Antiwar protests increase probability of war

[Undertoad]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2003Feb19.html

President Saddam Hussein's government, apparently emboldened by antiwar sentiment at the U.N. Security Council and in worldwide street protests, has not followed through on its promises of increased cooperation with U.N. arms inspectors, according to inspectors in Iraq.

Emphasis mine.

[elSicomoro]

Every day, the story line changes. One day, Hans and the gang say Iraq is cooperating. The next day, they're not.

Sycamore's recommendation to Hans and the crew: Shut the fuck up until you either a) have to talk to the UN or b) are done with the inspections.

[SteveDallas]

If this is true, then in addition to his other character flaws Hussein is an idiot. Bush & co. are determined to go to war, literally whether anybody else likes it or not. If Hussein thinks any of these protests are going to influence the government, then he's not as bright as I gave him credit for. And as much of a loathesome slug as he is, he's always been good at self-preservation.

[tw]

Originally posted by sycamore
Every day, the story line changes. One day, Hans and the gang say Iraq is cooperating. The next day, they're not.

The only place a story line changes is in the surreal mind of the George Jr administation. Where is this smoking gun called aluminum tubes for nuclear processing? Where is this guaranteed attack that was to occur after the Hajj? Show me one who bought duct tape to show me a fool? Where are these six Arabs sneaking into NY State from Canada? Where are all these other terrorists attacks as confessed by Guantaniao prisoners? At what point does one say this Administration cannot be trusted without supporting evidence from some other world government. That's right. Just about any other world government is more credible that George Jr's.

Now we have some mystery ships that must be holding WMD because George Jr's people cannot find them anywhere else. Once upon a time, a president could be trusted. Now the best place for all that duct tape is over the mouth of George Jr and his senior staff. Then there would be less lies and therefore less hate, fear, and anxiety.

Three ships sneaking around world's oceans. I wonder what bad news or administration blunder that was suppose to cover up?

The only lies are how George Jr personally characterized Hans Blix's first report. Hans Blix correctly and publically rebuked George Jr for his Fatherland Propaganda. Hans Blix's report was so bluntly consistent and accurate that even Turkey wants more money for their cooperation. Bribing other nations is how this administration must get international support. Funny. That is also how this administration got elected.

[warch]

Bah. Peace protestors are not causing this crisis. Any increase in "probability" based on perceived sympathy springs from Bush's clumsy, unchecked, untrustworthy, executive warmonger approach. This is allowing Hussein to play a convincing underdog victim.

[elSicomoro]

My God, tw must be one of those psychic guys. He must know exactly what I read, hear, and see news-wise. Of course, this is the same chucklehead who said, "If one spends time listening to talk radio, then one must have a serious deficiency of intelligence. No hunger for the whole story is what causes low intelligence."

I guess using CBC and NPR as a couple of my sources for my daily news makes me less intelligent.

[That Guy]

Originally posted by tw
That is also how this administration got elected.

Anyone care to take a stab at how Gore, LTD would have handled all of this? I know what Nader's crew would have done:

"*puff* *puff* So, uhh, Saddam, uhh, we hear you are, like, a bad dude and stuff."

"Yes, yes, I am a veddy bad dood."

"Yea, right on. hahahahahah. 'Bad dood.' hahahahaha. So, like, you think you might let us cruise around and look at some of these pretzel factories you have here, man? I'm feelin' some munchies coming on, man. I need to pack the furnace, you bad dood."

[Griff]

I'd say that neither Green, Democratic, nor Libertarian administrations would have felt compelled to create an imaginary link between Al Queda and Iraq. None of those administrations would have created a new Feral Department. The Democrats might have tried but they would have been steadfastly opposed by [vomit]small government[/vomit] Republicans. Its probable that any of the other three would have pursued Al Queda instead of an imaginary monster making America safer not more imperiled. None would have squandered the international good will spawned by the 9-11 tragedy.

[Undertoad]

Clinton developed the "regime change" policy, and at one point, lightly bombed Hussein. He started bombing the guy in response to the previous UN inspection team's departure. But he started it on one of the days the Lewinsky story broke, which made everyone think it was just a stupid distraction.

If the current proposal is 100% unilateral and preemptive, the 1998 action was 200%. But I recall no such complaints at the time. All of the thinking at the time was that it was a "wag the dog" situation - mostly, I think, because "Wag the Dog" the moview had just been out the previous season, and it was on everyone's minds.

Clinton also bombed Afghanistan in return for the USS Cole. After we invaded Afghanistan we found Taliban - al Qaeda letters that suggested they were simply tickled pink that the US thought a few guided bombs would faze them. They felt it was cowardly, and evidence that the US was a paper tiger unwilling to directly confront possible enemies.

[Undertoad]

Just to bring it all out, I went looking for historical stuff about the Iraq situation in 1998. In light of what we now know, this stuff is absolutely fascinating. This "Iraq Special Report" from the Washington Post is incredible. It puts the whole thing in fine perspective. What did Clinton think of Iraq?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...prez022298.htm

Referring delicately to the "present difficulty we're having with Iraq," Clinton cautioned, "It is not a replay of what happened in 1991. It is a forerunner of what could or could not happen in 2010, 2020, in 2030."

He understands the danger, underestimates the time-frame. And notice, tw, he disagrees with you; even Clinton knew Hussein had dangerous stuff, in 1998:

Pulling out an underlined copy of a recently declassified CIA report on Iraq's biological and chemical weapons capability, Clinton, said one official, ordered aides to beef up his speech with more of the details about Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's efforts to frustrate the will of the United Nations.

There was some moral dilemma, and some concern that the bombing wouldn't do the trick. The latter concern remained true, as Hussein remained a problem:

Clinton's top foreign policy advisers found their policy picked apart simultaneously by people who questioned what gave Clinton the moral right to launch attacks, and others who worried those attacks would not be robust enough to really damage the Baghdad regime.

"It's a typical Clinton solution," said Robert Zoellick, who was undersecretary of state in the Bush administration. "The question is, where do you find ourselves six months or a year from now."

"Unless the military strike is more robust than anything the administration has signaled, Zoellick said, Clinton's response is "designed for domestic political consumption" so that he can tell people he has punished Saddam Hussein -- even if the Iraqi is no weaker over the long-term."

That turned out to be exactly correct, eh?

On the question of what Gore would do, Gore admired the Clinton approach:

This episode marks the fifth confrontation with Iraq. "He was always good, but he has grown in the job," Vice President Gore said Friday. "He is very sure-footed, very focused, very decisive."

And in the end, unfortunately for the world, very ineffective.

[jaguar]

Don't tell me UT - it's was that good old liberal media bias that means everyone is picking on poor george and the republicans, poor liddle george.

It's amazing what spin can do, i seem to remember a few months ago the CIA had Iraq as a 'low' threat, unless threatened. Yet somehow, on the basis of fucked if i know what, they became a bigger threat - apparently - than say....al queda. Who despite continuing to bomb things and a hand grenade turning up in heathrow airport (which certainly hit home with me, i go there regularly) are clearly nothing compared to a few aluminum tubes and a dozen antique warheads in a disused corner of a warehouse in Baghdad.

What i don't get is the purpose of this war. It's not oil, if you get into the figures (as a very good article in the financial times last week did) it does not make (at least short term) economic sense to attack Iraq for oil, in the long term it seems still a questionable venture. I would not put it past bush to start such a war purely for domestic political reasons but why would the Blair gable his career on it as well as our own Jonny Howard. My assumption is there is something that we don't know, something big that they can't tell us without blowing their source.

THe other possibility is more realistic but more cynical. If you look at the political climate in Britain, America and Australia all 3 share some similar traits - popular parties with an opposition in disarray. Such an opposition is therefore unlikely to be able to really reap much from the antiwar movement, thus they lose little and Britain and Australia get to strengthen their relationships with America. Britain's opposition is further right anyway and thus not in a position that appeals much to antiwar types and the Labour party here has ben so weak over the issue (we maybe kinda sorta could maybe sort some kind of military type action if there was a UN resolution) that they've totally alienated their best opportunity to gain ground of the Liberals in the first place. The political faction that well benefit from this will be protest parties, further left movements, which are often aligned with green movements. The kind of tweedledum-tweedledee syndrome that plagues many western democracies and two mostly centralist parties slog it out on buggar all only helps such movements.

In the end though i think this war will go down as the most morally bankrupt war of the age of pax americana. We're doing it to help the kurds! (who we previously abandoned), destroy evil weapons of mass destruction (which we posses some of the largest stockpiles of, and which we sold to them in the first place, even after they used them on the kurds), after all they're allies of Al Queda! (who decry them as infidels and whose 'links' appear to mostly fabricated.)

On the other hand when you refuse to sign the land mine treaty, i guess you don't exactly ahve much moral fiber to lose in the first place.

It's all very depressing.

[Griff]

My brother got "pinched", his word, I believe by his school board for leafleting at a different High School campus than he works at. Nothings going to come of it but its interesting that as a union official he was being followed.

[Undertoad]

I believed the Powell presentation.

[tw]

Originally posted by Undertoad
I believed the Powell presentation.

Even though Hans Blix demonstrated Powell's half truths? If Colin Powell was so accurate, then all that soil removed from a chemical weapons site is located somewhere else. Just tell inspectors and they will confirm it. But Powell could not do full disclosure since the soil might prove him wrong. After all, the Powell presentation provided no facts - just implied that a coverup was in progress. Only fact presented - they moved soil to another location. What does that prove? That Iraq moved soil - nothing more. Powell says that proves WMD were made there. Nonsense.

Not one Powell example proved anything. Every example would not be sufficient evidence in a court of law. But some will agree with the mental midget Geroge Jr no matter what the reality.

Hans Blix blew out one of Powell's examples by demonstrating that the WMD site was instead an Iraqi declared site. That decontamination truck was more typically a maintenance truck. Once real world days were applied to Powell's presentation, then the 'day before' coverup disappears. Those pictures were fiction - were of events weeks apart. Powell lied.

Many western reporters went to another rumored site of biologoical warfare in N Iraq. Normally, western reporters were denied access by a vigilanty group that controls the area. Powell gave wrong location for those buildings. But then reporters found the buildings some 30 miles away - and no indication of any such WMD production. Did Powell lie? Western reporter could find nothing of what Powell had claimed.

Powell's statement were only to empower those who blindly worship this president. Powell's presentation provided no facts - in contrast to Adlai Stevenson during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Powell proved no existance of any WMD. But he did prove that American intelligence was about as accurate as "6 Arab Terrorists sneaking into NY State from Canada".

The only way UT can believe Powell is to want to believe it no matter what. Powell provided some indications. But as more news reports are arriving, Powell's presentation is more like what was used to justify an attack on a factory in Sudan. Fiction.

[jaguar]

I was expecting great things of the powell speach, it was looking pretty good. Pity it turned out to be a halfarsed attempt to discredit inspections rather than anything groundbreaking.