Liberation

Do Iraqis want "President Bush to extend the United Nations weapons
inspections and stand down the armada he has massed on Iraq's frontiers?" Iraqi refugees hiding illegally in Jordan say, "No, no, no!"

According to The New York Times, these same Iraqis regard the U.S. as a "greedy, menacing imperial power" that "has enabled the humiliation of Palestinians by arming Israel; craves control of Iraq's oil fields; supported Mr. Hussein in the 1980's and cared not a fig for his brutality then, and grieved for seven lost astronauts even as its forces prepared to use 'smart' weapons that, the migrants said, threatened to kill thousands of innocent Iraqis."

Yet they await American liberation, hoping for a short, precision conflict in which the U.S. kills Saddam and his murderous entourage, but spares civilians and Iraq's infrastructure. And they want the U.S. to act soon.

Comments

[Steve]

Lefty:

You're looking for "The Prime Directive". Good policy, but not one size fits all.

[Anonymous]

Star Trek = Science FICTION

Iraq = Reality

Being all-wise, Captain Kirk never interfered with any activities of the planets he visited...LOL, the show would have been about nothing! Only when the plot involved not interfering was there a lack of interfering.

What "mature thinking" would solve the Iraq issue? More sanctions? Less sanctions? More inspectors? None? 12 more years? Do nothing? Education (it is the cure for everything)? Talks? Surrender? Give Kuwait back, and maybe throw in Isreal?

Does the current military build-up constitute a "temper tantrum"? Seems to me the military buildup and the threat it poses is the only thing Saddam cares about. He has definitely responded to it. When you say, "right now we are so embedded...", by "right now" do you mean this year, this administration, this decade, the past 30 years...? Not that I disagree entirely, but comments that were meant to be balanced sometimes come off as some Lefty (hehehe) taking a sloppy jab at whatever non-DNC-sanctioned target presents itself.

[Lefty]

Thanks for straightening me out. Stargate's the same way. They bring all kinds of shit back through that gate.

I guess I agree with Shrub when he said a couple years ago "this foreign policy stuff is hard." Well, no kidding. It's real complicated and you must have the pros working every day (like pedaling a bike - if you stop you fall down) to keep things working. One thing you DON'T do is insult either your enemies or your friends.

I truly believe that Bush is a lazy thinker. He got overwhelmed with details and just said fuck it, let's bomb somebody. Never mind that his old man first pulled back from taking Baghdad, for whatever reason(s), and then Saddam had a 90 day period to disarm but apparently didn't. His old man didn't enforce it, passed it on to Clinton and he did the best he could. Now Shrub wants to go undo history even though Saddam is no longer a threat - Al Quaeda is. The logic stinks on ice and the whole world sees it.

What to do? Beats me. Some really dumb decisions were made starting with declaring war on a non-existent country after 911. (There's a satire play showing in Britain now showing how we declared war on "tourism".)

Dumb decisions beget dumb decisions. Take your pick on how to proceed.

[madmam]

Do you honestly believe that if Bush Sr. wanted to go to all the way to Baghdad he would have support of the UN? UN messed it up to begin with. And also, probably it was the right decision at that time. Who would have thougt that with a such an isolation and pressure Saddam would still be rulling Iraq?

What happended in '91 proves that you can't believe in the words of dictators. Trusting them, signing peace treaties with them is nothing more than a fantasy. Period.

[Steve]

Clinton did the best he could? When Americans were murdered and embassies bombed overseas he did the best he could? Lobbing a couple Tomahawks doesn't qualify as "best he could". Getting a blowjob from an intern doesn't qualify as "best he could". You f****** apologists make me sick.

[Lefty]

The only embassy I remember being bombed was the Chinese one we hit. There may have been some more but I don't recall...

You're right that Clinton wasn't shy about bombing folks. I think in '98 they bombed Iraq for 4 days, taking out their water and sewage facilities and leaving about a million kids to die of diarrhea. We appeased Saddam with no-fly zones, inspections, sanctions and periodic bombings that reduced him to a zero threat to anybody. Clinton never put us in a corner we couldn't get out of and the world stood with us. Even the French and Germans and Russians and Chinese.

I'm no Clinton fan. He lied about women and smoking weed. I've done the same. He bombed some places he shouldn't have and probly did a lot of other things, too. Now that I see how really bad things can be, though, I miss him. I don't think you'll be able to say that when Dubya gets done.

[Eric]

I agree with the posters that liberation of Iraq is a good thing, and that most Iraqis are likely eagerly awaiting it.

But Bush and Co. have bungled the run-up so badly that one doubts their ability to pull this off the right way. And this has to be done just right, or we are looking at major problems for both the Iraqis and the Americans.

[madmam]

"World stood with us", what a joke that is.
If things were so excellent, why were there so many terrorists attacks against US while Clinton was the President? If we are look at it closely, even 9/11 was hatched under Clinton.

You may miss Clinton but not the people who want to solve problems. The buttom line is

Clinton = Ignore problems
Bust and etc. = Solve problems

Although Bush has the balls and is trying to solve the problems, I am not sure if the outcome would be any better. By comparison he gets a high mark for at least tying to solve things even if it means going to war.

[Donald Rumsfeld]

Ah, just the kind of guy I'm looking for - a man with balls.

Listen, there'll be a couple of guys in suits driving a Ford by to see you tomorrow. Just get in and don't ask any questions.

[Steve]

Seems there were a couple embassy bombings in Africa that happened under Clinton's watch, as well as the bombing of the USS Cole.

But the Left always has a selective memory.

[Lefty]

And saying "Bush sucks" isn't an automatic endorsement of Clinton, either. Sure, I'll re-think it.

Sounds to me like you're looking for a "final solution". I don't think there is one.

[joe]

I'm not a big fan of Clinton, but the fact is he did more to fight terrorism than any president had ever done in this nation's history - and I'm including Ronald "Bug Out of Lebanon" Reagan. His administration also had a more aggressive stance than the GWB administration did from January - September '01. In fact, the current administration downplayed the terrorism plan that the Clinton people handed them, because China was so much more important. Ashcroft cut the antiterror budget at the FBI so they could spend more resources on dirty movies. Now, with 20/20 hindsight, we can say that Clinton didn't do enough, or that Bush didn't do enough before 9/11, but I don't recall hearing any of the current crop of chest thumpers calling for a War on Terror in 1999.

[Lefty]

Don't worry your pretty little heads about the details. The world's smartest people are running things now.

[Steve]

You mean Hillary's running things now?

[Lefty]

Joe, is your real name Sybil? Your last two posts are a bit conflicting but for some reason I like them.

[Shannon Love]

I think the "Golden Rule" test a good place to start in assessing the morality of a given action. Simply ask, "If I and my loved ones were in the same situation what would I want someone to do?"

In the case of Iraq, I know that I would prefer to run the risk of war than to continue to live under Saddam's blighted rule.

The fact that virtually every Iraqi living in exile seems to agree further places my mind at ease.

We must decide for the people who cannot decide for themselves. By applying the Golden Rule test and by asking those who most closely speak for the people of Iraq we can confidently assess the basic morality of going to war.

[Lefty]

I certainly sympathize with your feelings on this. Morality, like values, though, varies from place to place and time to time.

The accounts I've seen of Iraqui exiles is one of bewilderment and betrayal. We left those guys high and dry to be slaughtered in 1991. We did the same to the Hmong at the end of the Vietnam police action.

In Star Trek, one of their cardinal rules was to never mess with the internal affairs of other worlds, especially primitive ones. (They had a term for it but I can't think of it right now.) Anyhow, their experience was that imposing their ways caused more problems than it solved. Deciding for others is demeaning. It is a recipe for resentment, rebellion and hatred.

Right now we are so embedded in the affairs of the rest of the world that there's nothing to do but lurch from one emergency to the next. I just wish we would do it with mature thinking instead of temper tantrums and military force.

[Kevin Carson]

Lefty--

"Clinton did the best he could"?

That doesn't sound like what someone on the genuine Left would say; it sounds like what an NPR liberal would say. Real Leftists HATE Clinton--I know I do.

Clinton's candidacy was put together back in 1991-92 to do sell corporate globalization--GATT, NAFTA, and all the rest of that mercantilist framework--to blacks and organized labor. It was a Nixon to China thing. He consolidated Bush I's New World Order. His wife, typical of the "professional" New Class, was an elitist social engineer who wanted to manage us for our own good. She might have been "progressive" [gag] on guns and abortions, but that sure as hell didn't stop her from being a Director at Wal-Mart, or from mocking the poor whites she saw on the witness stand in court.

A REAL Leftist, Sam Smith or Alex Cockburn for instance, is likely to like guns and hate Hillary. That's the way it ought to be. Karl Hess once said that he'd been an Old Rightist, an anarcho-capitalist and a Wobbly--but thank God he'd never been a liberal.

[Lefty]

You know, Kevin, you can either play down in the bush leagues with Smith, Cockburn and the rest of the intellectually pure or you can graduate to the Big Show. There, every little thing you say and do is analyzed, picked apart and extrapolated. World markets move and the lives of real people change seriously when you fuck up. When you take a chance people can die and now that we are nuclear, the whole fucking world can blow up. In short, when you get to the Show you must actually be responsible for your idealogy when it meets reality.

Yep, you must be a whore to get to the Show. You give up some principles, do some hypocritical things and generally get dirty. Along the way you might get to throw some crumbs at the fringes in the bush league you left behind.

But you know what? Everybody in the business rat race does the same thing. And the higher you go the better you get at it.

In my view the Clinton whore beats the Bush whore by far.

[Joe]

Different Joes! (I'm the one who thinks Clinton turned out to be a bad president)

"I'm not a big fan of Clinton, but the fact is he did more to fight terrorism than any president had ever done in this nation's history"

The FACT is? Have any URLs? Didn't Clinton take the weakest military option (cruise missile attack) presented to him when dealing with the assasination attempt on Bush Sr? Maybe Clinton had more terrorism to fight than any other president in history, but I don't see his actions against it as being terribly bold or effective. (maybe that's why he had a lot of it) Do you? Can you point to an example of Clinton confronting terrorists head-on? Sure was good of Clinton to have a terrorism plan though... I plan to be multi-millionaire some day. Pretty cool huh? I've got a plan and everything! Bush can only respond to events that happened immediately prior to or during his term. 9/11 is definitely on his watch. I'd say the response has been at least adequate. Criticism of his pre-911 policy may be completely valid, but anyone contemplating a similar act will have to know we will come after them as we did the Taliban in Afghanistan. What were the terrorsits taught about us under Clinton? Were they taught that we are tough on that kind of activity? It seems to me they were taught we are good victims.

I'm not arguing that the toughest response automatically makes us safer, but I'm comfortable knowing that there is one less government giving it's full support to groups operating mini boot camps for terrorists. Clinton didn't even come close to that kind of response - or did he? Shouldn't we have done that after the 1993 attempted destruction of the trade center?