DG-41, this goes out to you:
DG-41 said:
Now Iraq:
1) No evidence has surfaced to show that Iraq had any part whatsoever in the 9/11 attacks, so there is no moral or legal justification for attacking Iraq in retaliation for 9/11, any more that there would be for invading (say) Sweden.
That's an illogical conclusion. Sorta like saying "there's no evidence that this murderer has ever robbed anyone, therefore there's no moral or legal justification for arresting him". Wether or not you're correct about Iraqi involvement in the 9/11 attacks, you cannot logicaly reach the conclusion you did from that fact alone.
DG-41 said:
2) Given that Iraq had been contained (by UN decree) for over 10 years, it posed no threat to anyone outside its own borders.
This is arguable at best. Iraq still had a capable (by middle east standards) military force, and could very well have been a threat to other nations. As well, you're ruling out the possibility of chemical, nuclear, or biological attack, something we had reason to worry about, especially once they started developing missiles capable of reaching distances which exceeded the limit imposed by the UN. Since their capability to wage war or unconventional attacks cannot be proven to have been eliminated, and since your statement is largely irrelevant anyway (after all, the Taliban had a much weaker military), I'd say this point can be safely ignored as well.
DG-41 said:
3) Although it had both stockpiled and used them in the past, there was no evidence that Iraq posessed any weapons of mass destruction, and UN inspectors were on the ground enforcing this.
???
Maybe you stopped reading newspapers before the UN inspectors got kicked out?
The "no evidence" argument might be compelling if the heads of several major countries had not come out in support of the evidence, as well as if the war effort had not been supported by some 30 nations. The fact remains that there WAS evidence of Iraq possesing chemical and biological weapons, and evidence that they were pursuing research into obtaining nuclear weapons. If that evidence turned out to be wrong, well, hindsight is 20-20.
DG-41 said:
4) The actual employment of (in particular) chemical weapons without access to mass delivery systems is far more problematic than the lethality of the agents themselves would suggest. It takes tanker truck quantities of agent to carry out successful strikes, not milk carton quantities (the failed sarin attack in the Tokyo subway makes for a very instructive case study)
Sadam deffinitely possesed effective delivery systems for chemical weapons, and in 2003 had developed missiles capable of delivering conventional or chemical and nuclear payloads at distances exceeding the limit specified by the UN. So no, he wouldn't have to resort to catapulting milk cartons at Israel.
DG-41 said:
5) Iraq was a mostly secular country run by a secular dictator whose worldview was exactly the opposite of the worldview of the people who carried out the 9/11 attacks. This both made co-operation between the two groups unlikely at best, and given that this secular dictator was unlikely to reliquish power anytime soon, his presence denied the resources of his country to people alligned with those who carried out the 9/11 attacks.
How's that phrase go? The enemy of my enemy is my friend? If Sadam were desperate enough to strike back at the US, do you think he would hesitate for one second to do it by supporting a group that happened to have different ideals than ones that he holds? Realisticaly, Sadams regime, and his interests, had a hell of a lot more in common with al qaeda than they did with the US.
DG-41 said:
6) Iraq has large oil reserves.
And Afghanistan is a nice place to put a pipeline. And Kosovo has natural gas or mineral deposits, or whatever it was that the peacenicks claimed when the US attacked Serbia over it. Big whoop.
DG-41 said:
7) There is personal history between Saddam and the American president, so an element of personal vendetta is present.
You could use the same reasoning to respond to your point #5. Since there IS a lot of bad blood between Sadam and the US in general, he'd be more likely to support an attack on the US organized by the Al Qaeda.
Now, if you're telling me you think George Bush is more likely to pursue a personal vendetta than is Sadam, well....
I'm just going to assume that you're NOT making that statement so that I don't have to tell you what I really think....
DG-41 said:
8) The US unilaterally invaded Iraq on false pretenses over the objections of the UN and most of the world, apparently because it could. This is more than a little disturbing, especially if one is a ciitizen of a country with a lot of oil, a solid financial footing, a penchant for asserting its own soverignty, and intent on following its own political path in the face of opposition from the US (legaizing gay marriage, moving towards the legaliation of pot, insisting that the US adhere to the court rulings on softwood lumber under NAFTA and threatening to restrict access to power, water, and oil if the US keeps cheating on the NAFTA terms)
First, "most of the world" is arguable. There's some 6 billion bodies on this rock, and I'm pretty sure most of them don't give a crap one way or the other. If you mean most nations, well, actually as far as I can tell, most countries were nutral, as shown here:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bf/Country_positions_Iraq_war.png
Whereas the countries supporting the invasion and those opposed seem to be split pretty much equaly. So I'd say that pretty much torpedoes that line of argument.
Also, keep in mind that many of the nations which opposed the US invasion of Iraq did so out of self interest (no dictator wants to be next on the list after all) whereas very few of those supporting the war had anything to gain from it.
DG-41 said:
9) By invading Iraq, the US has re-enforced the prevailing view in that part of the world of the US and the West in general as being imperialist bullies who trample on the rights of Arabs at will to get what they want, particularly oil, but also as a foe of their religion (shades of the Crusades - the fact that Bush is an evangelical Christian is NOT lost on them) This creates fertile ground for the creation of more organizations aligned with Al-Quaida, and overshadows the very good work being done in Afganistan.
It re-inforced that view amongst those who beleived it anyway. Darn. So now, those who hated America....still hate them. But for a new "reason". The attack on Afghanistan did the same thing - those who already hated the US paraded it as their newest "evidence" that the US is an evil imperialistic empire. Or maybe you missed the part in Michael Moores movie where he talks about Bush's evil plan for a pipeline through Afghanistan, and about all the money that the Bush administration is making through their "connections" to arms manufacturing companies.
Meanwhile there are now at least 5 million (a conservative estimate) Shia Muslims, as well as a few million Kurds, who have become newfound supporters of the US.
Seems like a good trade.
DG-41 said:
10) So from this, I conclude that the invasion of Iraq was illegal, morally wrong, and produced results counter to the safety and security of the world as a whole - and I am happy and proud of my government in seeing the wisdom of staying out of it.
Well, since that was your conclusion, I'll wait untill the end of my post to state my own conclusion.
So, to recap:
1) Sadam may or may not have been connected to Al Qaeda, but neither can be proven conclusively. Similarily, the Taliban may or may not have supported Al Qaeda, but neither can be proven conclusively. The best we can prove is that they allowed Al Qaeda cells to operate free from harrasement, and it's not much of a strech to beleive Sadam would have done the same.
2) There was conclusive evidence that Iraq did at one point posses chemical and biological weapons, and still had them the last time UN inspectors were allowed to check. There's compelling evidence that Sadam was interested in aquiring nuclear weapons, if he had not done so already. AND there was conclusive evidence that Iraq had developed long-range missiles idealy suited for employment as delivery systems for chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons.
3) Contrary to popular opinion, the ratio of countries opposed to the war in Iraq to those supporting it was roughly equal.
Furthermore, the following points which I didn't cover in the rest of my response also seem relevant:
4) The 1991 war in Iraq ended in a CONDITIONAL CEASEFIRE. I know you're familiar with that term so I won't elaborate much, I'll only say that Sadam violated the conditions of that ceasefire, and THAT is an unarguable fact.
5) While sanctions may have been effective at limiting the ammount of damage Sadam could do to other nations, they also massively increased the level of misery amongst the people of Iraq. A HUMANE nation would never allow itself to maintain such sanctions indeffinitely. The fact that the UN supported continued sanctions tells me all I need to know about that organization. The fact that they instead felt justified in opposing the continuation of the 1991 war, even though it was obvious that the terms of the ceasefire had been shattered, only serves to hammer in the last nail on the coffin in which I've burried my respect for that "distinguished body".
6) In the same vein, Sadam clearly had no qualms about oppressing his own people, and using abduction, murder, rape, and torture in order to prop up his regime. While you've expressed the opinion that it's reasonable to beleive that "different cultures have different standards", I'd have to argue that no society in the world classifies murder, rape, and torture as a good thing, and that even if such a society existed we would be almost duty-bound to wipe it off the face of the earth.
So, in conclusion, you've given me absolutely no evidence to support the idea that there was anything illegal or immoral about the Iraq campaign. Instead, you actually brought to my attention similarities between the attack on Iraq and the attack on Afghanistan which I had not noticed untill I read your post. Therefore, I still maintain that there's no way you can justify the Afghan campaign while at the same time claiming that the Iraq campaign is illigal or immoral. Either they're both wrong, or they're both right.
