Entrenched dictatorships - the apartheid regime in South Africa, Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, and the East German communist government, for example - have been overthrown without resort to mass bombing and invasion by foreign powers. Kim Jung Il's regime will also fail, eventually.

Possibly, if the intention was only to oust Hussein, the best alternative would have been to wait. Tens of thousands (at least) who have died would have lived. (There's no evidence that Hussein was going to carry out anything like the genocidal campaigns of the end of the Iraq/Iran war and Gulf War I; the invasion can't be said to have saved many lives.) Hussein was old, and his sons were brutal incompetents - the regime would have fallen.

If we can wait out Castro and Kim Jung Il, why not Hussein?

Actually, Bush's intentions were not limited to just ousting Hussein, were they?

This question was not about any of Bush's intentions.

If we wait long enough, I suppose any murderer will die. Why on earth do you think the regime would have fallen if passed on to his sons? As you said, they were brutal...

I guess Neville Chamberlain was right. Oh, wait...

quote:

Originally posted by coldfuse:

I guess Neville Chamberlain was right. Oh, wait...

What exactly would you have done in Chamberlain's position ?

( Don't tell me, let me guess:Waited until Hitler had overrun much of Europe, and deported, and set about killing, millions of Jews and was 21 miles from England ? )

I know your question wasn't about Bush's intentions. Sorry, I just can't help having a go at the poor little guy; it's my knee-jerk liberalism, I guess.

As to Chamberlain - there actually wasn't any question that Hitler had annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia, and was successfully building the capability to wage war on his neighbours. It was wrong to wait in that case.

Are you saying that Hussein posed the same kind of threat in 2002 that Hitler posed in 1938?

Is Bush akin to to Chamberlain in his appeasement of Kim Jung Il? (D'oh! There I go again!)

quote:

If we wait long enough, I suppose any murderer will die.

This is a false analogy. It wasn't just a question of taking action against a murderer or not. Obviously it would be better to arrest and punish a murderer sooner rather than later - but arresting and punishing an ordinary murderer doesn't usually involve blowing a country to bits.

This is about starting a war in which (at least) tens of thousands have died. If you knew hasty action against a murderer would result in slaughter on a scale it's difficult to imagine, wouldn't you, too, at least pause to weigh things up?

"Right, frank, every single thread on here is to be made contentious and polarized by somehow linking it to the Bushes."

Sorry, I didn't realize that I was doing that. I thought that including the Clintons as co-conspirators in the Iraq invasion was intended to spread the blame for something you seem to believe was really justified. Regardless of who was responsible for the carnage and lack of success, I can't believe that the end, (if it ever comes) justified the means. Dispatching Saddam Hussein wasn't worth the life of one young American soldier, let alone thousands. What's more, I think you know that.

Another good reason for waiting was that the US was in the middle of the challenging and important task of dealing with the planners of 9/11 and those who supported them, in Afghanistan and on its border with Pakistan.

When Churchill declared war on Germany, he didn't get bored with it after a couple of months and go invade Ireland instead.

Which is another problem with Clinton's self-justifications; there should have been no encouragement of the Iraq misadventure at all - George should have been yelled at to concentrate on the job in hand.

I can't believe we are all still arguing over this.

UN Resolution 1441

Read it.

I can't believe you still think Resolution 1441 was justification for the invasion:

Resolution 1441 did not make the war necessary. It did not provide legal backing for Bush's actions, and the US itself didn't seek to justify the invasion through 1441...

And so on. From a previous thread. Read it.

quote:

Originally posted by newnickname:

When Churchill declared war on Germany..

Not quite

It was Neville Chamberlain who 'declared war on Germany'. He issued an ultimatum to Germany, demanding that Germany withdraw from Poland. When Germany gave no undertaking to do so he declared that Britain was at war with Germany. That was at 11.15 BST on 3rd September 1939. ( A memorable minute, etched in the memories of all at home here.... because at 11.16 BST on 3rd September 1939 my father rushed out to get a government contract to manufacture munitions )

Churchill did not become Prime Minister until May 10th 1940

But your point is valid

What did the U.N. Security Council decide to do to enforce its resolution?

They would probably have decided on some ineffectual and messy compromise, but I don't think they had the chance, did they? Bush, er... sorry, someone unilaterally decided that bombing Iraq back to the Stone Age was the way to go.

If that is the case, Resolution 1441 was meaningless. It was a "last chance" at compliance.

It is a shame when the body issuing a "resolution" has no resolve.

NNN you can certainly bring up Bush. He's just not the "be all end all" of all problems and bringing so many threads back to something the liberal majority at "News and Reference" doesn't like about Bush is getting rather boring. If the Democrats don't like the war, they should end it.

quote:

If that is the case, Resolution 1441 was meaningless.

Well, it turns out that it was meaningless. All Hussein had were bits and pieces of leftover weaponry (which the inspectors were slowly turning up and destroying) and bluster. The destruction of WMD such as anthrax wasn't confirmed - maybe it could never have been confirmed to everyone's satisfaction - but the WMD programs had been wound up, it turns out.

Hussein was playing silly games with inspections, and would no doubt have re-armed in a shot if given the opportunity - but he didn't have such an opportunity. Iraq had, more or less, nolens volens, complied with the demands to disarm.

From Kendor's link above:

"While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that Iraq unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991. There are no credible Indications that Baghdad resumed production of chemical munitions thereafter, a policy ISG attributes to Baghdad’s desire to see sanctions lifted, or rendered ineffectual, or its fear of force against it should WMD be discovered."

It's more than a shame, it's a criminal act that in such circumstances 'shock and awe' was launched. The bumbling, corrupt old UN was actually right in being reluctant to take military action. It's a bit late - so many deaths later - to be saying "if you don't like it, end it". It should never have been started.

How is the "bumbling, corrupt, old U.N---" supposed to enforce its resolutions? It has no armed forces. It could have given its blessing to Geo. Bush to launch military action - which it, wisely IMO, withheld.

Dems, don't fall for it! They broke it - they need to continue trying to fix it. I wouldn't advise anybody to voluntarily and prematurely pick up this "tar baby"! Consider who stands to benefit!