Ok, I misinterpreted you're "not cooperating" - argument. I thought you meant the time, when Saddam kicked the inspectors out of Iraq.

Well, I kind of attacked against you're reasoning: "We had right to attack, because Saddam had history of non-cooperation."

As I have understood, the argument continues by "The history of non-cooperation is valid reason, because it indicates Saddam having WMDs and it fought against international decisions."

And "the breaking of the international decisions is a valid argument, because it has importance in assuring Saddam not having WMDs."

I would, say that this argumentation has it's weaknesses.

When I meantioned the secondary motivations for uncooperations, I meant that uncooperation is not a strong indication of crime by pointing some other motives for uncooperation (such as pride). For example in this case - the other suggested motives were most likely the real motives.

Iraqian's actually cooperated rather well - not perfectly, because Saddam refused to ratify - in a way - the most humiliating parts of the cooperation. The inspectors were given a completely free movement and lot of information, but the strategic decisions at the highest-levels of goverment about destroying W.M.Ds were not made.

The other issue was, that they didn't give proof about the missing weapons, but it seems it was impossible for Iraqians, because they had neither weapons or documented proof. They never had a possibility to cooperate in this way.

In the end, the Iraqians cooperated rather well. In this way, the history of uncooperation is IMO somewhat weak argument.

The breaking of international justice is in a way meaningless, since it's function was to guarantee Iraq not having W.M.Ds. If it was unlikely that Iraq had W.M.Ds, enforcing the law had little justification, at least, when Iraqians did cooperate as they did.

This is arrogant.

Well, we can talk about the magnitudes here. Iraq had some contact to Al'Qaida at some point, but they never led to cooperation. The aid to palestinian is - IMO - insignifact and meaningless. If this is a valid argument, it is still very, very weak.

- BtD

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"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows."
[George Orwell, 1984]

..has ties to terrorists too... So did Gaddafi.. (Wait..we forgave him)

When are we going to get Assad?? Anyone know?

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"Only a fool tests the depth of the water with both feet."

Patience.

Actually, IMO, Syria is not doing themselves any favors allowing the remnants of Saddam's regime to operate from their territory. I think some day there will be a reckoning.

Those quotes are relevant because they show that Bush and his administration were not the only ones that saw Iraq as a threat. Liberals are trying to paint him as some crackpot cowboy with a personal agenda. Well, if he was, then Clinton shared that agenda. Yet we do not see criticism of Clinton from liberals. Why do you think that is?

Why is it irrelevant? It shows that previous administrations considered Saddam as much a threat as Bush Jr did. You cant make the accusation that Bush's suspicions were irrational if so many other people that did NOT share his agenda still shared his suspisions. Give me a break.

Even among liberals you people appear to have been in the minority.

It was part of a pattern...Saddam was playing a delaying game. He would give the appearance of cooperation, then yank that cooperation back when the inspectors got too close to somthing he didnt want them to see.

How many times should we have allowed him to do this before finally saying "enough"?

But we have no way of knowing that. Thats why I used the word "ultimatum" instead of "request". It was not a request.

Maybe it was for reasons of humilitation...but we are not obligated to assume that IMO. The burden of proof is on HIM, not us.

Again...how do we know that humiliation was the reason? How do we know we were not simply getting too close to somthing he didnt want us to see?

I am unwilling to assume humiliation was the reason by default. If he'd had WMDs or WMD programs in place, he would have had plenty of reason to interfere with inspections. Why should we assume it was because he felt humiliated?

They were denied cooperation at the last minute several times. It didnt just happen once. Yes, that makes me suspicious.

If humiliation was the reason, then he would not be doing that at the last minute. He would say somthing like "Ok, 3 more days and that is it". But he would not restrict access to specific places.

Had he cooperated fully with the rest of it, I would probably accept this excuse. It is reasonable to believe they didnt keep good records.

Why do you say "Iraqians" and not "Saddam's government"? They are not the same thing.

Why is it arrogant? Why do despots have a right to rule?

We dont know that for sure. I am unwilling to assume innosence by default.

The point is, he DID have ties to terrorists. They had a common enemy, and both had few moral restraints and were not answerable to the masses.

btw - how sure are you that Al Quaeda was the only terrorist group Saddam interacted with?

...Because he didn’t actually invade Iraq? How about that for starters?

Why don’t we go back into Vietnam, we "had" an ex-president who thought the North Vietnamese were a threat…

Would you care to point out anymore threats that our ex-presidents shared to defend our current administrations actions?

The idea that Vietnam was a wrong course of action from the beginning is revisionist in hindsight of how the war was handled. Most Americans were rightly in favor of going into Vietnam from the beginning. Then they were rightly in favor of withdrawing. Just because a war is botched, does not necessarily mean the reasons for war were not legitimate.

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lambaste me not

But he did bomb the hell out of the former Yugoslavia didn't he? Weren't his reasons pretty similar? Despot leader trampling on the rights of others?

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lambaste me not

You misunderstood; I wasn’t defending Vietnam as a right or wrong course of action. One administrations policies and actions aren’t an excuse for future president’s mistakes.

This is a very weird aproach - actually it would be very funny, if it wouldn't be so frightening..

Have you ever considered, that proving something not existing, is sometimes much more difficult, than proving someting exist. It is sometimes impossible to prove one's innocence, when one is innocent.

For example, if I now claim that you're a yellow space monkey with superpowers, you might find it very difficult to prove i'm wrong. Or if I claim, you have killed a half dozen of hobos, it is the same thing.

It is the reason, why in justice and usually in common life, the guiltiness is the one to be proven, not innocence. It is common sense.

I'm very sceptic against any argument based on almost free speculation with no evidence, and defended only by demands to claim one's wrong. As I see it, this is exacltly you're doing with these issues about terrorism and W.M.Ds.

There were not evidence of the weapons. For Saddam, it was likely impossbile to even proof, that he had destroyed the weapons. We discussed about this before.

There is no evidence of partition of terrorist activities. Now you're taking exactly same aproach. There is no evidence, but somehow you're assuming guiltiness by default.

Overall, I would like to repeat, that the terrorist connection is really a weak argument, and I would like to see you admiding it.

Anyway, the speculation about the terrorist connections is little vain in this part of the story. If there had been real terrorist connections, the U.S military would had likely found the evidence. They have been there for some time already. Certainly, there shouldn't be too many unknown issues about Saddam's Iraq left.

- BtD

__________________
"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows."
[George Orwell, 1984]

What is frightening is the eagarness with which liberals want to apply moral equivilancy to despots. Why are we obligated to give them the benefit of the doubt?

The difficulty is irrelevant...he interfered with inspections. if it was difficult before, he was making it more difficult. That leads me to believe he is hiding somthing.

Saddam has done all manner of horrible things...why was it so hard to believe he was capable of producing WMDs? It isnt like we just started picking on him for no reason.

If you want to defend him feel free. Most people would not consider it unreasonable to put the burden of proof on him. He is not morally equivilant with legitimate world leaders.

They are two different issues. He could have satisfied us that he was not producing (or trying to produce) WMDs without having to conclusiveluy prove that he had destroyed all previous weapons. The issues are not mutually exclusive.

Why do I owe him the benefit of the doubt? He has plenty of motive.

I hope you arnt holding your breath. I think it is a perfectly reasonable assumption to make. This is a man who is known to oppress millions of people, who has defied "international law" many many times. Why should we assume this is beyond him? Gimme a break.

The lack of evidence does not mean the connections did not exist. Especially true since he interfered with inspectors. Had he cooperated fully, it might be different.

Same thing.

I cant think of any others at the moment. If a majority of people, even those politically opposite Bush, shared his fears about Iraq, it is reasonable to assume his fears were not irrational. Do you disagree?