The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.
I just have to ask
: In one day, mass graves were found in Iraq holding up to 15,000 victims.
Have the people who are still harping on WMD noticed?
What would they have said in 1942: Hitler hasn’t created WMD (yet)? We haven’t found mass graves (yet)? He didn’t invade us (yet)?
Just today, we found reason enough to rid the world of Saddam Hussein. Just today.
a) Mass graves were discovered in Iraq, confirming that Hussein was a brutal and murderous dictator.
b) The American government appears to have lied to its citizens and to the world about the presence of WMD in Iraq.
Your point is…what? That (a) mitigates (b)?
Jeff,
On October 19 last year, you wrote “I support the war against terrorism. I know Saddam is evil. But the two are not yet linked.
Bush has not made the case for war.” (scroll down, past ‘Free Speech’.)
You’re entitled to change your mind, just as I did. But I did based in considerable part on believing that Saddam was inexorably acquiring WMD, and would not be deterrable. Bush, Cheney, etc. assured me there were post-1991 Iraqi WMD and WMD programs. I won’t appreciate learning that was a lie, or that they had no business claiming to be sure.
You have come to the conclusion that crimes against humanity are sufficient cause for this war. In October, you said, “…Saddam is a bad guy; we clearly know that. But do we have license to attack any bad guys? No, we don’t have that power and should not want it.”
Again, changing your mind is fine — as if I give out permissions. But you might cut folks a break who didn’t change theirs. You seemed to agree with them not so very long ago.
In friendship,
Thomas:
I did change my mind and chronicled it here (though, god knows, I wouldn’t be so impressive at finding a link to what I say as you are!). I think it was Kurt Andersen who also said something about sitting on the fence for a long time. I didn’t rush to this war myself. But I came to see the necessity. And my point is that I see it even clearer now that we learn more, now that we uncover more mass graves.
So I changed my mind but, from a slightly different angle through the prism, I am still saying what I said then: I think that the administration did a bad job justifying this war and I now mean that in two ways: They pinned too much on WMD (in more ways than one) and did not emphasize clearly enough the humanitarian and, dare I say it, moral reasons to liberate the Iraqi people from this deadly tyranny. The parallels to Yugoslavia and even to Germany are not off. It’s also still true that I come to this with reluctance and some fear; I don’t know how we create and enforce standards regarding where we do and do not intervene; I don’t know how we deal with others’ demands that we go in (and don’t). But I do see clearer today than the day I changed my mind on this that deposing Saddam Hussein was a right and necessary thing to do.
-j
The whole point of the WMD thing is: what will they lie to us about next?
Politicians lying? Say it isn’t so! What is this world coming to? Oh for the good old days of honesty and integrity during the Clinton administration.
That is kind of apples and oranges. Saddam was a scumbag, but that doesn’t justify our government lying, scaring the crap out of us with orange alerts, just to go to war.
I can think of a 1,000 moral reasons for Saddam getting a bullet in his skull… but I can’t think of one legal one for the U.S. to do it. That should have been done by the Iraqi people in a revolution if they wanted him gone so bad.
It was suggested in other threads that the new US doctrine of unilateral, preemptive aggresssion would not be acceptable if practiced by other countries, because only the US had moral and ethical standards elevated enough to justify such a policy. Thus the question of whether or not the US government lied to its citizens and the world to justify its invasion does have a bit of relevance.
And if the US hadn’t buried Saddam, you guys would have farted around, forever hand-wringing while more atrocities were committed. And now still, you devalue its nobility by shifting the focus toward your sensibilities of being lied to or not? By a government no less.
Its bizarre.
Where you all live, on Sesame Street?
Jeff-
Did you read Jim Lacey’s theory over at NRO?
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-lacey051503.asp
Granted, it’s only a theory but interesting nonetheless.
Fair enough, Pye, you answered the question that I asked Jeff at the top. In your view, the fact that Saddam was a murderous thug justifies your government’s lies to its citizens. I was just curious whether you guys were comfortable with that, and it appears you are. Just part of our never ending quest to understand the American psyche.
There are also mass graves in Vietnam, North Korea, Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, Cambodia, Pakistan, India, and those are just the ones I’m certain of. If what was found today was enough justification for war in Iraq, then we have good cause to invade half the countries on the above list, the ones whose leaders are still in place. That includes India, where only a month ago, a mass slaughter was authorized in Gujarat State by the ruling BJP.
Some time ago conservatives were the ones who had no interest in being the world’s policemen. I suppose this says a lot about Lefties too; I just think it has been a politically expedient turn of events. All of a sudden conservatives are liberal humanists? Give me a break.
“the new US doctrine of unilateral, preemptive aggresssion would not be acceptable if practiced by other countries . . . . ”
It already is practiced by everyone else. The US is the only government ever to seem UNSC permission to go to war, yet other wars are raging in other parts of the globe as we speak.
I fail to understand the logic of “we haven’t found WMDs therefore our govt. lied to us.”
First of all, we have wound enormous amounts of circumstantial evidence of WMD production, like the mobile labs.
Second, we know Saddam had a WMD program and so does the UN – the goal of the inspections was for Saddam to prove that he had stopped the progam and destroyed all precursors to WMDs. Which Saddam did not do.
We were perfectly justified to depose him based on a well-founded fear that he would have WMDs soon, if not already. We took him out so we wouldn’t have another North Korea to worry about. Nobody lied about anything. Why is that so hard to understand?
Everyone’s right of course, except the Left.
Tyrants everywhere deserve having their countries invaded by red-hot missiles, and perhaps even their own person.
If some of the free world’s governments were not so hell-bent on profitting from illegal trade with such regimes, we could effectively help all the oppressed people who suffer such crap under these assholes.
At least the US showed the moral decency, courage and financial commitment to lead the way, in at least one instance. Bravo to them. It may cost Bush his political life. Bravo to him.
And Balb, if you truly wish to understand the American psyche, you could fare no better than by
leaving Toronto and come chat to Calgarians.
But not perhaps, if you believe Cretin a Saint.
As to the question of mass murder not being a valid excuse for overthrowing the “Butcher of Bagdad”. Should we then legitimise mass butchery of civilians of or by their own nation? As to WMD being the reason for invading Iraq, Even stupid people remember Saddam having used WMD on his own people. Saddams having WMD is NOT the question, only what he did with them. Care to take a drink out of the Euphrates River ?