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Journal pudge's Journal: "Reality-Based Community" My Ass 19

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A new British memo asserts that "Mr Bush made it clear the US intended to invade whether or not there was a second resolution and even if UN inspectors found no evidence of a banned Iraqi weapons programme."

Look! Evidence Bush made up his mind early!!!

Except of ccourse, it does not say Bush said he would go to war no matter what. It says that Bush said he would not be deterred by the absence of a second resolution, or new WMD evidence.

And, of course, we already knew those things, at the time.

The Bush administration asserted many times -- from the day 1441 was passed, onward -- that they did not require a second resolution in order to act.

And the main point of 1441 was not to find actual WMD evidence, but to give Iraq a chance to cooperate -- immediately, and fully -- or not. Hussein chose not.

This is all well-known and well-documented. It was well-known at the time. It is not a new revelation.

What short memories some of these people have.

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"Reality-Based Community" My Ass More

"Reality-Based Community" My Ass

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  • Is it really short term memory? At the rate it happens, my guess is that it's selective memory....
  • i have no fear that in time, the entire iraq affair will come out to be just a clean-up mission. britain created iraq, and the us created its leadership. things had been going south for far too long, and both leaders decide it was time to make things right.

    all they needed was a reasonable excuse. there were lots of reasons tossed around, and the group thought wmd's would sell the best. blair probably insisted that bush go to the un, hoping he would get a green light. unfortunately, things didn't pan out.

    whe
    • i have no fear that in time, the entire iraq affair will come out to be just a clean-up mission. britain created iraq, and the us created its leadership. things had been going south for far too long, and both leaders decide it was time to make things right.

      Things are actually going really well in Iraq. I am not sure why everyone seems to think otherwise. The government is off to a great start and there's no significant signs it will fail. The so-called civil war never really took off, and while there's s
      • i wasn't contesting how well or poorly things are going right now. i was simply stating that before bush started thinking about invasion, iraq was a real bad place to live. it was a failed state. i think bush and blair felt somewhat responsible for the mess their countries had helped to create.

        i have no doubt that iraq will become a better place for iraqis and the rest of the world because of the restructuring that is going on. the price was pretty steep (lives, dollars and civil liberties) to get here, and
        • maybe in 20 years, historians will have a good idea of whether the war in iraq had a net positive effect on the world -- whether all the costs of the war were outweighed by the benefit of a rebuilt iraq. i do know that we can't just go and start a war in every failed state.

          The point of going into Iraq was never because it is merely a failed state. It's because Iraq under Hussein was a serious roadblock to the progress of the peoples of the Middle East in their quest toward economic and political liberty, w
          • If we needed to fight the war on terror in the middle east and create a free and democratic example to rest of the muslim states, we should have gone after Iran. In Iran we probably would have been greeted as liberators. The students and youth are still just as unhappy with the government there as such classes have been in Iran for decades. If we marched in, as long as we didn't screw up, we'd have had a big insurrection fighting FOR our side instead of against it.

            That's still an option, but we'd probabl
            • If we needed to fight the war on terror in the middle east and create a free and democratic example to rest of the muslim states, we should have gone after Iran.

              No, for many reasons. First, we had no lgeal justification for doing so, like we did with Iraq: Iraq had been told many times over 12 years that if it did not comply, force would be used. Second, Iran is not Arab, and that makes a huge difference when it is mostly Arab countries you want to set an example for. Third, Iran is not central to the Mi
              • please -- we had no legal justification for iraq either. the legal justification was wmd's that didn't exist.
                • please -- we had no legal justification for iraq either. the legal justification was wmd's that didn't exist.

                  Sorry, but you are completely wrong. The legal justification, embodied in Resolution 1441 [un.int], is almost entirely about cooperation with inspectors, and not about actual existence of WMD. Read it and see.

                  Indeed, finding WMD would not have been justification for invasion at all, as long as Iraq was cooperating fully and immediately.

                  You simply could not be more wrong on this point.
                  • the un resolution would have been justification for the un to pass another resolution calling for sadaam's regime to be overthrown (in the event he chose not to comply with 1441). but no such thing ever happened.

                    in no way did the un resolution call for a us-british invasion as a penalty for non-compliance.

                    actually, sadaam was in full compliance with 1441. the coalition decided they did not believe sadaam, so they proceeded with their unapproved plans for invasion.
                    • the un resolution would have been justification for the un to pass another resolution calling for sadaam's regime to be overthrown (in the event he chose not to comply with 1441). but no such thing ever happened.

                      You seem to think the U.S. needed UN permission to invade. No. The U.S. was a party to the cease-fire of 1991, embodied in UN Resolution 687, which promised the UN would use force if necessary to ensure compliance by Iraq. So what happened is the U.S. tried to get the UN to uphold its end of the
  • The memo seen by Prof Sands reveals: [guardian.co.uk]

    Mr Bush told the Mr Blair that the US was so worried about the failure to find hard evidence against Saddam that it thought of "flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft planes with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours". Mr Bush added: "If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach [of UN resolutions]".

    Mr Bush even expressed the hope that a defector would be extracted from Iraq and give a "public presentation about Saddam's WMD". He is also said to have referred Mr Bl

    • Mr Bush told the Mr Blair that the US was so worried about the failure to find hard evidence against Saddam that it thought of "flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft planes with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours". Mr Bush added: "If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach [of UN resolutions]".

      That's nonsense though, since Iraq DID habitaully gire on American planes, over the previous 12 years, in direct violation of UN resolutions. But sure, whatever, if that works, I don't have a problem with
      • These two suggestions are in direct contradiction to International law. You can't have it both ways - holding Iraq accountable for violations of laws, treaties and agreements, then have "no problem" if different violations will curtail these.

        This is the abdication of "Rule of Law" for the practice of "Might makes Right", which was really the defining, unacceptable problem with Hussein's Iraqi regieme, itself.
        • These two suggestions are in direct contradiction to International law.

          Says you. Show me a law that says so. (I won't hold my breath.) I see nothing remotely wrong with the first one; why is that illegal, if it happened? And the second, while people continue to say it is against international law, it actually isn't, that anyone has ever been able to show me.

          Some have also alleged it violates U.S. law, but it doesn't, because the war authorization gave Bush the authority to do that, quite clearly.

          You can
          • An article in the Washington Post [washingtonpost.com] a few days back described the ways in which social psychologists are using high tech tools like brain scans to study political bias.

            The new interest has yielded some results that will themselves provoke partisan reactions: Studies presented at the conference, for example, produced evidence that emotions and implicit assumptions often influence why people choose their political affiliations, and that partisans stubbornly discount any information that challenges their pree

            • Exactly. You refuse to see the facts because you hate Bush.

              I gave you an opening to actually make your case. You could have shown in what way these things were violations of the law (well, I continue to doubt it is possible, but you could have tried). You could have shown some other country that was under the same kind of international obligations as Iraq (well, no, you couldn't have, since none is).

              Instead, you offered some drivel about how you refuse to look at facts, which I already knew.

              *shrug*

              In cas
          • Here's one set of violations - for misrepresenting the aircraft.

            1977 Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 (Protocol I):

            Article 37.-Prohibition of perfidy

            1. It is prohibited to kill, injure or capture an adversary by resort to perfidy. Acts inviting the confidence of an adversary to lead him to believe that he is entitled to, or is obliged to accord, protection under the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, with intent to betray that confidence, shall constitute
            • Here's one set of violations - for misrepresenting the aircraft.

              You make two errors here.

              First, there is no actual indication anyone was proposing misrepresenting the aircraft. Where do you think UN planes come from? Not from the UN, but from member nations. From the context it is impossible to tell whether they would attempt to fly the plane misrepresenting itself as a UN plane, or if they would fly it as an actual UN plane. At least, that's how I read it; please do correct me if I am wrong and they sp

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