Currency Lad seems to be down on someone called Saddam Hussein. It’s not clear who’s being referred to here. Certainly not the Saddam Hussein who collected $300 million from the Oil-for-Food fund, courtesy of the Australian government statutory authority/official privatised monopoly AWB (formerly the Australian Wheat Board). That’s a beatup of no interest.
I’ve generally been an admirer of Currency Lad, but this is truly dreadful stuff. Either he should stop insulting his readers with moralising about Saddam* and present an honest realpolitik line, or he should condemn without reservation those who financed Saddam’s arms purchases, and those who either encouraged them or looked the other way.
To be clear in advance, this includes all those who colluded in evading sanctions, whether they were from France, Russia, the US or elsewhere. However, as we now know, AWB operated on a scale that dwarfed the petty operators about whom we heard so much from the pro-war lobby until recently.
* Or anything else. If you’re willing to swallow this, your opinions on ethics aren’t worth considering regardless of the topic.
John Quiggin 
Are the links here right? They didn’t seem to me to relate to the text.
Thanks, Harry. Fixed now, I hope.
“However, as we now know, AWB operated on a scale that dwarfed the petty operators about whom we heard so much from the pro-war lobby until recently.”
The AWB sold wheat not enriched uranium. Iraqis have always preferred Australian wheat and in large volumes and hence would prefer the same under the UN supervised sanctions regime. To the extent that a fixed percentage of all such trade was being creamed by a totalitarian state as trucking, inspection, quarantine, handling, import duties, or any other of the myriad of supposedly legal govt impositions (as distinct from all taxation is theft purism), then clearly the total amount involved would be large for large food shippers, as distinct from the odd band-aid supplier. We all need to be clear on these couple of points, before arguing about whether any such trade was advisable, or could achieve its expected aims.
I agree. The humbuggery and hypocrisy of the pro-war party is astounding. They were happy to castigate the anti-war party for implicitly assisting Saddam but now turn a blind eye to Coalition of the Willing states for explicitly assisting Saddam. This utterly disquaifies them from consideration as serious ethicists.
I hope that Pr Q is not implying that that those “realpolitickers” who would defend, or not be too offended, by the AWB bribes to Hussein are the holders of “opinions on ethics [which] aren’t worth considering regardless of the topic.” This would seem a little harsh on Machiavellians who are, like most, willing to sell their souls – but for a good price in a good cause.
Machiavelli, Niccolò The Letters of Machiavelli. 252 p. 1961
And Florentines love their souls!
“The humbuggery and hypocrisy of the pro-war party is astounding. They were happy to castigate the anti-war party for implicitly assisting Saddam ”
No, they were simply pointing out the obvious, that UN controlled economic sanctions against a totalitarian regime would not work and those who advocated that as a serious solution to Saddam were delusional. The AWB is simply more evidence of that and basically what’s all the fuss about? Personally I think that’s the electorate’s view, much to the disappointment of the anti-war crowd. That doesn’t mean to say that the same electorate is thrilled with the current state of affairs in Iraq, but that’s a separate issue for them now. They’ll judge that on its merits.
Let’s be quite clear here too. An ethically pure approach to Saddam would see no trade whatsoever occur, because an economic benefit due to comparative advantage must accrue to the regime, and of course we (the UN?) could never control the purpose to which that would be put (eg further persecuting innocent Iraqis.) Still, that never bothered any of us trading with Communism, as we plotted its downfall. Intuitively most of us understand that broad point.
This is pathetic, observa. All we had to do was refuse to help Saddam with the fake trucking deal, and he would have had to settle for the much smaller rake-offs he could get from bogus port charges and the like, or at worst, find some other country willing to help him. The Canadians refused, and assuming the US did likewise, he would have found it very difficult to procure significant supplies on the terms he was demanding.
Please don’t bother with any future defences of the war on Iraq, at least not on this blog. We’ve heard all we need to mark them down as the worst sort of hypocrisy.
The only ones turning blind eyes are John and Jack. My first reaction to the AWB affair still conveys how I feel about the matter and I will have more to say when Commissioner Cole concludes his inquiry.
Here, then, is the full transcript of my first reaction (19 January) which, as I say, still largely conveys what I believe:
Time will tell, indeed. I’m more inclined now then I was then to think the government should have looked at the AWB. Nevertheless, claims that the government knowingly paid bribes to Saddam Hussein are rubbish. As is the Professor’s “argument” here that the government “was in bed with Saddam.”
John, you’ve intentionally misrepresented my views, failed to acknowledge that some of us are waiting for solid findings and you’ve at least nodded at a mendacious conspiracy theory about what the government was mindfully doing.
So please, spare me the unctious lecture on ethics.
I’m not defending what the AWB monopoly did by colluding with another state run monopolist. It’s what they do best. Hey, I’m a small business advocate. It’s lefties who believe the state should run everything and when it gets it wrong, as you point out, it gets it wrong in a much bigger way. Ask the USSR?
You protest too much John and that’s because I reckon my analysis is closer to Joe Public’s view than yours and that’s what’s sticking in your craw. They don’t blame Blair, Bush or Howard for the state of Iraq. They understood the ethos behind Blair’s active BOL, affirmative action plan, which was left progressive, for which the sulky Cold War left are in a hissy fit over. They blame bloody Muslim fundamentalists and are beginning to see that Arab Islam is extremely intolerant-Danish cartoons, treatment of a christian convert in Afghanistan, Iran, etc. Admitting defeat in Iraq and no doubt Afghanistan soon after, will not drive Joe Public back into the warm, wise bosom of the left, simply because the left currently have no answers to their justifiable concerns. Oh it might ultimately, if you want to stand for a battle carrier group mentality and the threat of preemptive air strikes if Muslim states harbour terrorism (a la Milosevic or the Israeli approach), as well as no more bloody Omrans and Hilalis within the gates. Islam has some very bad franchises and it had better clean them up or the whole corporation is going to face a very hostile takeover in the near future. Still, I’m all ears for your solutions to the growing threat of Islamism John. All I’ve heard to date from the conservative left is negative carping and that’s why they don’t resonate with the punters. You need prescriptive policy for that.
Currency Lad,
I share your amazement that the usual voices crying for transparency show no interest at all in the masses of documents recovered in Iraq and currently revealing some very interesting information. It’s like some people aren’t even aware that Saddam was TAPED talking about a WMD attack on the US. Odd, isn’t it?
CL, there’s been ample evidence since your first post to show that members of the government has repeatedly misled the public and the Parliament about their knowledge of the bribes, their co-operation with Volcker and many other matters. I think this is enough to conclude that that they either knew or deliberately chose not to know about the bribery.
But, even if you disagree with this conclusion, you must surely agree that the last two months of evidence have gravely undermined the government’s position. Yet you’ve posted nothing but snarky comments dismissing the whole thing.
Observa, the dominant (or at least median) view of the public is essentially realpolitik. They didn’t buy any of the arguments for war and regarded it as a mistake, but accepted that we had to go along with the Americans because we always do. The aim at all times was to get out as soon as possible, and with as few Australian casualties as possible. Similarly, we had to pay bribes to Saddam because that’s the way the world works.
It’s not a noble position, but it is at least consistent, unlike that of people who actively support both the Iraq war and the Howard government.
“They didn’t buy any of the arguments for war and regarded it as a mistake,”
I’d disagree. My take is they were initially against, but subsequently accepted the arguments(Anglo elections remember), but are now increasingly skeptical the BOL aims can be achieved, which might leave a huge window of opportunity for any opposition with some real alternatives now of course.
Also I disagree that the alternative Rudd position is nobler. – See everybody! The Howard govt was as disinterested as the UN at policing the aims and mechanics of the sanctions policy, that we firmly believe was the answer to Saddam. That’s because as we all know now, the buggers were busy plotting regime change and democracy for Iraq with them evil Yanks, etc. Everyone knows that would never work because um err, well Iraqis are extremely culturally challenging sorts of people that only respond nicely to sanctions. Personally I think the punters get the drift.
It’s all about context John, which you could well appreciate.
John, in lieu of the Commissioner’s findings – of which YOU ARE NOT cognisant – I have posted several items ridiculing people pretending there is evidence the government knowlingly paid bribes to Saddam Hussein. There is no such evidence. The suggestion that there is such evidence constitutes a lie.
As I’ve said, when I have findings – findings whose nature I can only guess at for now – I’ll write critically of the government’s management of the issue. In the same way, incidentally, that I often write critically of the government. AWB’s bribery culture dates back at least 20 years – back to the days when the Labor Party was asking the Ba’ath Party for money. Mr Cole’s conclusions should be interesting and very critical.
Support for the Iraq War has nothing to do with the AWB as neither supporters of the war or – as far as any evidence hitherto suggests – the government itself wanted to either fund or bribe Saddam Hussein. They wanted to remove him from power – in the manner and for the reasons once demanded by Bill Clinton. As for the war and general publics, their response was to re-elect George Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard.
Gee, they were really scandalised weren’t they?
John Quiggin is right. One cannot have this both ways. You cannot invade a country, with all the slaughter entailed, ctiting reasons that are essentially to do with self-defense, and then later be shown to have actively evaded the sanctions regime in pursuit of self-profit and thus to have strengthened the supposed enemy regime. Those two actions are violently contradictory.
Iraq was not a friend one day and an enemy the next. It was an enemy since 1991. The AWB bribes are most definitely NOT how the real world works. In the real world only shysters line their country’s enemy’s pockets.
Such behaviour is not realpolitik but deeply unprincipled opportunism that makes a mockery of the fine words used to launch the military assault on Iraq, and which makes the current Iraqi Civil War look to be a burden of guilt that will take us many decades of denial to shrug off.
There is no evidence the government orchestrated bribes to Saddam Hussein. To say there is such evidence is a lie.
There is no civil war in Iraq, except in the imaginations of cry-baby leftists who want there to be one. They want more Iraqis to be killed at the hands of terrorists because they don’t like George Bush and John Howard – speaking of “deeply unprincipled opportunism.”
Evidence suggests bribes have been normal business practice in the wheat market since the 1970s at least. In the mid 70s, the Labor Party secretly sought money from Saddam Hussein & Co. – which gives you an indication of the kind of corruption we’re talking about. (Iraq’s, I mean – not Whitlam’s). Kevin Rudd couldn’t keep AWB money out of Brisbane.
The anti-war left cannot have it both ways. They cannot argue they are UN-loyal legalists when it was the UN itself that inaugurated Oil-For-Food and then participated in that scheme’s corruption – up to and including a member of the Annan family. They should also apologise for their multilateralism having failed to deter Iran in any way and for saying nothing about the activities of the UN’s rape squads in West Africa.
Such ommissions make a mockery of their fine words.
You’re contradicting yourself as you write, CL. If bribes were normal business practice, then the government must have known that it would be necessary to apply more than normal scrutiny to prevent bribes being paid in this case. Instead, they encourage a “whatever it takes” approach to sealing a deal with Iraq, which amounts to orchestrating bribes.
And dragging in red herrings like Iran and West Africa is a sign of desperation.
All about context; have you been listening to Bolt Observa & been taking his class for Rationalizations 101?
WWB is right on the nail, if he was such a monster that needed to be removed you cannot then feed him without destroying your moral stance.
Ad hoc fallacies does not an justiofication make.
Like Bolt and it appears many on the right can parrot moral language but have little understanding of logical moral consistency.
Where have the moderate right gone in Australia?
We are at least seeing some conservative Republicans taking about taking back their party but with a self-absorbed electorate Howard has nothing to fear
“In the mid 70s, the Labor Party secretly sought money from Saddam Hussein & Co.” Since he didn’t stage his coup until 5 years later, that seems unlikely.
How about – “throughout the 1980s the US openly supported Saddam Hussein & Co with cash and arms to help him wage aggressive wars deploying banned WMD on neighbouring states and ethnic minorities, which gives you an indication of the kind of corruption we’re talking about.” There now, that sounds about right.
How about the United States wanted a bulwark against Tehran, Hal? As Tehran has stated repeatedly that it wants to eliminate the Jewish race – a threat about which the increasingly anti-semitic “peace” movement is indifferent – the United States was right to do so. The world changes and some people – barring left-wing conservatives – change with it.
John, you’re the one who introduced the red herrings. You took issue with two posts of mine that dealt with the Iraq War. They had nothing to do with the AWB. Your bizaare argument was that nobody can support the Iraq War unless they first ritually acknowledge the AWB affair – whose investigation has not been concluded. You also deliberately misrepresented my view of the AWB affair, which makes your outrage about the alleged misrepresentations of the government somewhat confected.
My reply was of the kind you preferred to employ yourself. If you’re really outraged by the injustice caused by the sidelining of multilateralism in the case of the Iraq War, could you please provide me with evidence that you’ve even once criticised the United Nations for orchestrating the wholesale rape of women in West Africa? Or that you’ve ever called for the resignation of Kofi Annan, who oversaw the Oil-For-Food regime? I’m just wondering how profound is your concern about justice, according to the moral yardstick approach you’ve chosen to introduce.
You (and Simonjm) pretend to be outraged that monies found their way to a dangerous dictator – the same dangerous dictator you believe should still be the president of Iraq.
Weird stuff.
C.L. Says:
It’s not really all that weird, or at least not in the way you think it is.
You’re presenting a false dichotomy which has always been a favorite of the Iraq war supporters.
The CoW had to either:
a) do nothing, and
– suffer nuclear attack within 45 minutes!!!
– let Saddam give weapons of mass destruction to terrorists!!!
– leave 9/11 unpunished!!!
– let Saddam torture people!!!, or
b) invade immediately and kill a couple of hundred thousand people.
Sorry, C.L., it doesn’t wash.
The fact is that the CoW has replaced Saddam with something worse than Saddam. It does not follow that people who tell you that you were and are wrong were happy with the status quo 2002.
The exclamation marks prove the desperation of your argument. Nobody ever said Saddam could nuke anyone. It’s now known thousands of terrorists were trained in Iraq and that interactions occurred between al Qaeda and Saddam. Saddam did actually torture people routinely – if you’re denying that I have to conclude you’re presently inhabiting another planet.
Your estimate of how many people were killed in the invasion is false.
The present situation is not worse. Saddam’s 200,000-300,000 victims simply weren’t killed in a manner that recieved media coverage.
Ergo, according to you: Saddam was better.
Like I said: weird.
CL pls don’t use the straw man on me it certainly doesn’t fit.
In principle I had no problem with the removing of Saddam I do however find how they went about it underhanded-political confirmation bias- & illegal and condemn the total incompetence and corruption of the post war security and construction. Something that very few if indeed any pro-war apologists are willing to do.
I find it especially hypocritical of many of the pro-war apologists like Bolt won’t commit themselves to further regime change or freedom from oppression under similar circumstances say in Burma or West Papua or the Sudan.
Sorry I forgot the use of military force to spread democracy and freedom from human rights abuses by the Neo-cons and their lackeys is only justified when oil is involved . Selective justice the way to have your cake and it.
Then we have the total self demolition of your moral case by excusing bribes to this self same mass murderer by ad hoc rationalizations, that you don’t even have the ability to understand blows your case right out of the water.
Sad and a waste of my time.
BTW thousands of terrorists and interactions-sounds kinky- occurred between al Qaeda and Saddam. If you are going to troll at least come up with something that hasn’t already been debunked.
Personally, I favour the overthrow of dictators anywhere and everywhere if it comes to that. I don’t speak for Andrew Bolt, the columnist for whom leftists appear to have some kind of erotic fixation.
As far as oil and resources go, Evans and Alitas drank champagne while toasting the goodies they intending stealing from East Timor – even as Indonesian troops continued with their genocide. In recent history, this is the most disgraceful example of an Australian government lying and cheating and laughing and bullying. According to the UN report released a while back, an estimated 150,000 people were liquidated. No lefties marched in the streets to remember them. Mmm, strange. Guess BushHitler wasn’t involved so it doesn’t really matter.
I have not excused the AWB for paying bribes. Even as you write about a “moral case”, you convey something which is a lie. This tells me you’re no arbiter of morality but are, rather, a sycophant who is willing to repeat someone else’s misrepresentations.
Saddam and al qaeda: look here for starters. Saddam and training terrorists: start here. You don’t appear to be following the news or have much familiarity with what’s going on. Not surprising if you’re relying on John for your Iraq news.
Finally, I’m hardly trolling, Einstein. The post is about my views.
” According to the UN report released a while back, an estimated 150,000 people were liquidated. No lefties marched in the streets to remember them.”
C.L., It was the Left that campaigned continually for freedom in East Timor, 1975-1999, and they were continually abused by the Right for their troubles. When the Left said that the Indonesians had massacred hundreds of thoudands of East Timorese, they were labelled as fantasists and liars by the Right – people like Greg Sheridan and Paddy McGuiness, whose views are on the record in the newspaper archives for anyone who wants to check.
When Alitas and Evans did their deal, it was the Left who condemned them.
To say that the Left was indifferent to the fate of the East Timorese is simply a travesty.
CL news that al qaeda was in Iraq is not new and up til now has been nothing more than contact and passage through. Excuse me if I wait for more info given the track record of Iraqi smoking guns -WMD’s- before giving this any ground.
& if you aren’t condoning the bribes why the business as usual line, a context thing? Oh and were there sanctions going back to the 70’s ?
So if I’ve misrepresented you as ok’ing the bribes and that makes me a liar then you are just as bad by misrepresenting me as wanting Saddam still in power and you are just as much a liar.
Hmm erotic fixation with Bolt???
Now that you mention it, having him bound up so I can give him a whipping for being a very naughty boy for being a hypocrite and failing ethics 101 does have an appeal. 😉
“…news that al qaeda was in Iraq is not new…”
The NEWS is that it had direct dealings with Saddam – previously denied by the anti-war crowd. Their theory was that secular Saddam wanted nothing to do with religious fanatics. That theory has now been destroyed. Its proponents ought to apologise. Unfortunately, only Tony Blair represents the best morality of the Old Left – the left that used to want tyranny to be “smashed.”
The “business as usual” context is not offered as an excuse. It is offered to point to the reality that what we call bribery is a standard commercial practice in many parts of the world. It’s very likely that it will continue after the Cole Inquiry ends. Kevin Rudd couldn’t even live up to a commitment to keep AWB money out of Queensland. How successful do you think he would have been keeping it out of Iraq? Even Kofi’s boy got his hands on some dosh. Kofi himself? Who knows. That Saddam abused the UN’s programme, however, demonstrates that his regime would stop at nothing, under any circumstances. It demonstrates why his removal from power was so important and so just.
And it is no misrepresentation to say that those who believed the war was illegal also believe, ipso facto, that Saddam Hussein should still be president of Iraq. They should have the courage to insist that he be released from prison and re-installed to power.
CL, I assume you don’t favour war (not in some hypothetical circumstance, but right now) to remove Kim Jong-Il and also that you wouldn’t take kindly to being called a supporter of keeping Kim Jong-Il in power.
So, why do you keep on with this line that those who judged, correctly, that the costs of removing Saddam would be far greater than claimed by you and other war supporters, are Saddam supporters. As you ought to be aware, the people you’re slandering include a majority of both Americans and Australians.
As regards your claims on the Iraqi documents, how is it that you are credulously accepting of anything that seems to back up your case, even when it comes from the same rightwing bloggers who got the WMD issue totally wrong the first time around, while ignoring the mountain of well-attested evidence showing that the Australian government’s initial claims to have known nothing about AWB were false.
On the Iraqi documents, here’s the NYT
Of course, the NYT may be inventing this quote, or the US intelligence services may be lying to protect Saddam. Does either of these conspiracy theories appeal to you?
The impartial NYT, an anonymous source and a “quick review.”
Golly, sounds definitive.
C.L. Says: “The exclamation marks prove the desperation of your argument.” Um, hardly. The exclamation marks are there in mockery of the pre-war frenzy on your side.
“Nobody ever said Saddam could nuke anyone.” Except maybe for this guy:
SJ,
The first part of the quote was correct – it was only thanks to the Israelis bombing the nuclear reactor under construction in the early 1980s that he did not get them then (btw, funded and helped by the Soviet Union).
The expertise was still there, just not the opportunity.
“Personally, I favour the overthrow of dictators anywhere and everywhere if it comes to that.”
C. L. is yet another of those fighters for freedom and justice who’d be out there on the front line, boots on the ground, only except … except … he has one more imflammatory, unhinged and incoherent post to make.
Gee C. L., I sure hope you get over your logorrhoea real soon because you’ve got a lot of fighting to do.
But maybe, just maybe, you’ll come to your senses.
If you happen to achieve a little maturity you’ll recognise that mere vehemence is no substitute for competence.
Let’s look at it dispassionately. The Bush clique picked the wrong war at the wrong time and then have compounded their problems by cocking it up severely.
Maybe ths parallel will help you to understand the underlying concept.
Just as you crave the overthrow of dictators, so do I crave good food. I may hope that the local KFC franchise will provide it. But I know they will not. The Hamburger Helpers behind the counter seem keen enough. But unfortunately they don’t have the skills, the resources and the facilities to qualify as chefs.
Now take a good hard look at GWB. Does he look more like a chef or a burger flipper to you?
Well, CL, would you prefer National Review commentator, Jonah Goldberg, who plays up “intriguing” evidence, but admits
Goldberg is about as extreme as you can get , and even he doesn’t claim direct dealings with Al Qaeda.
Meanwhile you still haven’t responded even once to my main point. You started off saying the AWB scandal was a grave one. The evidence shows beyond question that the governments initial claims to have known nothing were false. Yet you neither condemned the government nor waited for the final verdict. Instead you published post after post dismissing the whole thing, just as you have done in this thread
Hey CL keep your answers narrow and technical to make yourself a small target. Good advice that don’t you think. But weight you have nothing to hide, we want you to fully participate in this blog after all 😉
I will say this though CL I do understand the point of view with the problems of the UN and the politics involved. Though first as one commentator said who can you blame the body that does its best when made up by countries with their own agendas.
What if the US, UK & Aus went into Darfur over the veto of the China would there be outcry about legality?
Pity we will never know.
chuckles sorry wait, its usually my there’s
John, your “main point” is too vague to respond to in any manner likely to please you. You raised the AWB in relation to two posts of mine that had nothing to do with the AWB. It’s still not clear exactly why you should have done so. Anger seems to be the only explanation.
Your argument – as far as I can make out – is that I shouldn’t write about Iraq because I think the paying of bribes to Saddam is “a beatup of no interest.” I’ve demonstrated to you that this is not what I believe. There is no “evidence” against the government because no findings have been promulgated. What I have ridiculed or criticised are journalists and others making exaggerated claims about the government’s culpability. That’s because they choose to place on the public record their opinions. Mr Cole hasn’t placed any findings on the public record.
You’ve also been asked to provide evidence that you’ve even once called for the resignation of Kofi Annan – who oversaw the biggest financial corruption scandal in history. I mean, if you did do so somewhere along the line, that’s great. But it obviously isn’t something of great importance to you. The government’s critics argue that it was a travesty that a violent monster got his hands on some money. But they believe the same violent monster should still be president of Iraq. Quite simply, this is laughable.
Still waiting on the Kofi Annan link.
I’ll see your Goldberg/NYT and raise you a Hitchens/WSJ etc. Iraq War polemics are somewhat tiresome – which is one reason I’ve rarely written about the war and its politics. The world cannot sign off on mass murdering dictators being in charge of regimes with so bloody a record as Saddam’s on the specious basis that a “strongman” is needed to – well – murder enough people to maintain “stability.” The boilerplate anti-war response is to say, ‘oh yeah, well why don’t we invade Y country and X regime?’
Well, OK. Make those cases. I’ll almost certainly support you.
C.L. Says: “But they believe the same violent monster should still be president of Iraq.”
I think that the falsity of this argument has been pointed out to you a number of times. Whatever.
The depravity of your thinking couldn’t be made clearer than by this little gem:
“It is necessary I think to declare boldly that a state of terror – by which the Iraqi people themselves will not be intimidated – is better than a terrorist state. “
Now, in 2006, it’s quite obvious that Iraq 2002 was not a “terrorist state”. Your claim is that a “state of terror”, i.e., the appalling condition of Iraq at the moment, is preferable to the “terrorist state” that existed only in your imagination.
Good job, sport.
All in my imagination? Really?
“Where are the bodies?” Phillip Adams once asked. At least he was courageous enough to openly trivialise the enormities of a terrorist state. The left believes this man should never have been overthrown and is, at some now hypothetical level, the lawful president of Iraq.
In SJ’s imagination, moreover, Saddam in 2002 was not such a bad egg.
The chicken-hawke left: extravagantly concerned about Abu Ghraib where not one person has died but indifferent to the liquidation of 300,000 people at the hands of a terrorist.
Nasty commenters you’ve got around here, John.
What a load of crap.
You now try to redefine “terrorist state” to mean one that does terrible stuff to the people within the state, rather than outside the state.
So your “state of terror” that now exists in Iraq is exactly the same thing as the “terrorist state”.
Remember this? “It is necessary I think to declare boldly that a state of terror – by which the Iraqi people themselves will not be intimidated – is better than a terrorist state. “
Why try to draw a distinction in the first place if you believe they’re the same thing? Idiot.
C.L. Says: “Abu Ghraib where not one person has died”
I take issue with this lie too.
You wouldn’t recognise the truth even if it walked up to you in the street and slapped you across the face with a mackerel.
Am left wondering what JQ admires so terribly about CL. He is blind to reason on this subject.
“The chicken-hawk left: extravagantly concerned about Abu Ghraib where not one person has died but indifferent to the liquidation of 300,000 people at the hands of a terrorist.”
Pathetically juvenile in its debating strategy, which is fine. We were all passed thru that stage at one point. But to play games using such tragedies is indicative of a more unkempt soul than mere youth might excuse.
Oh don’t make me puke, Baboon Brain. You wouldn’t know a soul from a submarine.
Sorry SJ, I meant Guantanamo. It’s easy to get mixed up while debating lefties pretending to care about victims of violence in Iraq. After all, you’d just finished saying Saddam in 2002 was A-OK. That’s the same Saddam who murdered 300,000 people – the man you believe should still be president of Iraq.
Extraordinarily, you also argue terrorism within a state, by a state, is not terrorism. I guess Franco, Pinochet and Mugabe are also amongst the “strongmen” who you think get an undeservedly bad historical press. And we’ll forget about that whole Kuwait invasion thing, as well as the missile attacks on Israel, as well as the financing of suicide bombings, as well as the genocides against certain non-Arabs in Iraq and the training of foreign terrorists.
It is better to fight terrorists than to accept an international order which allows certain states to be terrorist entities themselves for the sake of “stability.” Arguing that Saddam was a really bad bloke but, hey, he held it together is exactly the same policy that America once employed in Latin America. This is what the Noriega left is now reduced to. It highlights again why Tony Blair is such a giant among the contemporary world’s nihilistic Laborites.
PS: And for Pete’s sake, where are John’s links calling for the resignation of Kofi Annan? I thought he was really really outraged by the Oil-For-Food scandal.
Guess not.
“Make those cases. IÂ’ll almost certainly support you.”
How about China? A horrible godless communist dictatorship that enslaves 1.2 billion people, China poses an immediate and enduring threat to peaceful and democratic Taiwan and a long threat to the whole world.
We should have a war with China. Anyone opposed is objectively pro-communist dictatorship.
“The government’s critics argue that it was a travesty that a violent monster got his hands on some money. But they believe the same violent monster should still be president of Iraq. Quite simply, this is laughable.”
This is proof positive that C. L. has had a nuance by-pass.
To conclude that a certain time, place and method for removing a dictator are inappropriate and likely to be unsuccessful should not be interpreted as support for that dictator.
Let us examine C. L.’s illogicality further. If “objectively” opponents of the war were “pro-Saddam”, then “objectively” supporters of the war were pro-theocracy. I don’t endorse either of these nonsensical positions. And C. L. would improve his credibility were he to cease riding that particular hobby-horse.
And as the record of fiasco in Iraq has demonstrated, some caution should have been exercised.
But it seems that C. L. feels no need to observe caution.
While on this issue, it is fascinating to witness the spin of Blair and Howard on events in Iraq.
Their argument for “staying the course” revolves around those “brave Iraqis’ who participated in various elections.
Conveniently flushed down the memory tubes are:
1. The Bush clique didn’t want the first election, but were forced by Sistani to accede to it.
2. All subsequent elections were consequent upon the highly unfavourable outcome (to US interests) of the first election.
3. A large majority of Iraqi voters supported parties that have vowed to establish one regime or another that would deny democratic rights as they are understood in the West.
4. The process of finalising the Iraqi constitution was deep-frozen by the US because the Bush Administration didn’t like what the Iraqis were attempting to achieve.
So what are the COW fighting for?
Domestically, this military misadventure seems to be a salve for the egos and historical record of the leaders of the COW. They don’t want to sully their reputations with a tick in the loss column.
In Greater Mesopotamia the COW entertains an evermore forlorn hope that the Muslims will come to their senses and become decent secularists like the rest of us. This hope, of course, ignores that fact that the chaos unleased by “shock and awe” has made islamism of various stripes the only refuge in a world of madness.
Hubris prepares the killing ground for Nemesis.
Katz, SJ and the rest. If you do not believe the Saddam should be President of Iraq, how would you have removed him before now?
Simple question, simple answer, please.
AR, see above.
1. Wishing for something doesn’t make it so. Timing, resourcefulness and skill are imperative. The COW were sadly deficient in all three.
2. Sometimes the asking price is too high. The Bush clique discovered this only after they committed all their stake and rolled snakes-eyes.
3. You shouldn’t rely on idiots. Bush is an idiot.
Intelligent subversion of a regime as corrupt and sclerotic as the Saddam regime is not beyond the wit of the intelligence and financial resources of the West. After playing footsie with Saddam for more than 20 years, why did it suddenly become imperative to oust him?
The answer is that the Bush clique were so besotted by hubris, they actually did believe that wishing could make it so.
And Howard, who is no idiot, has prospered politically by whispering destructive sentiments into Bush’s cloth ear. By the time this policy blows back to Australia’s disadvantage Howard will have retired. But the rest of us will live to regret the consequences, one of the most important of which is a return of injured isolationism in the US.
This is exactly what Osama bin Laden wants.
Well done OBL!
“Katz, SJ and the rest. If you do not believe the Saddam should be President of Iraq, how would you have removed him before now?
Simple question, simple answer, please. ‘
I’m disappointed to see this from you, AR. You must know it’s a silly and dishonest debating point.
But I’ll answer as soon as you answer your own question with Kim Jong-Il substituted for Saddam. (Hint: I’m going to give the same answer in both cases, and this will almost certainly be your answer on Kim).
Simple question, simple answer, please
“If you do not believe the Saddam should be President of Iraq, how would you have removed him before now?”
It doesn’t follow that because a country’s President is a bad man doing bad things, that he should be removed by war, coup, murdrer.
It’s a question of benefits and costs.
With Iraq, the scorecard is
Benefits: Saddam and sons removed, democracy (maybe, watch this space), end to Baathist humans rights abuses
Costs: tens of thousands killed (maybe hundreds of thousands), huge monetary cost (hundreds of billions of dollars, maybe trillions before it’s all over), basic infrastructure destroyed, honeypot for Islamist terrorists who are murdering an avarage of 30-40 people every day, theocracy (maybe, watch this space), new plaything for mad Iranian Mullahs.
Shorter Katz: some darkies shouldn’t have the vote.