You use relative body count to justify the words of a president who cannot think sitting down or on his feet. Tell that to my dead brother, you idiot.

"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the ones you need to concentrate on." George W. Bush, Gridiron Club Address, 24 March 2001.

Disgusting.

Compared to other countries' history of dealing with terrorism, the few thousand lives the US lost on 9/11 hardly amounts to much at all. Right?

Oh, & I see -- you've "stayed" to "help" in Iraq, otherwise the loss of US lives in Iraq would be even more insignificant. Barely worth mentioning, even.

Christ, what an idiot.

Well, that got them stirred up nicely, OJ. Well done.

Ripdash -- Finally, someone gets us. Now, just convince your fellow non-Americas (I assume from your comment that you lost the birth lottery) that we will act as if each American life is precious, and foreign lives barely matter. So, if you cause as any nuisance, we will swat you like the fleas you are.

If 1100 soldiers had died in spring 2003, and none since, there would be no stories of "quagmire." It's the drip-drip-drip that's allowed the media and Dems to exploit the impatience and natural isolationism of the American public.

What kind of authoritarian dream are you caught up in? You can't even admit Bush made a mistake in saying there'd be no casualties? Imagine if Clinton were in office and he'd said what Bush said. Would you be rushing to his defense?

First, it is debateable whether the present "global conflict against totalitarianism" is even truly "global" or against "totalitarianism".

Second, the concern about such a conflict has been manufactured by the current administration in its dishonest fearmongering.

Three, the Bush administration foreign policy stinks of totalitarianism more than OBL's fundamentalist Islamic ideology.

Four, to compare WWII and Iraq in the terms you espouse, denigrates the sacrifices of the veterans of WWII or the present conflict.

These four points leads me to the conclusion that you delude yourself and are so besotted with Bush that you would fellate him upon request.

You would, wouldn't you?

Say what you want about the anti-war left, you've got to admit they've got spunk.

The deaths of 9/11 are insignificant compared to the 30,000 or so *annual* deaths due to influenza.

Therefore, 9/11 was no big deal. Let's keep things in perspective, end the war on terror, and fight the real enemy: viral infection.

Oh, wait. Whoops! Bush screwed that one up, too.

Take another sip of that Koo-Aid, you soulless ghoul. What kind of a moral black hole do you live in, where it's acceptable to trivialize the dead in the service of a fool's errand?

God save you. Nothing and no one else will.

Take another sip of that Kool-Aid, you soulless ghoul. What kind of a moral black hole do you live in, where it's acceptable to trivialize the dead in the service of a fool's errand?

God save you. Nothing and no one else will.

Peter: What's really amusing is that, all of a sudden, something that Pat Robertson says is the gospel truth. Is there anything else he's said that would get such respect?

The CNN article about Robertson's comment is here. The White House denies the statement and the Kerry Campaign says that the President deserves the benefit of the doubt, although they invide him to accuse Robertson of lying.

Robertson also says that he was told by the Lord that Iraq would be a "disaster" and "messy." I'm sure we all believe that, too.

David, what's even more amusing is the hacktacular way this Judd dude tries to justify this statement regardless of its validity.

To Mr. Judd: Let me see if I have this straight. It depends on what the definition of "any" is? Seeing the right try to desparately parse the blunt language of Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney makes with laugh with glee. Whatever happened to the party of the straight shooter? At least those on the left have always claimed to embrace nuance and complexities.

It's nice to see the trolls come out in the sun!!

Your post is disingenuous. The level of casualties is, in fact, not acceptable to you. If you believed that the level of casualties was really acceptable, you would have signed up to join the army and would be in, or preparing to go to, Iraq? Why don't you shut down your computer right now and go enlist? What possible reason could you have for supporting the war but being unwilling to fight in it?

Hypocrisy?

Cowardice?

Both?

Lowell:

Cowardice. What's that got to do with the minimal losses in the war?

Right, because the Europeans are too paralyzed to bomb innocent people. Awesome.

Mr. colvin:

In a nation of 300 million, 1,000 isn't any no matter how you define any.

lwf:

Bill Clinton was right to try and get Osama and we on the Right were wrong about it being merely Wag the Dog.

j:

We liberated 50 million Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq at a cost of 1100 American dead. The regime changes of WWII cost 300,000 American dead. If the 1100 weren't worth it how were 300 times that?

Jon:

Your influenza point eludes me. If you're saying the casualties are minimal by comparison to natural causes of death also I agree.

BJ:

That at least is a coherent argument and it's what divides Right and Left. You feel the liberalization of the impoverished, ignorant, violence-ridden Middle East is a "fool's errand." We feel otherwise.

John:

What innocent people?

ripdash:

Agreed. This isn't about 9-11. It's about the lives of people in the Middle East, like the millions who just went to the polls in Afghanistan and the millions more who will go in Iraq next year.

You are an idiot. I can not take this shit anymore. Anything,every thing is fine and every one who opposes (even if it happens to be Pat Robertson or Richard Clarke or Paul Bremmer) is wrong. It blows off my mind when people say more people get killed in accidents or it does not meet casulaty levels of previous wars. etc. Can you answer two simple questionsa with simple answers.
1) Why did we go to Iraq?
2) Is the reason President telling for going to Iraq (Intents and possibilites etc) aresame the reasons he told to american people before the war?

If not he is lying. As simple as that.

J. Heimlich:

I think your brother died in a noble cause, sorry you feel his death was pointless.

Hey OJ, the casualty reports are so low because of many reasons, but the main one is the increases in the use of advanced body armor. This armor, however, results in the maiming and destruction of the "useless" parts of the body, leaving a living, but tortured human behind.

If the numbers that are paraded in front of us showed the true number of wounded, the shock value might set in, your humanity might return, and leave you a crying cowardly husk.

Go visit the military hospital. There's the rest of your casualties, you royal jackass.

Mr. Fox:

As the President told the UN, we went to Iraq to enforce the ceasefire resolutions from Gulf 1, which, among other things, required him to liberalize Iraq.

President's Remarks at the United Nations General Assembly (New York, New York, 9/12/02)

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/09/20020912-1.html

" Twelve years ago, Iraq invaded Kuwait without provocation. And the regime's forces were poised to continue their march to seize other countries and their resources. Had Saddam Hussein been appeased instead of stopped, he would have endangered the peace and stability of the world. Yet this aggression was stopped -- by the might of coalition forces and the will of the United Nations.

To suspend hostilities, to spare himself, Iraq's dictator accepted a series of commitments. The terms were clear, to him and to all. And he agreed to prove he is complying with every one of those obligations.

He has proven instead only his contempt for the United Nations, and for all his pledges. By breaking every pledge -- by his deceptions, and by his cruelties -- Saddam Hussein has made the case against himself.

In 1991, Security Council Resolution 688 demanded that the Iraqi regime cease at once the repression of its own people, including the systematic repression of minorities -- which the Council said, threatened international peace and security in the region. This demand goes ignored.

Last year, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights found that Iraq continues to commit extremely grave violations of human rights, and that the regime's repression is all pervasive. Tens of thousands of political opponents and ordinary citizens have been subjected to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, summary execution, and torture by beating and burning, electric shock, starvation, mutilation, and rape. Wives are tortured in front of their husbands, children in the presence of their parents -- and all of these horrors concealed from the world by the apparatus of a totalitarian state.

In 1991, the U.N. Security Council, through Resolutions 686 and 687, demanded that Iraq return all prisoners from Kuwait and other lands. Iraq's regime agreed. It broke its promise. Last year the Secretary General's high-level coordinator for this issue reported that Kuwait, Saudi, Indian, Syrian, Lebanese, Iranian, Egyptian, Bahraini, and Omani nationals remain unaccounted for -- more than 600 people. One American pilot is among them.

In 1991, the U.N. Security Council, through Resolution 687, demanded that Iraq renounce all involvement with terrorism, and permit no terrorist organizations to operate in Iraq. Iraq's regime agreed. It broke this promise. In violation of Security Council Resolution 1373, Iraq continues to shelter and support terrorist organizations that direct violence against Iran, Israel, and Western governments. Iraqi dissidents abroad are targeted for murder. In 1993, Iraq attempted to assassinate the Emir of Kuwait and a former American President. Iraq's government openly praised the attacks of September the 11th. And al Qaeda terrorists escaped from Afghanistan and are known to be in Iraq.

In 1991, the Iraqi regime agreed to destroy and stop developing all weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles, and to prove to the world it has done so by complying with rigorous inspections. Iraq has broken every aspect of this fundamental pledge.

From 1991 to 1995, the Iraqi regime said it had no biological weapons. After a senior official in its weapons program defected and exposed this lie, the regime admitted to producing tens of thousands of liters of anthrax and other deadly biological agents for use with Scud warheads, aerial bombs, and aircraft spray tanks. U.N. inspectors believe Iraq has produced two to four times the amount of biological agents it declared, and has failed to account for more than three metric tons of material that could be used to produce biological weapons. Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.

United Nations' inspections also revealed that Iraq likely maintains stockpiles of VX, mustard and other chemical agents, and that the regime is rebuilding and expanding facilities capable of producing chemical weapons.

And in 1995, after four years of deception, Iraq finally admitted it had a crash nuclear weapons program prior to the Gulf War. We know now, were it not for that war, the regime in Iraq would likely have possessed a nuclear weapon no later than 1993.

Today, Iraq continues to withhold important information about its nuclear program -- weapons design, procurement logs, experiment data, an accounting of nuclear materials and documentation of foreign assistance. Iraq employs capable nuclear scientists and technicians. It retains physical infrastructure needed to build a nuclear weapon. Iraq has made several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon. Should Iraq acquire fissile material, it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within a year. And Iraq's state-controlled media has reported numerous meetings between Saddam Hussein and his nuclear scientists, leaving little doubt about his continued appetite for these weapons.

Iraq also possesses a force of Scud-type missiles with ranges beyond the 150 kilometers permitted by the U.N. Work at testing and production facilities shows that Iraq is building more long-range missiles that it can inflict mass death throughout the region.

In 1990, after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the world imposed economic sanctions on Iraq. Those sanctions were maintained after the war to compel the regime's compliance with Security Council resolutions. In time, Iraq was allowed to use oil revenues to buy food. Saddam Hussein has subverted this program, working around the sanctions to buy missile technology and military materials. He blames the suffering of Iraq's people on the United Nations, even as he uses his oil wealth to build lavish palaces for himself, and to buy arms for his country. By refusing to comply with his own agreements, he bears full guilt for the hunger and misery of innocent Iraqi citizens."

Raster:

Yes, the casualty lists of those past wars are much larger than the KIA lists. John Kerry was a casualty of the Vietnam War.

"As the President told the UN, we went to Iraq to enforce the ceasefire resolutions from Gulf 1, which, among other things, required him to liberalize Iraq."

You are truly either delusional, paid by BC04, or a complete idiot.

Even if you really believed that we invaded Iraq to "liberalize it" (isn't that a dirty word to you right-wingers, since it has "liberal" in it?) based on old UN resolutions, the logical argument against it is that clearly we weren't enforcing any UN resolutions since we didn't have UN authorization and there was no UN coalition as there was in the first Gulf War.

But more importantly, as others have said, your argument about the casualties in Iraq is just plain disgusting. What a tool. (And I use the word "tool" not in the traditional skater-speak, but meaning "a brainless utensil used by someone else to do dirty work.")

MD, don't forget that if we really were out to maintain the will of the UN, we would have gone through that body's entire process of confict resolution (ie, let Hans Blix do his job for another month or two) and get a second resolution.

We didn't. We took that second resolution off the table and invaded without UN consensus.

OJ, I think you got my point. Bush supposedly said there wouldn't be "any" casualties. "Any" meaning zero. Bush thought no one would be killed in the war. Now Mr. Judd tries to spin "any" into meaning "a few".

As for that press release, a few classic Bush whoppers:

"United Nations' inspections also revealed that Iraq likely maintains stockpiles of VX, mustard and other chemical agents, and that the regime is rebuilding and expanding facilities capable of producing chemical weapons."

Is Bush referring to the Winnebagoes of doom? Or the weather baloons of mass terror?

"Iraq has made several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon. "

Well, we knew at that very moment that this claim was bogus. So glad that we got that in the annals of history: our fact-checking president in all his glory.

"Iraq also possesses a force of Scud-type missiles with ranges beyond the 150 kilometers permitted by the U.N. Work at testing and production facilities shows that Iraq is building more long-range missiles that it can inflict mass death throughout the region."

And how is this a threat to the US's national security? Terrorists ferrying them to Canada?

MD:

The failure of the UN to enforcew the resolutions that saved Saddam in '91 did not require us to fail the people of Iraq too.

Mr. colvin:

We can all agree that he didn't mean 0 when he said not "any." Even in training exercises you get casualties. Objecting to his hyperbole is fine, but taking the specific quote literally is just silly.

MD:

Note that Mr. Kerry made the same case before the war:

http://www.independentsforkerry.org/uploads/media/kerry-iraq.html

A brutal, oppressive dictator, guilty of personally murdering and condoning murder and torture, grotesque violence against women, execution of political opponents, a war criminal who used chemical weapons against another nation and, of course, as we know, against his own people, the Kurds. He has diverted funds from the Oil-for-Food program, intended by the international community to go to his own people. He has supported and harbored terrorist groups, particularly radical Palestinian groups such as Abu Nidal, and he has given money to families of suicide murderers in Israel.

I mention these not because they are a cause to go to war in and of themselves, as the President previously suggested, but because they tell a lot about the threat of the weapons of mass destruction and the nature of this man. We should not go to war because these things are in his past, but we should be prepared to go to war because of what they tell us about the future. It is the total of all of these acts that provided the foundation for the world's determination in 1991 at the end of the gulf war that Saddam Hussein must: unconditionally accept the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless under international supervision of his chemical and biological weapons and ballistic missile delivery systems... [and] unconditionally agree not to acquire or develop nuclear weapons or nuclear weapon-usable material.

Saddam Hussein signed that agreement. Saddam Hussein is in office today because of that agreement. It is the only reason he survived in 1991. [...]

I believe the record of Saddam Hussein's ruthless, reckless breach of international values and standards of behavior which is at the core of the cease-fire agreement, with no reach, no stretch, is cause enough for the world community to hold him accountable by use of force, if necessary.

Those who frequent this blog know OJ and I often disagree.

But on this one, he is dead-on correct.

I might also note several things:

1. This thread is proof-positive that ad hominem attacks are a sure sign of a bankrupt argument.

2. What was the alternative? The status quo ante had become untenable. Regardless of the UN's credibility (it pains me to put those two words in the same sentence), the only alternative to war was lifting the sanctions, due both to Saddams's cynical use of them, and our "allies" willing acquiescence to bribery. So, those of you pilloring the President's decision to invade, what would you have done?

3. How many Iraqis are not dead because Saddam is now in jail?

Before the ad hominem machine starts up, NB I have been there and done that. I also have friends over there and doing that now. Trust me, you wouldn't try to restate your "arguments" to them in the same room.

Well, twice, anyway.

For the purpose of this comment, let's assume the war was somehow necessary.

How by any stretch of the imagination does that excuse Bush going to war with too few troops, inadequate materiel, and no plan for the after-war? He did this while ignoring and discouraging pre-war advice from the senior military leaders, the State Department, his own father, and the OMB.

"The possibility of the United States winning the war and losing the peace in Iraq is real and serious."
[Army War College report, February 2003]

" We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq.... there was no viable "exit strategy" we could see, violating another of our principles...Going in and occupying Iraq...would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land."
[George Herbert Walker Bush, from his memoir, "A World Transformed"]

" We mobilized over 600 Iraqi experts. We anticipated clearly not only the looting, but the post-Saddam possibility of organized crime... We looked at the possibility of the growth of organized crime, and how, if it's not tackled from day one, it will become a chronic, serious problem. We were shocked that what we feared most and recommended against was just unfolding in front of our eyes as if nobody knew it."
[Laith Kubba, Senior program officer for the Middle East and North Africa at the National Endowment for Democracy; president, Iraq National Group]

"In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee on September 18, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld declined to speculate upon what might be the military requirements for the United States in post-war Iraq, assuming Saddam Hussein's ouster. On February 25, testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Army Chief of Staff. General Eric Shinseki expressed the opinion that up to "several hundred thousand" troops could be required to maintain an occupation of Iraq. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz publicly called his estimate "wildly off the mark" (and Rumsfeld fired Shinseki, ed.)....It is likely that a continued deployment of substantial military ground force will be necessary for several years. "
[Iraq: Potential U.S. Military Operations
Congressional Research Service
Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division]

"...several administration and congressional sources interviewed...said senior policymakers at the White House, Pentagon and elsewhere received classified analyses before the war warning about the dangers of the postwar period."
[Washington Post, 9/9/03]

"Before the war began, White House economic adviser Larry Lindsey was fired after suggesting it would cost $100 billion to $200 billion." (He was fired, ed.)
[USA Today, 5/13/04]

Retired General Anthony Zinni, a former chief of the US Central Command, responded to Donald Rumsfeld's comments that he couldn't have predicted the chaos in Iraq. "I'm surprised that he is surprised because there was a lot of us who were telling him that it was going to be thus..."
[San Diego Union Tribune, 4/16/04]

Losing 1000 troops killed and 11,000 troops wounded after "Mission Accomplished" while ignoring the best advice available is beyond inexcusable. It is gross and willful incompetance and malfeasance as Commander-in-Chief.

NO CASUALTIES

You sir are an idiot

OJ, please find me any non-partisan who can possible explain how "any" is not an absolute term. I have never heard anyone use the word "any" to mean "a few".

Jeff, what would Saddam have done? His country's infrastructure was failing, his army was in tatters (save the Republican guard), he had no way of producing WMDs. He was no better than a third-rate despot sitting on a ruined country. Countries like these do not pre-emptively act, they would be crushed quickly (see the fall of Baghdad for detail).

I also think you juxtapose two very different leftie groups. One was the ANSWER crowd, who opposed war no matter what. Many others on the left played along with the invasion, and became shrill after every single justification for the war fell apart. Indeed, most of the rational left bring up Bush's lack of plan to win the peace and protect our troops, rather than harping on the WMD thing. It's much more important than the past. We need to support our troops now. Bush has proven that he doesn't care about them.

Since there have been so few United States casualties in this war compared to previous wars, would you mind sending an email to each of the 1102 (10/20/04, 8:50 PM CST) families who have lost someone in Iraq? You might also make time to send emails for the 4000 - 8000 (?) (exact number classified) United States soldiers classified as "injured as well. I will not ask to send emails to the familes of the Iraqui dead & injured, that is a number that is not known.
Traq was a problem that should have been solved in the early 70's by competent leadership-The US should have never recognized Saddam's coup, NEVER have sold him bioweapons (or any other munitions, especially land mines) during the Iran/Iraq war, etcetera piled on top of etcetera...

In your emails, please be sure to mention what a good deal it was that their family members got, it's not as if a lot of our military has died in this war, right?

Yes, indeed, Dear Leader was right, harsh as it is to say.

There were no casualties in Iraq.
War is peace.
Ignorance is strength.
Freedom is on the march...

The relevant number isn't even "casualties." There have been over 20,000 medical evacuations, a number that for some reason never gets reported. That is to say 20,000 people sufficiently damaged in one way or another that the government has gone to the trouble and expense of flying them out of theater.

How many would there be, I wonder, if we maintained a forward military strategy instead of hiding behind fortifications?

Mr. OJ,
In response to a Mr. Fox, you reminded us of an earlier US president's remarks to the UN, a president I assume to be George 1 - "...Iraq invaded Kuwait without provocation...". May I please remind you of two things, 1) there were stories going round back then of the US's Iraqi ambassador being asked by Iraq if it was "okay" if they secured their borders or something similar and our ambassador responded with something like "no problem". (challenge me & I'll find a reference if time permits) and 2) the satellite photos of the "Iraqi troops massed around the border with Saudi Arabia" are still classified - darms

QUIET! ORRIN'S THINKING!

He's trying to figure out a rationalization for nonexistent postwar planning that reveals our adventure's unalloyed idealism.

So idealism's a dirty word ? Thanks. I'll have my tax refund right now, please.

John G;

Because the Europeans were too paralyzed to bomb innocent people, they allowed the situation in Yugoslavia to get out of control. Remember that? Probably not - I forgot for a moment that the world was a peaceful utopia before Bush the Evil came in to power.

Well this is fun. I haven't heard the "chickenhawk" argument in quite a while. Who linked the site and brought all the erudite newcomers?

Mr Perlstein: LOVED the cover illustration accompanying your VV article. Truly shows how your side is indeed the rational one.

It's absolutely lovely having this crowd out in the light. . . .

It's nice to be reminded that there's nothing, nothing worth dying for.

Exactly. Since we're no longer fooling around with idealism, Perlstein, answer me this as a practical matter: why shouldn't I simply start accepting the jihadists as allies? They want you dead. I'm starting to come 'round to their way of thinking. Since you live in a prime target area, why not just sit back, let them drop a building on your head, and then pop some corks? Population density where I live makes me not worth the effort. You're a different story.

Brian, it's usually only Freepers who I have to remind that I have nothing to do with the idiotic tabloid-style illustrations and headlines they use for my articles. Invariably, I hate them.

Joe, idealism is a beautiful word, which is why it pains me so that the administration has hustled you all into believing they're idealistic. An idealistic military operation would have devoted troops to, say, the sewage plants, not just the oil ministry.

Twn, I would die defending my home, certainly (and for many other things as well). Most people would. Which is precisely why this nation needs to muster more wisdom towards understanding why intractable insurgencies pop up every time we try to "liberate" some country in a manner that looks to those "liberated" like an invasion, that makes them willing to die believing they are doing so to defend their home.

Oh, and I forgot Orrin. OJ, why isn't 3,000 deaths in a nation of 300,000,000 "nothing"? (I, for one, think it is very much something--living in Brooklyn, I breathed in the ash of charred flesh--which is precisely why our military response to unhorse the perpetrators was not shunted aside in favor of the Iraq focus).

Mr. Perlstein:

Actually methinks OJ is reveling in the Red Sox crushing the Yankees at the moment.

Watching a good baseball game is far more satisfying than arguing with the self-righteous, sanctimonious, pompous sympathizers, apologists and defenders of a genocidal dictator.

Joe, are you unaware that the population of Jihadists in Iraq was vanishingly small in Iraq before we showed up?

Perlstein, are you unaware that jihadists are just as capable ot buying a plane ticket, or hitchting a ride on a truck caravan, as you are? [Sir].

Capable of, hitching a ride. Schmuck.

I am totally just loving this. Folks like R.P. take the Iraqui "insurgency" at face value -- Iraqi patriots defending their homeplace. It's precious.

Well . . . I suppose we should clear out? Let the Jihadists take over? So much better than the Baathists, in any case!!

I wish you could invest in jackass quotient.

MB, don't distract us with talk of North Korea. And was it Orrin's karma that just brought the Yankees two runs? (Feel the love: I'm for the Red Socks and, bythe way, live in Chicago.)

Red Sox. [Sir]

Joe, yes, they're probably just as able to buy a plane ticket as I am, because Bush bowed to corporate pressure and wouldn't federalize airport security (and don't give me that big-government-isn't-the-solution BS; even the strictest libertarians acknowledge government's role in basic SECURITY functions).

No, seriously, Joe. To answer your question: If Iraq had been handled COMPETENTLY, it wouldn't be such a desirable destination for Jihadists, no? And if the people who "planned" it had a sufficient geopolitical grasp (ie, if they had the skills to look at a map) that Iraq's borders are singularly hard to defend, and folded that into their prewar "planning," they might have realized that an America-occupied Iraq was a Jihadist's paradise?

No one thought of that. And so much else.

Mr. Perlstein: I'm talking about a plane ticket from London to Damascus -- bit outside TSA's jurisdiction.

Mr. Perlstein:

Your reference to NK completely eludes me. Probably has something to do with the fact that I consider publications such as the VV are put to better use in an outhouse instead of being read.

BTW, what kind of baseball fan would spell it "Red Socks"? I suppose that's the sophisticated way to spell it.

This is possibly the most ridiculous editorial I have ever read on the Internet. Congratulations, good sir, you win the esteemed Dumbass of the Web award. I'll send you your trophy once I buy it.

You forgot Poland!!

Wow.... people like you do exist. I always thought you were just carcicatures of the worst of the nutjobs.

But there it is - clear as day - kill 'em all and pass the oil....

MB - That's being a little harsh on Bush.

Great argument OJ. Bush ignores the will of the UN and invades Iraq for... IGNORING THE WILL OF THE UN! BRILLIANT!!!

The UN can be ignored because it is "irrelevant" when Bush wants to ignore it. But the will of the UN must be enforced when it suits Bush's agenda. How nice to be able to choose to abide by the rules a la carte.

And to say that it is "silly" to take Bush at his word when he said "any," and that he didn't mean zero, but some unknown number between 1,000 and 300,000,000, is asinine.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you are not an idiot. Assuming then that you are an intelligent person, I can only conclude that the person who made this statement:

"In a nation of 300 million, 1,000 isn't any no matter how you define any."

must either be deluding himself, or is engaging in lowest form of dishonest discourse imaginable. This illustrates how morally and intellectually bankrupt the right-wing has become if it has to twist logic to such Orwellian levels (down is now up, ignorance is now strength).

For sheer absurdity, your statement easily surpasses "It depends on what your definition of 'is' is."

any

\A"ny\, a. & pron. [OE. [ae]ni[yogh], [ae]ni, eni, ani, oni, AS. [=ae]nig, fr. [=a]n one. It is akin to OS. [=e]nig, OHG. einic, G. einig, D. eenig. See One.] 1. One indifferently, out of an indefinite number; one indefinitely, whosoever or whatsoever it may be.

Note: Any is often used in denying or asserting without limitation; as, this thing ought not be done at any time; I ask any one to answer my question.

No man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son. --Matt. xi. 27.

2. Some, of whatever kind, quantity, or number; as, are there any witnesses present? are there any other houses like it? ``Who will show us any good?'' --Ps. iv. 6.

Note: It is often used, either in the singular or the plural, as a pronoun, the person or thing being understood; anybody; anyone; (pl.) any persons.

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, . . . and it shall be given him. --Jas. i. 5.

That if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem. --Acts ix. 2.

At any rate, In any case, whatever may be the state of affairs; anyhow.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

any

\A"ny\, adv. To any extent; in any degree; at all.

You are not to go loose any longer. --Shak.

Before you go any farther. --Steele.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

any

adj 1: (in negative statements) either every little or very great but unspecified; "can't stand any noise"; "could not endure chemotherapy for any length of time" [syn: any(a)] 2: one or some or every or all without specification; "give me any peaches you don't want"; "not any milk is left"; "any child would know that"; "pick any card"; "any day now"; "cars can be rented at almost any airport"; "at twilight or any other time"; "beyond any doubt"; "need any help we can get"; "give me whatever peaches you don't want"; "no milk whatsoever is left" [syn: any(a), whatever, whatsoever] adv : to any degree or extent; "it isn't any better"

Source: WordNet ® 2.0, © 2003 Princeton University

If you lost the same number of people we lost in Vietnam, our US forces in Iraq would be almost cut in half. There's no comparison.

Had Kennedy lived, Krulak thought, the war
might have gone differently. Kennedy’s
fascination with counterinsurgency and the
lessons he would have learned by 1965 would
have enabled him to grasp the importance of
what Krulak was saying when Krulak had gone
to the Oval Office with his strategy paper in
hand. The president would have forced the
Army generals to fight the war intelligently.

If Krulak was right about Kennedy, if there
was any substance to his musing, it was
another of the many might-have-beens of
Vietnam. In this war, 14, 691 Marines were to
die, three times as a many as had died in
Korea, a weighty loss in lives, a loss that
had weighed more heavily than the 24,511
Marines who had been lost during World War
II. For Brute Krulak was to know, before most
of these Marines of Vietnam had died, that
all of them were to die in vain.
--Sheehan, A Bright and Shining Lie

Mr. Dean:

Yes, if the police in your town weren't enforcing the law someone would have to, no?

TWN, yes, I'm the one who's for the Baathists. Only it's our government who made the brilliant decision to let the soldiers in the disbanded Baathist army keep their guns; and it's the "government" we installed to govern Iraq that is most aggressive in fighting any attempts at de-Baathification.

And how do you take the insurgency? Seriously, I'm asking.

darms:

Are you saying Saddam didn't invade Kuwait?

Rick:

I agree that we were very lucky and 9-11 turned out to be significantly less lethal than anyone thought it would be and it has done rather little to disrupt the nation.

I served in the peacetime Navy for nine years (The Clinton years plus the tail-end of the Bush I years). I find the idea of an acceptable level of casualties absolutely abominable. EVERY casualty matters to their loved ones and their communities.

That said, I'm interested by the trends. The total loss to humanity from terrorist attacks worldwide was larger in 2003 than in 2002.
The total loss of military personnel in Iraq was larger in 2004 than in 2003.
Sounds like incompetent national leadership to me.

Rick:

The postwar planning was non-existent. Still, we were abvle to hand over sovereignty with a year and a half and they'll have elections within two years. That's as good as we've ever done.

darms:

I agree we should have dealt with Saddam years ago. Is your argument that because we didn't we missed our chance and he was olly-olly-oxen-free?

Rich:

So you're a pacifist?

nul:

No they didn't.

Perlstein:

Those that I fight I do not hate/
those that I guard I do not love

Fundamentally, I agree with you. You believe, to the bottom of your soul (?), that you and yours don't rate the kind of defense that's been offered you. Believe me, I agree with you. You and yours don't. Best we should bring all our sons home, and wait for Bin Laden, or Zarqawi, or whoever takes up their cudgels, to pound you into rubble. We'll just sit here and wait for that to happen. Shame on us for presuming to interfere.

Joe, are you aware that the military had Zarqawi's training camp, and likely Zarqawi, in their sites in late 2002 but didn't pull the trigger for political reasons: because it would hurt their case for war in Iraq?

Why do you trust this administration to protect us?

Are you aware that we had the Northern Alliance fight the Taliban instead of our own, far more competent, forces, for political reaspons: because less U.S. casualties would show up on the ledger?

Why do you trust this adminnistration to protect us?

Most, almost all, of the left, supported going to war in Afghanistan. It was the administration that supported outsourcing the hard work.

I think you just had your Daily Kos moment, oj.

Here's a quote from Judd's review of Ursula Leguin's The Lathe of Heaven:

"...this may well be one of the most conservative novels ever written.

Though she spoke of the story in Taoist terms--George Orr gets along by going along--it is also easy to read the plot in political terms. Dr. Haber can be seen as any intellectual who conceives a better way for society and then seeks to impose it, completely failing to understand the unintended consequences which this action will inevitably have. George Orr, meanwhile, understands that the power to shape reality is too dangerous to entrust to any one man or group of men. It is better to let the future evolve naturally and preserve Man's free will, even if this means not stepping in to "fix" some situations that seem amenable to his personal solutions."

Contrast this sentiment with your "conservative" ideas of "liberating" the Muslim world, and Iraq in particular. How does W fit into the world-view expressed in the above quote? Or are you so blinded by the "Dear Leader W" cult of personality that whatever he says instantly becomes your mantra?

Y'know, it's possible to disagree without being insulting - That's how adults do it.

Reading the posts in this thread cause me to wonder if somehow BrosJudd was linked to by a high school student web site; the level of understanding shown about the events mentioned show a distinct lack of knowledge of history or geopolitics.

If those new to the site would look around it a bit, they might find a context to put Orrin's remarks in, as well as some other interesting stuff.

j swift:

Please tell me what's not "global" about engaging Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Syria, the Sudan, and Libya ?
Except for Iran, all are totalitarian, and Iran's close to it.

al Qaeda attacked Americans and the American government at least five times during the Clinton administration, so it can hardly be the current administration's fault that people are concerned about terrorism.

How, exactly, does it denigrate WW II veterans to point out that there are many fewer casualties today than there were during WW II ?

Jon H:

How does any US President have anything to do with a pharmacuetical company making a contaminated batch of vaccines ??

I assume that what you mean is that the Bush adminstration was on the ball in detecting and banning the contaminated medicine.

Lowell:

Perhaps you are unaware that the US military has very strict guidelines for accepting recruits, and that a desire to go kill Iraqis is not a "Get Into the Army Free" pass.

For instance, I support the Iraqi pacification to some extent, and yet, even were I inclined to go fight, there are four reasons why the US military wouldn't allow me to join.

I suggest that you speak to a recruiter, and avoid embarrassing yourself in the future.

Raster:

When I was in Arabia, Iraq, and Kuwait in '91, I would much rather have had my leg blown off than been killed. Most people make the same choice.
Thus, your personal preference for death before maiming isn't a good guide as to whether there have been too many overall casualties.

Jerry:

It does not excuse him, of course.

However, if a thing needs doing, and no one else will do it, accomplishing it badly is better than not accomplishing it.

verplanck colvin:

While Saddam was a second-rate despot, his army was large and powerful, for the region, and his nation fairly rich.
Iraq sells more oil than Iran does, and Iran's attempting to build nuclear weapons. Why do you believe that Saddam would allow Iran to have nukes, without acquiring some himself, once the sanctions ended ?

Countries like Iraq would be crushed quickly ?
Only by the US. Iran didn't quickly crush Iraq in the 80s. What other nations do you believe could "crush" Iraq ?
(Hint: The only other one is Russia).

darms:

A thirty year record of mistakes justifies maintaining the status quo ?!?

Doesn't it lend more urgency to correcting past mistakes ?

If your mechanic told you that she'd made a mistake while fixing your automobile in the past, but that she thought the best policy was "let sleeping dogs lie", would that satisfy you ?

I do challenge you to find anything credible to back up the "America said it was OK for Iraq to invade Kuwait" myth.

The then-US Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, UNEQUIVOCALLY DENIES IT.

OJ. Nice spin and avoidance maneuver. I stand corrected. You are an idiot.

BigBri:

Iraqis are being given the opportunity to shape their future rather than have it be determined by one man.

Rick:

To the contrary, it was the Left's reaction to Afghanistan that forced Michael Walzer to ask the pained question Can There Be a Decent Left:

http://www.dissentmagazine.org/menutest/archives/2002/sp02/decent.shtml

And to answer, no.

1. This is still BrothersJudd blog. We observe the niceties towards our guests. It is both proper and infuriating.

2. It would have been delusional for the President or anyone else to believe that there would be no casualties suffered in invading Iraq. It is self-evident to me that the President is not delusional. If you believe otherwise, you are free to press that point on the American people. In fact, I urge you to. But there is no point arguing about it.

3. That making this argument requires Rick Perlstein to accept the word of Pat Robertson is delicious.

4. If the war was worth fighting at all, it was worth the casualties we've suffered. Invading and occupying a nation of 25 million for more than 18 months at the cost in lives and treasure we've suffered is a remarkable military victory. Of course, if you disagree with the war, then you think that this has all been a waste, but lets not pretend that a war that is a waste at 1000 lives would have been worth it at 500.

5. The men and women who have died in this war, and who were injured (and, as it happens, one of my brothers is an Army doctor at Walter Reed, so I'm very aware of the cost borne by the injured) are heroes who we must honor. But we do not honor them by pretending that they are pawns or children. They are adults. They volunteered. They are, by and large, proud of their service. Just this week, there was an article about soldiers who, having lost a limb in Iraq, are reenlisting and going through basic training again to show that they can still serve. Though it would strike me as unacceptably fascist, we Republicans would be perfectly willing to have the upcoming election decided solely by the military and their families, as the left is so concerned for them.

6. There was no bad reason to go into Iraq. It was useful both strategically and tactically. If we can establish a democratic Iraq, we will have broken the back of the fundamentalists and changed the entire future of the middle east. There was a time when the left would have been all for that.

7. The Jihadists coming into Iraq is one of the many benefits of the war. Better to fight them in Falluja than in New York.

8. The French, and other members of the Security Council, were taking money and/or oil from the Iraqis to block UN action. Treating the UN as if it is a legitimate international actor, with the best interests of the world's people at heart, is as delusional as you accuse the President of being.

9. The Weapons Inspectors were only in Iraq because of the troops massed on the border. The troops could not be kept there indefinitely, so the Inspectors would not have been able to stay in Iraq indefinitely.

10. The question of whether we had enough troops is an interesting strategic question, but no one believes that the left's complaint about Iraq was that we weren't heavy handed enough. More to the point, more troops is not the answer. Troops came into the country as fast as practicable. Even if we were ultimately to have more troops in-country, they would not have gotten there any faster. As a result, we would not have had more troops in Baghdad immediately after the Ba'athists collapsed.

11. Our major problem in-country now is force protection. More troops doesn't have solve that problem, it makes it worse. Not only does it leave us with more troops to guard, but it requires us to run more convoys in and out of the country and to run more patrols. In other words, more troops only result in more targets.

12. If the Israelis can't stop suicide bombers from infiltrating into their own country, then we are not going to be able to stop bombings or mortar attacks in the Green Zone, in Baghdad or in Iraq. That we haven't done so is no sign of incompetence.

continued

13. We went into Iraq for the at least the following reasons:

15. Its not particularly relevant, but the US ambassador did not tell Hussein it was ok to go ahead and invade Kuwait. We did not provide Iraq with bioweapons. We did sell them some armaments during the war with Iran (who we hated, remember), but it was an astonishingly small amount and a mere fraction of what France and Germany sold them.

Mr. Dean:

Law needn't be enforced?

16. Of course the insurgency is fighting back. I understand perfectly well why they are doing so. But the estimated strength of the terrorists is only about 1/10th of 1 percent of the Iraqi population. At the same time, the claim that we are creating new Jihadists as fast as we can make them is simply made up. There is no objective evidence for that, only the surmise that occupying Iraq makes the Arabs hate us, and so they must be deciding to be terrorists. In fact, Al Qaeda has lost all its training camps in the middle east and is not creating new members. Everyone seems to agree that the Arabs coming into Iraq to fight are untrained recruits who throw their lives away.

We discussed the April Glaspie issue in this post.

Orrin, Mike's essay was rather fantastical. He's chasing shadows that have more to do with the psychohistory of the left than facts on the ground. I chose a different approach: I went through the bother of actually asking prominent lefties around New York what they thought about the war in Afghanistan. This was the result:

http://www.newyorkobserver.com/pages/story.asp?ID=4975

That's the neat thing about liberals. They're willing to change their minds, based on evidence (which is why the Bush aide recently described us as the "reality-based community"). They can handle the complexity of supporting a wise military intervention (Afghanistan) while rejecting an unwise one (Iraq).

Bedtime.

"... casualties in the War on Terror have been so minimal as to be insignificant ..."

Did you really just write that? The insignificant parents of the insignificant dead are likely to differ.

Perhaps you should sign up and offer your insignificant life to the cause. I am sure there is a recruiter near you...

Rick Perlstein:

Why do you believe that securing sewage treatment facilities in Iraq would have been a better long-term decision ?

Isn't Iraq eventually going to need their oil income ?
Hard to do if the oil infrastructure was lying in ruins.

"Idealism" comes in many flavors. It's safe to say that Bush isn't good on the details, but clearly, the shape of the forest that contains the trees you're muttering about is an idealistic one. Attempting to change all Arab societies and governments is absolutely not the task of a pragmatist.

Using the Northern Allience was a stroke of brilliance, shaded by necessity. It allowed the assault against the Taliban to kick off months earlier than it would have if we'd waited to transport all of necessary troops and equipment to avoid using the NA.
In fact, NA troops, combined with US SpecOp forces and American air power, did so well that when major US forces finally arrived and took over, the assault slowed down !

I dunno why you're so upset about the al-Zarqawi training camp; while not the highest moral action that the Bush admin could have taken, it wasn't out of line with the decisions of Presidents past, of all parties. (Including the Clinton admin, which made many similar choices).

Rick:

You asked a few oscure New Yorkers what they thought about going into Afghanistan a few weeks after NYC was blown apart and they're supposed to represent the Left?

Meanwhile, here's that Henwood character swallowing Gore Vidal's rap on Afghanistan whole:

http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/VidalTranscript.html

Apparently the decency wore off fast.

Mr. colvin:

Here's a pretty basic example. You could do it with anyone who's ever used the English language. Note that in the quote below when Mr. Krugman says "any" he doesn't mean zero. He means fewer than usual. He's being a bit hyperbolic, but his meaning is clear enough.

Paul Krugman (A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW, September 11, 2003)

BUZZFLASH: You're not a full-time journalist. Do you think that gives you a bit of distance from both the media and from politics when you write your columns?

KRUGMAN: What it means is that I don't have any of the usual journalistic or the journalists' incentives. I'm not part of the club. I'm not socially part of that world. I don't go to Washington cocktail parties, so I don't get sucked into whatever kind of group-think there may be, for better or for worse. I don't necessarily hear all the latest rumors, but I also don't fold in with the latest view on how you're supposed to think about things.

It also means that I'm moonlighting. This is not my career, or I didn't think it is, anyway. And if it means that if I'm frozen out, if the Times finally decides I'm too hot to handle and fires me or whatever, that's no great loss. So I'm a lot more independent than your ordinary average journalist would be.

Well, Bush's rationale for going to war was
a) terrorism
b) WMD

Now neither as we know were true. So suddenly, this rationale is changed to
c) for freedom

But this is ingenious because if that was presented as the original reason, then the merits of invasion versus other means to achieve this goal would have been looked at more carefully, as well as why the freedom of a particular group of people in the Middle East warranted special attention over, say, a billion Chinese, the people of Saudi Arabia or of Zimbabwe. You simply cannot post-rationalize the act of going to war. Furthermore, the idea that Iraq actually has sovereignty right now is an illusion anyway.

As for the Yugoslavia comment above regarding Europe waiting too long and that situation getting out of hand. Thanks for making our point precisely. Yugoslavia's descent into chaos is parallel to the situation that Bush's post-planning has created in Iraq. Differing groups of people fighting in an area without a leader in control. i.e. Bush has most likely created a 'Yugoslavia' through inept planning.

Oh, yeah. Europe's uselessness. Let's talk about Libya then. A state that has renounced terrorism, totally through diplomatic channels. And before people start saying this was a U.S. thing resulting from Iraq, in fact, this was mainly achieved by the UK government, and it was very nearly derailed because of the Iraq invasion.

The whole point was that after 9/11 the U.S. had such universal support that there was huge pressures on wayward states to comply. So what does Bush do? Destroys this support, goes into a war with spurious reasons, no planning, in a move that has bolstered support for terrorists, encourage rogue states to continue as they always were, and fractured alliances that were crucial for success against terror, as well as spending so much money on Iraq that there in no money left to defend the homeland. And people think this was a GOOD THING. All for the benefit of the people of Iraq - a group of people who Americans have never cared about in the past, as evidenced by the Republican party supplying Saddam with the equipment to gas the Kurds with, and then refusing to condemn the action in congress. And we are meant to believe that this was about freedom. How can people be so naive?

This quote seems appropriate:
"We have no interest in oppressing other people. We are not moved by hatred against any other nation. We bear no grudge. I know how grave a thing war is. I wanted to spare our people such an evil. It is not so much the country [...] it is rather its leader. He has led a reign of terror. He has hurled countless people into the profoundest misery. Through his continuous terrorism, he has succeeded in reducing millions of his people to silence. [Their] maintenance of a tremendous military arsenal can only be regarded as a focus of danger. We have displayed a truly unexampled patience, but I am no longer willing to remain inactive while this madman ill-treats millions of human beings."

Michael Herdegen -

"However, if a thing needs doing, and no one else will do it, accomplishing it badly is better than not accomplishing it."

Again, assuming that Iraq needed invading (which I don't believe):

If the thing that needs doing is putting up a roof, doing it badly and staying a bit drier is better.

But if you have the advice of engineers, roofers, and meteorologists familiar with your locale, and you have access to the best materials that money can buy, and you ignore the advice of your experts and buy a third of the material you need, and build a leaky, ill-secured roof because your "instincts" tell you you know better than anyone else how to build a roof, and your children die of pneumonia from sitting in the cold and wet under it, you have been an idiot.

Michael Herdegen -

"However, if a thing needs doing, and no one else will do it, accomplishing it badly is better than not accomplishing it."

And certainly not if it comes at the expense of a whole list of other things which could be accomplished instead.

Goal: rid the world of terrorism, stop the proliferation of WMD, extend freedom to people not free.

Result: terrorism situation worse, WMD states more dangerous, freedom of people of a particular country not clear, universal disrespect of the world (who you need to help you with)

Not tackled: AIDs, World Hunger, freedom of about 2-3 billion other people, lack of home security.

Bush's solutions to problems are sound-bites of no substance 'we will prevail', 'the world is safer', 'the Iraqi people are free', 'we will stay the course', etc. etc. However, please don't attempt to use such techniques as part of any intelligent discussion.

OJ, I call bullsh-t. Your use of "any" means zero, none, nonexistant. Don't try to backpedal or spin for a puppet president. He said we weren't going to have *any* casualties... that means 0. It might seem more uncomfortable to you because it undermines the BushRedux presidency on more than one levels than one. It shows his lack of realistic planning, lack of competence as commander in chief of our military, as well as a fundamental inability to comprehend and use his native language.

If I say I'm not going to do any drugs, does that mean I can smoke crack on odd thursdays? If I say I'm not going to kill anyone, does that mean that if I restrain myself from killing a million people, then I can kill one to reward myself for my good deeds? If I say I'm not going to rape andone, does that mean I can force myself on a drunk college girl because I haven't raped all those other ones I helped get home?

It's messed up logic. It doesn't fit. There are rare cases in which there is a clear and defined right and wrong. Grammar is one of them. You're wrong. I challenge you to prove me otherwise.

And when Bush was asked,
"Are there *any* WMD in Iraq?"
He said "Yes" because actually any=zero. And what he was really saying was "there are zero WMD" in Iraq. He was right all along!

David Cohen:

Very well said !!

Gazzer:

Are you unaware that Saddam was well known to support terrorism ?
He gave US$ 25,000 to the family of every Palestinian suicide bomber.

Why do you believe that the terrorist situation is worse now, than it was in the past ?
Between '93 and '01, al Qaeda struck at Americans at least six times; since 9/11, ZERO times.
Most al Qaeda senior leadership is captured or dead, and the rest spend their time trying to stay free and alive. There aren't any al Qaeda training camps anymore.

Why do you believe that nations with WMD are more dangerous now, than in the past ?
There aren't any more of them now than there were before the Iraqi pacification, and North Korea is in talks with China and others, including the US, about stopping their nuclear programme.
Libya has given up their WMD and their WMD programmes, and according to Col. Qaddaffi, it was because of the Iraqi invasion and the capture of Saddam Hussein.

Why do you crave the "respect" of the world, and why do you feel that the US doesn't have global support ?
There are many, many European and Canadian troops in Afghanistan and Iraq; your refusal to admit that they exist and have made sacrifices speaks poorly of you.
The fact that the majority of the populations of France and Germany disagree with what America is doing in Iraq is irrelevent, unless they were otherwise going to help.
However, they weren't, under any circumstances. Therefore, they are at best "fair weather" friends, and their "friendship" is about as sincere as that of celebrities' hangers-on.

Apparently you are unaware that the Bush adminstration has pledged $ 15 billion dollars to help with the struggle against AIDS in Africa, far and away the highest pledge of any nation or group of nations.

World hunger is an artifact of incompetent governments and failed societies worldwide. There is more than enough food to go around, and the US and Europe would like to give some to those in need.
However, it's often impossible to distribute the aid, due to the politics of the stricken regions. Ethiopia and Somalia were examples of this.

As for freeing 2 - 3 billion people worldwide, how can you logically be against invading Iraq, but for invading North Korea and China ?!
Don't the 50 million people already freed in Afghanistan and Iraq count ?

In conclusion, it appears that you're shooting from the hip, without having taken the time to actually learn much about the subjects whereof you speak.
Take a couple hours to read a few articles about each of the subjects that you've mentioned, and we can have a better discussion when you return.
You may be particularly interested in reading about the UN Food-for-Oil programme scandal, and how deeply into the French government Saddam's bribes reached.

james v:

I take it that you also favor a literal interpretation of the Bible.

Michael Herdegen -

Are you honestly suggesting, even by way of a facetious comment, we should give the second-hand words of President Bush the same weight and consideration as the reported word of God?

At last, an explanation for the dogma.

Gazzer:

yes, that's a good example too. Not any WMD being used when there was some, just not as much as predicted.

Gazzer:

The other 2 billion get freed in the 2nd term.

james v:

For instance, when you say "puppet president" no one here thinks you so foolish as to believe the President a marionette. American English is a notoriously and wonderfully plastic thing.

Jerry:

The experts said we couldn't build a roof, but the elections are next year. Never listen to the State Department, CIA, and Europe--they never get any issue right.

Way up there I asked what the alternative was to the status quo ante, given that sanctions had long since reached a dead end.

Noting that sanctions had wrecked the country is not an answer, but only serves to underscore the pernicious effects sanctions were having on Iraqis.

Had we lifted the sanctions, Hussein would have had billions to restart his ambitions which undoubtedly included restarting WMD programs.

For those who don't remember, at the time of Desert Storm, we thought Saddam was 5 years away from a nuclear weapon. Post war intrusive inspections showed that time was more like 18 months.

Given that, and Saddam's responsibility for something like 1,000,000 deaths, do you really want to give Saddam unfettered access to all the goodies $billions of oil income could buy?

The status quo ante was untenable. That means those against the war have to come up with a better alternative. The only one I can think of is simply walking away. That is a position--but it needs substantiating, and I have yet to hear anyone on the Left even make an attempt.

Instead, what the Left is doing is reminiscent of Monty Python's Argument Clinic: automatically gainsaying anything the other side does.

For instance, if Pres Bush had tripled the number of troops, I guarandarntee you that the Left would have criticized him for initiating a massive, permanent, occupation, thereby justifying jihadi resistance.

Todays Detroit Free Press quoted Pat Robertson on this kerfuffle. Apparently God spoke to Pat and Personally told Mr. Robertson how it was going to turn out. That is so delusional I can't imagine anything Mr. Robertson says--including the word "any"--being credible.

OJ: Oh sure, the laws need to be enforced. Just pick whatever law suits you at any particular time and if you decide that the governing body isn't enforcing them quite to your satisfaction, just go enforce them yourself. That's the definition of an 'outlaw'. Taking action outside of the law and justice system is the definition of vigilantism. So now you're an anarchist?

NO one denies that the US has a right and duty to protect itself when facing a real threat. But for you and the right wing to justify the unlawful invasion of a sovereign country, under false pretenses, by saying out of one side of your mouth that it is being done because "the laws of the UN must be enforced," and then on the other side of your mouth to say "the UN is irrelevant and we can ignore its laws" is the height of hyperbole and hypocrisy. Here's another definition for you: YOU are a HYPOCRITE.

Kerry's mistake was to trust that Bush was telling the truth. A foolish mistake.

Bush has a checkers brain in a chess world. He's in over his head (as he has been from his drunken doped school days, his self-abbreviated military "career," his failed business ventures, to today), and all America is suffering for his ignorance, his stupidity, and his lies.

Unfortunately, you appear to part of the servile, sycophantic crowd that ignores facts and ignores reality.
The Bush administration is an unmitigated disaster (the corporate collapse of Enron and the California energy crisis orchestrated by Bush's largest campaign contributor: Ken Lay, the largest security failure in the history of this country, the potential quagmire that is becoming Iraq, the irresponsible handling of the nation's treasury which has taken us from trillion dollar surplus to a multi-trillion dollar deficit, the evisceration of the Bill of Rights for which Bush has sworn to "preserve, protect, and defend")
The mantra your type use to avoid the unpleasant reality that Bush is a miserable failure seems to be "Bush said it. I believe it. That settles it."

You are more Tory than patriot. "Follow your leader. Loyalty requires us to be apologists for Him in all cases. He can do no wrong. Do not question Him. He needn't be held accountable. King George is infallible."

What a pathetic excuse for an American you are.

Since the right wing is so fond of saying "love it or leave it," I'll turn that back to you: Go back to England where you belong so you can dutifully kneel down on bended knee and kiss the ring of the King.

This sandbox reeks. I'm outta here.

Why I Can't Vote for Bush
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20041025&s=george102504

True Conservatives Back Kerry
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=17709

Loyalty to country always; loyalty to government when it deserves it. - Mark Twain

If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen. - Samuel Adams

Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government. - Thomas Jefferson

The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle,
or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men.
- Samuel Adams

They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin

Mr. Dean:

The President cited the international laws chapter and verse in the speech above and no one argues that Saddam complied with them. At Tony Blair's behest he even got another UN resolution authorizing us to enforce them. It's hard to see what more anyone could ask who was serious about enforcement.

You're right. Saddam was no threat to us. He was killing Iraqis though and so were we through the sanctyions. That's what we went to war to put an end to.

So many people seem to bring up the Vietnam war when mentioning Iraq casualties as some sort of comparison to show how *well* we are doing in Iraq. So, I thought I'd post the actual deaths by year in Vietnam:

1956 to 1960 - 9 deaths

1961 - 16 deaths

1962 - 52 deaths

1963 - 18 deaths

1964 - 206 deaths

1965 - 1863 deaths

1966 - 6143 deaths

and it goes on up from there until 1969 when the numbers began to drop off.

Point being - we've been in Iraq for a year and a half now and lost eleven hundred lives.

We were in Vietnam for *eight* years before we hit that number of deaths.

So the comparisons to Vietnam are flat-out wrong.

I hear everyday how we are going to be in Iraq for years to come. I'm afraid the worst is still ahead of us.

Another argument that irritates me is that we got rid of a tyrant that was killing his own people.

Estimated number of dead civilians since the invasion began: 13,257

Yet we've "liberalized" the Iraqi people.

Here's to hoping no one ever decides to "liberalize" us.

JoeB:

Fret not. We need the troiops for Syria and Iran so we'll be leaving.

Do these deaths we caused ever bother you?:

Are 1 Million Children Dying in Iraq? (Chris Suellentrop, Oct. 9, 2001, Slate)

The origin of the oft-cited numbers on Iraqi child mortality is an August 1999 United Nations Children Emergency Fund survey, which showed that Iraqi children under the age of 5 were dying at more than twice the rate they had been 10 years before. In a press release, UNICEF executive director Carol Bellamy said that if the reductions in child mortality in Iraq in the 1980s had continued into the 1990s, a half million fewer children would have died from 1991 to 1998.

I just love the Web. It's full of yahoos from the 101st keyboard battalion.

One wonders, for all of you who support Bush's little adventure in Eye-raq, why haven't you joined up to go over there. One also wonders--why hasn't he?

raj:

he has--he's commander in chief.

Mr. Perlstein and friends:

Two themes seem to run unevenly through many of the posts above. The first is that the U.S. violated international law (and thus the deaths in the war are "tainted" or unnecessary in some way) and the second is the growing myth that Afghanistan was a "good" and legitimate war, presumably because the Europeans were on board.

It seems to me that you are backing yourself into the position that the UN seal of approval is the only test of legitimacy and that there is no room whatsoever for moral or political justifications. In other words, the UN can't be wrong, not because of any collective wisdom, but by definition. Afghanistan happened on the heels of the revulsion at 9/11, when the anti-war left was silenced and reduced to holding discreet workshops on root causes and calling for "measured reponses." Yet, on the strict application of positive law, the case for regime change in Afghanistan was a lot weaker than in Iraq.

Iraq had been trying to develop WMD's--from superguns to chemical and nuclear weapons--for decades. They were paying bounty on Israeli lives, had invaded two neighbours, had tried to assassinate a U.S. President, were playing games with sanctions, had gassed their population and were slaughtering--not killing, but slaughtering--in huge numbers. All Afghanistan did was refuse to turn over Al Qaeda. No sanctions, weapons' programs, invasions of neighbours, etc. So what you are saying is that a somewhat dicey "right of hot pursuit" can make a war completely legitimate if everybody at the UN is enraged enough to vote for it, but a dangerous, murderous thug addicted to spreading war and death is safe if they aren't.

Tell me, if the 9/11 terrorists had been stopped at the gate by the FBI, would the invasion of Afghanistan have been lawful? You can talk all you want about terrorism threats and the nasty ols Taliban, but I suggest the only answer available to you on your own terms is : "If France agreed, yes."

Finally, I am struck by the ex post facto creativity of the liberal/left. The fact that terrorism has not caused the destruction we all feared three years ago is proof, not of the effectiveness of U.S. policy, but that they never were all that threatening. Fallujah's concentration of jihadists is somehow far more dangerous than the pre-9/11 Syria-Iraq-Iran-Afghanistan axis when governments and Islamists were working together and crying openly for war. Saddam use to be a monster, but now we see that was just Bush propaganda and he was really a doddering drooler who was but a few weeks away from being toppled in a coup by humanitarian democrats. As for the "planning" canard, am I to assume that proper planning would have converted an illegal, imperialistic war by an oil-craving religious fanatic with a daddy complex into a wise and lawful one?

raj:

If you'd bothered to read the previous comments, you would've seen that your question was already asked twice, and answered.

Peter B:

Wow, what an incisive evisceration of the "bad planning" argument !

Hey, guys, I say we all get together and kill this Orrin Judd fellow. 'Cause, see, we can't be arrested for murder, because we didn't actually kill anyone! If a thousand people aren't worth anything, then what value is a single life? It's certainly not "any" no matter how you define "any".We can get away with it simply by saying beforehand that there will be no murder taking place, and then justify it afterward with the claim that, well, hey, Charlie Manson's family killed how many people again? How can it possibly be murder if there have been serial killers who have killed more than thirty times the number of people we'd be killing? Or, better yet, we can declare it insignificant compared to the casualties in the VietRaq War.

Someone get this jerk a ball-gag.

Quote | oj: "he has--he's commander in chief."

...Idiot.

Mr. Crowley:

When American soldiers die in combat it's rather dissimilar to their being butchered by serial killers. They weren't murdered, they died for a great cause, human liberty. Even the Left used to believe in it back in the 40s.

Peter B,

Indeed we *DO* see it was all just Bush propoganda. Sadaam had no WMD. The sanctions the UN put in place worked.

Those very same sanctions could have been kept in place indefinitely, since the U.S. could have vetoed any attempt to remove them.

Eleven hundred dead soldiers would still be with their families.

Eight thousand innocent Iraqis would not have died using weapons paid for by MY tax dollars.

Five thousand innocent Iraquis would not have died in the ensuing violence - after MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

Everyone in the world would not hate this government: Surveys in eight European and Arab countries demonstrated broad public agreement that the war has hurt, rather than helped, the war on terrorism.

The 151 billion dollar price tag for this war could have been spent on ....oh silly little things, like making sure no nukes inside cargo containers slip into the country through our ports. What? 2% are checked at this point.

Or perhaps...hmmm...maybe xraying all bags on domestic flights to make sure there are no explosives contained inside? Nah..that'd be a waste of money.

How about securing enough flu shots for the population? Bah - who cares about that? Only about 30,000 americans die each year from the flu.

How's this for a hidden Bush tax? - the bill for this war adds up to about $3400.00 per household, per year.

But everything is peachy! The Iraquis greeted us in the streets with flowers - or were those guns?

Democracy is spreading througout the world - or is that nukes?

Our allies just LOVE us - and we have *so* much credibility with them now that they are just chomping at the bit to join us in our next venture.

What shall it be this time? Iran? North Korea?

Yee haw...ride em cowboy!

Hmm...when I wrote that sentence why did I get a mental picture of Peter Sellers riding the big one at the end of Dr. Strangelove?

Mr. Crowley:

He's not?

JoeB:

Sanctions worked? 500,000 dead Iraqi kids was "working." This every life is sacred argument seems awfully confused when the lives of 25 million Iraqis don't mean anything to you.

Way, way up in this thread, I made the comment that I was in the Navy for many years and was very exercised about the loss of life in the Iraq War. I'm absolutely furious at the goldurn chickenhawks who think that a serviceman's life is cheap and easily expendable. It was suggested that I was a pacifist. I'm not, but perhaps I should explain.

There are no drop ceilings on a ship. All the pipes, ducts and wires are out in the open. This makes for lots and lots of dust in the overhead. When we were given the assignment of cleaning the overheads, our supervisors made sure that we wore dust masks.
When we picked up heavy boxes, it's a natural mistake to pick them up in a way that strains your back. Our supervisors saw to it that we knew the proper way to lift heavy things.
The Navy regularly publishes the Mishap Report, a summary of all the stupid ways in which people have hurt themselves over the past month. Our supervisors wanted to make sure we didn't end up on that report.
The point is not that our supervisors "cared" in a parental or emotional way, they felt the country had made an investment in us and wanted to see to it that we did the country as much good as possible. If we retire in good health and tell young people that the Navy is a good career, so much the better.
When the country's leaders take a "Who gives a darn?" attitude, that's very demoralizing to the servicepeople. Our job is dangerous enough without our leaders being careless and not caring about casualties.
Am I a pacifist? No, but if any serviceperson is going to be asked to do something dangerous, there had better be a darn good reason and the leadership better make sure that it's taking all the necessary precautions.

Rich:

How much more could you minimize them than 1100 dead liberating 50 million people? For comparison sake you'd have to lower WWII KIA from 300,000 to what? less than 10,000 certainly. And that was leaving all of Eastern Europe and half of Germany under totalitarian oppression.

I am still waiting.

Those of you who opposed the war What the heck would you have done instead?

Oh, and for the person above who cited fiscal profligacy in turning a surplus into a deficit, do the words "dot com bubble" mean anything to you?

Casualties are light, and the country should accept them as so. But we would have a better time doing it collectively in the President did a better job at managing morale and explaining war aims. If he had done a better job at that, he'd win by a landslide.

Chris:

I think you underplay several things:

The Free Rider affect. If we succeed, our erstwhile European allies benefit at absolutely no cost to themselves while simultaneously placating (in their minds anyway) Islamist terrorism. If we fail, then they are no worse off then they were, and still placated terrorists.

Corruption. How many $billions does it take from Saddam to sway a decision?

Finally, I thought Pres Bush did an admirable job explaining both the causus belli and war aims. Unfortunately, the MSM was singularly inclined to focus upon the most trivial reasons, and ignore all the others.

OJ - it's not the "every life is sacred" argument - it's the "I don't want to pay to drop bombs on people -I believe the money would have been better spent HERE" argument.

If the Iraqi people wanted to get rid of Sadaam - they would have.

We have no business invading other peoples countries and telling them what to do and how to run their lives, if they haven't threatened our national security.

Sanctions and their effects are a whole other argument.

JoeB:

"If the Iraqi people wanted to get rid of Sadaam - they would have."

Excuse me, but have you ever given a minute's thought to what it is like to live in a totalitarian regime run by a murderous strongman? If you are right, all governments are by definition democratic, since the fact they are not toppled by the people is prima facieproof of their popularity. Sounds like you've been reading too much Derrida.

And other than North Korea, I can't think of a government that did more to challenge U.S. national security than Iraq's. Until Iran started with the bomb, I mean.

Chris:

that's fatuous. Read any of his speeches and they stand with Wilson, FDR, Truman, JFK & Clinton--all of whom were supported by Republicans. Reagan and Bush were opposed because of who the justness of what they were doing.

JoeB:

You're kidding right? Where's the evidence that we spent a dime less here than we would have otherwise? War is always good for domestic spending. It's the payoff for the war.

Such naivety & compassion. So where was Bush's concern for Iraqi kids in his first 9 months of office?

Take this quote above "Iraq has had about 350,000 excess deaths among children under the age of five since 1991.
Posted by: oj at October 21, 2004 08:48 AM"

Well, 16000 children under the age of 5 die from starvation around the world EVERY DAY. In other words, a 9/11 every 4 hours.

Or your Iraq 12 years of excess deaths every 3 weeks.

Interesting logic though. Put a country under such strict sanctions that its children die, and then invade said country to save their children. wonderful.

>>I can't think of a government that did more to challenge U.S. national security than Iraq's.

So a country that couldn't beat Iran in a 10 year war, had been thorough beaten in another war, had since suffered 10 years of sanctions, & had no WMD was a challenge to U.S. national security? Right.

The alternative to invasion: one word : Libya. A major supporter of terrorism for decades. Diplomacy worked their.

I love the way that when Saddam was gassing the Kurds (with U.S. weaponry), Rumsfeld & al. couldn't give a rat's ass about what was happening, but now all of a sudden such a concern for the Iraqi children. Stunning hypocrisy. It was all for the children. I remember that Bush speech well. "We think that Saddam may have WMD & may have been connected with 9/11, but it doesn't matter, because I'm really invading the country for the children, which is why I've decided not to use cluster bombs. Oh that last bit about the cluster bombs, I made that up"

God I hate to quote myself, but it illustrates a point:

"There are rare cases in which there is a clear and defined right and wrong. Grammar is one of them. You're wrong. I challenge you to prove me otherwise."

Note how I mention grammar, not metaphor as the function of language that has clear and defined rights and wrongs... now when you refer to the metaphor of "puppet president" there is not the grammatical certainty of using the word "any". "Any" refers to quantity, not quality. "Puppet president" refers to the quality of our singular president being the pawn of others. Your defense of Bush's use of "any" relies on its use as a metaphor.

Like I said before, if I told you I wouldn't rape or kill anyone, would you reasonably expect me to rape or kill one or two people for the hundreds I don't? If you're saying that Bush's use of "any" is defensible and correct, then so is mine. I truly hope you don't think my use of "any" is a metaphor.

If you can't admit you misspoke, then you should brush up on your proficiency with the english language. It's not a question of politics at this point... it's a question of grammar and usage.

History has demonstrated that leaders will exploit the ignorance of their population for their political aims, and global ambitions as this quote shows:

"The wave of appalling terrorism , and the atrocities that have been taking place in that country are terrible for the victims, but intolerable for a great country which has been expected to remain a passive onlooker. We will not continue to tolerate the persecution of a minority, the killing of so many, and their forcible removal under the most cruel conditions. I see no way by which I can induce the government to adopt a peaceful solution. But I should despair of any honourable future for my own people if we were not, in one way or another, to solve this question."

james:

If you said you wouldn't rape or kill anyone and then shot and killed someone who was attacking you I'd not think you'd misspoken. Any doesn't mean 0.

Gazzer:

The Administration was looking at ways to rework sanctions so that the Iraqi people wouldn't be bearing the brunt and planning for regime change as soon as a pretext presented itself.

Irasq was no threat to anyone but Iraqis, but saving Iraqis justifies the war.

"If you can't admit you misspoke, then you should brush up on your proficiency with the english language. It's not a question of politics at this point... it's a question of grammar and usage."

Hilarious. Don't you mean English language with a capital 'E'?

Gazzer:

That quote--presumably from someone sinister--is correct as applied to Iraq and the U.S..

First, Bush didn't say any. It turns out that Robertson has told this story before and, in the earlier telling, says that he warned the president against "serious" casualties and that the president responded that our soldiers were well protected and we were unlikely to see "serious" casualties. I still don't believe a word Robertson says, including "a" and "the", but feel free to discuss whether we have suffered "serious" casualties.

Second, we never gave Saddam biological weapons. Saddam obtained some anthrax samples from US laboratories when such samples were not controlled and anyone (including private citizens) could buy them. The anthrax he obtained was not weaponized. Is it you contention that he had a program that succeeded in weaponizing anthrax? In any event, anthrax is not what was used against the Kurds.

Third, the sanctions didn't cause excess deaths, including those of children. Saddam did. The Kurds, operating under the same conditions and sharing oil-for-food money at the same rate as the rest of Iraq, had much better conditions and much lower childhood mortality. The difference in Saddam-controlled Iraq seems to stem from two factors: money was diverted to palaces and bribes; and Saddam faked the number of deaths. Nonetheless, that we put the Iraqis in that situation was a disgrace.

Fourth, the administration never claimed that Saddam was tied to 9/11. They did say that there were contacts between the Ba'athists and Al Qaeda. The 9/11 commission found that there were such ties and characterized their conclusions as consistent with the administration's position. Nevertheless, many Americans have concluded that, more likely than not, there was some connection -- even if only forewarning -- between Iraq and 9/11. I sympathize with them, as I share that suspicion.

my last post is directed at OJ

>>Irasq was no threat to anyone but Iraqis, but saving Iraqis justifies the war.

But why single out Iraqi's for saving? Why not Zimbabweans, Chinese, North Koreans etc. etc. I could only agree with this viewpoint if Bush had really looked at every option, but that was not the case. He seemed in a hurry to start the war, and didn't look at other possible ways to avert it. War is a last resort - Bush used it as a first. I simply don't trust his motives, and with war you have to clearly state your purpose for carrying it out. And at the moment, we can't even say the Iraqi people are free anyway, and the area could become very unstable making everyone worse off.

A good analogy is the killing fields in Cambodia. A country that has experienced barely war of any sort for hundreds of years exploded into mass bloodshed that made life under Saddam look like a picnic. That was a direct result of the American intervention in Vietnam. Bush didn't plan the peace, and the consequences could be catastrophic.

Gazzer:

He's got four more years and by the end of them North Korea, Syria and Iran will be free too. But we bore a particular responsibility for Iraq having saved Saddam in '91 and maintained a murderous sanctions policy since. we should have intervened in Cambodia but John Kerry and his ilk prevented it, assuring is the Communists of SouthEast Asia were freedom loving nationalists.

OJ, even if i had killed someone in self defense, I couldn't possibly claim to not have killed anyone. No matter what the cause, I still shot and killed them. Their death would have been a result of my actions. That's the definition of killing, no? (note, not murder, just killing)

Gazzer, capitalizing the e in english wouldn't change the meaning of the word. There are no other english languages other than the one I'm writing in and Bush has difficulty using.

...and to preempt introduction of British english as another language, it's a dialect, not a different language.

>>should have intervened in Cambodia but John Kerry and his ilk prevented it, assuring is the Communists of SouthEast Asia were freedom loving nationalists

That's a disgraceful comment, and totally changing the history of the U.S. intervention to make an underhand slur at something that Kerry had nothing to do with, because you don't support him is both ingenious and unintelligent. Although I disagree with your viewpoints I had though that at least you were trying to argue them rationally. I was wrong.

It sure is amusing to hear the Left argue that since America doesn't help every country we can't help anybody. Most people who don't live in Liberal Lalaland recognize that trade-offs exist and that we must strike where feasibility dictates. The sort of people who major in philosophy while in college always ask why we invaded Iraq while leaving North Korea untouched. Um, Iraq doesn't have a nuclear-armed China watching its back, for starters.

In reality, the Left is simply up to its old trick of reflexively opposing any use of Western military force anywhere -- a disposition Malcolm Muggeridge noticed in the 1930s while working for the Manchester Guardian. Back then, the famously left-wing paper spewed out opinion columns every day decrying any kind of a military buildup against Hitler and repeatedly calling for further action by the ramshackle League of Nations. Hitler was only too happy to oblige. Which begs the question: Are there any circumstances in which liberals aren't taken in by the oleaginous wiles of toothless international institutions?

To take just one illustration of this tendency, liberals tell us that Qaddafi's decision to quit his WMD program right after the Iraq war had nothing to do with the American invasion of Iraq: it was pure coincidence, diplomacy did the trick, etc. That must be why Qaddafi told Silvio Berlusconi otherwise.

And yes, I'll trust Berlusconi's word over Pat Robertson's any day.

PS Enjoy November 2nd, trolls! Me and my fellow reptilian cold-hearted conservatives sure will!

Gazzer:

The growing hysteria of the administration's posture on Cambodia seems to me to reflect a determined refusal to consider what the fall of
the existing government in Phnom Penh would actually mean.... We should be able to see that the kind of government which would
succeed Lon Nol's forces would most likely be a government ... run by some of the best-educated, most able intellectuals in Cambodia.
-Senator George McGovern

http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/1036/Death%20and%20Li.htm

Whoops -- link to Berlusconi's comment here.

And here is a link to OJ's wonderful rundown of what we're doing right. Damn near unanswerable, I'd say.

james:

Exactly. And the President doesn't claim that there were 0 casulaties in Iraq. As you were speaking sensibly when you said you wouldn't kill any body so he was speaking sensibly when he said there was no need to prepare people for massive casualties because there wouldn't be any.

OJ:

I must disagree somewhat here. While, at the moment of invasion, Iraq was no threat to the US, that would not have been the case had we pursued the only other course available: lift the sanctions.

Saddam was within 18 months of a nuclear weapon at the time of Desert Storm. He had built a chain of nuclear weapon proof underground bunkers (Vulnerable to conventional weapons, though. Who knew?)

Had he been free to pursue his ambitions, he would have reconstituted his nuclear weapons program. One major point of this whole exercise is dealing with threats before they become imminent, rather than after.

After all, who here would rather deal with the NORKS with nuclear weapons rather than without. Ooops...too late.

One other thing. Let's put the chicken-hawk ad hominem to bed right now. As a hawk-hawk, I fully endorse the arguments posted here for the invasion.

As an example that both articulately and thoroughly supports the case for invading Iraq, while brilliantly demonstrating the inferiority of ad hominem attacks, one could do no better than what David Cohen has posted.

OJ:

Well done! Interested readers should check out Paul Hollander's Political Pilgrims and Mona Charen's Useful Idiots for further confirmation of the obvious. The word "obvious" refers here to the manifest desire left-wingers had to see America fail in Southeast Asia, which -- believe me -- will become obvious if you read these two books.

>>It sure is amusing to hear the Left argue that since America doesn't help every country we can't help anybody.

And it's amusing to hear the Right argue that the 'anybody' are countries that just happen to have huge quantities of oil. Why not Zimbabwe?

The continual comparisons with Hitler are fatuous anyway. In the 1930s Hitler was building up his military. Saddam in 2004, he'd already lost a war, he was emasculated, & had no WMD.

Gazzer:

Zimbabwe is more a Commonwealth concern--we took care of Liberia, which is distinctly ours--but we should definitely help them if they ask.

And, of course, we have to finish in Sudan.

The other side of the Libya story:

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/comment/0,11538,1111575,00.html

Gazeer:

Listen to what you are saying. The Cambodian killing fields were the responsibility of the U.S. because of Vietnam? You mean, they were driven--positively driven--to mass murder because of a war in the country next door? That says a lot about how you view the third world--basically like toddlers who are not responsible for their actions and just react to stimuli around them. I'm guessing, but I wonder whether you see every Palestinian death as an appalling war crime, but have all sorts of understanding for the Pali mother who says she just can't stop little thirteen year old Abdul from being a terrorist wannabe because he is so upset about losing the homestead fifty years ago.

Of course it is true that not all tyrants can be deposed. So what? Are you saying I shouldn't give to UNICEF because we can't completely eradicate hunger. Is not invading Zimbabwe a good reason for not saving Iraqis? Would you be happy if the President had invaded both? Why is the left always calling for wars and interventions anywhere else but where the actual ones are occurring.

You do not need to justify a war like Iraq by showing that there was only one reason for it and that that reason by itself was incontrovertible. This isn't a commercial legal case. There were several justifications for the war--strategic, political and humanitarian and together they made a compelling case. After ten years of dicking around with the guy, what methods of avoiding war did you want? And let's not forget that up to the day before it started the President made it clear he would not invade if Saddam and his sons abdicated and left the country. Three guys give up the palaces and sex clubs and no war. Strange behaviour for an oil-craving, imperialist religious fanatic, no? Yet somehow the Husseins slip through your guilt meter. Why, was it their dusky hue?

Gazzer:

Most of the credit shopuld go to his reformist son, Islam Qaddafi. But the Qaddafi's say the war convcinced them. That seems as reliable as the Guardian Leader.

C'mon, James V. - your irritation with Bush's statement is abundantly clear, but unwarranted. As Larry Dean's 12:03 post shows, *Any* in common usage means "(in negative statements) either every little or very great but unspecified.."

Do you actually think Bush meant 0.00 casualties, or Robertson inferred the meaning that way (if, indeed that is what was said)? For example, if you say you don't do any drugs, I wouldn't take that literally. What, no caffeine, tea, or methyl xanthines of a sort? No alchohol, even a few molecules in the bread you eat or the mouthwash you use? No foods, drinks, or substances that affect neurotransmitter reuptake or G-protein coupling?

That way lies madness, and you know it.

it's amusing to hear the Right argue that the 'anybody' are countries that just happen to have huge quantities of oil.

Strange, then, that we didn't go in and get the oil in 1991. Strange, also, that so many American conservatives supported going into Kosovo to save a ravaged Muslim population.

Saddam in 2004, he'd already lost a war, he was emasculated, & had no WMD.

Read The Gathering Storm by Churchill, and you'll see the chattering classes were saying the exact same things about Hitler: not a threat, involved in faraway countries we care nothing about, etc. The statement that Hussein was not a threat only holds if you assume he had no WMDs (a spurious claim, as I'll explain in a moment) and had no plans to reconstitute his nuclear program, which seems like a tall order coming from a guy who once tried to assassinate a U.S. president. Also if you ignore statements from the head of UNMOVIC (keep in mind this is a guy from the United Nations) to the effect that Hussein shipped WMDs and illegal missiles out of his country before and even after the war. Also if you ignore statements from the former head of Romanian intelligence that the Soviet Union handed Iraq plans to "disappear" its WMDs should an invasion ever occur (American troops have already found Iraqi documents detailing how to jack up a bare-boned WMD operation within a matter of weeks -- the USSR pulled this kind of stunt all the time). And we haven't even gotten to the moral argument yet -- which, as OJ has repeatedly demonstrated, was the central focus of the whole endeavor.

Is this a record for most comments under one single thread?

OJ:

Here's a thought: the Left keeps saying there weren't "any" WMDs in Iraq. As you probably already know, there was in fact an explosion of a sarin gas shell in Iraq a few months ago -- which was unquestionably a WMD.

So, on the basis of the statements assembled above, when can we expect war opponents to apologize to the president for routinely questioning his veracity?

Matt:

Not until he submits to a grammar reeducation class.

Gazzer:

"Saddam in 2004, he'd already lost a war, he was emasculated, & had no WMD."

That analysis is to foreing policy as it is to driving whilst looking solely at the rear view mirror.

What would be the situation going forward had we dropped the sanctions. Imagine five, ten years on.

What is the best policy today to deal with a foreseeable situation five years hence?

Quote | oj: "When American soldiers die in combat it's rather dissimilar to their being butchered by serial killers. They weren't murdered, they died for a great cause, human liberty. Even the Left used to believe in it back in the 40s."

So they die, but they aren't casualties?

If I take a stand against inner-city gangsters, you could say that I'm dying for some kind of cause, too. It doesn't change the fact that I'm dead.

My point wasn't that being killed by a serial killer is the same thing as dying in a war; my point was that if you can set an arbitrary value for what amounts to "any" casualties of war, then, by your own logic, anyone can set an arbitrary value for what amounts to "any" people murdered in any situation. I mean, come on, does the U.N. consult you to set their "any" values? What gives you the authority to determine what the value is for "any casualties"?

Also, I'd like to see the mathematical proof for the equation you're using to determine this "$any". Show all work.

J:

Any is an inherently arbitrary amount:

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=any

Main Entry: 1any
Pronunciation: 'e-nE
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English [AE]nig; akin to Old High German einag any, Old English An one -- more at ONE
1 : one or some indiscriminately of whatever kind: a : one or another taken at random b : EVERY -- used to indicate one selected without restriction
2 : one, some, or all indiscriminately of whatever quantity: a : one or more -- used to indicate an undetermined number or amount b : ALL -- used to indicate a maximum or whole c : a or some without reference to quantity or extent
3 a : unmeasured or unlimited in amount, number, or extent b : appreciably large or extended

And thank you, you have just proven the point that there were NOT, in fact, "no casualties", and that there were INDEED "any casualties" because there is, in fact, a quantity of people dead. Thus, there are /some/ dead, which, well, more than implies that there were /any/ dead and not /none/ dead.

Q.E.Friggin-D.

J:

There were not, however, "unmeasured or unlimited in amount, number, or extent b : appreciably large or extended" casualties, thus not any.

You're being a tad rigid in your appreciation of our wonderfully fluid language.

We conservatives got over the flexible meaning of is and sex and all kinds of things.

Wait, wait, hold on. Have you read Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age (or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer)"? You're taking on the same argument as the Queen of the Ants:

"There's only zero of you," said the Queen of the Ants. In ant arithmetic, there are only two numbers: Zero, which means anything less than a million, and Some.

See, the problem with your argument is that you are including zero as a possible number for $any, when, in actuality, according to the definition of the word "any", the values are anywhere between one and infinity.

Also, just because you can measure something, that doesn't make it not "any". That definition of the word is applicable to a term one can use when describing an amount that cannot be measured; it does not invalidate the other definitions of the word.

Like this one, which is important: 2 : one, some, or all indiscriminately of whatever quantity

*points to "of whatever quantity"*

There are many words where, if you apply all definitions, it can be somewhat contradictory, or ridiculous. If you refer to a female dog as a "b*tch" (censored), you aren't also saying that the dog is an unpleasant person.

By your logic, there have never been any presidents of the United States of America. Hooray for leaderless civilization!

J:

Exactly. Given that any can be any number the President was right when he told the Reverend Robertson, in response to the advice that he should prepare the American people for many casualties, that there wouldn't be any. Given prewar predictions of tens of thousands killed--remember everyone thought Saddam had WMD back then--1,000 is minimal.

Any can be any number but zero. Zero is not a number that can be included in "any". Any is any positive quantity that is not equal to zero. Any cannot be a negative number, because you can't have a negative quantity of something. (You can owe, but that's different.)

So. Any can be any number, except anything less than one. Zero is less than one. Any is one or more. Greater than, but not equal to, zero.

Now, what is "none"? None is zero. If none is equal to zero, and zero is less than one, that means it is not a value that can be used for "any". None

Do you see where I'm going with this? At all?

if($any != 0 && $any > 0){
$casualties = "true";
}
else if($any $casualties = "false";
}

"Not any" and "not many" are NOT synonyms.

J:

If any can be infinity then not any is less than infinity, right? There were not infinity were there? So there were not any.

Sorry it took me so long but I just thought of the most famous purely hyperbolic use of "any" in American history:

John F. Kennedy: Inaugural Address (January 20, 1961)

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

No one thought he meant "any" when he said "any."

And by "no one" I don't mean 0, but few.

Any can ALSO be a number of whatever quantity. Thus, even if two people were killed in Iraq, since two is a quantity, there were not "not any" people killed.

This isn't a semantics argument; it's you intentionally taking one single word out of a definition for a word, and claiming that it invalidates every other definition for the word. I know the tactics; I've been known to do this myself for the sole purpose of intentionally irritating other people. I know, I know, clever, words have no meaning, et cetera. Congratulations, you're the billionth person to realize this. Give me a dictionary and about fifteen minutes, and I could probably find about five words in which, if one uses one definition, it contradicts another of the definitions.

By your logic, we don't even exist. By your logic, I could murder every single person on this planet without actually killing anyone. By your logic, we are not using computers right now, because there aren't any computers.

How about this: go to, say, a Borders store and walk out of the store with a DVD of your choice. Explain to security that, since the price wasn't infinity, it doesn't cost anything. If they don't agree, tell them that there aren't any DVD's, because they didn't make an infinite amount. What's great is, you won't end up serving any jail time because they won't sentence you to an eternity!

And, you know, since you're not making an infinite amount of points, so far you haven't made any at all.

J:

hey, you figured it out!:

"[S]ince you're not making an infinite amount of points, so far you haven't made any at all."

OJ, your argument two posts above falls though the floor.

Yes, any can be infinity. But,any can also be much less than infinity. In fact, any can be every single number between infinity and zero, excluding zero. But, what any cannot be is zero. In applying "not" before "any" the grammatical structure of our language indicates that "not any" is "not" all the numbers between infinity and zero, with the express exclusion of zero. Therefore, (in mathematical terms now) the set of "any" is all numbers greater than zero, so "not any" means any in no degree whatsoever. "Not any" is the set of numbers that is not included in all numbers greater than zero.

It's sad to see your rabid partisanship blind you the fundamental functioning of logic and grammar.

and just so we know what terms we're talking about here:
not, adv.

In no way; to no degree. Used to express negation, denial, refusal, or prohibition: I will not go. You may not have any.

an·y

adj.

1. One, some, every, or all without specification: Take any book you want. Are there any messages for me? Any child would love that. Give me any food you don't want.
2. Exceeding normal limits, as in size or duration: The patient cannot endure chemotherapy for any length of time.

pron. (used with a sing. or pl. verb)

Any one or more persons, things, or quantities.

adv.

To any degree or extent; at all: didn't feel any better.

james:

If any can be infinity then not any can mean not infinity, no?

Of course, Pat Robertson didn't tell the President he thought there'd be infinity, but he did suggest there'd be many. There haven't been.

The two posts above comment refers to this statementof yours:

"If any can be infinity then not any is less than infinity, right? There were not infinity were there? So there were not any."

Heh, and so your earlier post about Bush being right was just a recursive-logic joke, then? Kudos.

"If any can be infinity then not any can mean not infinity, no?"

YES! Exactly! "Not any" is not infinity precisely because it excludes ALL NUMBERS, including infinity, from infinity down to, but not including, zero.

Thus, "not any" inherrently excludes every number but zero (positive numbers, not negative ones).

J:

Unless there were infinity--which he would indeed have had to prepare the public for.

Casualties are light, and the country should accept them as so. But we would have a better time doing it collectively in the President did a better job at managing morale and explaining war aims. If he had done a better job at that, he'd win by a landslide.
Posted by: Chris Durnelli

Maybe he would have "done a better job...explaining war aims" if he hadn't kept changing the justification for the war!

Oh, and for the person above who cited fiscal profligacy in turning a surplus into a deficit, do the words "dot com bubble" mean anything to you?
Posted by: Jeff Guinn

Are you seriously suggesting that the US was invested in dot coms, and that was what turned a $200B surplus into a $440B deficit?!?!

OJ - clearly, we disagree...but attacking people for typing errors...?

He wouldn't have to prepare the public for anything because if there were an infinite number of casualties (assuming that they had already occured), there wouldn't be anyone to prepare for.

We'd all be dead.

james:

So you agree with the President when he told Pat Robertson he didn't need to prepare the public for infinity casualties?

James: He's joking. He has to be. I think what he implied with his response to my "he's not making any points because he hasn't made infinity points" is that he is now into the realm of arguing for the sake of arguing, and being stubborn solely to irritate.

Regardless of whether I am right in this assumption, I don't know if arguing the point any further is going to really do any amount of convincing. If it was a joke, he's just persisting for the sake of ridiculousness of argument. If it wasn't, I mean, how wrong does a person have to be where other people have to resort to speaking like a kindergarten teacher, or use "not not any" because no other form of logic seems to do the job?

J:

Okay, you convinced me. The President misspoke and there were some (any) casulaties.

God, you jerk-offs! How can you play games with math and semantics?! 1100 dead Americans. 10,000 wounded Americans, in agony, many crippled for life. Dispute all you want about whether the situation in Iraq is worth that sacrifice, but get real! Dilettante assholes.

J Crowley: I sure hope so. But then again, his post will still stand and hardly anyone will get down this far to see him acquiesce and abandon the argument.

It's kinda sad :-/.

Quote | oj: "james:

So you agree with the President when he told Pat Robertson he didn't need to prepare the public for infinity casualties?"

Point the First: Why would Pat Robertson warn him that the casualties would be infinite? I know he's kind of loopy, but I don't think he's THAT out of touch with reality.

Point the Second: Even if Robertson warned Bush that there would be casualties, why would he respond with "there will not be infinite casualties"?

"I fear there will be casualties."
"There will not be infinite casualties."

Who would say that?

"Can I have a stick of gum?"
"No, you may not have infinity sticks of gum."

Are you implying, OJ, that Bush is only capable of understanding things in terms of infinity and zero? If so, he is definitely unfit for office.

You're fabulous at irritation. If that was your intention all along, I congratulate you.

OJ: You've got to teach me how you do that.

quote | oj: "J:

Okay, you convinced me. The President misspoke and there were some casulaties."

Thank you!

Also, my last post was sent before I read that.

I agree with James' last post, though: kind of insensitive to play semantics games when you're talking about people who have died for our country.

OJ - clearly, we disagree...but attacking people for typing errors...?
Posted by: Jerry at October 21, 2004 06:48 PM

Okay, you convinced me. The President misspoke and there were any casulaties.
Posted by: oj at October 21, 2004 06:59 PM

See what I mean?

Typing errors? I make no mistakes; I am infallible. *wink*

You and the Yellow Rose, J Crowly!

You and the Yellow Rose, J Crowley!

You and the Yellow Rose, J Crowley!
Posted by: Jerry at October 21, 2004 07:13 PM

*Googles for "yellow rose"*

...that porn site?

OJ, it's hardly "misspeaking" when asserting such a strong statement as the president did. "Misspeaking" would be more on the caliber of saying that I had a roast beef sandwich when in reality I had a tuna salad sandwich.

He meant what he said, and what he said indicates that he didn't think there would be any casualties. He didn't have an exit strategy. He didn't have a clue as to the realities of Iraq. Yet he carefully chose the most incriminating intelligence reports and used scare tactics to terrorize America into supporting a second war that took troops away from the real perpetrator of terrorism, Osama bin Laden.

This is gross incompetance, plain and simple. When little boys play with dangerous toys, men get killed.

Jerry, the whole point of the semantics bullsh*t was to counter the blindly irrational and illogical support of President Bush's web of false statements and partial truths. It was done that much more passionately because of the numbers of dead and injured in Iraq that have already pilled up too high and the inability to stem the rising tide of blood.

james:

Absolutely. He had to have known, or should have, that at least one soldier would be hurt. That losses have been so extraordinarily minimal can not excuse this grammatical error.

J:

I agree. What's the point of semantics when the real topic is the historically low casualty rate for the liberation of the most oppressed people on Earth? there was never any doubt what he meant.

OJ, they're not liberated yet. We got rid of the oppression of Saddam only to bungle the entire operation so thoroughly as to inspire a multi-national muslim jihad to oppress them further.

Are the Iraqis in Falluja free?

Your insipid comments belittle the loss of the soldiers that have already been killed or wounded. It isn't just one soldier who is dead. Its a thousand. Thousands more are wounded. It is not a historically low casualty rate, and there isn't an end in sight. There have been many more deaths after we declared "Mission Accomplished" than before.

james:

Yes Iraq is free. Sections like Fallujah are determining whether the'd rather be democratic or Islamicist, but even that's consensual. When else have fifty million been freed at the loss of so little life as Afghanistan and Iraq? It doesn't minimize those lives at all to note how incredible what they achieved was.

Peter B
"Listen to what you are saying. The Cambodian killing fields were the responsibility of the U.S. because of Vietnam? You mean, they were driven--positively driven--to mass murder because of a war in the country next door? That says a lot about how you view the third world--basically like toddlers who are not responsible for their actions and just react to stimuli around them."

Wikipedia:
During the War in Indochina (1946-1975), the Richard Nixon administration of the United States conducted massive bombing campaigns against Cambodia. In 1970, General Lon Nol seized power and declared the Khmer Republic. The government was opposed by the nationalist and communist Khmer Rouge, which had gathered strength because of popular resentment against the U.S. bombing campaigns. The Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh in 1975 and renamed the country Kampuchea. Approximately 1.7 million people died during their three year social revolution.

Next time, you try to use history to make an argument as least show a basic understanding of it, and especially if you use your completely ignorant argument to make childish Ad Hominem attacks; always the first and last resort of the stupid and ignorant.

gazzer:

You miss the point entirely. There's a difference between a popular revolution and genocide, unless you're suggesting the two million dead decided they should die because of the Vietnam War. Was the Holocaust justified by the unjust peace at Versailles?

No, you miss my original point. i.e. when you have good intentions, and destabilize regions, they can spiral out of control with serious consequences that you didn't predict; especially if you go in with no post-war plan.

Given that one of the biggest 'right' arguments is to compare the situation with Hitler in the 30s which is simplistic beyond belief, I'm pointing out that history could equally make the opposite argument; and therefore these Hitler arguments are spurious. I'm not saying that Vietnam/Cambodia is a predictor of what will happen.

All I know is this. The 'right' argument for the War in Iraq:

1. Saddam was part of 9/11.
OK, we were wrong there.
2. Saddam had WMD.
Oh, wrong again. And this scrabbling with 'might have had potential to possibly develop' smacks of desperation.
3. We did it for the freedom of the Iraqi people and their children.
I'm afraid this is just an excuse to make up for all the other failures of analysis.

Frankly, I thought the war on terror was the priority, but Bush is saying that stretching the U.S. military beyond it's capability for the benefit of the Iraqi people and their children. Give me a break.

Also, saying things next to each other ("Nixon bombed Cambodia. Lon Nol seized power") does not imply, let alone prove, causation.

Gazzer:

No, the point of the war on terror is to destabilize the region. On 9-11 it had only totalitarian governments--why would we want it stable?

"Also, saying things next to each other ("Nixon bombed Cambodia. Lon Nol seized power") does not imply, let alone prove, causation."

Precisely my point. So now you guys will stop going on about Hitler.

Gazzer:

The Vietnam War didn't cause Hitler or Saddam either, but Hitler, Saddam, and Pol Pot were all evil.

I'm savoring the delicious irony of watching Gazzer blast Peter for ad hominem attacks while not even taking a breath before calling him "stupid" and "ignorant."

Mona Charen, to my mind, completely obliterated the old lefty saw about America driving the Cambodians to genocide in her recent book. As usual, we see liberals blaming America first, last, and always.

Gazzer: You're getting close, but you really haven't yet grasped the fiendish beauty of the right's argument on the war.

The fact that, contrary to all our intelligence, Saddam had no wmds underscores the necessity for invading. Failing to find the wmds makes the war more necessary, not less, and more successful, not less.

Now, do you understand why that is?

Jiminy Christmas, I'm screwing up my posting today. Here's the link.

Mr. Cohen:

As somebody wrote to my local paper: "If Hussein didn't have weapons of mass destruction, that means we got there in time."

Matt: By that logic, the U.S. should be able to invade anyone it wants to (including you) at any time, because of the potential for the collection of weapons of mass destruction. Ever see Minority Report? (Or, better yet, ever read the short story by Philip K. Dick?) Everyone could potentially be a criminal. At any point in time, there's some level of potential for any person to, at some point, through varying circumstances, obtain weapons of mass destruction.

What would you say if the government arrested you under the pretenses that you had weapons of mass destruction? You may not like it, but hey- they got there in time! You might have blown up the world!

Bah. I'm getting so sick of trying to see things from the conservative perspective. I'm afraid that the neurons I have to temporarily disable to do so may permanently go dead.

There was a point at which he /was/ trying to obtain weapons of mass destruction, but that was about a decade ago. There are people living in our own country who are more of a threat to it than Saddam was when we invaded Iraq.

Go breed your Red Heifers elsewhere; I'm in no mood for immanentizing the apocalypse.

>>I'm savoring the delicious irony of watching Gazzer blast Peter for ad hominem attacks while not even taking a breath before calling him "stupid" and "ignorant."

You need to read it more carefully. I didn't call Peter 'stupid' or 'ignorant'. I said Ad Hominem attacks are ignorant, and pointed out that Peter used them, and you made the inference. There's a difference.

What I'm really enjoying is that now we have the following logic:

1. The point of the war was to destabalize the region.
2. He didn't have WMD therefore we were right.
3. The point of the war was Saddam was a bad man. Wasn't he bad too when Rumsfeld et al were supplying him with weapons, and shaking his hand in the 1980's? He's hardly the only bad man in the world.

No2 is perhaps my all time favourite.

We invade a country because they have WMD.
Possible outcome
1. They do have WMD. See we were right!
2. They don't have WMD. See we were right!

'The fact that, contrary to all our intelligence, Saddam had no wmds underscores the necessity for invading. Failing to find the wmds makes the war more necessary, not less, and more successful, not less.'
Words fail me.

Bush stated that Saddam was an imminent threat; not that 'he might possible under some scenario that is not certain but may possibly if we interpret the intelligence in a way that some of us agree with' be able to develop WMD some time in the next decade.

Every month of the war the 'rights' arguments get weaker and weaker.
1. Saddam has WMD.
2. Saddam has the potential to develop WMD soon.
3. Saddam was possibly thinking of developing WMD related programs.
4. Saddam may have been thinking of resurrecting WMD over the next few years.
5. Saddam didn't have WMD, but it was all for the Iraqi children.

Face it. Every month, we have more and more qualifiers. Stick to the facts. He said there were WMD and there weren't. Every single argument the right has made to justify the war has gradually weakened till now we have 'we were right because he didn't have WMD'. Talk about desperation.

>>Also, saying things next to each other ("Nixon bombed Cambodia. Lon Nol seized power") does not imply, let alone prove, causation.

Um. Didn't you read the next sentence?
"The government was opposed by the nationalist and communist Khmer Rouge, which had gathered strength because of popular resentment against the U.S. bombing campaigns."

U.S. bombings --> popular resentment against Government --> strengthens communist Khmer Rouge --> Overthrow of Government --> Khmer Rouge seizes power --> Purges and killing fields

It's not historically disputed that the U.S. Bombings led directly to the killing fields. See the irony. The U.S. was trying to stop the spread of communism and the result was the opposite, and if you want to defend U.S. actions in Vietnam, please feel free to do so.
I'm not saying that Iraq is Vietnam. The point is that the road of good intentions can have very unpredictable consequences for the region.

Another interpretation of the missing WMD could be that the materials have been passed onto unknown groups, and hence onto terrorists. i.e. like Vietnam possibly the total opposite of what people were trying to achieve.

Also, I don't just "blame America first". Most Americans aren't to blame. I'm not saying Saddam was a fabulous guy and we all should've become good chums.

The problem isn't that we punished a bad man. I'm glad that miserable jerkoff was removed from power. The problem is our approach, and the hypocritical mentality of the people who conceived this approach.

One thing that amuses me is Bush's pushing "pre-emptive attacks" in regards to war, but is completely unsupportive of pre-emptiveness in any other situations. Birth control? No! He pushes abstainence-only sex education. Any kind of gun control? Nope. He'd rather wait until someone committed a violent crime with a weapon and THEN take care of the situation. One has to question the motives of someone with such an unusual, arbitrary difference in how he deals with things.

For recent events, I blame America not as a liberal, not as an angry citizen who just doesn't like his government, but as a member of humanity who is genuinely concerned about the fate of the world and the motives of those in whose hands that fate rests.

Iraqi Freedom?

Well, let's ask an Iraqi. See what Salam Pax, the well-known Iraqi blogger has to say. I think we can safely say that he knows more than any of us:

"I am surprised at how much everyone here seems to have bought what the Bush administration has been selling them - especially the line about a well-educated Iraqi middle class that will take over and transform Iraq into a democratic paradise.

To tell you the truth, I bought into that as well - and boy were we wrong. That educated middle class was everywhere around the world, but not in Iraq. What it decided to do was to shut its mouth or turn religious.

And that is another thing that seemed to be incomprehensible to one of my new Washington friends: when we were talking about the popularity of the clerical militia chief Moqtada al-Sadr I was asked how anyone could be fooled by someone who so obviously used religion to boost his own popularity and went for the lowest common denominator for popular appeal? I was saved by another guest who asked if we were talking about Bush or Sadr here."

Case closed.

Gazzer:

It's not historically disputed that the U.S. Bombings led directly to the killing fields.

Who died and made you arbiter of what is historically undisputed? Your crayon "diagram" of a cause-effect relationship is laughable in its credulity, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Salam Pax

I wish I could quote the pithy comment here that James Lileks made a year ago to Salam Pax (scroll down three quarters of the way until you get to it), but our gracious host won't allow this kind of language here. Not only do I wholeheartedly agree with Lileks, I would add a double underline and two exclamation marks.

Gazeer:

With all due respect to Wikipedia, you could better argue that Cambodia's perennial efforts to play everyone off against one another like a frantic mediator worried about his fee when it was faced with a well-supported communist threat that made its intentions very clear sealed its doom. More to the point, you are getting close to arguing the sudden American abandonment of Indochina is at fault--not the classic left/liberal line.

But you do have a good point about it not being wise to rush in with bugles blaring and then stand by and expect everyone to thank you and behave like New England townhallers. Gotta stay the course, so I assume you are in favour of keeping the troops there. Serbia,(the good war) where UN and NATO troops can't contain a particularly vile nationalism matched by Albanian irredentism,is a great example (I think it's the European "can-do" spirit). But why do you have to demonize Bush in such ridiculous terms to make that point? And what war have you ever heard of that was started with a good, set post-war plan? C'mon, do you really think the best and the brightest could have sat down and worked it all out in advance? That would be hyperpower!

Let's cut to the chase here. Your concern, and those of your colleagues, seems to be stability and security--at all costs. That's Europe's concern, too. They hate war more than anything--indeed more than they love life--and will do absolutely anything, and sacrifice anyone, to avoid it. The world the liberal/left seems to want is a war-free one guided by the wisdom of the unelected, unaccountable United Nations (which either does or does not exist as an entity, depending on your viewpoint). That's been the driving dream of most of the Western world's elites since World War 11. Do you know how many wars and genocides have occurred during that period? Do you think the world is a safer place for all their noble efforts?

If that's what you stand for, fine, but obviously the price is to say that whatever goes on in other countries, however appallingly they treat their people, however destabilizing or inflammatory their rhetoric, however ominous their politics, however threatening their covert activities, however much they incite others to war, however much they commit to, or play "Where's Waldo" with, arms buildups, however much they aid and abet terrorism, you will live with it, at least until they actually send an army across borders or the sluggish, self-interested, anti-Western majority at the UN get its act together, which has occurred exactly twice in sixty years. And it also means no American or other Western counties' soldiers' lives are worth trying to halt a mass murderer's fun. That does divide us. Frankly, on my bad days, I suspect the desperate efforts of the left to demonize Bush and play Philadelphia lawyer on the WMD and international law issues is a psychologically unhealthy effort to sublimate their reluctance to look in the mirror and confront that awkward truth. But don't take the word of an old crypto-fascist like me. Google Ann Clywd, the leftwing British Labour M.P., to learn a little bit about the reality of Hussein's Iraq and the humanitarian argument.

Finally, the oft-heard charge that we shouldn't have tried to save Iraqis because we can't save everybody is the most morally bankrupt position I have ever heard. "If I can't have a perfect world, I'm not interested in building a better one." Isn't that the same spirit that drives sulky, spoiled ten year olds to take their ball home in a huff? (And no, avoiding dirtying one's hands with here-and-now problems while getting one's knickers in a knot at conferences on long term approaches to world poverty, AIDS, global warming, etc. is not a nobler alternative. It is avoidance.)

P.S. Don't let David Cohen upset you. He is teasing. Unless, of course, he's not.

Gazzer:

I take it, then, that you no longer insist that "it's not historically disputed that the U.S. Bombings led directly to the killing fields."

That's good. If you want to learn more, look no further than Orrin's review of The Death and Life of Dith Pran.

So what you are saying is that you went in to save the Iraqi people, and when one of them disagrees with you, it is a case of '[expletive deleted], Giggly Iraqi Blogger'.

It's too bad that you feel the need to resort to the grade school tactic of putting words into your opponent's mouth that he clearly did not intend.

What raised Lileks' hackles (and mine) is that in the face of the sacrifice made by young American troops to liberate Salam Pax' country, he proved himself a world-class ingrate, a snot-nosed post-adolescent sneering hypocrite, who therefore earned the harsh remark aimed at him by Mr. Lileks.

Ah, finally an attempt by someone at rational discussion.

Yes, I agree. Stay in Iraq now. This is not the same as saying Bush is the correct man for the job.

If we look at recent history it's not correct to say that the left avoids war at all costs. The first Iraq war had mainly universal support, and most/many on the left didn't object to Afghanistan.

As for Yugoslavia, this is an unsolvable situation in that it's a civil war in effect, so a force has to be a mediator. Overwhelming force against weak opposition is 'easy', being in the middle of a civil war is something that nobody left or right has learnt to deal with.

>>>Finally, the oft-heard charge that we shouldn't have tried to save Iraqis because we can't save everybody is the most morally bankrupt position I have ever heard.

I'm afraid I disagree with this. Of course, we can't save everybody, but if there are 100 things that need doing, we have to still morally justify why no. 78 is the one we attend to over the other 99. We can't arbitrarily choose one. And it is after all, the Bush administration that has switched the justification from WMD/WoT to 'for the freedom of the Iraqi people' which I have pointed out people never cared about before.

Besides it highly dubious that invasion was the most effective way to achieve that goal.

>>>What raised Lileks' hackles (and mine) is that in the face of the sacrifice made by young American troops to liberate Salam Pax' country, he proved himself a world-class ingrate, a snot-nosed post-adolescent sneering hypocrite, who therefore earned the harsh remark aimed at him by Mr. Lileks.

Well, isn't that what the whole argument is about? He disagrees with you, and you call him a snot-nosed hypocrite.

>>>t's too bad that you feel the need to resort to the grade school tactic of putting words into your opponent's mouth that he clearly did not intend.

Well, which part did you intend? You yourself said it was 'unprintable'.

People like Peter P rationalize their arguments and I respect that. All you can do is Ad Hominem. As I have pointed out, Ad Hominem is the only resort of the ignorant and stupid.

Jerry:

"Are you seriously suggesting that the US was invested in dot coms, and that was what turned a $200B surplus into a $440B deficit?!?!"

I have three words for you: Capital Gains Taxes.

They skyrocketed during the dot-com bubble, and tanked when the bubble burst. Hence surplus, then deficit.

Gazzer and your ilk:

I have asked several times, and unless I missed it, have yet to receive an answer: What the heck would you have done instead?

Gazzer,

Selective quoting to suit yourself, deliberately misunderstanding what I wrote: You can play without me.

Gazeer:

"if there are 100 things that need doing, we have to still morally justify why no. 78 is the one we attend to over the other 99. We can't arbitrarily choose one."

Of course, but that does not mean: a)humanitarian justifications have the be the only ones; or b)a war can't be justified by a combination of factors that, alone, wouldn't do the trick.

We are confusing justification in its moral and strategic senses. Both were there, and it was that combination that made it justifiable, or at least wise. For crying out loud, even France thought he had WMD's (and he may well have had). How long do you stand by and watch a thug terrorize your neighbours and family before you take action? Do you wait until he pulls a gun and grabs your kid so you are absolutely certain of his intentions? What superhuman standards of prescience and foresight are you applying?

I've heard some pretty cogent arguments about why the war was unwise or came at too high a price. I don't agree, but I respect them. But the argument that it wasn't justified, especially morally, delivered with rage and venom by mobs in the street and clever, self-righteous columnists who prattle on about international law to avoid dealing with Hussein's mass murders makes me feel like I live in a new Dark Ages. Ditto the slanderous caricatures of Bush.

Gazzer:

Why assume Salam Pax knows anything?

Gazzer:

No one thinks the bombings caused the genocide, though they obviosly helped topple the government.

J:

Yes, while you fret anout the world & wring youir hands Tony Blair, George Bush and John Howard are redeeming it.

First, President Bush never said that Iraq was an iminent threat. He said we shouldn't wait until it becomes imminent.

Second, "pre-emption" has nothing to do with the Bush doctrine. Nobody disagrees that a truly pre-emptive war (you're about to be attacked, so you attack first) is allowed under international law. The Bush doctrine is one of "preventative" war and is much more controversial. It is designed for a situation where an attack is not imminent.

Third, you miss my point about the wmds. We were wrong. After the first Gulf War (which Senator Kerry did not support), we discovered that Iraq was much further along than we believed. After the second war, we discovered that Iraq wasn't nearly so far along as we believed, and didn't even have weapons that we knew were there after the first war. We completely blew the intelligence on wmds. So did every other country who has expressed an opinion.

So we had, in the immortal words of Don Rumsfeld, an unknown unknown, the most dangerous kind of unknown of all. The question then becomes, what effect should it have on our decision to go to war that we now know that, even when the enemy is an international pariah, with limited sovereignty and under a strict santions regime, we can't be sure what is going on internally. How to we value that uncertainty?

The pre-9/11 answer is that we wait for more certainty. The post-9/11 answer is that we lower the threshold for war.

(Also, it was useful to take down an Arab country on flimsy justification pour encourager les autres. The problem is that is would be immoral to actually invade for no particular reason. Through happenstance, we invaded for good reasons, but are seen as having invaded for flimsy reasons. No reason not to take advantage of that.)

David,

In line with your point, the columnist "Spengler" (How America Can Win the Intelligence War, June 15, 2004) wrote approvingly in the Asia Times, "The late president Ronald Reagan's CIA chief, Bill Casey, knew that if you want intelligence, first you start a war."

J:

The US can and should prevent every other nation from possessing WMD.

Gazzer:

You're getting there, except that it was a mistake to support Saddam instead of Iran in that war and the WMD never mattered.

Eugene:

Which is why he was our only effective CIA chief--the rest just tend their assets.

If I may follow-up David's point, we forget the obfuscations Iraq was engaging in right up to the end. Blix wasn't satisfied, everyone assumed he had them or was trying to keep them, inspections were on and off, nobody trusted them, etc. Iraq was clearly trying to leave the impression it was much better armed than it may have been while playing a strategic, minimalist game with the UN (and, as we now know, a highly corrupt one). The rhetoric was bombastic and bellicose throughout.

Now, fast forward to today. The only thing anyone talks about is whether, as an objective fact, he had WMD's and the liberal/left seems to think it was the 100% responsibility of Western intelligence to figure it out. Why are his threats and subterfuges not read into the equation? Surely in the brave new world of multilateralism and international law, we all have to be open, welcoming and forthright. Given Hussein's record, he asked for it and had many, many chances to diffuse the situation, but all he did was buy Scott Ritter expensive meals.

Better deal with this issue, because it is obviously coming down the pipe with Iran, and fast.

J:

The US can and should prevent every other nation from possessing WMD.
Posted by: oj at October 22, 2004 08:15 AM

Yes, and let's get rid of all the ones WE have, then, too, while we're at it. We're no less dangerous than anyone else. Did you hear about the kid (high school student, I believe) who assembled a nuclear reactor out of various pieces of industrial garbage he found? And do you believe that all of our own nuclear weapons are completely out of reach of American terrorists within our own country? (Yes, there ARE American terrorists. Remember Tim McVeigh, anyone? I wonder, would we have flown in and bombed his brother's farm and surrounding areas to get rid of him?)

Ever see "Doctor Strangelove (or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb)"? No leader, especially the not-quite-as-competent-as-a-blueberry-muffin one who's currently in office, has enough personal integrity and self-control to be ruled out as a potential global threat when in possession of WMD's, and nothing is entirely fail-safe.

Funny how we could've gotten rid of massive amounts of nuclear weapons all around the globe back in the eighties, but Reagan decided not to go through with the proposal on the grounds that he wanted to "fulfill Biblical prophecy". Superstitious people should not be allowed control over things of such importance. We'll end up with presidents who want to bomb other countries because the leaders are Scorpios, or because they believe that God wants to lead them on some kind of Crusade into the Middle East. *ahem, cough, cough*

This discussion has been very useful in helping me work through the Kerry doctrine.

In the '90s, neither Kerry nor Bush pushed for us to respond to the "nuisance" terrorism from Al Qaeda (the Cole, the Khobar Towers, the first WTC, etc.).

After 9/11, I assume that Kerry would respond forecefully to a successful terrorist attack within the US or even to a bloody terrorist attack overseas. But would he respond to another series of nuisance attacks? I think the answer is no.

J:

Yes, while you fret [about] the world & wring [your] hands Tony Blair, George Bush and John Howard are redeeming it.
Posted by: oj at October 22, 2004 07:37 AM

"Redeem" is rather a strong word. One somewhat larger-scale terrorist attack, and suddenly the rest of the world is one huge stink-pit of evil that we have to redeem. Did we "redeem" the U.S. when we arrested McVeigh or Teddy Kaczynski? Personally, I thought the rest of the people living here who /weren't/ terrorists were redemption enough. Getting rid of these people was more of "revenge" than "redemption". I'm not saying it wasn't a warranted revenge, but making some of the evil people in the world pay for really awful things they've done isn't exactly the same as "redeeming the world".

It's like you have "deity complex by proxy" syndrome or something. You are aware that you're not the only person in the world who believes their leader is doing right, and is infallible and "redeeming the world". There are people who served under Saddam who felt the same thing about him. Or under Hitler. Or under Mussolini. We aren't the saviors of the world, and our "Dear Leader" is not infallible.

Man, it's like you're making us out to be the girl who keeps dating the guy who has a reputation for beating up all of the girlfriends he's had thinking "we can change him; we're going to be the one to change him". I'm not saying we're not doing anything good in the Middle East; I'm saying that it's probably not going to change very much of anything, overall, in the long run. There are maps you can find online of the territories we control in Iraq. They're, um, not very large. Plus, there have been attacks, recently, in the areas over which we /thought/ we had control. Our grip of control in that country alone is slipping. How can we be expected to stop all war in the Middle East? (see sub:1) It's like we're tossing matches into a bucket of water.

(sub:1) Yes, they ARE using that as reasoning for the war. To paraphrase: Democracy in Iraq will be the lynch-pin in stabilization of the region.

For recent events, I blame America not as a liberal, not as an angry citizen who just doesn't like his government, but as a member of humanity who is genuinely concerned about the fate of the world and the motives of those in whose hands that fate rests.

Posted by J Crowley at October 22, 2004 01:59 AM

Yes, and let's get rid of all the ones WE have, then, too, while we're at it. We're no less dangerous than anyone else.

Posted by J Crowley at October 22, 2004 09:34 AM

It's tempting to say that this is so far from my understanding of the world, and that of most Americans, as to not be worth discussing. But, what the heck...

There are two possibilities. One, America is exceptional and is obliged by its exceptionalism to take a leading role among the nations. Two, the United States is just another country, much like any other, but more heavily armed and thus more arrogant. Just heuristically, I'm not sure why you think it is a good idea to push the second possibility over the first. If we're just another country, why not use our strength to bend the world to our purposes and jealously guard our prerogatives?

For that matter, do you support Senator Kerry? He might agree with you. His incredible blooper about our having to give up tactical nuke development in order to convince Iran to shut down its nuclear program suggests as much. But he will never be able to act on this conviction, as the American people (who are convinced of our exceptionalism) would ride him out of town on a rail. Do you participate in politics? Do you vote? (I guess I'm assuming you're American, as your posts imply as much.) Isn't the implicit assumption behind all of American culture and politics that we are beloved of G-d and chosen by Him to be His instrument on Earth, off-putting? Do you feel alienated from the nation, or are you a member of a community of like-thinking people?

I'm sorry if this comes off as snarky, but this is a little like meeting a Martian for me, and I'd really like to be able to understand it.

"This discussion has been very useful in helping me work through the Kerry doctrine.

In the '90s, neither Kerry nor Bush pushed for us to respond to the "nuisance" terrorism from Al Qaeda (the Cole, the Khobar Towers, the first WTC, etc.).

After 9/11, I assume that Kerry would respond forecefully to a successful terrorist attack within the US or even to a bloody terrorist attack overseas. But would he respond to another series of nuisance attacks? I think the answer is no.
Posted by: David Cohen at October 22, 2004 09:41 AM"

What do you mean by "respond"? It's kind of a vague term, really. Mail them a letter? Hire someone to sneak into their house while they're asleep and urinate in their sock drawer? Carpet bomb the entire continent on which they live?

Reactions to different situations are going to vary, you realize. Personally, I'd be a little unnerved if a president said that we were going to send soldiers to invade another country just because a small faction of violent crazies therein came here and set off a bomb that murdered a dozen people. I don't think /any/ president should be expected to invade other countries for these "nuisance attacks", but I'm certain Kerry would reply with an appropriately-gauged response.

Fair point. By respond I meant use military force to hunt down the perpetrators, the planners and the paymasters, and to put pressure on any government working with them, including if necessary by changing the regime by force.

For example, going into Afghanistan after the embassy bombings or after the Cole bombing (which is, by the way, as much Bush's fault as Clinton's).

I don't think we're arrogant because we have more of an arsenal than other countries; I think we're arrogant because we believe we're "ordained by God".

Differences in religious beliefs aside (I'm of the belief that one cannot prove or disprove the existence of God, or describe what form He/She/It may possess, so there's not much point in fretting about it and one should try to be a good person regardless of God's existence, but this is another (very welcome; e-mail me if you'd like) conversation entirely), I think it's almost hypocritical of Christians to think themselves capable of the understanding of the mind or will of God. I also think that God is complex enough a thinker to utilize reverse-psychology, when necessary, and that what needs to be done and what is believed needs to be done based on what one believes is God's desire don't always have to be the same thing.

That's what makes me feel as though Americans are arrogant. "God is mysterious, and works in mysterious ways." "God has clearly chosen us as the saviors of the world." The latter, to me, seems to strongly imply a lack of understanding of the former.

More on this later; I'm at work right now and have things to do.

More on this later; I'm at work right now and have things to do.

I hear that. Actually, this might be my last post till Monday morning.

As it happens, I'm not Christian and I think that "G-d" in this formulation is not the Judeo/Christian G-d Himself, but the nonsectarian American G-d. (Somewhere around here we once defined the American civil religion, but I don't have time to find it.)

I think we're arrogant because we believe we're "ordained by God". It's only arrogant if it's not true.

J:

We use them for good.

J:

Yes, redeem.

"We use them for good." Exactly the attitude I criticized in my article "Church of Bush." A direct contradiction of Federalist 51. Such an attitude, I submit, is un-American, in that the thing that makes America America is the institutionalized rejection, through our Constitution, of the idea that any group of mere mortals can be counted on apriori to do "good."

Rick:

When haven't we?

Um, My Lai....?

An incident, not a policy. Similar atrocities in WWII didn't de;legitimize the war against fascism, did they?

Um, free-fire zones?

In war everything's a free-fire zone--ask a Dresdener.