I can't be bothered getting the quote tags right.
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I wondered why you kept using the term "we" to refer to a collective not including yourself. You said it wasn't productive to argue about it.
"We" refers to Americans and does include myself. "We are hypocrites." You're right-- I don't see the point in arguing about the pronoun here.
"We neglect to undertake the most elementary moral exercise." I must be hallucinating, because I thought you'd been arguing the moral case against war for dozens of pages of this thread.
No, but you said the INC backed the invasion when, according to the Independent, they opposed a large-scale invasion, which is what we planned and what we did. They didn't back it; they opposed it. It's not at all that they just didn't "endorse absolutely every aspect of" it and therefore could still be said to "back" it. Not by any stretch.
It's possible that once the war train came in, the INC got on board. I mean, you'd just about have to, if you had any brains.
Even though "opposition leaders stressed that a large-scale offensive by Washington and its allies would not be supported by opponents of the Baghdad regime, either inside or outside Iraq", according to the Indie?
They did support US military action to remove Saddam, though. Okay, my language was careless and misleading. I repeat my concession of that.
I never said your position was that. What the hell are you talking about? All I did was cast doubt on your assertion that the INC "backed the invasion."
All right, but all we've established is that Iraq's democratic opposition reject your position (inaction would have been preferable)
1. When did we establish that? 2. Are you misreading my position? Certainly, I'd say that doing nothing is preferable to doing harm (that's a truism), but that is a far cry from saying my preferred course is inaction.
You misunderstand. I'm not taking your position to be that inaction was the best possible course: just that it would have been preferable to what did happen.
How do you figure? We're looking at neighborhood of 10,000 Iraqi civilians dead in 2003, a country in ruins, a huge military bill, a quagmire of an occupation, US companies poised to extract resources as usual, extreme civil instability, and, by all accounts, democracy nowhere on the horizon.
I don't know how long it takes to bring a devastated country back from the brink (it was in ruins even before the invasion) but I don't think any sensible person could've expected it to take under a year. As for civilian deaths: Human Rights Watch estimates that Saddam killed a minimum of 300,000 of his people during his reign. Add this to his civilian victims in other countries, and we easily pass the 10,000 per annum mark. And now that major US bombing has ended, the bulk of civilian deaths are down to the insurgents. They're going to be considerably less successful at killing than Saddam's police (though I'll admit the events of the last week don't help that case). So I don't see how the figure this year could even get in sight of Saddam's yearly tally.
At a guess, never. I think the liberation of a country was a factor pretty far down the priorities list in the decision to invade (probably it wasn't a factor at all).
There's harsh repression and then there's Saddam. The country's present occupier has a stronger democratic record than its previous one. You may not think that justifies a war, but you must surely see that, by itself, it's an improvement.
Except to Iraqis.
Inspections were intended to address his virtually non-existent capacity to strike internationally. They wouldn't save his own people from his aggression. Sanctions, according to UN observers, were strengthening him and starving his people. There wasn't any sign that his regime was on the verge of collapse. So in answer to your question: yes, probably.
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Yes, I would have applauded US support for democratic movements or insurgencies inside Iraq. That is not what we have here, obviously. The results of this bombardment and invasion and occupation are and will continue to be very different from a democratic revolution, and for good reason: Washington is not aiming for democracy here. I would ask you to factor that into your moral evaluation of this war.
I did long ago. The Gallup poll results you go on to quote corroborate every one of my views about the war, but deviate from yours in the most crucial respect: the Iraqis believe that the invasion will ultimately lead to a situation preferable to leaving Saddam in place. Hardly a "bone".
Excuse me, but where in the rape did you see that conclusion in the poll results?
"Gallup's director of international polling, noted that most Baghdad residents thought getting rid of Saddam Hussein was worth the hardships they are enduring". Surely this says it all. Is your objection that I was presumptuous in projecting the opinion of Baghdadis onto the whole country?
Where's that? Different invasions have led to different places.
Nothing, really. In 1945 America took over western Europe. The Marshall Plan allowed our leaders' friends to stuff their pockets, but had the happy side effect of aiding the rebirth of a continent. It may be ambitious to expect the outcome in Iraq to be as quantitively successful, but why not qualitatively?
I think you've got Mohammed Atta and his mates to thank for that, not the current war. America goes to war every five minutes. Why would this one encourage more authoritarianism than usual?
