Before 9/11, America’s national security relied implicitly but substantially on the belief that a major attack on the United States would be answered with retaliation on a biblical scale. That belief proved false.
I mean think about it. Iran, Cuba, Venezuela — these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don't pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us.”
–Senator Barack Obama, 5/18/08
“Let me be absolutely clear: Iran is a grave threat.”
–Senator Barack Obama, 5/19/08
For the sake of Barack Obama’s future clarity, let’s take a moment to war-game an attack by Iran on the United States, circa 2010. It won’t be a conventional strike, to be sure, no sudden missile launch on American interests or direct confrontation between uniformed forces. No, it will more likely consist of, let's say, the simultaneous detonation of multiple truck bombs in a major metropolitan area — New York City is always a good bet since it’s the nexus of American culture and commerce, but D.C. remains a perennial target since it’s the seat of the national government, and Los Angeles has great symbolic value since it’s the epicenter of Western decadence.
Several hundred civilians, at minimum, die.
The stock market closes for three days and then re-opens, with the Dow plunging a thousand or so points and the American economy out a trillion or so dollars within the first week after the attack. Meanwhile, our intelligence services determine that the plot was carried out by a terrorist cell which had received funds, indirectly, from the Iranian government.
That determination is leaked to the press — whereupon one-third of the Democratic party, which we might call the New York Times faction, suggests, though never quite asserts, that the warmongering policies of the still-detested Bush administration are to blame for provoking the Iranian attack; another third of the party, which we might call the MSNBC faction, argues that the warmongering policies of the Bush administration not only provoked the Iranian attack but made it inevitable; the final third of the party, which we might call the MoveOn.Org faction, insists that former members of the Bush administration secretly launched the attack themselves in order to pin the blame on Iran.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is, of course, vociferously denying that his government was in any way connected with the attack. That changes, however, after the totality of evidence is made public — at which point Ahmadinejad suddenly "discovers" that a rogue element within the Iranian ruling party was indeed involved in sponsoring and planning the attack. The following day, he turns over a dozen corpses to the United States.
“Here are the perpetrators,” he announces. “They tried to flee, but my loyal security forces tracked them down and brought them to justice. Do you see? I am a friend of America!”
The American president — let’s say it’s Barack Obama — now faces a grim choice. Either he can declare the matter closed and begin the (literally) monumental task of remembering the dead and rebuilding the economy, or he can invade a sovereign nation which has not directly attacked the United States, topple a quasi-elected government which claims to be cooperating in the struggle against international terrorism . . . and begin a decades-long occupation and counterinsurgency.
With the memory of the American public’s reaction to the war in Iraq fresh in his mind, I’m betting President Obama takes option number one. He gives an eloquent speech citing Lincoln and the need to “bind up the nation’s wounds” and move forward in the name of peace and prosperity.
Six weeks later, however, a coordinated team of a half-dozen snipers opens fire on crowds of pedestrians at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco, or at Quincy Market in Boston, or at Wrigley Field in Chicago. The body count this time is 150. By the end of the week, tourism to all major American cities is down 75 percent. The stock market drops another trillion dollars in total value.
Both CIA and FBI reports conclude the snipers were trained in Syria by Hezbollah in cooperation with the government of President Bashar al-Assad . . . who, following the Iranian precedent, immediately denies any personal knowledge of the conspiracy and vows to get to the bottom of it. With the cooperation of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Syrian police soon round up seven low-ranking Hezbollah stooges and summarily execute them before they can be interrogated by Americans. Assad then appears on Syrian television to pronounce the matter closed.
What are President Obama’s options now? Can he really decide to take out the Assad regime and occupy Syria only a month after allowing Iran to get off scot-free for an even deadlier attack?
Two weeks later, a Palestinian with ties to Hamas blows himself up at a retirement home in Boca Raton: body count, 50. The next day, an Egyptian national with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood guns down seven children at a day care center in Detroit . . ..
Clearly, President Obama has to act at this point. But what’s he going to do? Deport every foreign student with an Islamic-sounding name in the United States? Deny all visas that originate from any Islamic nation? Round up Muslim-Americans and detain them without charges?
* * *
If the next president of the United States turns out to be Barack Obama, the first truth he must recognize is that the world changed on September 11th, 2001 . . . not in a vague let-us-honor-the-memory way but in a concrete, geopolitically-altering way. From the end of World War Two until 9/11, as I’ve written before, America’s national security relied implicitly but substantially on the belief that a major attack on the United States would be answered with retaliation on a biblical scale. That belief proved false. Osama bin Laden called our collective bluff. He hit us in a horrific way, and we didn’t incinerate cities. Even after President Bush knew Osama was behind the attack, and even after the Taliban government in Afghanistan refused to hand him over “dead or alive,” Bush didn’t flatten Kabul. He took out the Taliban, but he did so in a deliberate manner, with a scalpel, not a terrible swift sword. By his relative restraint, however, he inadvertently but unavoidably provided our international enemies with an easy-to-follow blueprint for waging war against the United States: Just work your mayhem through non-state surrogates and, after the next 9/11, if America again connects the dots, turn over a handful of corpses to satisfy Washington’s demand for justice.
That will be the formula for the next attack on the United States. And the one after that. And the one after that. Indeed, it’s now open season on the United States. If you cannot grasp America’s new vulnerability, you’re never going to understand why President Bush decided to invade Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein — even though Saddam had no hand in the 9/11 attacks. Of the grab bag of kleptocrats and theocrats running Muslim countries, Saddam seemed the most likely to capitalize on the new formula for attacking America. Moreover, he stood in violation of the cease fire agreement that kept him in power after the 1991 Gulf War. So we exercised our option, as the principal aggrieved party to that agreement, and took out his regime.
Besides neutralizing a threat, ousting Saddam might have provided an extra measure of deterrence . . . if only it had been carried out more smoothly. But the occupation of Iraq has been messy, perhaps inescapably, and the American public has turned against it, so that added deterrence has gone by the boards.
The good news, I suppose, is that Obama is apparently a quick study. In his June 4th speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, he took a substantially harder line against Iranian aggression and Islamic militancy. Whether this represents a genuine shift in perspective or merely campaign rhetoric remains an open question. But if he’s elected president in November, and not blinded by the Democratic ideology of Bush-hatred, he’ll need to survey the geopolitical landscape and realize that President Bush bought us time by making Iraq, rather than the US and Europe, the next great battlefield in the post-9/11 war against totalitarian Islam. It’s a war that will continue until Islam undergoes the necessary period of Enlightenment, until it embraces the principles of rationality and tolerance, until the spirit of democracy and material well-being neuters the will to jihad among the Muslim masses.
That is the world, that is the reality, in which we now live. Sooner or later, Barack Obama needs to come to terms with it.
We didn't "incinerate cities" when Al Qaeda carried out 9/11 because Al Qaeda isn't a nation-state. Let me get this straight – you're saying that we should have killed hundreds of thousands of Afghan civilians – men, women, and children – with nuclear weapons in response to 9/11?
Are the Taliban actually better off now than before 9/11? Did their actions pay off? Did the people who shielded Al Qaeda make out?
Al Qaeda may be better off, in some ways, for us diverting our efforts away from them. But they aren't a nation-state, and are far more mobile. Here you're arguing that Saddam would likely have funded some kind of terrorist attack against the U.S., and we'd have… what? Sent him candy? He didn't do any terrorism against the U.S. and we took him out anyway. How is Saddam better off now? What, exactly, did he have to gain by seriously attacking us, even by proxy?
Nations aren't mobile, and so can be dealt with by conventional measures. Al Qaeda is more like a James Bond villain, no fixed base of operations, requiring different measures to address. But some people seem to want to use conventional military operations because, well, that's what we're good at.
It doesn't get the blood pumping like a military operation, helping Pakistan "de-Islamicize" their school system, moving from madrasas to real schools, would be a useful thing to do. The U.S. government hands out about $66 million / year for that – though better oversight is needed. Ah, well. At least we give Pakistan over a billion dollars/year, plus training, for their military.
"Let me get this straight – you're saying that we should have killed hundreds of thousands of Afghan civilians – men, women, and children – with nuclear weapons in response to 9/11?"
I read the article, then reread it just to make sure, and I couldn't find the part where the author suggested that nuclear weapons should have been employed against the civilian population of Afghanistan. No, what the author is saying is that people like you, who recoil at the possibility of killing civilians for the actions of their fellow countrymen who are non-traditional fighters (i.e., terrorists), have made it possible for nation-states to get away clean after indirectly attacking the United States in ways that, if they had been perpetrated by a nation-state directly, would result in all-out war.
The Japanese government mobilized its national military and attacked Pearl Harbor, killing 2,500 people. The result was a nuclear strike on Japan. Had the Samurai Liberation Front mobilized non-governmental Japanese forces and mounted the same attack (with the full knowledge, approval, and indirect financial funding of the Japanese government), would we have responded the same way? Could we have? Should we have?
That is the point the author is trying to make. The likelihood of a missile being launched from mainland Iran to a US target, followed by Iranian navy ships blockading American ports, and Iranian marines landing on American shores is absurdly remote. The result (presumably, though I'm sure you and many others would have your objections, and I don't have any doubt that the next administration, regardless of who wins, would actually feel the need to seriously contemplate it) would be an all-out war declared against Iran, and Iran being obliterated. However, the likelihood of a group of Saudi Arabian, Palestinian, Jordanian, and Yemenese men, trained by Iranian military in a remote facility in the middle east, funded by Iranian money, armed with Iranian weapons, perpetrating an attack on a United States civilian facility isn't all that remote. But since they aren't going to be arriving on an Iranian warship, wearing an Iranian army uniform, and planting the Iranian flag, why how can we possibly justify attacking Iran for the actions of a few renegade extremists, right? Right. So Iran may carry on conducting terrorism against the United States without fear of reprisal. And just so you don't think I'm some anti-Islamic, Iran-crazy, Bush-crony, fearmongering, Islamophobic warmonger, Iran is just a convenient example. According to the author's central thesis, the same could conceivably be done by any country with an interest in fighting against the United States. It is a loophole in the way we execute our national defense that nation-states may exploit in order to avoid the threat of direct action by the United States. Although I'm sure they are equally terrified by the prospect of the US sending them new secular textbooks.
Sovereignty of the state is the guarantee the people of that state have to be left alone by foreign nations.
When state leaders behave in a way that jeopardizes sovereignty, people have to take responsibility (even if there is great risk) to force their leaders to reform. Their alternative is to back the leaders in war (also at great risk). Or, they could leave the country.
We are in the same spot with Iran that we have been in the past with Iraq. There simply has to be an understanding about what it takes to be a peaceful neighbor in this world. Saddam understood that it had come down to him leaving Iraq, along with his two rotten sons. He stayed and he and his people paid for his decision.
The Taliban understood that it came down to turning over the person who killed 3,000 people on 9/11. It refused, and paid.
The rules have changed (something 9/11 made us realize)and where's and why's and traditional respect given sovereign nations must change. The current strategy makes a lot of sense to me, as we are dealing with something that absolutely requires action and demands accountability.
People ruled by brutal Islamic facists may be incapable of easily overthrowing or changing their government (assuming they actually wanted to) but they can understand that because of their inability or unwillingness, they may find themselves in the midst of some other country taking care of the job for them for security reasons.
That is the primary value of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. There simply is nothing that can stand in the way of eliminating threats that can and do reach our shores. As a doctine of defense, it also comes at a perfect time in history, as we face the prospect of nuclear weapons and missle technology finally making it to radicals in places like Iran.
Iran's leaders see which way the wind is blowing and are rattling sabers as loudly as possible, but there simply is no way we can afford to back away from what must be done. Iran with nuclear weapons able to reach Israel or the U.S. is not an option.
Detente between nations controlled by leaders who respect the lives of their own if no the lives of their enemies is a prerequsite. Nuclear weapons in the hands of leaders who value martyrdom for Allah above all else, simply will not do.
We are at a point when technology forces us to state: "Here's how it's going to be." We cannot afford to accommodate those who have a pre-9/11 mindset and who do not take into account the very real prospect that the nutbag enemies of the future may be nuclear.
Mr. Mulligan – Here's the section that sure seems to state that: "Osama bin Laden called our collective bluff. He hit us in a horrific way, and we didn’t incinerate cities. Even after President Bush knew Osama was behind the attack, and even after the Taliban government in Afghanistan refused to hand him over “dead or alive,” Bush didn’t flatten Kabul." I'm not aware of weapons in our possession besides nuclear ones that can 'incinerate cities'.
And Mr. Mulligan – an Iranian embargo and invasion would, of course, result in all-out war… as it should. That would be a direct assault on our nation which could potentially end our nation if not dealt with. An 'attack on a civilian facility', while horrendous and tragic, is not an existential threat to the U.S. (It also doesn't buy the perpetrators anything much, either.) I don't think it's entirely unreasonable that different threats should evoke different responses. Invading Afghanistan when the Taliban refused to cooperate was entirely reasonable, and our military did a great job, for as long as they were given the resources to do it properly. (I've pointed out to you before that I'm not opposed to war in principle and supported the operations in Afghanistan. So while I'm sure there would be objectors to war even in the case you propose, you should already know I wouldn't be one of them. I can't tell if you really are unable to distinguish between different positions that don't happen to match yours, or if you simply don't care to try.)
BTW – "carry on" conducting terrorism against the United States? I'm not aware of any domestic terror operations that have been tied to Iran. Some supplies to militias in Iraq have certainly come from Iran – but those are to Shi'ite fighters who use them against Sunni insurgents, the people who are the most motivated against the U.S. troops there. (Not that I want Iranian influence in Iraq – far from it. But let's at least use a vocabulary that reflects reality, okay?)
Mr. Ingles,
I would think the Iraqi Intelligence Service plot to assassinate George Bush with a car bomb qualifies as an act of terrorism. Does anyone want to speculate that Iraq was not capable of, or was planning, more, or worse?
Consider what a state such as Iraq, with its organization, intelligence operatives, military, wealth and diplomatic contacts might be able to accomplish.
Orders to assassinate a U.S. president tell us everything we need to know about a country's leader and how he is willing to deploy his resources.
Mr. Ingles,
I believe the passage you cite was meant to illustrate the author's point – not to suggest that nuclear weapons should have been employed against the civilian population of Afghanistan. The author's suggestion was that nation-states, through state sponsorship of terrorism, are able to perform military or quasi-military actions against the United States that would ordinarily result in an overwhelming military response. This is without regard to a full-scale existential threat to the United States – my example was intentionally hyperbolic. Regardless of whether or not a nation desired to engage in all out war with the United States, the assumption by state terrorists in the past was that any action linked to them would result in the United States dropping the hammer full-force on their state (we can assume that if, let's say, the Saudi Arabian government had officially sanctioned, and taken responsibility for, the WTC attack, they would have expected a highly "disproportionate" response from the United States). But by using indirect and unofficial sponsorship of small-ball terrorists, these states are able to be complicit with such actions without any fear of direct reprisal. That was the author's contention.
"BTW – "carry on" conducting terrorism against the United States? I'm not aware of any domestic terror operations that have been tied to Iran. "
The "carry on" quotation was in reference to my HYPOTHETICAL example. On top of that, in anticipation of such a remark, I made it explicitly clear shortly after that that I was speaking hypothetically:
"And just so you don't think I'm some anti-Islamic, Iran-crazy, Bush-crony, fearmongering, Islamophobic warmonger, Iran is just a convenient example. According to the author's central thesis, the same could conceivably be done by any country with an interest in fighting against the United States."
Speaking of "unable to distinguish between positions" and all…
Mr. Adams – the evidence about that plot was always rather ambiguous, and the Pentagon's recent report makes it more so: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Pentagon_report_finds_no_evidence_of_0324.html
Should such a plot actually be shown, of course, it'd be an act of war. But Kuwait had plenty of motives to keep American animosity high toward Iraq.
Such potential misdirection is, in fact, a primary reason to avoid "Biblical" strikes until we can investigate. What if, say, Pakistan were to 'frame' another country for an act of terrorism to divert attention away from them?
Mr. Ingles,
Your suggestion that the plot was not investigated (Biblical strikes before we can investigate) is a bogus argument.
Clinton took two months to investigate before launching the retalitory missile strike on Iraq.
1. The top two members of the plot, both Iraqi nationsals, admitted the crime.
2. The bomb matched other such devices identified by the FBI as of Iraqi origin.
3. Saddam vowed to kill Bush senior.
I do appreciate the link to an "alternative" news Web site.
Mr. Adams – Unfortunately, the Pentagon decided not to release the report in question, so I can't link to it. Since the report also concluded that there were no significant Iraq-al Qaeda ties before the 2003 assault, apparently they decided it was a tad controversial. You can read about the fact that you can't read it here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/100/story/30172.html
Oh, and I didn't say that the "plot was not investigated", just the evidence found (during, y'know, the investigation at the time) was ambiguous. And I thought one of the problems was that the retaliatory missile strike wasn't Biblical?
I mean, the 'members of the plot' also claimed they'd been tortured into confessing. The bomb parts were also fairly generic and not unique to Iraq. And Saddam vowed a lot of things that he never came close to pursuing.
That's not to say Saddam wasn't a vicious, brutal thug. He was. But unfortunately he wasn't a stupid thug, and he had an exquisite sense of self-preservation. His troops shot at planes in the no-fly zone, for example, but somehow never shot one down. Enough to garner some political support in the Middle East (like his pensions to the families of Palestine suicide bombers) but not enough to actually provoke a full-fledged response. Assassinating an ex-President just doesn't fit that profile.
Mr.Ingles,
I'll put you down for a Saddam appologist with an "asterisk": Evil guy, but always willing to argue that the evil things cited as a reason for getting rid of him are trumped up.
The witnesses lied, the FBI lied, Kuwait lied, the plotters lied. Lies, lies, and more lies. It was a conspiracy, I say.
Mr. Mulligan – That's the problem here. I don't see anything but an assertion that "the assumption by state terrorists in the past was that any action linked to them would result in the United States dropping the hammer full-force on their state". I don't think that Khadaffi expected anyone to nuke Tripoli, even after the connection to Lockerbie came to light… and I don't think it was just because Bill Clinton was in the White House.
Now, you're a state. What do you gain by sponsoring large-scale terrorism? What's the motivation? (Oh, and, in the circumstances listed in the article above, where do we get the troops to invade the countries linked to the hypothetical terrorist actions?)
Well sadly, with the average American Joe not being all that terribly well traveled, all one can put forth when making an argument from the perspective of an irrational terrorist is an assertion. Of course it's an assertion. The idea is pretty age-old though. It's simply a play on the old-fashioned proxy war. We played in a few of those with communist Russia and China over the last 60 years or so.
In answer to your question, the author's thesis is that states gain immunity from direct harm while still being able to, at the very least, antagonize the United States. I can see that you disagree with that assessment, so I'll turn the question back on you. Obviously there are many known state-sponsors of terrorism (even if you believe the US government is the boogeyman, international organizations and foreign governments all acknowledge at least some). Why do they do it? What do they gain? They can't gain nothing – that would mean they have no motivation to do what they do. You don't spend your nation's wealth on such an endeavor without at least some rationalization for doing so. So? What is it?
I'll give you my tentative explanation: I think it's got something to do with opposing ideologies in general, and religion in particular. And this is where Muslim states differ from the secular/humanist states we've dealt with in the past. Muslims feel that it is their obligation before God (keep in mind, these aren't non-religious, sophisticated, secular humanists like yourself – they actually believe this kooky stuff) to submit the entire to earth to his divinely-created law. In that context, they don't care all that terribly much about their own self-destruction – they blow themselves up routinely to facilitate their goals. So when you think in terms of what "They" gain, you have to keep in mind their motivations. Money and political clout are great for the secular pig heathen infidels, but holy martyrdom doing God's work, followed by an eternity in heaven with a few dozen virgins is even better in the Muslim mind. As a working hypothesis, I'd say that Muslim states may not act perfectly rationally, and that what they gain by sponsoring large scale terrorism is the fulfillment of their religious ideology.
Mr. Mulligan – The large majority of known state sponsors of terrorism do it to their own people. Only a minority support terrorists in other states.
The ones who do it to their own people are trying to suppress rebellion. The ones who do it to enemy states generally aren't all that clandestine about it, because it's a political move. Saddam, for example, paid pensions to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers to build up his image in the Middle East. He wasn't hiding it at all.
The closest I can think of to what you're talking about is India and Pakistan, which each give some level of support to Kashmiri paramilitary groups sympathetic to their respective claims. But those are primarily limited to within Kashmir itself. (And the fact that there's a fair amount of "do it to your own (claimed) people" terrorism – by both India and Pakistan – confuses things, too.)
India claims that several Kashmiri terrorist operations carried out in India had Pakistani support, and there's a goodly amount of evidence for it. This is an extension of their war over Kashmir by other means. Since they both have nuclear weapons, it's more of a cold war situation, they use proxies like we and the USSR did back in the day.
The 'Arab street' believes in "this kooky stuff". Their leaders, like leaders everywhere, are a bit more pragmatic. Note that most of the 'leaders' there are basically power-hungry thugs, more concerned with protecting their own rule than enlarging the Ummah – and their record shows this. Heck, one of al Qaeda's main goals is overthrowing the current regime in Saudi Arabia. The key reason they're all bothered against the U.S. is our policy of supporting the House of Saud (since they keep the oil flowing). So we put bases there, and bin Laden sees 'infidels in the holy land', etc. etc. Saddam worked to minimize Islamist influence in Iraq to help secure his own regime (though he did suck up to them some in desperation when the U.S. started really putting pressure on him).
Even Ahmadinejad has his issues with the Islamist types, and one of the reasons he's pushing the nuclear thing is to stir up nationalistic feelings among the people to help support his administration, which is not all that popular otherwise.
Leading a terrorist cell requires zeal. Leading a large terrorist organization requires intelligence and zeal. Leading a tinpot dictatorship requires… we'll call it 'pragmatism'. Leading a major nation requires intelligence and pragmatism. Pragmatists and zealots always have a tense relationship.
Mr. Adams – The fact that one particular act attributed him is dubious (and the Pentagon actually agrees that it's dubious) doesn't mean he gets a clean slate on everything. He did torture and terrorize his people, invade Kuwait, slaughter the Kurds, pension the families of suicide bombers in Israel, etc. etc. And I actually said that, so you can take your 'always' and, well, cram it.
Mr. Ingles,
I made a distinction between evil things Saddam has done and evil things used as justification for going to war.
I could have pegged you wrong, but my take would be the crimes you attribute to Saddam are not what you consider justification for war (which is what I meant by, "getting rid of him").
That's where the asterisk comes in. There are lots of folks who play the "Saddam is evil – but…" game. It goes exactly like your post #15. Bottom line is players of this game can never concede that any claim of wrongdoing, evil, threat, etc. made by the Bush administration can be accepted under any circumstances.
Ironically, this is a claim by the Clinton adminstration only repeated by the G.W. Bush adminstration. Clinton's CIA, his FBI and his DOJ, and Clinton himself are the ones who made the claim based on their evidence. But when that claim bolsters the Bush adminstration position a few years later, it suddenly becomes hogwash.
Like I said, lies, lies and more lies. Bush lies and everyone, including Clinton, lies for him.
On the face of it, arresting 17 people is absurd if your goal is to fabricate an assissnation attempt. If you've got no evidence, the last thing you want is to risk 17 good alibis and all manner of things that can come undone when you have that many innocent people being accused of something. It is far esier and less risky to pin it on two, even a half-dozen guys.
I urger everyone, no matter their position on the war, to try not to fall so easily for the Bush conspiracy theory game playing, or the propaganda wings committed to discrediting any single piece of evidence that supports the reasoning behind the Iraq war.
If I am wrong, and your contention is that the evils you attribute to Saddam were justification for war, please excuse my mistake.
It's possible to believe that Saddam was exceedingly evil, and yet not think that the evils were justification for war. The current regime in Sudan is at least as evil, for example, but that doesn't mean it's in our national interest to go to war there to uproot them. There are a lot of evil people in the world, it's not our job to police all of them.
The specific evils used to justify the invasion of Iraq – the assassination plot, the allegations of ties to al Qaeda, etc. – turn out not to have much foundation. I don't think it was a 'conspiracy' on the part of the Bush administration. I think that they had a policy they'd wanted to implement for a while, and they saw the evidence they wanted to see that backed up the version of reality they wanted, and ignored the rest of the evidence. I think it's the perfect kind of chin for Hanlon's Razor.
Mr. Ingles,
Clearly the assissnation attempt findings were not a conspiracy by the Bush adminstration, so no need to point that out. There was no Bush adminstration.
So what policy are you suggesting President Clinton wanted to implement? This was his "baby."
Are you suggesting that Clinton wanted an excuse for a military strike on Iraq? Was Clinton seeing what he wanted to see? Just what kind of president will it take to accurately assess the evils of our enemies? How much investigating safisfies? How much evidence must there be when even confessions don't matter anymore?
The intelligence findings and assessments (not just by this country or limited to the assissnation plot) but most other intelligence agencies around the world, considered Saddam a threat or potential threat, including a WMD threat. The reason is simple: He had and used such weapons in the past and he did not or would not prove compliance required under the terms of the ceasefire agreement.
Assassination attempts, threats of terrorist actions against the U.S., sending your nuclear point man on a dipolmatic mission to Niger, having al Qaeda training camps on your soil, providing medical aide and comfort to one of the world's most wanted terrorists, funding terrorism and all manner of other things, including the oil for food scandal with the UN asside, the bottom line is Saddam violated the terms of a ceasefire at a particularly bad time in history. And for those who don't know, a return to firing is the usual consequence of a ceasefire violation.
Saddam was too evil, had too much of a grudge, was far too capable and wealthy to ignore, particularly when his non compliance with more than a dozen UN mandates signaled that he had no interest in establishing a relationship of trust with the world.
Saddam blew it. He could have complied. He could have left Iraq when it came down to that option. He and his two rotten son's are dead and the world is safe from all the evil (evidenced by their history) they would have carried out.
And by the way, the primary evidence that the Bush assissnation plot was fabricated is the lack of evidence/documentation in the Iraqi archives. But Saddam also didn't document the destruction of a lot of his WMDs, it seems, so why is anyone surprised?
It also is ludicrous to make the case that all the physical evidence, the confessions and testimony are worthless unless we find in the Iraqi archives a piece of paper signed by Saddam to carry out the deed.
You guys are getting a little (a lot) sidetracked from the original topic.
Mr. Ingles,
You are making the assumption that nefarious despots the world over are rational actors. That's a dangerous assumption to base policy upon if you happen to be wrong. That's the assumption everyone made of Hitler before, and even during the beginning of, WWII (spare me a rant about comparing Ahmadinejad to Hitler – I didn't. This is an illustrative example). Indeed, Pat Buchanan has just penned a book using that fundamental assumption of Hitler, and arguing that WWII could have been completely avoided had Britain ceded Poland instead of giving them a war guarantee. The reality is that Hitler had national expansion and eugenics in mind 15 years earlier when he wrote Mein Kampf. While some – maybe even the majority – of Islamic dictators and governments may not be "true believers" (Saddam Hussein certainly wasn't deeply religious – at least not until it came execution time and he played the martyr gig), some of them are, and it's important to keep in mind that their motivations may not be based on well-reasoned positions grounded in a humanistic reality. And even the ones who aren't religious wackbags rule over people who largely are, so they also have political motivations – Saddam Hussein was a good example. You don't necessarily need to be religious to be mentally ill and make irrational decisions (Hitler was a good example).
Mr. Adams – of the seven things you list, at least three (the assassination attempt, the Niger thing, and the al Qaeda ties) are doubtful. See here for some background on the assassination attempt: http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/index.cfm/Page/Article/ID/29
Another Hanlon's Razor thing. Clinton needed to look tough, and wanted an excuse to do something. More, Kuwait has a history of fabricating claims against enemies like Iraq (the incubators story, for example), and had a motive to keep relations between the US and Iraq as bad as possible. Doesn't even have to be a deliberate conspiracy, just people seeing what they want to see.
Not that I even disagree with striking at Iraq on reasonable suspicion. (I didn't say that the evidence was "worthless", just inconclusive.) But blowing up a building or two seems more reasonable than wholescale invasion.
It's not that getting rid of Saddam wasn't a good thing. It's that it's not clear that that good was worth the cost that's been (and is being) paid in lives and limbs and money.
Mr. Mulligan – Sure, nefarious despots aren't always rational actors. Heck, nobody's a rational actor all the time. That's why you make the threats clear and carry through when necessary – like we did in Afghanistan. The Taliban certainly were not rational actors, and they were shielding people who had hit us. We didn't nuke them, but we kicked them out of most of the country. Imagine where we'd be in Afghanistan if we hadn't opened up a two-front war…
(Oh, and Mr. Mulligan, Hitler wasn't a traditional Christian, but he was religious. Sort of a neo-Pagan quasi-Christian, who thought Jesus was an Aryan and so forth. Stalin and Mao, now – those are examples of irrational actors who were also atheists.)
Mr. Ingles,
Please note carefully what I stated. The "diplopatic" trip to Niger – the chosen diplomat also being Iraq's nuclear lead – is not dubious, it happened.
A lot has been made over a forged uranium agreement document, but the bottom line is honest people can't let anti-war and anti-Bush instanity get in the way of good sense.
A forged document that pops up doesn't mean anything more than someone is able to forge a document, and so badly in this case it could never have been expected to pass scrutiny.
It also has no bearing on a visit to Niger by Iraq's nuclear point man. It was the absurdity of how a fake piece of paper cleared Saddam's good name that prompted journalist like Christopher Hitchens to explore the facts. One of his pieces can be seen at http://www.slate.com/id/2139609
Fact: Wissam al-Zahawie was Iraq's nuclear lead for years and did vivist Niger in 1999 for a supposed diplomatic mission.
Fact: Asside from goats and cowpeas, uranium is the only thing Niger has that anyone would want.
Fact: Niger was Iraq's yellowcake supplier through the 1980s.
Fact: Iraq having no nuclear energy program, the only logical use for the material is for weapons.
Fact: Anyone who looks at the above four facts and dismisses them as meaningless, is a fool.
al-Zahawie's trip in 1999 raised eyebrows with Italian, French and British intelligence services. Mind you, there was no knowledge of a uranium deal, just obvious and justified suspicion. News of the visit was passed on to the U.S. from the British. Bush quoted the British report, which concluded there was only one reason why Iraq's nuclear point man would be visiting a country known only for its uranium (I know, how silly of the British).
Well, then a forged document shows up later? Intersting. Wonder what use there might be for a (horribly crude) forged document showing a yellowcake deal between Iraq and Niger? Can't imagine why anyone would want to create disinformation, can you?
How easily are people chased off the path of common sense? Quite easily, it seems, if it helps continue an anti-war narrative. Follow the money, friends. The fake document, so poorly forged, proved to be good for what, exactly? Don't be saps.
The bottom line is even if the document was a bad attempt by Italian intelligence to nail the coffin shut on Saddam, it doesn't take away from what is too obvious: Iraq bought uranium from Niger in the past, and after losing its hudrends of tons of yellowcake to inspectors after the Gulf War, it chose from everyone at Iraq's disposal to send al-Zahawie to Niger on a "diplomatic" mission. Give me a break.
From my perspective, if it was intelligence boneheads trying to do a good deed for the world by framing Saddam (thanks alot you guys, you suck at forgery, it is a bit like tossing a bloody glove in O.J.'s yard just to help things along a bit. The crude and all-too convenient "plant" undermined the case, which along with other crude attempts to nail the coffin on the former ball player, resulted in aquittal.
Also, note that I pointed out al Qaeda training camps "were" in Iraq (northern Iraq, to be specific). Saddam said he either didn't know about them or could do nothing about them, but believe what you will.
The most I can give you is that he didn't have a problem with terrorists operating out of his country, as it is difficult to believe the Butcher of Baghdad was too timid to expell them.
Mr. Ingles,
I still don't think I'd say Hitler's motivations were entirely (or even predominantly) religious in nature. And still the point remains: rational concepts like mutually assured destruction aren't as effective on people who willingly blow themselves up on a daily basis. It's a little like threatening to shoot someone who's suicidal.
Mr. Mulligan – I didn't say Hitler's motivations were predominantly religious, either. All I noted was that Hitler was, in fact, religious.
Mr. Adams – While we're examining statements carefully, I'll that that I didn't say the Niger thing wasn't suspicious. I just stated that it was 'doubtful', in the context of a justification for invading Iraq. The weapons inspectors were interfered with, but stated that they'd had sufficient success to determine what level of threat Iraq proposed on the WMD front… and their estimations have proven to be correct.
Also, speaking of disinformation, northern Iraq is where the Kurds live. That's also the about the only set of people who are unambiguously better off now, after the invasion. The same ones protected by the no-fly zone before Saddam fell. Etc.