DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: The_Professor on October 23, 2006, 04:31:18 PM
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What If We Left?
By William F. Buckley Jr.
The wires are heavy with the question of Iraq. The defeat of Senator Lieberman in the Democratic primary in Connecticut was a call to outright defiance by Democrats running for reelection. They have been warned now, by the unforgiving, that they must reject the war in Iraq and labor with the single end in mind of returning American troops and dissolving U.S. commitments.
Arguments are made for staying in and completing the mission. Norman Podhoretz, writing in the Wall Street Journal, does his illuminating best to make the case. National Review posts a symposium giving the views of a half dozen students of the contest. The Weekly Standard publishes a robust defense of the Iraq venture written by William J. Stuntz, who is a professor at the Harvard Law School. He reminds his readers that in 1968 Eugene McCarthy practically defeated incumbent president Lyndon Johnson in the New Hampshire primary, bringing on the end of his presidency. "On any plausible scale of strategic value," Professor Stuntz writes, "Iraq today easily beats Vietnam in the late 1960s or Korea in the early 1950s. America has three enemies in the Middle East today: secular or Sunni Baathism, violent Sunni jihadism, and violent Shiite jihadism. . . . All three are dangerous because all have imperial ambitions; each seeks not control of a small piece of Middle Eastern real estate but regional hegemony—even, in the case of the jihadists, world domination. Needless to say, all three hate the West."
The moral argument can't be conclusive, and nobody is arguing that it should be thought so. But it isn't right to ignore it. Here is how it figured in another context.
"I am convinced that [ours] is one of the most unjust wars that has ever been fought in the history of the world. Our involvement . . . has torn up the Geneva Accord. It has strengthened the military industrial complex; it has strengthened the forces of reaction in our nation. It has put us against the self-determination of a vast majority of the [native] people, and put us in the position of protecting a corrupt regime that is stacked against the poor. It has played havoc with our domestic destinies. We are spending five hundred thousand dollars to kill every [enemy] soldier. Every time we kill one we spend about five hundred thousand dollars, while we spend only fifty-three dollars a year for every person characterized as poverty-stricken in the so-called poverty program, which is not even a good skirmish against poverty.
"Not only that, it has put us in a position of appearing to the world as an arrogant nation. And here we are ten thousand miles away from home, fighting for the so-called freedom of the [native] people, when we have not even put our own house in order. The judgment of God is upon us today. And we could go right down the line and see that something must be done—and something must be done quickly. We have alienated ourselves from other nations so we end up morally and politically isolated in the world. There is not a single major ally of the United States of America that would dare send a troop to—
"Vietnam."
That was a speech by Martin Luther King Jr. Four days later, he was slaughtered in Memphis.
Dr. King did not live to see the day, five years later, when the United States pulled out from Vietnam the last of our flags. That was in 1973. And he did not live to see the day, two years later, when Saigon fell and the Communist victors killed hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese and forced more than 1.5 million into re-education camps, causing 2 million others to flee Vietnam.
Lawrence Kaplan is a senior editor of The New Republic. He wrote last week, "U.S. troops are the only thing standing between what we see on our television sets today and butchery on a scale that would rival the worst of Saddam Hussein's depredations." Good men will perhaps not be finally governed by consideration of the moral question in Iraq, but they will not conceal that the point is there for men of good will to weigh.
http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=ZTI1MWIyNDJmZjRmZTU5NDIxZmM2NzcyNWZjZTEyZTY=
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.....Iraq would then turn into 1 massive Civil War (no, it's not there at this time), with Iran pouring a good chunk of its resources into it, to obtain whatever influence and/or control it possibly could. Not to mention the morale damage to the troops, and the perceived massive victory the Terrorists would take it for.
That's what would happen if we simply "up & left"
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it continues to boggle my mind how you can think things are like Bush says they are (no civil war) when lots of people (including iraqis) are saying what is really going on, sirs.
You really need help.
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it continues to boggle my mind how you can think things are like Bush says they are (no civil war) when lots of people (including iraqis) are saying what is really going on, sirs. You really need help.
Spoken like the true neocons were behind 911 and no plane hit the pentagon that you are Brass
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You mean truthful?
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You mean truthful?
LOL...no more, like what the other thread was referring to, non-credible, not to mention non-sensical
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I am sure someone as bright and informed as Brass does not really believe that NO plane hit the Pentagon, Sirs.
Only one of diminished capacity would believe that and Brass certainly does not fit that perception.
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If you don't believe that what is taking place in Iraq now is in fact a civil war, there is no hope for you.
What you have right now is chaos, and the sole purpose we serve there presently is to prop up a government that has little or no control, influence or credibility.
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If you don't believe that what is taking place in Iraq now is in fact a civil war, there is no hope for you. What you have right now is chaos, and the sole purpose we serve there presently is to prop up a government that has little or no control, influence or credibility.
Chaos does not equal Civil War, Mark. Simple concept. And your opinion of little to no credibility di debunked by the record # of Iraqis that voted in the current Government. Suuni included
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I am sure someone as bright and informed as Brass does not really believe that NO plane hit the Pentagon, Sirs. Only one of diminished capacity would believe that and Brass certainly does not fit that perception.
You're absolutely correct, professor. What was i thinking ;)
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Widespread in country fighting between countrymen does.
You have our own hand picked Iraqi principals saying it's a civil war.
You have our own retired generals saying it's a civil war.
Just curious, when you have incountry militias opposing each other on a wide spread basis, what exactly do *you* call it?
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Widespread in country fighting between countrymen does. You have our own hand picked Iraqi principals saying it's a civil war. You have our own retired generals saying it's a civil war. Just curious, when you have incountry militias opposing each other on a wide spread basis, what exactly do *you* call it?
I think I'll wait until the generals actually serving and THERE give the say so vs armchair generals and pudits. I've already conceded what I'd call it, Chaos. Which again, doesn't equal Civil War
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Sirs, we agree on much, but on this issue, we don't. Originally, I was and still am NOT in favor of this incursion. There are better fish to fry. That being said, once we were in, I said "Le'ts mow 'em down, etc." As it appears we were and are incompetent at this, I began to change my opinion. At this point, I am siimply convinced that if we leave tomorrow or ten years from now, chaos and civil war will reign just a few moments after. So, why bother? Let's get out, lick our wounds, and mind a little of our own business for a change. If the President wants a legacy, he had better think hard and fast and select something else.
It is obviously much easier to conquer than to govern...
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Whatever happens in the end simply is not your problem. The Iraqis have to solve their own problems. You've already caused them enough problems to last for the next two hundred years in addition to killing 600,000 of them by invading them after killing a million with sanctions. I think you've really "helped" them enough at this point. Convenient predictions of bloodshed to come if you get out now are just a smoke-screen to cover your obscene determination to hold onto those oil wells and maybe Iran's too if you can just stabilize Iraq long enough to turn your attention elsewhere.
If these people really do hate each other's guts and can't live peacefully together, in all honesty,how the fuck could that ever be any problem of yours? Who asked you to come in there and "help" them to straighten out their problems and find a new form of government? Of all the arrogant and ignorant God-damn fucking nerve, this stands out on a positively Hitlerian scale. If you really aren't just there for the oil, you should have no problem in (a) recognizing that this wasn't your business and you never should have been in there; (b) getting out as rapidly as possible, i.e. in about two months; and (c) paying massive reparations to the Iraqi people (which the broken state of your treasury will not allow anyway) and (d) impeaching the clown who is responsible for all this carnage and putting him and all his cabinet on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
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MT, I have never advocated we go in there, so I concur that it was and is an unwise decision and venture. So, we are in agreement here.
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Do you think that the neglect that Afganistan got after they threw out the Soviets was a good idea?
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(c) paying massive reparations to the Iraqi people (which the broken state of your treasury will not allow anyway)
Since when has the victor paid reparations?
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Sirs, we agree on much, but on this issue, we don't. Originally, I was and still am NOT in favor of this incursion. There are better fish to fry. That being said, once we were in, I said "Le'ts mow 'em down, etc." As it appears we were and are incompetent at this, I began to change my opinion. At this point, I am siimply convinced that if we leave tomorrow or ten years from now, chaos and civil war will reign just a few moments after. So, why bother? Let's get out, lick our wounds, and mind a little of our own business for a change. If the President wants a legacy, he had better think hard and fast and select something else. It is obviously much easier to conquer than to govern...
That's the cool thing about many of us Conservative minded folks, Professor. We're not 1 big massive mind set. If we don't happen to agree, we're not cast aside as "uncle toms" or traitors to one's party. I agree with Prince on a plethora of topics. Even when he no longer agrees with himself. This is one of those areas. Personally, I don't really think he cares about his legacy. At least not anything to the levels Clinton does. I absolutely believe that Bush believes he' doing the right thing. And he is, IMHO. He identified an absolute threat not just to us, but potentially globally, and he wasn't going to be another Chamberlain. And he probably also got fed up with how corrupted and uncredible the UN had become. So, with that threat identified, we went in. Yea, the post-Saddam fix-it has been bogged down in alot of figuring out how best to get things done, when not just those things should have been figured out before going in, but a plethora of back-up plans should have been ready to go at a moment's notice. That said, war has no script. Show me a war that ever went precisely as planned (I becha Ami finds one ;) ) Point being that things rarely go as planned, especially in war, and even more especially when you have an enemy that has no qualms killing innocent civilians, while hiding amongst them themselves
But you're absolutely right. It is far easier to destroy than it is to create, to conquer than to govern. That is indeed a universal truth
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BT: <<Since when has the victor paid reparations?>>
Since when is the U.S.A. the victor? The war's still on.
plane: <<Do you think that the neglect that Afghanistan got after they threw out the Soviets was a good idea?>>
Maybe in retrospect if the U.S.A. had neglected Afghanistan a little more, by not financing the mujahideen in the first place, none of this would ever have happened. Maybe you should ask yourself if in Iraq's case you haven't confused "neglect" with a healthy respect for the sovereignty of other nations
Professor: <<MT, I have never advocated we go in there, so I concur that it was and is an unwise decision and venture. >>
Professor, I hope you realize that when I used the second person, it was your country I was referring to and not you personally. (I knew that you yourself had never argued for the invasion.) However, this goes way beyond "unwise," Professor, it is a serious, criminal breach of international law. Men were hanged for this very offense (planning and waging a war of aggression) at Nuremburg.
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"Since when is the U.S.A. the victor? The war's still on."
You are correct, but be certain, we are in fact talking at least two different wars here.
There was absolutely no suspense at all in the invasion of Iraq and the taking of Baghdad- it was common knowledge that Saddam had only a fraction of the forces he had in GW1. This of course makes how incredibly poorly we were prepared to police the nation we invaded all the more obscene.
And I'll remind those that chaff at the term "civil war" just how badly Rummy chaffed early on at hearing the term "guerilla war". I would challenge anyone to tell me this didnt become a guerilla war in very short order following the "victory".
You now have Chaos- pure and simple. US forces are concentrated in a defensive posture, acting only like referees at a hockey game during a brawl.
This is most certainly a civil war.