arbiter why did you quote me then say what you did it makes no sence.
i never said war was unneccesary .war is immoral thats a fact until you have looked down the barrel of your m16 and taken a life like i have done dont preach on things you have no idea about

John, I appreciate your quick and intelligent response.

I'm not saying that the U.S. should force any kind of society or moral code upon the people of Iraq. What I would like to see, is for us to remove Hussein, then give the people of Iraq the opportunity to decide what kind of legal or moral code they want themselves. Similarly, I don't think the U.S. ought to be interested in the domestic policy of Holland because that policy is determined by the people, not an autocrat.

Singapore, on the other hand, is a very valid issue. I would not oppose a U.S. campaign against Singapore for the purpose of correcting the lack of human rights there. I would support a systematic campaign against human rights violations across the globe, backed up by military force when necessary.

I agree with you, that Iraq is not the best place to start. Frankly, I think the U.S. has enough human rights issues of its own to deal with before it ought to start looking to solve problems abroad - for example the death penalty and the need for the legalization of euthanasia. But if the U.S. can improve human rights somewhere, even if it's not the most logical order, I think it's better than doing nothing.

I never really liked WoMD as a justification for an attack against Iraq. Even if they have them, which we don't know that they do, I really suspect we're merely delaying the inevitable. I would be surprised if in 100 years there were many countries still without nuclear capabilities. I suspect this issue is indeed an instance of the Bush administration trying to scare the public into supporting its cause.

Which brings me to the question of Bush's motives. You are quite right to doubt them. I highly suspect that in his mind, the good of the Iraqi people ranks very low on the reasons he desires to remove Saddam from power. I don't necessarily support Bush's war on Iraq, but I do support a war on Iraq. My hope is that Bush may incidentally do a great good, even while pursuing less justifiable motives.

Why should it be the job of the U.S. to do this? It shouldn't. I think it ought to be the job of the U.N., personally. But the U.N. has failed time after time. I don't think the U.S. is particularly qualified for this - but better someone than no-one at all.

quote:

Originally posted by Arbiter I don't necessarily support Bush's war on Iraq, but I do support a war on Iraq. .

please explain the difference

quote:

Originally posted by juzfugen war is immoral thats a fact until you have looked down the barrel of your m16 and taken a life like i have done dont preach on things you have no idea about

Issues of morality are never facts, but always opinions. I don't need to have fought in a war to make a judgment about its morality any more than I need to rape a woman to make a moral analysis about that action.

quote:

please explain the difference

The difference is primarily how Iraq would be managed once Hussein is removed from power. Bush is likely to try to install a puppet government with marginal public support, whereas I support a war that would provide a far less stringent framework within which the Iraqi people could determine how best to use their newfound freedom.

what i was stating with my moral quote was in reply to renegades responce asking if their is a moral reason for an attack, my reply was and is war is immoral regarldess of how you look at it. freeing a country from a dictatorship while it is the right thing to do going to war over it is immoral in the sence that innocent lives are going to be lost, especially in the case of invading a city enviroment. I really dont think the united states is going have a whole lot of say in the type of government that will be put into place once saddam is removed. granted we will influence but there are already forces inplace to step in once hes gone. regardless of oil in the region removing this man is not going to resolve the problems in the middle east. where inlies the problem, in an unstable enviroment such as iraq once saddam is removed if we just left and let them "find their own way" we would be facing another saddam in 5-10 years.

quote:

what about NK who has admitted to restarting their nuclear program in direct violation of the NPT?

But Bush does have a solution to the North Korea problem:

http://www.theonion.com/onion3901/b...orth_korea.html

quote:

The problem is that the US don't care much about human rights outside their own borders.

Exactly. Anyone who seriously believes the the war on Iraq is being devised with the intention of liberating the Iraqi people must first look at the history of US involvement in this country.

While Saddam Hussein was still considered "congenial" to US interests, American companies sold him biological and chemical agents over the period of a decade, which he then used to gas his own people - some 5,000 Kurds died in one such gas attack in either 1987/1988. So outraged was the American government by this indiscretion, that they allowed exports of such weapons to increase after this date, and indeed - up until the ill-fated invasion of Kuwait - Iraq was continually supplied with weapons which were then used in Hussein's genocidal quest.

Anyone who believes that the American government has ever had the best interest of citizens other than its own in mind, must remember such incidents as this.

quote:

What I would like to see, is for us to remove Hussein, then give the people of Iraq the opportunity to decide what kind of legal or moral code they want themselves.

I'm not sure if this is what you were getting at when you said that you support a war on Iraq but not necessarily Bush's war, but the fact remains that the vast majority of Iraqi's will most likely not benefit from a regime change. Why?

Hussein is a "Sunni" muslim, which accounts for a mere 20% of the Iraqi population. He is quite secular by Islamic standards, and should the US fight and win this war in Iraq and remove Hussein as state leader, they will replace him with another Sunni leader (as they are considered more moderate and thus more likely to sympathise with American interests - one of the reasons the US assisted Hussein's political party to come to power in the first place in the 50's/60's). However, the Shiites are the majority religious group in Iraq (accounting for 60% of the population) yet the US has no desire to allow a Shiite party to get into power (which they probably would do should democratic elections be held after Hussein's deposition) because of their connections with Iran, who the US government view as "antithetical" to their interests.

So, essentially, the next government of Iraq will be chosen with the interests of the American people in mind, not those of the Iraqi people. 80% of the Iraqi people will oppose the new leader (or at least would not have voted for him in an election) so I fail to see how they stand to be any better off under this "US friendly" system than they are currently under Hussein.

Besides, the US has a long history of political/economic involvement in the region that has come back to bite them later on. They funded terrorism and influenced elections in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, just to name 3 countries who have caused the US problems over the past 25 years. History may not be reason enough to abstain from an action in the present, but it certainly acts as a handy guide.

___________________
http://eschatonnow.blogspot.com/

personally id rather have my governemnt seek the my best intrest and those of my fellow countrymen in world rather then those of other countries. isnt that why we elected them in the first place.
it seems to me that an overall majority of people in the world agree saddam needs to be removed from power.but regardless of who is put in his place its going to come back and bite us in the ass be it a "puppet government" or if iraq holds free elections.the next generation of people in that part of the world are brainwashed soo bad its almost a lost cause, regardless of we do we cant win in their eyes.

Renegade I understand what you're saying, and it makes a lot of sense. I certainly don't think that fixing the profound sociopolitical conditions resulting in the deficiency of human rights in Iraq is a simple matter in the least. I have serious concerns that my government will mishandle this delicate situation, but the problem is serious enough, in my view, that we would be remiss not to try to do something about it.

We can't simply leave Iraq to its own devices, as the population is not yet suited for self-governance. But a government whose sole purpose is to help the U.S. isn't the right choice either - for Iraq or America. In the long run, the U.S. would benefit most greatly by brining true freedom and stability to Iraq rather than merely exploiting them for whatever gains might be brought to bear in the short term.

In any case, however, I don't perceive that the Iraqi people have much to lose, while they have everything to gain by a change in leadership. If we let the complex and delicate nature of the situation intimidate us, or allow our past failures to overcome our future possibilities, then tyranny has already won.

I agree entirely that something must be done to help the people of Iraq. There's no food there, there's no infrastructure and there's no money at all to provide these things. The theory behind the war on Iraq - if we were to believe that the US government are sending troops in there with any intentions of helping the Iraqi people - is that they can depose Hussein and replace him with someone less likely to murder his own people and to spend what little money the country has on palaces and the military. However, for the reasons I mentioned above - about the religious tensions in the country and the fact that Hussein is relatively secular by Islamic standards - I think a war is just a very expensive way (both in terms of money and human lives) of maintaining the status quo. The Iraqi military will be destroyed, as will much of the remaining infrastructure - what do you suppose the new leader will be spending money on for the first 10 years of his reign then? The new leader may be more humanitarian than Hussein and do what he can to help his people, but what guarantee is there that this will be the case, and - even if it is - that he actually has the means to help them?

A much simpler solution would be for the UN to remove the trade sanctions it has imposed on the Iraqi state, get the US to spend the billions of dollars it was going to invest in the war on rebuilding Iraqi infrastructure (much of which it was responsible for destroying in the first place) and feeding the Iraqi people, and - Hussein in power or not - the Iraqi people are immediately better off. Obviously prior to the last couple of months, there was the genuine threat of Hussein spending the money obtained from the re-opening of foreign trade on WOMD's and other military needs, but with the UN inspectors in there keeping tabs on everything, I fail to see how Saddam Hussein could possibly have the means to use this regained oil money to establish himself as a threat to the rest of the world.

Perhaps I'm just being naive, but the war on Iraq strikes me (from the perspective of the Iraqi people) as taking two very large, expensive steps backwards to take one forward, when, really, the removal of sanctions surely stands to do more good for the Iraqi people, at least in the short to mid-term. Though, as I continue to re-iterate, what interests are the US and the UK really seeking to preserve/obtain by fighting this war? I suspect, for the reasons I've just given, that the welfare of the average Iraqi is quite low-down on their list of priorities.

___________________
http://eschatonnow.blogspot.com/