perfidy

I am losing track of the sheer number of things that those on the right consider to be almost, but not quite, treason...

Surely another sane thing to do when you "break something" is figure out why the hell you broke it in the first place, and maybe try to not to break another one.

The sheer _gall_ of the Bush/Cheney Axis of Weeble is astonishing. They've called criticism of their decision process and leadership a rough sort of treason and betrayal of those in the field of battle. The nearest analogy I can think of is a politician's reaction to the singing of an inbound rifle round...grabbing his bodyguard and usin him as a shield. There's leadership for you.

I think Joe Average Soldier in Iraq is more worried about an IED than someone calling the President a dick, or calling Dick the President.

They broke it because that was the only way to fix it properly. Break it and then put it back together again properly.

If you can think of a way to "fix" Iraq that didn't involve removing Saddam and his cronies, or managed to remove them without this war.. fire away! I'd love to hear it!

So far when I've asked that, all I get is crickets chirping. Since anyone sane knows sanctions weren't working (in fact they were doing more harm than good) and neither were UN resolutions (pretty much totally ignored). The only thing that came close were the No-Fly zones, which were a kind of mini-war.

Also, please explain to me how diplomacy can work with no credible threat of force to back it up? Are dictators just going to play by the rules out of their sense of fairness?

Oh, and before you ask "why did we need to fix it?"

1. Who else was gonna?
2. The Iraqis had been suffering for years.
3. Saddam was one of the many factors causing instability in the ME.
4. Saddam was a terror sponsor.
5. The other broken countries in the ME can be fixed more easily once less of them are broken.
6. Going into Iraq was always going to be easier than going into Iran (another, probably more serious, terror sponsor and whack-job central). Plus, if we're lucky, Iraq's stability will help reign in Iran.
7. What are you, mean? You think we should have just left the Butcher of Baghdad in charge of a country of 27 million people?
8. We started it in 1991 and never finished it. Personally I don't like loose ends.
9. As an example for others; "for the encouragement".
10. If we're serious about the GWOT, we can't just do Afghanistan and leave it there, that dog won't hunt. Yes, I already said Iraq was a terrorism sponsor. Were they harbouring Al-Qaeda? Maybe, maybe not. Not particularly relevant. They were certainly part of the problem.
11. The "fly-paper" effect was possibly not intentional, but it seems to be working. If Iraq wasn't a central front on the GWOT, why are there so many terrorists there? And why are we beating them? (Witness backlash over Jordan bombings).

If those eleven or so aren't good enough for you I can probably think of more. But they're the ones which just pop right out for me.

Nicholas, can you show me where the Constitutional provisions are for using the US Army for, well, any of that stuff?

You think we should have just left the Butcher of Baghdad in charge of a country of 27 million people?

Shorter Nicholas: "We might as well kill a bunch of innocent Iraqis -- Saddam's just gonna kill 'em anyway!"

I don't know much about your constitution. I bet it provides for the defence of your country. Now, the question is, does defence mean just sitting there and waiting for someone to attack you and repulsing them, or does it mean looking for upcoming threats and stopping them before they happen? What about if you're attacked occasionally with incursions - do you get to go out there and eliminate the source of those incursions in order to enhance your security?

Imagine if you lived in England or France many hundreds of years ago and you had Viking invaders raiding your towns. Would you be justified putting together a party, sailing to Scandanavia and doing whatever was necessary to stem the tide of invaders? I doubt the vikings represented their nation-states - you would be dealing with raider-tribes which don't really have much of a national alliegance. Would that be legitimate? How different is that from the Islamofascist raiders of today?

Your “We might as well kill a bunch of innocent Iraqis—Saddam’s just gonna kill ‘em anyway!” is a gross mischaracterisation of what I have said. You're equating rescuing those people from tyrrany to the tyrrany itself, or else just mindless slaughter. See the fallacy there? The ideal outcome would have been to grab Saddam and his cronies without anyone getting hurt and have a peaceful transition from dictatorship into democracy or some other form of open government and freedom. How could that have been achieved, exactly? Can you think of a better way?

Frankly I just don't see what we can do to end injustice without at least occasionally resorting to violence. We've tried for years and rarely gotten very far. It's the only response that these dictators understand. Police use violence. Sometimes they even kill people. Are you arguing we'd be better off without police? Do you think in those circumstances LESS people would die or MORE?

Your statements just go to show how black-and-white your worldview must be. Try thinking outside the limiting box of good vs. evil and see what you come up with then.

Ross,

The reason I brought up Johno's "you broke it you bought it" was not to say that there isn't, and wasn't justification for the invasion - which I obviously feel that there is/was. Rather, to point out that even if you were against the invasion in 2003 - which many were, for justifiable reasons - saying what Dean said should *still* be unacceptable to you.

I have not been one to bandy about the accusation of treason, but jeez, when American troops are in combat, for the leader of a major American political party to say that there's no way they can win right before a crucial election that will actually determine whether we do win or not *is* danger close to giving aid and comfort to the enemy. If the jihadi motherfuckers think that they can whittle down our will to win, then they'll keep going. Two things will contribute more than anything to a win in Iraq – a perception that America won't back down, and the assumption of policing and combat duties by the Iraqis themselves. Thanks to the American media, George Bush is providing nearly all of the first part. As for the second, 40% of the Baghdad region will be under control of the Iraqi Sixth Division. That's a significant step, and more will be coming.

I know why we "broke" Iraq, and I agree with the reasoning. There is no mystery here, and if it needs to be done again, I really don't have a problem with that either. Bush and Cheney haven't accused anyone of Treason. And most conservatives that I talk to don't have a problem with criticism of means and methods in Iraq. Hell, if you can improve what we're doing in Iraq, great! The American military has been quick to change tactics to deal with the changing nature of the insurgency.

There is a huge difference between disagreeing with the war before it started, and undermining the chances of our success afterward. There is a big difference between constructive criticism and whining defeatism on international tv.

Phil,

The war powers clause in the constitution seems to cover this one pretty thoroughly. Unless they added a pacifism clause while I wasn't looking? Congress authorized the President to use force. He did.

“We might as well kill a bunch of innocent Iraqis—Saddam’s just gonna kill ‘em anyway!” Are you serious? That's not what this is about. Supposing a sort of absentminded bloodlust as a rationale for our collective decision to go to war is even worse than the more typical blood for oil rationale.

In many ways, the best American precedent for the war on terror is the war against the Barbary pirates in the early nineteenth century. American ships were attacked, and Americans taken prisoner and held for ransom. The "homeland" was in no way threatened. No one in Europe was willing to do anything but pay the protection money to the pirates. So Jefferson sent some ships over, and we kicked their ass.

No doubt, if we had had the modern media back then, there would have been partisan hacks complaining about violations of sovereignty, and casualties, and the like.

And in general, I have been continually surprised by the reaction of the left to the war on Iraq. Bloodthirsty tyrant? Check. Oppresses women, minorities, fags? Check. Uses chemical weapons? Check. Environmental Despoiler? Check. Ethnic Cleansing? Check. Enemy of liberty? Check. Suppresses freedom of speech, press, religion, and pretty much every other freedom including the freedom not to be beaten on the feet with sticks? Check. Invades other countries? Check. What's not to hate? Getting rid of Saddam advances every major policy object of the progressive movement, save for the diminution of American power. The only difference between Iraq and Bosnia/Kosovo is the party affiliation of the president ordering the bombing of innocent civilians to begin. Well, that and the lack of dozens of UN resolutions in the case of the Balkan conflict. You know we still have tens of thousands of troops there? Bring them home!