Liberia and Bush.

[A Black Falcon]

Oh! Saddam didn't kill *as many* people as the civil war in Liberia! That's okay then, we can tolerate him for a while... as long as that bloody guy who got stuck in the barbwire in front of the Mukhabarat office while trying to run is cleaned out, can't have that on CNN in shiny Baghdad now can we!

The point is that when we invaded it wasn't "not as many". It was "almost no".

Because between Western pressure, UN sanctions, and weapons inspections, Sadaam was forced to mostly shape up. Yes he went too far. Yes he ran a police state. But... he wasn't going way over the line like he did in the '80s and very early '90s. Note even close. If we'd gone to Baghdad in '91 it'd have made some sense. But it makes NONE when its done while Sadaam is complying with all international laws. That leaves no justification at all for this war. N O N E.

"We freed the Iraqis"? Then why do they ... not seem to appreciate ... that fact? Maybe because Islamic thought is strong in that nation and it says "The US is evil", perhaps? Or because nationalists don't want us in their nation, no matter if we are providing security or not? And there are a few Sadaam loyalists too... but I think its more generic "we want them gone" and "we don't like the US" than "we love Sadaam". Those just make more logical sense.

You just don't go in invading helpless, non-lawbreaking (because anyone who still thinks now that Iraq had any kind of Nuclear, Chemical, or Biological progam running in the last few years is completely, totally, wrong) nations for no reason! It is wrong!

And that's not even getting into the issue of how Bush lied through his teet h for years to get this war happening.

I know many will say "he was given bad intelligence, and believed it".

Or they will say "he's too stupid to know it was bad".

Or "he didn't mean it that way, and Sadaam just hid them better than expected".

I think all of those people are deluding themselves. Its impossible to have such a systematic, long-term attack against a nation like Bush's war of words against Sadaam be proven so wrong and have the thing be blamed on others.

The president may be stupid, but he's not so stupid that he doesn't know what is going on. Sure, the old-boy system got him into Yale, and he didn't do too great. But he did get through it... which is saying something.

He's not a total moron. He has some awareness of what is going on. And there's no way that he could have not known that all that stuff he was saying was totally false. Absolutely none.

So all those times that he, Condaleeza Rice, Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowicz, and the rest said things like 'Sadaam is currently stockpiling thousands of tubes of extremely deadly biological weaons', 'Sadaam has a active biological and chemical weapons program that he has hidden from the inspectors', "Iraq is hiding some of the most lethal weapons ever devised", or "Iraq is trying to buy nuclear materials from four African nations, including Nigeria"... HE KNEW WHAT WAS GOING ON. There is no way he could not have known that all those statements had absolutely no truth behind them... because the CIA sure did. It tired many times to say that those claims weren't really based on complete facts...

Sure, the CIA didn't go far enough in stopping the proliferation of erroneous reports. But when the boss is telling you "get me intelligence NOW that supports my position", do you try to doubt him and give fully unbiased reports? Not if you want to keep your job, you don't!

No, it was a systematic effort to decieve the people of the world.

Now... I do think that the administration and the US intelligence community thought there would be weapons. That is clear... but they shouldn't have been thinking that if they had a clue about the reality of the situation.

Because saying "Iraq has banned weapons" isnt' a simple statement. It involves layers. The first one is the underlying statement -- "The UN is useless and does not do its job". "The UN weapons inspections are a joke that Iraq easily avoids". "We know better than the UN." Those aren't statements that should be made lightly... but our administration made them, and look what we got.

THE FACT THAT ONCE WE GOT IN THERE AND LOOKED FOR OURSELVES WE SAW THAT THE UN HAD BEEN 100% EFFECTIVE IN ITS MISSION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bush's myriad statements of the UN's incompetence were shown to be the total lies that I knew they were all along... BECAUSE THE UN's MISSION WORKED.

Why did they not find weapons? Becuase the Iraqis knew that any weapons would have been found by the inspectors like the weapons the inspectors found in their inspections that ended in '98! So they did their best to destroy their banned weapons, in the hope that finally actually complying with all UN resolutions and rules would get the US of its back. Of course it didn't work, because they didn't fully count of Bush being a renegade who would callously ignore international law and attack a nation that was living up to almost all the rules it was obligated to by the international community.

Now... it is true that US pressure was a major factor here. Without threat of force little would have happened. But that is where the force should have stayed -- as THREAT. Something to do IN LAST RESORT WHEN ALL OTHER OPTIONS FAIL.

NOT SOMETHING TO USE WHEN OTHER OPTIONS ARE SUCCEEDING IN EVERY WAY THAT COULD POSSIBLY BE EXPECTED GIVEN THE CIRCUMSTANCES.



Erm... back to the subject at hand...

Yes, Iraq was a fairly brutal police state practicing repression... but, so many nations are worse. And that doesn't give us right to attack those nations. Yeah, its bad for the people there... but it doesn't sanction an attack. International law doesn't say "attack any state which you feel is repressed". That just isn't something decent civilized nations do these days. You do other things to try to change the situation... but not war. Not unless all other options have truly failed. And in this case, as I say above, that was so far from the truth that it makes the "case" for war nothing more than a house of cards built on the political aspirations of an administration desperate for something to boost their president's image before the next election and give back to donors at the same time.

As for Liberia, as I say already, its totally, completely different. We aren't going in to change the government. We aren't going in to fight. We should be going in to try to stop a bloody war that is tearing a nation that is desperately begging for our help apart.

Please note that Iraq didn't ask for our help? And that when we gave our "help" they didn't like it, and that now that we have been "helping" for a while they are showing their gratitude by blowing up our soldiers?

As opposed to Liberia where we would impose and negociate a truce that would result in a government that would restore peace to the troubled nation. And stop civilian massacres.

Tell me, where are the European troops if this is such a pressing situation? Where are our very own proud Canadians, ASM? Where are the troops ECOWAS just delayed for a month without anyone so much as sighing? Where's the rest of the bloody world, eh?

Where are they? They are exactly where they should be: At home until Bush stops being a idiot and allows UN control in Iraq. Because the minuite Bush allows the UN to control the Iraq mission I can guarantee that France and Russia, for two, will be among the first to go in and help peacekeep... but without the UN? No way, and rightly so. Why in the world should they just send in troops to clean up our mess when we won't even admit that its a mess and that the organization that we so rudely kicked out of administering the overseeing of what should be done with Iraq was doing the right thing all along in its being in control?

Yeah, I don't see it, or the French, Russian, or German peacekeepers, in Iraq anytime soon either.

Because unlike the moron in charge of the US most other nations believe in the process of law and that that law should be respected and cavalier acts of retribution shouldn't be rewarded. So they will wait until we get proper UN sanction for the operation... just like we should have been doing from the start.

Or does the rest of the world not have responsibilities on this bootiful green-gray-going on purple planet of ours, ABF? Is the US really the international swat team? Except when you don't feel like it, right?

We should do what we can within legal bounds. Helping nations that ask for it is within those bounds. Going in with full UN sanction is okay. Attacking with no sanction for your own selfish purposes isn't. And especially when you have absolutely no plan for what to do after you kick out the old regimes...

Sure it'd be nice if we could magically clear out all the dictatorships and brutal regimes and fix it all and make the world all nice and shiny. But we can't. We can only do so much. And those should be acts that both help the world or some peoples in it and help foster international community and unity... because the whole world together CAN solve problems in trouble nations. One nation acting alone, even the US of A, cannot. As Bush has (hopefully!) learned.

Their time will come. Be patient.

Oh, that makes it all better... who'll strike out in Regime-Change-Roulette next? Stay tuned for more wacky hyjinx with the world, dissapearing acts with the truth, and a total lack of plannning for the end of the show, just like so far!