually, its true. the sanction do hurt hussien, maybe not him personally or phyiscally but it does hurt him in not allow him certain options of politics (which he can not be trusted with, and thats the purpose of why they were placed) that are avialable to others leaders.

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If God is the answer, it must have been a very stupid question.

um, people dont actually VOTE For him by choice, do you think he really got 100% of votes?
LOL

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