Originally Posted by Blue Stater

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

Justin, there are no meaningful parallels, and I don't wear partisan blinders. It was always inevitable that lots of people would be killed, the only alternative was to do nothing, which was not an option after 911. Sooner or later, we were going to have to remove Saddam, even without 911, that just accelerated it.

In Vietnam, we faced an enemy backed by the Soviet Union and China, waging what amounted to a proxy battle there. That simply is not the case in Iraq or Afghanistan, at least not on anything like that scale. The end of the USSR changed the entire balance of political and military power around the world, especially in the Middle East. For example, it's the absence of the USSR that makes it even conceivable for the Israelis to talk about withdrawals from some of the occupied territories, since the USSR's absence leaves the Arab states opposed to the Israelies without an armorer and patron.

So far, we've avoided many of the most damaging errors of Vietnam, and despite the spin the traditional media keep trying to put on it, we're succeeding more than we're failing there. Whenever something goes right, they stop talking about it. There's been a long laundry list of things that were 'sure' to go wrong in Iraq, most of which didn't. But the liberal media simply ignores the good news, for the most part, striving instead to put the worst possible spin on everything. They've done this to the point of repeatedly embarrassing themselves, such as Newsweek (big surprise on that one) just did.

Newsweek Admits Story Was Wrong

Newsweek Spin

This is hardly the first such incident. They've tried to spin every setback and mistake (and there are always setbacks and mistakes in every war and every effort) as an unconquerable disaster, or proof of malice and conspiracy in the Bush Administration. Yet somehow things keep moving forward in spite of it.

The elections that were never supposed to happen, happened. The new government that wasn't supposed to be able to form, formed. The insurgency is killing people, but they aren't accomplishing their goals. The 3-way civil war that was inevitable by now, has yet to happen.

This goes all the way back to the immediate aftermath of 911, when Afghanistan couldn't be conquered and the military was botching the war, when we were going to be forced from Afghanistan with our tail between our legs, etc. The mountains were too harsh, our soldiers too soft, the military leadership gunshy, the public would stand for no casualties, the Arab Street was going to rise, etc.

It just hasn't happened, and the quagmire the media has kept trying to conjure up hasn't happened, either. The conditions that made Vietnam into what it was just don't exist here.

All those points may be true, but given my limited firsthand experience with war, and my knowledge of history, 'Nam comes to mind. Sorry. Not the Civil War, or WWI, or WWII, or the War of 1812, or the Korean War. 'Nam. Other Americans see the parallels. It's not 'liberal bias,' its just the way people interpret things.

You said it yourself, Justin. It's as if it's not happening. That's not because people don't care, but it is because the Vietnam parallel just isn't taking. The Vietnam parallel is a fixation primarily of the people who opposed the whole effort from the start.

I am so fed up with your red state/blue state liberal/conservative bullshit.

Well, you'd beter get used to it, because it's not going away.

I'm the moderate version of the Red Zone, and we're deadly serious about what we're trying to do. The question is not whether you're tired of it or not, I'm sure you're as sick of me and what I stand for as I am of the endless liberal antics that the Blue Zone keeps trying to foist on us.

Sometimes I think that if I have to hear Barbara Boxer or Teddy Kennedy spout any more blathering nonsense I may have to throw up, but the liberal side of the equation isn't going away, either, so my tiredness is nobody's problem but mine.

The factions in the country either have to figure out a way to compromise, or fight. If left to the Boomers alone, the 'fight' option would become a very high chance. Luckily, they don't have the field to themselves.

Nobody ever does in real war, in any detail. In essence, the exit strategy is the same as it is for any war: when we're clearly defeated, or clearly won. So far, neither is a sure thing, but the trend is going our way, and has been for over a year now. The traditional media hate to cover it that way, but it's the truth. Even many of the Europeans have quietly begun to question whether Bush might not have had at least a partial point, since the surprisingly successful elections earlier this year.

When we were up against Imperial Japan, the strategy was to defeat imperial Japan. Now we are up against 'insurgents' and 'freedom fighters' that could stay and fight...forever.

No, they can't. That's one of the great myths about this sort of situation, they don't have either inexhaustible resources or inexhaustible personnel. The guns, equipment, and money they need to do their ghastly work are distinctly finite, and they themselves know it. Every small step toward success we make undercuts their ability to recruit. The longer the insurgency goes on, visibly failing to force us out, the worse their situation becomes.

Are we trying to do it, or are they trying to do it. Is this Bush's project, or Talabani's now?

Oh, and who made you God to play with states like toys? Look at Ukraine. That's how it works. Iraq is no model.

WE made Ukraine possible, by defeating the USSR, and the action in Iraq very probably contributed to it as well, by shaking up the appearance of invulnerability of the dictators. Seeing one fall weakens the others. Europe helped by threatening Putin's economic stability.

But Ukraine was, and remains, an exception to the rule. It simply can never be our normal policy, because it won't work in most places and times. Putin's need for Europe and America made him vulnerable to pressure tactics that simply wouldn't work with a more secure opponent.

Moreover, international opinion is simply useless when dealing with a regime that doesn't care, as will increasingly be the norm as Idealist leaders replace Adpative ones around the world.

Originally Posted by Semo '75

Originally Posted by Blue Stater

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

The insistence on many Silents and some Boomers in equating Iraq and Vietnam, despite the fact that there are almost no real parallels to be found, does indicate that the arguments of the Boom Awakening are alive and well as we head into the 4T.

Stop hiding your head in the sand!
Can't you pull back the partisan curtains from your eyes and just look at it?
We started a war in Iraq. 400 people got killed there last week. And on Mainstreet America, nobody is talking about it. It's as if it isn't us fighting.

Just one small nit, and then I'll let you get back to your regularly scheduled program:

We didn't start a war in Iraq, unless you mean that we did so indirectly, in the sense that we botched the situation in Iran so badly in the '70s that we set in motion a chain of events that would ultimately lead to an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. If that's what you meant, then I agree completely.

If, on the other hand, you mean that we started a war in Iraq in March of 2003, then you're simply wrong. That war actually started in 1991, when Allied forces --mostly US and British in origin-- deployed into the Middle East to defend Saudi Arabia from a possible Iraqi invasion, and then moved on to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. That war didn't actually end until we deposed the Ba'athist regime twelve years later. There was a cease-fire in place, but that cease-fire was conditional, and was violated by Iraq repeatedly.

We were at war with Iraq in 1992, when Iraqi intelligence hatched a plan to kill the former President George H.W. Bush and two dozen cruise missiles slammed into Baghdad in response.

We were at war with Iraq in 1993, when Saddam violated the terms of the cease-fire and moved missiles and launching systems into Southern Iraq, and Allied (read American and British) warplanes and naval vessels attacked and destroyed them, as well as a nuclear facility near Baghdad, and various other targets in Iraq.

We were still at war with Iraq in 1994, when Iraqi forces massed on the Kuwaiti border, and the US mobilized its forces to head off the coming invasion.

And we were still at war with Iraq in 1996, when Iraqi forces crossed the 36th parallel into the protected Kurdish zone and took over the city of Irbil and President Clinton ordered US naval vessels and warplanes to attack Iraqi military targets.

We were still at war with Iraq in 1997, too, when President Clinton threatened the use of military force against Iraq after Saddam first expelled American and British arms inspectors, and then took it upon themselves to re-negotiate the terms of the cease-fire agreement by cutting off arms inspectors from the sites they wanted access to.

And that war was still going on in 1998, when Iraq again cut off access to arms inspectors, and President Clinton again threatened military action. This time, Clinton proved that he was serious by putting B-52 bombers in the air over Iraq, which caused Saddam to back down.

Only he didn't really mean it when he said that he'd back down, and in December, US and British forces hammered Iraq for almost three days straight in one of the largest and most impressive "shock and awe" campaigns in history, which reduced a fair amount of real estate in Baghdad to rubble. In the face of this assault, Saddam backed down...

Only he didn't really mean it. After that, Iraqi troops threatened arms inspectors, and Iraqi air defense forces regularly targeted American and British warplanes enforcing no-fly restrictions, and from time to time, they even launched missiles at them. In response, American and British warplanes and ships would attack these forces, or forces that supported them, or their command and control sites.

I hate to be the one to have to break this to you, but all that stuff I just laid out, that's what lots of people would call a war. Just because you weren't paying attention doesn't mean that Iraqi soldiers weren't blown to pieces, or Iraqi civilians didn't die...

Just because there were no American casualties doesn't mean that there wasn't a war.

OK. I've said my piece. You can now continue to pretend that the war in Iraq started in March of 2003 and present arguments based on this pretense.

The last I heard the "war" of which you speak didn't include a six figure occupation costing tens of billions of dollars, an insurgency against that occupation, the rape, torture and murder of Iraqi detainees, and hundreds of Iraqi civilians dying a week. But if you want to play semantic games that's just fine. If we have been at war since 1991 and the 2003 invasion and occupation was just an escalation of that war it was an unnecessary and costly escalation against an enemy who was by any reasonable definition contained. By a similiar logic you could say we were at war with the Soviet Union from 1945, but you'll note that no president decided to send a dozen tank batallions across the plains of eastern Europe en route to Moscow to depose Kruschev and sodomize the Politburo. Containment: it works.

Originally Posted by Devil's Advocate

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Most importantly, the last people who remember the 1929-1933 meltdown are now very old. One would have to be about eighty at a minimum to remember the start of the Great Depression.

Most importantly, the last people who remember the 1968-1973 meltdown are now calling the shots. One need only read the George Lucas quote above to understand that it ain't about the glorious Great Depression, this time around.

It never is.

Originally Posted by Blue Stater

My aunt, born in 1962, tells me that that throughout her childhood 'the war' was on like a TV show every night. By the time she was 13, it had been going on since she was but 3 years old.

The war ended for us in 1973, I was 14 and remember the church bells ringing. I was glad it was over as it had been going on for ten years and as far as I knew could go on for another 4, in which case I would be 18.

Originally Posted by Blue Stater

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

... As for the memory of Vietnam as a day-to-day grind, if America really is incapable of enduring casualties, if we can't face a ruthless enemy anymore, we're finished, because we will be facing ruthless enemies in the future. It's part of the nature of the world.

In fact, I don't think America has lost her will, and I don't believe the 'CNN effect', as it was being called in the 90s, is a fundamental new political truth.

Oh I don't think America cares about the casualties at all. We have our I- Pods plugged in, and our DVDs ready to go. The election was nice but...it was in Iraq, which seems far away and culturally very different.
So I don't think Americans really care so much at this point.
I hear bench sitters talking about Osama and the Saudis still, but it's as if they are talking about the JFK assasination. It all seems removed. Even here, a few miles from Ground Zero.

You both miss the essential difference: Vietnam required conscription and this War of the Willing doesn't, at least so far. Xers and 2nd wave Boomers see no relevance to their lives, having been raised to consider themselves first and foremost. That a bunch of gungho types want to do 'war' is fine. It's like an extreme sport. Others chose other options. So what?

If this goes on, though, the number of 'players' will decline, and conscription may be required. If that happens, expect a change of heart.

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

It was always inevitable that lots of people would be killed, the only alternative was to do nothing, which was not an option after 911.

Well, that tells me all I really needed to know.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Originally Posted by Blue Stater

My aunt, born in 1962, tells me that that throughout her childhood 'the war' was on like a TV show every night. By the time she was 13, it had been going on since she was but 3 years old.

The war ended for us in 1973, I was 14 and remember the church bells ringing. I was glad it was over as it had been going on for ten years and as far as I knew could go on for another 4, in which case I would be 18.

Actually, we inserted American irregular 'non-combatant forces' in 1954, put some of them in uniform in 1957, and escalated into active support operations in 1961. In fact, the first soldier killed in Vietnam, and officailly identified as such, was a member of just such a 'non-combatant' unit. James T. Davis died of wounds received in an ambush in December of 1961 - a military operation by any standards.

How many people were even aware of the Vietnam Conflict that early? How many cared, even 3 or 4 years later. How many started caring when the draft started in earnest?

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Actually, we inserted American irregular 'non-combatant forces' in 1954, put some of them in uniform in 1957, and escalated into active support operations in 1961. In fact, the first soldier killed in Vietnam, and officailly identified as such, was a member of just such a 'non-combatant' unit. James T. Davis died of wounds received in an ambush in December of 1961 - a military operation by any standards.

How many people were even aware of the Vietnam Conflict that early? How many cared, even 3 or 4 years later. How many started caring when the draft started in earnest?

Well yes, I was speaking of my perceptions at the time. I was only 14.

Originally Posted by Semo '75

Just one small nit, and then I'll let you get back to your regularly scheduled program:

We didn't start a war in Iraq, unless you mean that we did so indirectly, in the sense that we botched the situation in Iran so badly in the '70s that we set in motion a chain of events that would ultimately lead to an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. If that's what you meant, then I agree completely.

If, on the other hand, you mean that we started a war in Iraq in March of 2003, then you're simply wrong. That war actually started in 1991, when Allied forces --mostly US and British in origin-- deployed into the Middle East to defend Saudi Arabia from a possible Iraqi invasion, and then moved on to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. That war didn't actually end until we deposed the Ba'athist regime twelve years later. There was a cease-fire in place, but that cease-fire was conditional, and was violated by Iraq repeatedly.

We were at war with Iraq in 1992, when Iraqi intelligence hatched a plan to kill the former President George H.W. Bush and two dozen cruise missiles slammed into Baghdad in response.

We were at war with Iraq in 1993, when Saddam violated the terms of the cease-fire and moved missiles and launching systems into Southern Iraq, and Allied (read American and British) warplanes and naval vessels attacked and destroyed them, as well as a nuclear facility near Baghdad, and various other targets in Iraq.

We were still at war with Iraq in 1994, when Iraqi forces massed on the Kuwaiti border, and the US mobilized its forces to head off the coming invasion.

And we were still at war with Iraq in 1996, when Iraqi forces crossed the 36th parallel into the protected Kurdish zone and took over the city of Irbil and President Clinton ordered US naval vessels and warplanes to attack Iraqi military targets.

We were still at war with Iraq in 1997, too, when President Clinton threatened the use of military force against Iraq after Saddam first expelled American and British arms inspectors, and then took it upon themselves to re-negotiate the terms of the cease-fire agreement by cutting off arms inspectors from the sites they wanted access to.

And that war was still going on in 1998, when Iraq again cut off access to arms inspectors, and President Clinton again threatened military action. This time, Clinton proved that he was serious by putting B-52 bombers in the air over Iraq, which caused Saddam to back down.

Only he didn't really mean it when he said that he'd back down, and in December, US and British forces hammered Iraq for almost three days straight in one of the largest and most impressive "shock and awe" campaigns in history, which reduced a fair amount of real estate in Baghdad to rubble. In the face of this assault, Saddam backed down...

Only he didn't really mean it. After that, Iraqi troops threatened arms inspectors, and Iraqi air defense forces regularly targeted American and British warplanes enforcing no-fly restrictions, and from time to time, they even launched missiles at them. In response, American and British warplanes and ships would attack these forces, or forces that supported them, or their command and control sites.

I hate to be the one to have to break this to you, but all that stuff I just laid out, that's what lots of people would call a war. Just because you weren't paying attention doesn't mean that Iraqi soldiers weren't blown to pieces, or Iraqi civilians didn't die...

Just because there were no American casualties doesn't mean that there wasn't a war.

OK. I've said my piece. You can now continue to pretend that the war in Iraq started in March of 2003 and present arguments based on this pretense.

Nah, it's completely pointless. The 'we've been at war all this time' meme was introduced in 2003 to make the concept of fighting a real genuine, can't-call-it-by-any-other-name, war in Iraq seem logical.
Ask any American on the street when the War in Iraq started. They'll tell you March 2003.

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

Well, you'd beter get used to it, because it's not going away.

I'm the moderate version of the Red Zone, and we're deadly serious about what we're trying to do. The question is not whether you're tired of it or not, I'm sure you're as sick of me and what I stand for as I am of the endless liberal antics that the Blue Zone keeps trying to foist on us.

Sometimes I think that if I have to hear Barbara Boxer or Teddy Kennedy spout any more blathering nonsense I may have to throw up, but the liberal side of the equation isn't going away, either, so my tiredness is nobody's problem but mine.

The factions in the country either have to figure out a way to compromise, or fight. If left to the Boomers alone, the 'fight' option would become a very high chance. Luckily, they don't have the field to themselves.

What are you 'trying' to do? There is no cohesive Red Zone agenda. Some Red Zoners want to end the right to an abortion for female citizens. Others want to rein in the judiciary, and make them answer to the legislative branch. Still others want to gut federal programs to free up some federal cash for their own self-centered purposes. But if you put any one of these planks to the American people to vote on, they'd sign off on zero.
I think Ted Kennedy is washed up and out of touch. But your party honored the old segregationist Strom Thurmond until he died. And Ted Kennedy is by far preferable to some of the older, more aloof representatives of your party.
Boxer is just doing her duty as a member of the opposition. She opposes the Republican agenda, and will use all of her powers to slow or stop it when she can. In this way she is not unlike Tom DeLay or Bill Frist, although Boxer tends to use rules that already exist, while the latter two "patriots" are more into changing the rules to suit themselves.
Believing in the rule of law, the common good, and the power of reason, I find the Democratic Party superior to the Republican Party.

There are three primary differences that separate then from now:

1. Conscription: Which basically illuminated the haves from the have nots, by way of deferments. Today's volunteers come from every walk of the social-economic spectrum.
2. Strategic: The major blunder in Vietnam was to "Americanize" the war effort. Among other things, this error gave credence to charges of imperialism and anti-democratic motives on the part of the Johnson administration.
3. Hubris: A generation had come of age believing in American Exceptionalism, and were thus ripe for disillusion. Vietnam served t ruin these gung ho do-gooders, who in turn took their revenge out on LBJ & Nixon.

The result was the toppling of the societal "trust" factor upon which the New Deal had been built. Today, we are completely on the other-side of the mountain, with a new generation coming of age among the "never ending argument" (McNamara's own words) of 1968. I personally suffer from no illusions as to what the now aging New Left wishes to accomplish: the utter destruction of the American culture and political system. And I am sure they are of the same opinion of my side.

Soon, all reason will be swept away by a shear societal maddness not seen in human history. Hearkening to the generational theme of "No one gets out alive," the baby boom will leave this earth in a blaze of massive death. There will be no winners, no beautiful losers, only cold, grey death.

Originally Posted by Devil's Advocate

Soon, all reason will be swept away by a shear societal maddness not seen in human history. Hearkening to the generational theme of "No one gets out alive," the baby boom will leave this earth in a blaze of massive death. There will be no winners, no beautiful losers, only cold, grey death.

You sound like Meece.

Originally Posted by Kiff 1961

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

It was always inevitable that lots of people would be killed, the only alternative was to do nothing, which was not an option after 911.

Well, that tells me all I really needed to know.

I'm not sure what you mean.

Originally Posted by Blue Stater

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

Well, you'd beter get used to it, because it's not going away.

I'm the moderate version of the Red Zone, and we're deadly serious about what we're trying to do. The question is not whether you're tired of it or not, I'm sure you're as sick of me and what I stand for as I am of the endless liberal antics that the Blue Zone keeps trying to foist on us.

Sometimes I think that if I have to hear Barbara Boxer or Teddy Kennedy spout any more blathering nonsense I may have to throw up, but the liberal side of the equation isn't going away, either, so my tiredness is nobody's problem but mine.

The factions in the country either have to figure out a way to compromise, or fight. If left to the Boomers alone, the 'fight' option would become a very high chance. Luckily, they don't have the field to themselves.

What are you 'trying' to do? There is no cohesive Red Zone agenda. Some Red Zoners want to end the right to an abortion for female citizens. Others want to rein in the judiciary, and make them answer to the legislative branch. Still others want to gut federal programs to free up some federal cash for their own self-centered purposes. But if you put any one of these planks to the American people to vote on, they'd sign off on zero.

You're probably wrong about that, especially about reining in the judicary, but you're right that the Red Zone is unified only by the existence of the Blue, and vice versa. It's also true that each sides various agenda items, in pure form, would lose a general election.

I think Ted Kennedy is washed up and out of touch. But your party honored the old segregationist Strom Thurmond until he died.

Thurmond's views on segregation didn't define him, except in the view of his opponents. One can admire the good he did without agreeing with everything he stood for. For that matter, I can admire some Blue Zone politicians without agreeing with everything about them.

Boxer is just doing her duty as a member of the opposition. She opposes the Republican agenda, and will use all of her powers to slow or stop it when she can. In this way she is not unlike Tom DeLay or Bill Frist, although Boxer tends to use rules that already exist, while the latter two "patriots" are more into changing the rules to suit themselves.

The same Democrats who have suddenly discovered a passion for State's Rights, the filibuster rules, etc, were trying to overturn them for the same reasons when they were in the majority, Boxer included, as she recently admitted. We're seeing basic politics at play, with the positions more or less dictated by their relative power.

There's nothing unconstitutional in either the Democratic filibuster effort, despite Republican claims to the contrary (it's unusual to apply filibusters to judicial nominees, but certainly legitimate under Senate rules), or the effort to end the filibuster application (which has been done before). It used to take many more votes than it does now to apply cloture.

The Democrats thought they could whip up public outrage over the judicial nominees, but the public isn't responding to that, there's more irritation with the judicial branch in the general public than the Democrats realized. That's why they've changed tactics and are now trying to link the flibuster issue to Social Security.

Believing in the rule of law, the common good, and the power of reason, I find the Democratic Party superior to the Republican Party.

The Democrats believe in winning. So increasingly do the Republicans. Neither side is threatening the rule of law, that claim is just silly. The common good is something both will sometimes try to serve, but to serve that you have to have a definition of it, which is what the culture war can't achieve right now.

It's the Democrats who are refusing to make any compromises, so far all their suggested deals have escape clauses that would end up leaving them free to go back to their starting position. They've been offered several compromise deals, but given the makeup and priorities of their political base, they can't take them on judicial nominees, snce that is THE issue for their base groups. Outfits like NARAL, especially, are fighting for their whole agendas, since they've never yet had any real success at implementing them by legitmate means. They have to retain control of the courts, from their POV.

Regarding the judicial nominations, the whole argument is about Supreme Court appointments. It's an effort to lock the SCOTUS entirely to conservatives, as Reid recently admitted when he called mainstream conservative Justices such as Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia 'extremists'.

Just how ugly this is likely to get can be hinted at by this:

Financial Records Sought by NARAL

If that's true, it means that there's going to be no quarter in this argument, and no limits to how dirty it's going to get.

If the Democrats suddenly regained control of the whole show, all their concerns about minority rights and federalism would evaporate, as they tried to ram through their agenda.

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

Originally Posted by Kiff 1961

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

It was always inevitable that lots of people would be killed, the only alternative was to do nothing, which was not an option after 911.

Well, that tells me all I really needed to know.

I'm not sure what you mean.

If I may, I think she means that there were many options, and that you see only two is telling. Think outside the box, man.

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

Originally Posted by Kiff 1961

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

It was always inevitable that lots of people would be killed, the only alternative was to do nothing, which was not an option after 911.

Well, that tells me all I really needed to know.

I'm not sure what you mean.

"It was always inevitable that lots of people would be killed."

Your pro-life views seem to have taken a back seat to an ideology that is just a bit more important to you at the moment: national survival through conquest of another nation. The deaths of all these thousands of people -- American, British, Iraqi, whomever -- were inevitable -- just a small price we have to pay for making the world safe for democracy, corporate interests, American pride, or evangelical Christianity -- take your pick.

There were other alternatives to an outright invasion and occupation of Iraq, but you weren't listening, and neither were the Bushies.

So go ahead and keep adding up those inevitable casualties. I have a feeling you'll be counting them for some time yet.

Originally Posted by jeffw

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

Originally Posted by Kiff 1961

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

It was always inevitable that lots of people would be killed, the only alternative was to do nothing, which was not an option after 911.

Well, that tells me all I really needed to know.

I'm not sure what you mean.

If I may, I think she means that there were many options, and that you see only two is telling. Think outside the box, man.

If so, she's right in that I saw and see only two options regarding Saddam, remove him by force or do nothing. He couldn't be removed without force, and leaving him in place would cripple the entire WOT, to say nothing of leaving America looking weak, which we can't afford.

Europe, BTW, is finding themselves in the exact same position, with the same ugly choices, with regard to Iran right now. They keep trying every diplomatic and economic option they can think of to dissuade Iran from restarting their nuclear weapons program, and it just doesn't seem to have any effect.

This last week, they were reduced to theatening to 'join with America' (meaning the reviled GWB) if Iran failed to cooperate. This was an implicit admission that their tactics weren't working.

Originally Posted by Kiff 1961

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

Originally Posted by Kiff 1961

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

It was always inevitable that lots of people would be killed, the only alternative was to do nothing, which was not an option after 911.

Well, that tells me all I really needed to know.

I'm not sure what you mean.

"It was always inevitable that lots of people would be killed."

Your pro-life views seem to have taken a back seat to an ideology that is just a bit more important to you at the moment: national survival through conquest of another nation. The deaths of all these thousands of people -- American, British, Iraqi, whomever -- were inevitable -- just a small price we have to pay for making the world safe for democracy, corporate interests, American pride, or evangelical Christianity -- take your pick.

Kiff, I'm not casual about those deaths. But no, there was no alternative except to leave Saddam in place. He wasn't going away voluntarily, and American security couldn't accept his continued presence unless he was prepared to cooperate fully. Leaving him in place would risk massive deaths later.

There were other alternatives to an outright invasion and occupation of Iraq, but you weren't listening, and neither were the Bushies.

What were they? He had to either cooperate or be removed, that wasn't open to negotiation. How could we compel his cooperation or remove him without using force?

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

What were they? He had to either cooperate or be removed, that wasn't open to negotiation. How could we compel his cooperation or remove him without using force?

Once more, with feeling:

Six Point Alternative to War Proposed

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

If so, she's right in that I saw and see only two options regarding Saddam, remove him by force or do nothing. He couldn't be removed without force, and leaving him in place would cripple the entire WOT, to say nothing of leaving America looking weak, which we can't afford.

We are weak. We have no 'stick' when it comes to North Korea and Iran, because our whole army is encamped in Mesopotamia, and our supply of volunteer soldiers is drying up.

How could we afford a war with either of these countries? We cannot.
And how could we muster the public support while instituting conscription for another poorly-defined war?
Even if for the sake of appearences, the Iraq War has been 80 percent ugly - and your only excuse is that the big bad media shows the bad pictures and if they didn't nobody would know how ugly it is.

You sound like Rumsfeld, whining about how you can't control reality. Don't you get it, your spin is nothing but that: spin. I am trying to talk to you as a citizen, and all I get is mini-Scott McClellan. No solutions, just politics. It's frustrating.

Originally Posted by Kiff 1961

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

What were they? He had to either cooperate or be removed, that wasn't open to negotiation. How could we compel his cooperation or remove him without using force?

Once more, with feeling:

Six Point Alternative to War Proposed

Kiff, I don't mean this personally, but this has an Alice in Wonderland feel to it. We tried most of this, it failed.

1. Remove Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party from power

The Bush administration and the antiwar movement are agreed on one thing - Saddam Hussein is a brutal and dangerous dictator.

As urged by Human Rights Watch and others, the U.N. Security Council should establish an international tribunal to indict Saddam and his top officials for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Reality check #1: The UN security council would not, under any circumstances, have done that. The government's of France and Russia were on Saddam's side, because that's where their self-interest lay.

Since those governments have veto power in the UNSC, there was no chance whatever of that option being accepted.

Even aside from that, the UN as a whole is anti-American, and therefore is not going to assist us unless we can make it clear that it's in the self-interest of the major players. We tried working through the UN, year after year after year.

The second problem with this is that any sort of internation 'indictment' would need to be based on a legal system with effective and reliable guarantees that it can't operate against America. Without those, we'd be arming our enemies with legal pretenses to use against us.

Indicting Saddam would send a clear signal to the world that he has no future. It would set into motion both internal and external forces that might remove him from power. It would make it clear that no solution to this conflict will include Saddam or his supporters staying in power.

The failure of Bush I to assist those 'internal forces' after setting them in motion means that this simply would not happen. Saddam had the 'internal forces' cowed, and with good reason, opposing him meant torture and/or death.

The external forces were more for him than against him, because he was useful to them.

Morton Halperin pointed out, "As we have seen in Yugoslavia and Rwanda, such tribunals can discredit and even destroy criminal regimes."

We saw nothing of the sort there.

Focusing on Saddam and not the Iraqi people would clearly demonstrate that the United States' sole interest is in changing his regime and disarming his weapons rather than in harming the Iraqi people. It would cause world opinion to coalesce against Saddam's regime rather than against a U.S.-led war, as is now happening.

The world opinion was against us, no matter what, because we were rocking the boat, and the world doesn't want it rocked.

2. Enforce coercive disarmament

a) Military enforcement. Removing Saddam must be coupled with greatly intensified inspections to fully enforce all U.N. Security Council resolutions that relate to Iraq since the 1991 Gulf war.

Again, the Security Council governments were on Saddam's side! They had already been trying, for years, to get the sanctions removed, esp. France, because it was in their national self-interest. The Council simply would have approved a real, serious effort along these lines, they demonstrated that over and over.

Inspections have shown progress - the agreement by Iraq to destroy its Al Samoud-2 missiles is significant. But rather than simply increasing the number of inspectors, inspections must be conducted more aggressively and on a much broader scale.

The inspections were a failure, because they were never serious. That was one of the basic complaints from the start, Iraq played the inspectors routinely, shutting off huge areas to inspection entirely, falsifying one document after another, and bribing UN officials to go along.

The existing U.S. military deployment should be restructured as a multinational force with a U.N. mandate to support and enforce inspections.

Nonsensical. The military effort would be definition be mostly American and British troops, to place them under foreign command would be lunacy, and would undermine political support at home. The public does not like the idea of foreign officers in command of American troops.

Further, you can't have a multilateral effort when most of the nations involved are rooting for the effort to fail.

The force would accompany inspectors to conduct extremely intrusive inspections, be authorized to enter any site, retaliate against any interference, and destroy any weapons of mass destruction that it found. A more coercive inspections regimen should also include the unrestricted use of spy planes and expanded no-fly and no-drive zones.

The UN opposed all this, including France, Russia, and China. America tried to create a more substantial inspectiosn regime, nobody else (except Britain) went along.

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

Originally Posted by Kiff 1961

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

What were they? He had to either cooperate or be removed, that wasn't open to negotiation. How could we compel his cooperation or remove him without using force?

Once more, with feeling:

Six Point Alternative to War Proposed

Kiff, I don't mean this personally, but this has an Alice in Wonderland feel to it. We tried most of this, it failed.

I didn't expect you to take the plan seriously; I just didn't know if you had seen my previous two citations.

Why couldn't they have used Kennedy's Bay of Pigs strategy? The one used so potently by the former USSR - you know, the people we want to be like.
Send in some partisans, wage a coup, overthrow the government, proclaim it a new American-oriented republic.
Wasn't Hussein himself part of such a coup in 1969?
If so, he obviously was as vulnerable as the man he replaced.

b) Strengthen the arms embargo. The current system for preventing Iraq from acquiring prohibited weapons must be strengthened by a more effective monitoring system and the installation of advanced detection technology on Iraq's borders. At present there is no international monitoring of commercial crossings into Iraq from Jordan, Syria, Turkey, and other neighboring states.

There was no such monitoring because most of the world wanted it that way. America and Britain had tried, multiple times, to close those holes, with no success because it was in the interest of too many others to keep them open.

Focusing on the suffering of the Iraqi people, and immediately trying to relieve it, will further help to protect them from being the unintended targets of war. It also helps to further isolate Saddam Hussein from the Iraqi people by contrasting the world's humanitarian concern with Saddam's indifference toward his own people. Humanitarian aid deliveries must be protected, if necessary, by a U.N. force under Security Council mandate.

The people who wrote this were ignoring basic facts.

The Security Council didn't want to confront Saddam, they wanted to do business with him, especially France their oil industry. Therefore there was no real likelihood that they'd approve such an idea. In fact, a French veto would be a near certainty.

Further, even if they did, such a force would made up of American and British troops, and since Saddam might well resist with force, we're right back to the necessity of war. The UN has no military power of its own, there's no such thing as a 'UN force'. Many nations have provided peacekeeping troops in small numbers, but for something like this you'd need a more substantial force, meaning America and Britain again.

5. Recommit to a "Roadmap to Peace" in the Middle East

Trying to tie everything that happens in the Middle East to the Israeli-Palestinian struggle is a standard dodge used by Europe and the Arab dictators. It wasn't relevant here, except insofar as Saddam was funding the Palestinian suicide bombers.

6. Reinvigorate and sustain the "war against terrorism."

Removing Saddam was part of the WOT. In fact, it was a critically necessary part, since much of our success in the WOT hinges on being perceived as a serious threat to our enemies, and a danger to those who cross us.

The United Nations Organization was an ally of Saddam Hussein. Any plan that required its cooperation to remove him simply wasn't going to work. Even aside from the open, above-board self-interest of the French oil companies and Russian industrial complex, both of which favored working with Hussein, we know now that he had paid off many Secretariat officials. The 'smart sanctions' of the 90s were smart...for Hussein.

They've been running the shredders at turbo speed at UN Headquarters in New York, trying to destroy the evidence of the connections, but the story is out and has been for over a year.

But even if all of Europe and the UN Secretariat had been playing straight, simply renaming an American force a UN force doesn't actually change anything. Removing Saddam would still have required force, unless he happened to die in office.

Originally Posted by Blue Stater

Why couldn't they have used Kennedy's Bay of Pigs strategy?

That's actually a fair question, though the very name gives the first answer: such efforts don't usually work. Trying to bring an enemy ruler down by assisting internal dissent only works under unusual circumstances.

The one used so potently by the former USSR - you know, the people we want to be like.
Send in some partisans, wage a coup, overthrow the government, proclaim it a new American-oriented republic.

Given how solid Saddam's control of Iraq was, that would be a near certainty to fail. He was firmly in place, in control of an extensive internal intelligence network, and a cowed population.

Also, and this is vitally important, after Gulf I, Bush the Elder stirred up an internal revolt, and then didn't back them up. The slaughter that followed might be the blackest single mark against his presidency, and it certainly meant that we didn't have much credibility with what internal resistance dared operate.

Wasn't Hussein himself part of such a coup in 1969?
If so, he obviously was as vulnerable as the man he replaced.

No, it's not obvious at all. Hussein constructed his entire regime to prevent just such an eventuality, and he did a good job of it. Not even his defeat in the first Gulf War visibly weakened his hold, in fact, given that he survived it after Bush I left office, he came out looking oddly like the victor.