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[James Dasher <jdasher AT ibiblio.org>]

Why do I bother?  Perhaps because this is a discussion over Iraq and America's role in the world, and we are all superficially pasting our preferences over the candidate that most resembles them, or diverges from them the least.  I know I am, and from what I've seen on this list from former Deaniacs, Kucinichites, Edwardsians, and so forth, that seems to be the case for everybody else, too.

So, here goes...

On Oct 3, 2004, at 4:12 PM, Michael Czeiszperger wrote:

> On Oct 3, 2004, at 3:03 PM, Don Rua wrote:
>
> > Let's say Kerry was in Bush's shoes, and it is time to back up the umpteenth deadline from the UN regarding Saddam. Kerry starts doing his world tour to build a coalition, and he's told basically the same thing by France, Germany, Russia, China, etc., namely: "We don't want any part of this war. Wait for a UN mandate, don't go."
>
> The UN asked Iraq to disarm and it did, so there wouldn't be a need to invade. The basic problem with the post 9/11 Bush Doctrine is it throws 200+ years of American military doctrine out the door.

Not really.  It throws post-Cold War doctrine out the window, but the Cold War was a new situation from any faced by the U.S. at any previous time in history (single opposing power, total war results in extinction).

After Pearl Harbor, we went to war against the Empire of Nippon AND the Third Reich.  But Nazi Germany had absolutely NOTHING to do with Pearl Harbor.  We even pursued a "Europe First" strategy, and Europe is in a totally different part of the world.

Similarly, we fought the Barbary Coast pirates under Jefferson without approval from, and even against the wishes of European powers; we fought over Panama/Columbia under TR; also the Mexican War, the Phillipines, Haiti, Nicaragua, Cuba, Panama again, Haiti again, Cuba again....

> ... From my readings of the neo-conservative Wolfowitz et al presence in the Bush administration, they were advocating invading Iraq for years before 9/11 ever happened,

First, the neo-cons are retired, or dead - except for Norman Podhoretz and a couple others.  Yeah, people sling the term around, along with "Straussian", etc.  While it's true that the children of some of the neo-cons - like William Kristol, son of Irving Kristol, who now runs the _Weekly Standard_ - advocated finishing the Gulf War as early as '96.  Both _The New Republic_ and the _Weekly Standard_ supported military intervention in Kosovo and Bosnia (without UN approval), but that hardly makes TNR a neo-con rag.

> ... and then used that event as an excuse of furthering their goal of remaking the middle-east through force.  This is why Bush's first Secretary of the Treasury Paul H. O'Neil (a long time Republican) reported his very first meeting in the new administration (long before 9/11) was about Iraq, where they passed around the document "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield contracts".
>
> http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/09/60minutes/main592330.shtml

While Paul O'Neil distanced himself from the book within a few days of its publication ("it's not my book"), the full quote from CBS is a little more revealing:

"He obtained one Pentagon document, dated March 5, 2001, and entitled "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield contracts," which includes a map of potential areas for exploration. 

“It talks about contractors around the world from, you know, 30-40 countries. And which ones have what intentions,” says Suskind. “On oil in Iraq.”"

Sounds like they weren't interested in Iraqi oil, they were examining the strategic interests of countries involved in the "Oil for Food" scandal.  And when Egypt hosts (and the U.S. military jointly runs) "Bright Star" exercises in Egypt, they're not war-gaming against Mongolia.

> >     I think that is the real question. We will never know if someone else could have put together a better coalition, but the real fear in some voters minds is that if the UN doesn't decide we should do it, we don't. That Kerry would never have the nerve to do what our leaders thought was necessary, unless the global community gave him 'permission', putting all our defense on the character and talent of their leaders, not ours.
>
> Of course is we are about to be attacked there's no reason to go to the UN; this has always been US policy, one supported by every US president except "W", and one Kerry would continue. The only reason "W" messed around with the UN was to put a cover story on the invasion that it was to enforce a UN resolution because there wasn't even minimal evidence of an impending threat to the US.  The best they could come up with was forged documents and the like showing Iraq might be attempting to obtain the basic raw materials for nuclear research, which falls woefully short of the standard for preemption.

The question of Iraq's weapons programs is still open.  Iraq didn't have a nuclear weapon.  But as the L.A. Times, among others, have been reporting, captured Iraqi scientists have been telling a different story from the "Saddam had no WMD programs".  And I haven't heard anyone (qualified) dismiss the possibility/probability that the former regime shipped their weapons across the border.  The near-desperation of the Assad regime to get some Iraqi scientists out of Syria belies the possibility that there was nothing to worry about.

Whether it was worth worrying about to the extent that the U.S. ultimately worried about it is, of course and obviously, open to debate.  (Hence the continuing discussion a year-and-a-half later, and no doubt for decades to come!)  But even without 1441, Saddam Hussein was in violation of the 1991 cease-fire, and therefor arguably not the first test-case of U.S. preemption.  As I've no doubt made obvious over the past few months, I'm not a Buchananite or a -- well, has anyone settled on a term for the Democratic version besides "Angry Left"?  (It's hardly descriptive of the foreign policy outlook of the Democratic version of the Republicans who side with Pat Buchanan - "wrong war, wrong place, wrong time".)

Clinton would, and did, go to war when our larger strategic interests were at stake.  But Kerry's got a long Senate history opposing pretty much every war, at every time, in every place.  Would Kerry really turn his back on his core convictions?  Personally, I don't see it.  I'm not saying the man doesn't have a spine; I'm saying that he actually has one, and that once he won the election, he would abandon certain rhetorical flourishes and positional contortions and return to those convictions.

> Can you imagine what the result would have been 200 years ago if, instead of having our own American revolution, the French invaded the colonies to "liberate" the people from the evil tyrant King George, and then proceeded to establish a republic.  Do you think our patriots would have joined the invading French army or shot at them?

Well, the French were our allies during the American Revolution.  And they weren't a republic yet.  And there's a "Fayetteville" or "La Fayette" in practically every state in the union.

But if your point was, would an unfree people appreciate help from a free people in the pursuit of freedom?  Well, different strokes for different folks, but if I had lived behind the Iron Curtain, I would've prayed daily for deliverance.  But not every citizen of an FSR or Warsaw Pact country felt the same.  Similarly, I suspect, in Iraq - and elsewhere.  (Remeber the Iranian soccer fans shouting "USA! USA!" ?)

-- 
James Dasher
misterdasher dot com
IM misterdasher