U.S. church alliance denounces Iraq war
AP BRIAN MURPHY
PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil — A coalition of American churches sharply denounced the U.S.-led war in Iraq on Saturday, accusing Washington of “raining down terror” and apologizing to other nations for “the violence, degradation and poverty our nation has sown.”
Thursday 23 Feb 2006 | Jacobse | OPF/NCC/Christian left |
The war in Iraq reflects the dangerous side of religious faith. Personal goals and ambitions become easily conflated with a divine will. In such situations, how can one argue from a perspective of practicality, cost, or even morality? These objections end up becoming trivialized when one believes such undertakings come at the behest of the Almighty.
There’s a well-known story about Pat Robertson:
“When Robertson’s wife was in the last stages of pregnancy with her second child, Pat got an order from God to go into the wilderness of Canada and do some “soul searching.” Even though Dede had a toddler in the house and was bigger than a house, and despite her pleas for him to stay here at home, he left for Canada. She wrote him several letters begging him to come home, but he was certain that the Devil had tempted Dede to write the letters, just as he had tempted Eve to talk Adam into eating the apple. Dede, with a toddler to look after, a baby on the way any second, and in a state of emotional turmoil from her husband’s decision, was also faced with moving the family into a new house. He stuck it out until after the new baby was born and the move was completed.”
This is, of course, a much smaller scale example of what I’m talking about, but the result is the same. People who voice valid concerns are talking “devil speak” or are “out of tune with God’s will”, one’s ears are closed to all reason and caution is thrown to the wind. This is not how I want the President of our country making decisions regarding the fate of this nation or any other’s.
I am weary of claims from church organizations that “God is on our side” in political matters about which they become exercised, even and especially, important and urgent political matters. So I appreciated the following quote from an early 20th century Lutheran theologian and writer, Joseph Stump. The advice could well be taken to heart by both the religious right and the religious left.
The quote is from the bottom of the home page of Pastor David Jay Webber’s Lutheran Theology Web Site>. I have left in the emphasis that was added at that site.
James I really don’t get what your rambling about. It has nothing remotely to do with the article.
The issue is an elitist group within an American religious organization put out a statement for the whole group condemning US foreign policy in a foreign country.
Think a tackier version of what the Dixie Chicks did. Almost to what Jane Fonda did except they didn’t sit on anti-aircraft guns. If this was another time and postmodernism wasn’t the religion of the land it would have been considered seditious. Their statement doesn’t help anyone other than embolden and encourage those who already hate America.
This event should be the wake up call to the remaining Orthodox churches in the NCC (and to an extent in the WCC). That to the NCC/WCC, Orthodoxy is nothing more than window dressing for their causes and their opinions are really not wanted.
JBL, I am referring to the fact the W initiated the war because he felt it was part of his “divine mission” to bring democracy to the Middle East, ordained by God. When one undertakes military conflicts with such intentions, few on the Right seem to question it. When the Left questions the morality of these same conflicts, they’re labeled as America-haters.
This seems inconsistent.
JamesK, how do you know that “W initiated the war because he felt it was part of his ‘divine mission’”? Did he write this down somewhere? Did he tell you? Did he tell someone else, who then relayed the information to you?
Augie
Or consider article 6 from the Barmen Declaration:
more
James .
If you did some research you would know that it was a conclusion to a war started more than ten years earlier. It has nothing to do with some kind of divine call believed by President Bush.
Get beyond reading moveon.org and the Nation to get you information.
Interesting idea, JBL. Certainly Clinton used Saddam as a whipping boy, lobbing Cruise missiles at Baghdad whenever he needed a distraction from say impeachment. But exactly how did Bush’s Iraq War begin in 1993? Considering a prostrate and beaten Saddam was incapable of even reclaiming his northern territories from the Kurds, thanks to our ‘No Fly Zone’ policy, I have a hard time considering the 10 years of sanctions much of a ‘war.’ More like a slow bleeding to death.
Of course, we are all now much better off that a pro-Iranian Shiite Islamist coalition of parties are now in power in Baghdad. That’s a great step up for American security. And of course, the fact that Al Queda has finally managed to kick up a civil war by bombing a Mosque is just icing on the cake. Once untold thousands more die in a civil war as in Rawanda, we will have acheived a truly historic mission. Anarchy, civil war, and starvation are so much better than tyranny.
Which of course explains why every thoughtful observer since Hobbes has understood that people prefer the tyranny of the known to anarchy. But Bush is smarter than all of them, I am sure.
Of course, we are also lucky that the Iraqi government are our puppets. After all, we demanded that they include Sunnis in two key ministries (even though that violates the principles of having free elections), and they told us to jump in a lake, thereby proving their loyalty to Washington as opposed to Teheran. The U.S. envoy the Iraq then threatened to pull U.S. aid to a government that we brought into being and that U.S. troops are ostensibly protecting:
To whom does this make sense? We created the elections that brought them to power, and now we are surprised that despite the presence of our soldiers we can’t seem to control them? And, we can’t seem to stop them from killing each other, either.
Now both JBL and Augie, Bush may not actually buy into all of the ‘divine mission’ stuff that I am about to quote. He may, in fact, only be using it as a cover since the whole WMD and links to terrorism thing just didn’t pan out and he needed a retroactive justification for the Iraq War.
I don’t pretend to know. But I do know that if Bush is serious in the statements I am about to quote, that he is a blasphemer and a heretic.
From his 2nd Inaugural address:
The U.S., you see, is God’s chosen instrument for realizing his plan to spread freedom throughout the world. This is an interesting Millenialist spin from someone who is supported by decidedly pre-Millenialist Christian rightwingers.
But wait, there’s more:
U.S. forces are not simply soldiers and Marines, they are God’s own representatives on earth, missionaries in a way, bringing hope and light into despair and darkness.
And here are a bunch more:
Guys, if George W. Bush doesn’t believe that he has been assigned a special mission, along with the United States, by the very hand of God, then he is doing a really, really good impersonation of it.
I prefer less hubris in my foreign policy. But that is because I am a traditional conservative, fearful of claiming God’s mantle for my own purposes, and wishing to chart a course that hews more closely to that required for true self-defense. Which doesn’t require, in my mind, remaking the world.
Fanatics are dangerous. Those with a mission from God that involves the spreading of ideas by force are the most dangerous of all.
The pronouncement by the churches was self-serving, tone deaf, and largely good only for alienating just about everyone but Michael Moore. Either conservative anti-Bush Christians, who have their feet firmly in Red State America, start to speak up - or the world is going to get a very different view of Christianity from the teachings of His All-Holiness Pope George I than is in fact the true faith.
JBL: What Glen quoted.
Again, I have nothing personal against Bush. I actually like the guy, and I think he’s well-intentioned. However, I also think he’s a bit confused. Foreign policy is complicated and requires weighing numerous pros and cons, costs and benefits in addition to taking into account the lives that will be lost on both sides. Believing that God is on one’s side tends to make one ignore all of these costs.
But then again, I’m one of those that believes that ascertaining God’s will in personal matters is difficult enough, let alone in public policies that affect numerous people in numerous ways.
As I’ve said, I’m unhappy enough about the President’s failure to enforce immigration laws that it will be a long time before I vote Republican again. That aside, I don’t see anything in Glen’s direct qoutes from Bush that reflects badly on the President. However the unatributed commentary that is woven in looks pretty nasty to me.
Googling to look up the quotes, I happened upon this 2003 piece in the Belgravia Dispatch. The whole article is quite germane to the allegations that have been made earlier in this thread.
By the way, I don’t care whether the President or his supporters are premillenialist, postmillenialist, intramillenialist, or amillinialist. Should anyone?
Glen can you point to the ratified peace treaty from the Gulf War?
As far as the religious quotes and comments. Despite the horribly ignorant article posted on The Nation and like articles regurgitated by leftists to create some kind of Christian bogeyman out of President Bush. It’s propaganda bunk.
It has been a tradition to incorporate religious language into Presidential speeches since Washington. It may not necessarily be a Nicene interpretation of Christianity, but if you look at the history of these speeches you’ll see a pattern of a religious identity for the nation.
Using the present logic applied about Bush’s use of religious language then does that mean when FDR said “So help me God” in his speech to Congress requesting a declaration of war against Japan he thought he somehow was divinely mandated to fight the war?
I wonder if Lincoln thought he was anointed when he uttered “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom”?
To read something more into President Bush’s speeches is nothing but paranoia and bigotry rather than reality.
Augie -
Not quite sure what you mean. Are you saying that the quotes I reference are not the President’s words? I would be happy to provide attribution for them. Or are you saying they are out-of-context or somehow misconstrued/mangled?
Let me know if that is the case, because anybody with access to Google can simply look up George Bush’s speeches directly online, even at the White House Website. Personally, I hate combing the things so I tend to be lazy and grab synopsis when I can, but I only use lines that I recognize. I do watch the president speak on a regular basis, but that is in the context of my news and political addiction.
But you ask an excellent question - why should we care if the president and his supporters are premillenialist, postmillienialist, or amillenialist?
Because, a person’s eschatological outlook can control everything about them and their policy preferences, and in a powerful president this can be dangerous.
Pre-millenialists usually believe in the doctrine of the Rapture. Many of them actually like wars, rumors of wars, and death/destruction. They think these things herald the return of Christ, and that they will be able to get out of the ‘end of times’ scott-free, leaving us chumps to face the anti-Christ. The focus of foreign policy is fanatical support of Israel, even when that conflicts with rational U.S. policy. They aren’t interested in preserving the environment, believing that the end is nigh and that it is pointless to preserve God’s creation.
Millenialists often think that human action can bring about the millenial age. Literally, the Kingdom of God can be built on Earth. These are the rabid reformers, the prohibitionists, the radical abolitionists who thought the blight of slavery was soiling God’s kingdom. In a mild form this impulse is a great thing. In an extreme form it ends in totalitarianism as true believers seek to rework the world by force.
Amillenialism, I think, is a more balanced view which sees the current church age as the Kingdom of God on Earth, but not in a political sense. I think it is more humble, but also has a reforming impulse based on Christian imperatives.
Now, President Bush’s philosophy is very millenialist. He wants to combat evil, build freedom, unleash liberty, etc. It sounds very Utopian in its aims, almost as if it were written by a Soviet speech writer to exort the masses to build a new socialist Golden Age. It is the epitome of collectivist thinking.
But, it is supported by a large group of people who don’t believe that we can build a better world. They are wanting to hold on, preach Jesus, and get out while the getting is good via the Rapture. Yet, they wax on and on about building democracy and unleashing freedom, even though such talk runs contrary to their own Theology which eschews the efficacy of such activity.
But, since Bush is also unleashing war, and is ‘defending Israel,’ while ’smiting the enemy’ and since the pre-millenialists also believe that the U.S. is God’s chosen nation - then they are on board with the whole plan.
What we have is a perfect storm, Theologically speaking, and I pray to have the strength and good fortune to survive it.
JBL writes: “To read something more into President Bush’s speeches is nothing but paranoia and bigotry rather than reality.”
I think you have to look at all that in a larger context. Every president has to use religious language and allusions, but traditionally this was understood as “civil religion.” But with Bush it is quite different. Bush directs federal money to “faith-based” organizations. His administration includes many conservative Christians, even including those with a Reconstructionist bent. The core of his base is white protestants, mostly evangelicals and fundamentalists.
And I think it is helpful to see how his base understands Bush’s role. There are a lot of people who see Bush as God’s man in the White House. When faced with criticism of the administration, it is not uncommon to hear “yes, but he loves the Lord.” I don’t recall ever hearing that about any other president.
As much as I don’t like Bush, I acknowledge that he is a clever politician. When he uses religious language in a speech, there’s nothing accidental about it; he’s sending a message to the base. It’s not civil religion. It’s a way of saying “I’m your man, you can trust me.” It was no accident that in the debates two elections ago he stated that Jesus Christ was his favorite “political philosopher.” When Bush uses religious language, the medium is indeed the message.
Jim, I think you should apply for a stipend from the RNC. You are actually doing a great job in their behalf.
Jim thanks for confirming my comments about paranoia
JBL -
Don’t be dense. Religious language has always colored discourse in the United States. However, it means something entirely different when coming out of Woodrow Wilson’s mouth or George Bush’s mouth, than it did when being uttered by George Washington.
Bush has identified a historic mission that is God’s will for the United States. We are the instrument by which liberty is to be brought into the world. I was quoting speeches for Heaven’s sake given by the President. What, exactly, does that have to do with the NATION?
The President says that it is our duty to end tyranny throughout the world. Is this hyperbole, or does he mean it? So far, I take him seriously.
Do you really, really think that if this were just leftist propaganda against a dedicated Christian president that I would be taking it seriously? Reagan is my hero, and no one spoke more eloquently than he. But you always knew that Reagan wasn’t reckless, nor did Reagan have a set of Theological suppositions that drove him. Anyone with any sense trusted Reagan.
Bush is completely different, and his language with its eerie similarity to Wilson (a president Bush’s speech writers love to quote) makes me extremely nervous.
But, if you insist on seeing this as merely a left-wing plot even when it has been pointed out repeatedly by conservatives then please go ahead by all means.
As to the end of the Gulf War and a peace treaty with Iraq - can you point me to the peace treaty with North Korea? That war ended the same as the war with Iraq - with an armistice but no formal cessation.
But, then again, could you please point me to the declaration of war against either Iraq or North Korea?
You can’t. Because there were any. If there had been, then the presidents in those conflicts would have been bound to formally conclude them. Since they were presidential wars carried out without a declaration, then the president got to decide when we were at war, and the president go to call it off when he felt like it.
Formal hostilities with Iraq ended with a cease fire agreement. It is true that the enforcement of the ‘No Fly Zone’ policy led to continual clashes, but the fact is that this was a calculated part of American policy. There was never any chance that the U.S. would back off, or that ‘inspections’ would ever be completed in any way that would not lead to Saddam’s ouster.
In May 1991, James Baker testified before Congress:
It was a charade. The inspections, the sanctions, all of it. The policy of the U.S. was to get Saddam. Clinton didn’t have the guts to do it, but he did keep slapping Iraqis on the head. It fell to the Bush II administration to finish what George I started.
And now - aren’t we happy that he did? Won’t a lovely Islamist rump state governed by pro-Iraqi Islamists be oh so much better than a Ba’athist socialist with expensive tastes?
JBL writes: “Jim thanks for confirming my comments about paranoia”
“Earlier, Bush had told members of the clergy that he believed God called upon him to run for president. In his book “A Charge to Keep,” Bush said he was moved to run by a sermon delivered by his friend Mark Craig, a Methodist minister, in 1999 during his second gubernatorial inauguration. “I believe God wants me to be president,” the Rev. Richard Land, head of the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, quoted Bush as saying.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24634-2004Sep15_4.html
“There was always this objection in prior administrations — and I’ve been through seven, since coming to this town when Jimmy Carter was in office. There was all this idea — “Oh, if we can only get a staff person in the White House who would carry our concerns to the president.” Well, a private joke inside the Beltway nowadays is, “We don’t need a staff person. We’ve got one in the Oval Office.” What do you want, a staff person, or do you want the president who understands you? I’ll take the president” — Richard Cizik, National Association of Evangelicals
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jesus/president/religion.html
“On a radio show broadcast Wednesday, James Dobson, founder of the conservative Focus on the Family, said that before Miers was nominated, deputy White House chief of staff Karl Rove reassured him that she was an “evangelical Christian, that she is from a very conservative church, which is almost universally pro-life.”"
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/10/12/politics/main937684.shtml
So he says that God wants him to be president, the evangelicals see him as one of their own, the administration personally contacts James Dobson to let him know that a Supreme Court nominee is an evangelical Christian, and you think that all the religious references in his speeches, written by an evangelical speech writer, are just garden-variety civil religion? I may be paranoid, but you’re blind and deaf.
Jim,
On a whole host of issues you and I are on opposite sides of the debate. You would think, wouldn’t you, that when you and I link up in complete agreement on something, despite our differences, that other people would take some notice of that.
You and I are seem to be in complete agreement on the Theological rationales that are driving and/or providing cover for the president’s actions.
Given that I am a paleo-conservative and you aren’t, I would think that our unity on this issue despite our many differences would, by itself, be sufficient evidence that this perception isn’t somehow ‘left-wing’ hate mongering or ‘blame America isolationism.’
Being a paleo-conservative is somewhat like being the invisible man. ‘Conservatives’ pretend we don’t exist since we are often at odds with the president, and our opposition ruins the neat ‘left’ versus ‘right’ (’good’ versus ‘evil’) dichotomy that keeps people tuning into Sean Hannity.
Unlike you, many liberals/center left moderates pretend that we are, in reality, no different than George W. Bush. Forgetting, of course, that paleo-conservatism as the inheritor of 19th Century Classical Liberalism is very in tune with the traditional attitudes for which American society was most noted. And these values are not those of the current administration or the religious radicals backing it up. Since you are reading Paul Craig Roberts and Lew Rockwell.com, you get that when most Democrats and others just can’t seem to.
Such is life, though. I respond to JBL and you respond to JBL, and both us get tarred as Nation reading, Birkenstok-wearing, neo-hippies who just have a chip on our shoulders about Christians professing their faith in public speeches.
Sad really.
Glen don’t put words in my mouth. I did not refer to you as
so you can get over your self-righteous pseudo-indignation over your strawman portrayal of my comments.
To clarify my point, it is nothing but unfounded fears in the language he uses. In the old days people understood this langauge to be pandering to a constiuency. Not some nefarious secret code to mindless minions. This type of thinking is right up there with Montana survivalists bemoaning black helicopters.
To clarify even further, the reason I pointed to the Nation is because this publication has been a leading voice in the complaints about religious langauge from the White House. If you have complaints that your comments appear to fit their commentary then take it up with the magazine not with me.
Consider Lincoln’s use of religious language during the brutal civil war. The professional clerics of the day spoke almost exclusively of a “house god” completely in league with either the North and the South, but Lincoln was far more sensitive to the moral complexities of the situation (something I see lacking in today’s speeches where little room is given for acknowledging any shades of gray).
The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God can not be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something different from the purpose of either party—and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect His purpose. I am almost ready to say this is probably true—that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. By his mere quiet power, on the minds of the now contestants, He could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest. Yet the contest began. And having begun He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds.”
Neither [side] anticipated that the cause of the conflict [i.e., slavery] might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.
JBL -
You said, in response to my post on the subject:
I took that to mean that you are putting me in the category of ‘leftist.’ To me, a ‘leftist’ in the American context is exactly a:
I’m a Southern paleo-conservative. Those are the connotations that the word ‘leftist’ conjures up in my mind. I am offended by them, because I consider being called a leftist to be a personal attack. Some might consider it an honor. I don’t.
If Bush hadn’t actually gone out on a ’spread Democracy’ crusade, then I would pay absolutely no attention to his speeches with attendant rhetoric. Clinton talked about God obsessively. In his case it meant, literally, nothing.
But Bush is different in the sense that his rhetoric about historic missions and the like seems to correspond to actual policies on the ground that are pregnant with all kinds of nasty side effects.
Like Hamas coming to power. Like Hezbollah becoming the most powerful party in Lebanon. Like the Muslim brotherhood becoming a force in Egypt. Like a Shi’ite Islamist government in Iraq and a brewing civil war. Like an open borders policy for the U.S. that is insane.
I could add to the foreign policy side my complete hatred for a domestic policy that includes uncontrolled spending, lack of true tax reform, assaults on domestic liberties, farm subsidies, ‘educational reform’ that empowers teachers’ unions at the expense of students, and his endorsement of ‘civil unions’ for homosexuals during the 2004 campaign.
(On the other hand, so far I like Justices Alito and Roberts. I hope they go the right way on Partial Birth Abortion.)
Some of those issues may coincide with the agenda of the Nation, but I doubt that most of them do. Rather, those concerns used to be called ‘conservatism,’ before the Bush Administration corrupted the term.
Bush has skillfully used religious language to keep his Evangelical base in tow, even as he ignores or eviscerates many of their most important agenda items.
How skillful has he and Rove been in putting his faith front and center, and making support for him seem linked to faith in God.
Well, there was a movie about it:
Then there was the book:
Actually, there have been several such books that litter the shelves of any Christian bookstore. I could see having such a book about the ‘Faith of John Paul II,’ the faith of any recognized saint, and maybe the ‘Faith of George Washington’ or Patrick Henry or some other founding father/recognized great moral leader. But a sitting president for whom the jury is still out? I’d even be willing to look favorably on the ‘Faith of Ronald Reagan.’ (Okay, maybe because he is in my top three favorite presidents.)
Look, JBL, if you think all this is just normal than I have to say, as a Republican to someone who is probably one as well, it ain’t.
IMO, Glen and Jim have a point. Bush’s religious language is qualitatively different than most other President’s, even Jimmy Carter’s. Bush had a conversion experience that made a deep impact on him emotionally. I wonder if he has the spiritual guidance and understanding to really process that experience or have it lead him into decisions based, at least in part on a faulty theology.
However, I do doubt the existence of a theocratic cabal. It is more likely simply a commonality of outlook and experience that leads people to similar conclusions. It does raise the question of whether any person of sincere religious belief can propertly function in a poltical office of any power when many of the decisions must be made on the basis of pragmatisim.
Michael wrote:
I never meant to imply that. There is no ‘cabal.’ This is a broad-based religious movement comprised of a lot of people with a common outlook. This movement interlocks with other movements on certain key points (defense of Israel, free markets, resistance to socialism) that together form a potent coalition. Some goals of this coalition are laudable such as tax reform or reducing illegal immigration.
Some are not. The core of this coalition, however, are the religious conservatives who seem to be overwhelmingly Evangelical.
As I said before, I have no idea is Bush really believes what he says (His actions make me question that.) or if he is just using religious conservatives.
My personal opinion is that anyone who would deny Christ (God and Allah are one) does not deserve the sobriquet ‘Christian.’ But that isn’t up to me to decide. All I can say is that at the very least, even if genuine, the president’s language reveals a religious world view that I find deeply troubling.
JBL writes: “In the old days people understood this langauge to be pandering to a constiuency. Not some nefarious secret code to mindless minions. This type of thinking is right up there with Montana survivalists bemoaning black helicopters.”
Actually in the old days religious allusion by public officials was seen as civil religion. Today, Bush’s use of religious language is not a secret code; people in his base know exactly what he’s talking about. This administration knows how to play to its base. When you see how many evangelicals and fundamentalists look at Bush you understand that.
Take, for example, General Boykin, who noted that “We in the army of God, in the house of God, kingdom of God have been raised for such a time as this,” and
“He’s [Bush] in the White House because God put him there.” Boykin was promoted twice, first to lieutenant general and then to deputy undersecretary of Defense.
Personally, I don’t think that Boykin’s comments literally represent Bush’s position. But the point is that this is how many of Bush’s supporters understand his role and the role of the U.S. in the world. And there certainly was room in the Bush administration for someone such as Boykin.
In his public statements Bush is always very circumspect (minus the early “crusade” reference from which he quickly backed away.) But his frequent religious references, the conversations that he has with religious leaders, his relationship to conservative Christian groups, and the contact that his officials have with Christian leaders and groups, all create the opportunity for his supporters to conceive of his presidency in theological terms.
If you’re looking for Bush to say “I am God’s man in the White House, follow me,” he’s not going to say that. And frankly, I don’t think he believes that. But in a much subtler way he communicates the sense that there is a kind of divine component in operation here, that he’s on God’s side, and God is on our (the U.S.) side as we go about to spread democracy (”God’s gift to mankind”) throughout the world.
Is Bush a theocrat? No. But he rubs shoulders with the theocrats. He has a certain affinity for them, and they for him. But it’s not black and white; there is a continuum here, and Bush is farther down the theocratic continuum than any other president of which I’m aware.
Glen writes: “Given that I am a paleo-conservative and you aren’t, I would think that our unity on this issue despite our many differences would, by itself, be sufficient evidence that this perception isn’t somehow ‘left-wing’ hate mongering or ‘blame America isolationism.’”
I think the important point is that liberals and paleos both inhabit the “reality-based” realm. We disagree on many issues, but our disagreement is based on our perception of the facts, and we can argue about the facts. The Bush administration and its supporters are much more ideologically-driven, facts be damned. Of course, eventually the facts, on way or another, eventually make themselves clear.
Speaking of which, it appears that there are two individuals who have newly joined the ranks of liberals and hippies on the topic of Iraq.
William F. Buckley acknowledges that the Iraq adventure “didn’t work”:
http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.p?ref=/buckley/buckley200602241451.asp
And Bill O’Reilly says that it’s time to get out:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200602220007
Jim -
I feel like I should send Bill Buckly an email welcoming him back to the conservative movement.
Glen wrote:
so you find affinity with an ideology that has a tradition of isolationism, xenophobia, and racism?
As far as my statements about leftists my references have been in line with the standard practice of referring to the political left. If you want to associate it to Birkenstock wearing neo-hippies that’s your weakness in the discussion, not mine.
Again as far as the books and documentary you cite about Bush’s religious language, so what. Individuals and groups who were support his cause generate them for their own purposes. Sometimes these purposes correspond with White House goals. I see these as nothing more than political propaganda pieces and they’re no different than the political media produced under the Clinton Administration. These third party media campaigns have been around for years as part of the political process. In the last few years they’ve become more sophisticated using visual media and the Internet. In their essence they’re nothing but social propaganda for right or left (to make it understandable not Birkenstock wearing) agendas to move people to support their societal goals.
This latest propaganda of the too much “religious language” in speeches isn’t new. Leftists (again I’m not referring to neo-hippies) did it to Reagan, they complained about his use of God in speeches, they complained about his Interior Secretary being to Christian. Then they began to criticize him for not going to church enough because he used religious language. What is happening to Bush is not any different. It is a misuse of information or facts to garner support for the opponents’ cause. And to believe this propaganda only shows a weakness to surrender ideology to distorted truths.
Contrary to Jim’s belief in holding facts, it’s how the facts are interpreted and used that is important. Not the claim to holding them. To claim superiority in knowledge because of an elitist view about facts is nothing but hubris. A child who tells the truth has more moral clarity than an accountant who believes truth and facts are to be manipulated as an intellectual hobby.
JBL -
Tsk. Tsk. So many charges, so little time. Hmmm… Since I met my Polish wife while teaching at the University of Poznan in Poland, I am not so sure the xenophobic part really fits. Especially since I am tri-lingual and have visited 15 countries worldwide.
Isolationist? Well, if you mean that I take the advice of George Washington to avoid entangling alliances in which the sovereignty of the United States is subordinated to interests of foreign powers, even when those alliances have long since outlived their original intent (NATO) - then guilty!
Racist? Hmm… I don’t recall hating non-whites. In fact, I recall quite a few times arguing forcefully against such things as bombing Nagasaki with a nuke, exploding HE rounds inside Iraqi cities, and I am against the whole ‘white man’s burden’ thing of invading Latin American countries in order to teach our ‘little brown brothers’ how to live their lives. Of course, perhaps I’m really racist, and the fact that I submit to the authority of foreign, non-Anglo bishops/patriarchs is really just a front.
But, then again, you didn’t really say that I was xenophobic, isolationist, or racist - did you? You merely stated that those are the identifying marks of a paleo-conservative, and since I consider myself one…
Nice rhetorical trick.
Now, the problem with the label ‘conservative’ is that it didn’t even exist in the American lexicon until Russell Kirk invented it. Since you don’t know who he is, you might want to Google him. Prior to Kirk, the views commonly considered ‘classically conservative’ in the United States were known by their proper name which is ‘classical liberalism.’ If you read Hayek and other writers prior to Kirk, they use that term to denote Burkean liberalism which is predicated on limited government and expansive personal liberty.
I stay away from the term ‘classical liberal’ only because uneducated dolts assume that I am talking about Ted Kennedy. I don’t use the term ‘conservative’ for myself at the moment because that term is meaningless. Is it conservative to be for expanding the Department of Education or against it? Is it conservative to oppose federal drug laws, or support them? Is it conservative to want to end Social Security, or to merely want to reform it and make it work better? In other words, are conservatives merely people who want to make socialist, collectivist schemes work better, or are they people who wish to overthrow them entirely in favor of individual liberty and personal choice?
Now, if a single label is claimed by people who believe nearly opposite things, then either one group is right and the other mere imposters, or perhaps the word itself is just plain meaningless.
Therefore, I have abandoned the use of the word ‘conservative’ alone, as it can mean either that I adore big government and wars of foreign intervention to ‘build societies’ or it can mean that I abhor big government and wars of foreign intervention. In short, saying I am ‘conservative’ means whatever the person hearing it wishes it to mean.
Now, I don’t call myself a ‘libertarian’ even though most of my thinking (which is classically liberal) squares with that philosophy. Why? Because uneducated dolts endlessly associate ‘libertarianism’ with the cult of Ayn Rand. I hate explaining that I do not reject all government, do not worship capitalism, am not an athiest, and do not support abortion.
So I end up with ‘paleo-conservative’ at the moment. Why? Well, on foreign policy that label comes close. I oppose foreign aid, membership in defensive alliances which we don’t need, nation-building wars, ’spreading democracy’ by force, and a lot of other things that paleo-cons are against. I also am in favor of strict border control, limits on immigration, and a return to constitutionally limited government. Again, these are ‘paleo-conservative’ views that have been rejected by ‘mainstream’ conservatism, which actually greatly resembles yesterday’s ‘liberals/progressives.’
I differ with paleos in being a free-trader, as a lot of paleos are protectionist. Since the vast majority of paleos are Christians, I also fit in on that score. Racism and xenophobia are not part of the lexicon of any paleo writers that I read, nor candidates that I support, but every movement has its fringe elements. You’d have to point out specifics for me to comment further.
You should also remember that even as the term ‘conservative’ has only been around since the 50’s, the term ‘paleoconservative’ has only been around a short period of time. It was coined to separate views like mine from the ‘neo-cons’ who are basically statist and collectivist. The neo-cons wish to use power for ‘good ends’ such as building the nation of Iraq into a beacon of civil liberty in the Middle East.
That project is going well.
I bring that up because if you are seeking to lump every single nativist, reactionary, xenophobic, protectionist, etc. movement in American history into the term ‘paleoconservative’ then you are overreaching. As I said, prior to the New Deal, I would have self-identified as a ‘classical liberal.’ That would put me against protective tariffs, wars to seize territory, and for states rights.
Anway, now that we have had our lesson on conservative thought, let us return to George W. Bush and his religious rhetoric.
As JBL said,
If this were akin to attacks on Reagan’s religious tone in speeches, then I would pay absolutely no attention. Why, praytell, would a right-winger like myself care about what leftists said about the President? I don’t, and I wouldn’t. However, in my opinion as a believer in limited government and the use of force only for self-defense, the tone and character of George W. Bush is qualitatively different than a president such as Reagan. This is a judgment I have formed based on my opinion as someone who reads Kirk, Burke, and Calhoun for inspiration.
To me, Bush sounds like the epitome of a progressive-era Democrat such as William Jennings Bryan, the great driving force of prohibitionist thinking. Bush is all about ‘crusading’ using the power of massive government. He sounds Utopian, and as if he is planning to build the Kingdom of God on Earth through building freedom and democracy.
If you don’t agree with my qualitative assessment, then fine. We can disagree. What I object to is the constant tone in your comments that to believe what I just said is to somehow surrender to ‘leftist’ ideology.
The leftists criticized Reagan. They were wrong to do so. They criticize W for this. In this case, they are right to be alarmed. Being wrong before doesn’t mean that you are wrong forever. A blind squirrel still finds a nut occasionally.
After Iraq has turned into a complete and undeniable fiasco, after the budget and trade deficits sink the dollar completely, and after the political obtuseness of this administration ruins Republican credibility - I have a feeling my ideas will be very much back in vogue.
By the way, Jim is not advocating an elitist view. The mainstream conservative position on foreign policy is that we are an empire, and that empires can manufacture reality through force to suit themselves.
Guess what? Iraq is going to prove that view absolutely wrong. Facts do matter, and force won’t solve all problems or make inconvenient facts go away.
Stay tuned. You’ll get that message eventually.
JBL writes: “Contrary to Jim’s belief in holding facts, it’s how the facts are interpreted and used that is important. Not the claim to holding them. To claim superiority in knowledge because of an elitist view about facts is nothing but hubris.”
In my observation, the Bush administration often favors ideology over facts. I have discussed this at length before and won’t belabor the point.
Personally, I don’t think that I apprehend the facts better or worse than anyone else. But I am committed to the facts. If the facts prove me wrong on an economic or religious or political point, then great, I stand corrected. I know that I can be wrong; to be human is to be wrong, maybe most of the time.
But the point is that we always start with the facts, not with ideology. In my observation, this is often not the case with the Bush administration and with its many supporters. In this venue I cannot count the number of times that I and others have detailed the facts contrary to the administration, only to receive an ideological response: “well, that’s just a leftist point of view” — as if the mere application of that label was supposed to be conclusive. No real argument, no contrary facts, just “leftist” or “liberal.”
What I find most puzzling about your response is the term “elitist.” I don’t even know what you mean by that. President Bush came from a wealthy family, and enjoyed all of the advantages of wealth. But his supporters seem to think of him as the prototypical “common man.” I came from a family in which my father was a high school dropout who worked as a cook and bartender all his life. I entered the world of work when I was eleven years old, picking strawberries and beans in the sun and dirt next to Mexican migrant workers. By age sixteen I graduated to working in a cannery 70 hours a week during the summer. But somehow George Bush is the common man and I am an elitist. I guess that gives a whole new meaning to the term “elitist.”
Jim, facts have to be contextualized within a larger narrative in order to have meaning. Look at the discussion you had with Glen upstream. You presented the fact that some babies are born hydrocephalic to conclude that partial birth abortions are justified. Glen responded that this fact, while difficult, has no bearing on the health of the mother clause that abortion advocates cite to prohibit any restrictions against the procedure. Same fact, different contexts.
Facts check, reform, and reshape narrative. Narrative however, always lies behind the facts. Narrative is what organizes facts into a coherent whole.
Fr. Hans writes: “You presented the fact that some babies are born hydrocephalic to conclude that partial birth abortions are justified. Glen responded that this fact, while difficult, has no bearing on the health of the mother clause that abortion advocates cite to prohibit any restrictions against the procedure.”
Yeah, I didn’t respond at the time, but that seemed to me to be a pretty narrow definition of “health of the mother.” If you have a severely hydrocephalic fetus, there’s only two ways it’s going to come out. If you outlaw one way, the only other way is by a c-section. In some cases of hydrocephalus the size of the head is so large that it cannot pass through the birth canal. What you call the “partial birth abortion” is used to reduce the size of the head so that the fetus can be removed. Again, if you prohibit that procedure the only other option is c-section, which of course is abdominal surgery. It is beyond me why anyone would think that is superior to an intact D&X. We’re talking here about what the AMA calls “serious fetal anomalies incompatible with life.”
Fr. Hans: “Narrative is what organizes facts into a coherent whole.”
Or more precisely, it CAN organize facts into a whole, as long as certain facts incompatible with the narrative aren’t left out. Now with the Bush administration — the original topic of discussion — they often approach issues “narrative-first,” so to speak. The war in Iraq was based on narrative looking for facts. Facts that didn’t fit were excluded. Other “facts” were manufactured. Other facts that were ambiguous were presented as certain. And yet other things from highly questionable sources were deemed “facts.”
The net result was a terrific narrative, a rousing good story, and one that we’ll regret for many years to come.
Speaking of fact, almost every day brings to light facts that the the Bush administration ignored:
“WASHINGTON - U.S. intelligence agencies repeatedly warned the White House beginning more than two years ago that the insurgency in Iraq had deep local roots, was likely to worsen and could lead to civil war, according to former senior intelligence officials who helped craft the reports. . . .
“The reports received a cool reception from Bush administration policymakers at the White House and the office of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, according to the former officials, who discussed them publicly for the first time.
“President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld and others continued to describe the insurgency as a containable threat, posed mainly by former supporters of Saddam Hussein, criminals and non-Iraqi terrorists - even as the U.S. intelligence community was warning otherwise.
“Robert Hutchings, the chairman of the National Intelligence Council from 2003 to 2005, said the October 2003 study was part of a “steady stream” of dozens of intelligence reports warning Bush and his top lieutenants that the insurgency was intensifying and expanding.
“‘Frankly, senior officials simply weren’t ready to pay attention to analysis that didn’t conform to their own optimistic scenarios,’ Hutchings said in a telephone interview.”
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/13984788.htm
You do realize Jim that intelligence analysis is opinion not fact?
Intelligence analysis may use facts to offer opinions about a situation, event, etc. but they are never conclusive proof. Intelligence work is more of an art than it is a science.
The Knight Ridder article is poorly written and researched, no where is the article balanced with opposing analysis that was coming in at the time. All we get is a one-sided argument from the naysayers.
JBL writes: “You do realize Jim that intelligence analysis is opinion not fact?”
It is educated and informed expert opinion based on the facts, though certainly not infallible. But here’s a question: if the administration wasn’t basing their public pronouncements on the best available intelligence analysis, on what did they base them? Fortune tellers? Astrology? Tarot cards?
JBL: “Intelligence work is more of an art than it is a science.”
Ok, but we have people who work for years perfecting that art, and then the administration ignores them? In favor of . . . what? Frankly, even if it were science, the administration could ignore that just as easily.
JBL: “The Knight Ridder article is poorly written and researched, no where is the article balanced with opposing analysis that was coming in at the time. All we get is a one-sided argument from the naysayers.”
Well, the guy mentioned in the article was the chairman of the CIA entity charged with writing the National Intelligence Estimate and other reports. He knows what was going to the administration and how that compared with their public pronouncements.
Personally, I see the job of the media as telling the truth, not as constructing some sort of “balance.” Just because a newspaper criticizes Hitler, it doesn’t mean that it needs to present his good side for the sake of “balance.” If a scientist says in an interview that the earth is round, the newspaper is not obligated to dig up someone who thinks it’s flat.
From my experience in the field for several years it shows from your comments that you really don’t understand how intel works. You’re right there is this report, but your wrong in your assumption that this was the ONLY report. Intel doesn’t work that way and your have problems grasping the concept. This failure is due to your, as Krauthammer diagnosed, Bush Derangement Syndrome. So, anything that paints Bush/Iraq in a bad light becomes Gospel to you. Any disagreement with your views is just heresy.
Your analogy about balanced reporting for Hitler is not the equivalent argument as calling for complete reporting on intel issues. Thanks for violating Godwin’s Law, it just re-enforces my point more that you don’t understand the subject.
You’d be better served reading publications like Jane’s Defence, National Defence, go to the website http://www.stratfor.com, or even read Ralph Peters’ columns in the New York Post on how intel related issues, rather than a Knight-Ridder article.
JBL -
All that proves is that there were competing theories as to what was going on in Iraq. There were analysts on both sides of the issues, pushing alternative strategies and alternative methods of interpreting facts.
Bush is in charge. He decides what he believed, and what he didn’t believe. He was ultimately responsible for selecting the intel that was actionable, versus the intel that was discounted.
Evidently, he choose wrongly. There were operatives who were on what turned out to be the right side of the story. They seem to be upset that the President, as is his perogative, choose to ignore their product and instead go with someone else’s.
If the president’s policies had worked out for the best, then we wouldn’t be having this conversation. All morality aside, success is its own reward.
Since the Iraq War seems a long ways from a sucessful conclusion, it is only to be expected that a large number of analysts are coming forward to say, “It wasn’t my fault! We wouldn’t be in this mess if they had listened to me!”
Make of this what you will. I personally make of it something different than you do.
Where I stand on this issue is that it is incorrect for the administration to state that ‘no one could see this coming.’ Evidently, lots of analysts saw a train wreck coming. The administration chose to ignore that advice and heed the advice of others. Such is the prerogative of the president. But when the president chooses wrongly whom to listen to, the buck stops with him. He did it, he is responsible.
You’re making assumptions that aren’t there Glen. You’re assuming that the report fits all the paradigms of projecting failure through insugency. We don’t know what is in the report, it hasn’t been released.
All that has been released are statements from a former analyst who said there was a report produced that discussed insurgency issues. For all we know it could be the entire report or it could be paragraph.
But it is pure assumption to believe that Bush chose poorly based on that report. And to argue because they’re are problems justifies that assumption is still assuming because until there is a final conclusion to Iraq there is nothing conclusive to say Iraq was good or bad.
I’m rather more concerned about former intelligence officers leaking information to the press for personal motives. It needs to stop because it does more harm than it does good. It only portrays an incomplete picture of what was going on. And really supports political agendas than anything else.
JBL -
Bush and Co. has basically claimed that our problems today stem from ‘intelligence failures.’ The unerlying premise is that no one could have reasonably foreseen that there were no WMD, that an insurgency was going to break out, that Islamists would be elected, etc.
Intelligence analysts are coming forward to claim that they were providing accurate assessments, but that they were being ignored. If some analysts were warning about these possibilities, then it undercuts the claim that ‘everyone’ believed in the WMD claim, or that ‘no one could have foreseen’ the growth of an insurgency.
I have no idea what the president saw, and what he didn’t see. What I do know is that a large number of analysts writing in the mass media stated that there were no WMD in Iraq, that Iraq’s military capability was a joke, that an insurgency was going to break out as soon as the country was taken, and that the likely power after a new government was organized was likely to be Islamically-based and friendly to Iran.
If private citizens writing in mass publications had all these things right, how did the government not see them? That is the real question, in my mind. Why couldn’t these things be foreseen and planned for? Was the president shielded by underlings from hearing conflicting views? Was the president blind to conflicting views?
What’s the story here? It surely isn’t that ‘nobody’ saw this coming.
You’re mixing apples and oranges.
Intelligence on WMDs is not the same as intelligence concerning insurgency.
As far as being ignored, you’re making another assumption. We don’t know the final reports of what was, or wasn’t, included. What were the later modifications, etc. All that we have are leaked comments by former analysts who are making claims to justify themselves for personal gain. Just because there are negative reports doesn’t necessarily translate that the Bush administration only based policy on positive analysis.
You can have a wide range of intel information of pros and cons. But all the information does is limit possible contingencies it doesn’t eliminate them.
As a former Marine you should know that despite the best-laid plans in military planning that once the conflict starts all bets are off on the battle plan operating the way it was set up. The same goes for intelligence work. Because of unknown quantities then, there is still room for failure or success that cannot be planned for.
On a secondary note; consider the problems currently going on within the state dept. and the CIA. Both agencies have been going through re-organization and there are many former disgruntle workers. These leaked comments could be linked to inside the beltway power struggles for political gain.
JBL -
Perhaps if I type slower, you will get this. The Bush Administration went into Iraq on the basis of its claim that it knew that Saddam was hiding weapons, and that we had to act now. The administration also went in with a lighter force than was required to conduct a successful occupation, on the assumption that the U.S. military would be roundly hailed as liberators. In addition, our first attempt at forming a government was an indirect election plan that we assumed, wrongly, would be acceptable to al Sistani. He scuttled it, and we came face-to-face with the nasty shock that the Shia clerics were now in charge.
Now - if regular analysts outside the government predicted all of these things in advance, why was the bleeding National Security Council in the dark? Why was Condi Rice scaring people with talk of a mushroom cloud when all those in the know already knew that Saddam had no nuke capability?
If civilians could know, why not the government?
As a former Marine, I know that our battalion intel officer spent most of his time typing up summaries of CNN and NYT news stories. That was in the pre-Internet days. Now military intelligence probably just pastes links right into Word docs for the old man to read. So much for high tech data gathering.
Which brings up a good point, I met a former KGB agent in Poland at a bank I was working with. He was one of the owners. We talked, and he said that the best intelligence was just reading the newspapers. In his opinion, you could learn more that way than spending billions on intricate spy ops that usually didn’t work.
We both had a good chuckle about CIA estimates in 1990 that talked of the growing menace of ‘Soviet power’ at a time when anyone with any sense could tell the whole system was teetering.
Even if Bush got the ‘right’ intel, it was probably still worthless. And if there were some conscientious personnel who tried to get the story straight, were they even heard?
So now ex-employees are out there saying they can’t be blamed for Bush’s folly. Rats tend to leave a sinking ship, after all.
Perhaps we should just fire all the CIA analysts and give the president a subscription to the NYT and the London Times. It’ll be better info than he’s getting now, I’d wager.
Glen, if it turns out that WMD’s were in fact in Iraq (chemical, biological, etc.), would that change your position on entering the war?
Glen
Typing slower still won’t correct your grammar. It’s Bush and Co. “have” not “has”.
You need to get beyond press hyperbole. Many times from my experience with working with the media they take a statement and then distort its meaning to create a “hook” to get the reader or viewers attention. When going back to the original document or statement the intended meaning is entirely different from what has been reported. The most famous press distortion was Dr. Koop’s “safer sex” comment that was translated into “safe sex.”
Another point, it wasn’t just the US that believed it was an issue of WMDs in Iraq. The majority of intelligence services around the world did. In essence the world got it wrong not only the US. Lets also be clear that it was never a question of does he or doesn’t he have WMDs. It was a question of what did he do with what he had and what was he developing?
AS far as intel and articles. There has been a requirement by the Pentagon for years to gather local news stories to get an understanding of how stories are being reported from different regions. It’s not intel gathering or analysis as you may think.
You also need to get over the myth that there were conscientious people trying to get the story right. Who are now abandoning this administration out of frustration. It’s wishful thinking and still shows your anti-Bush bias. Washington doesn’t work that way. Think of their actions more as entrenched bureaucratic opportunists with their own agendas. It doesn’t matter if the administration is Republican or Democratic they’ve all been there over the years. Personally I’ve taken these “kiss and tell” reports and books with a grain of salt.
JBL writes: “Lets also be clear that it was never a question of does he or doesn’t he have WMDs. It was a question of what did he do with what he had and what was he developing?”
Even assuming that Iraq had chemical or biological weapons, the question is what could they have done with them. One key consideration is that most of this stuff has a shelf life. After a certain number of years effectiveness drops down to zero. In the case of their sarin, some of the weapons were thought to have a shelf life of weeks. Iraq was working on this problem, and there are ways to increase shelf life — through better-quality chemicals and processes, going from unitary to binary weapons, by adding stabilizers, and so on. But the point is that if the Iraqis had X-number of chemical or biological munitions at one point, ten years later those things would have been worthless.
As you note, most countries assumed that Iraq was working on chemical and biological weapons. What you omiit is that they also thought that Iraq was largely contained, and that inspections had largely disrupted the development of those weapons. None of Iraq’s neighbors were clamoring for invasion. In 2001 U.S. officials Powell and Rice said publicly that Iraq no longer posed a serious threat, and that their military was not effective.
But even assuming that Iraq somehow had fresh chemical and biological weapons stockpiled, it is not clear how those would have posed a threat to the U.S. It would be highly unlikely that Saddam would have given such weapons to outside terrorist groups. So the most likely scenario is that he would have had his agents use them in an attack inside the U.S.
But there is a problem with that scenario. The problem is that if someone wants to launch an explosive, chemical, biological, or nuclear dirty bomb attack here in the U.S., everything they need is already here. There is simply no reason to try to sneak this stuff into the country. You don’t even need any government support.
In Japan, the Aum Shinrikyo cult develped their own sarin, and staged a coordinated attack on the Tokyo subway system at five different points. According to the Center for Disease Control, the cult was also working on other biological and chemical agents. They were also hoping to hire some expertise from Russia, and at the time the cult was busted they were woking on a facility that would have been capable of producing “battlefield quantities” of sarin.
Now keep in mind that this is not a government. This is a nut-case cult with some money. They didn’t need to buy sarin from Saddam or from anyone else, because they could make it themselves. I urge you to read the CDC report on this group:
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol5no4/olson.htm
If you look at terrorist attacks in the U.S., you find that every single attack has been accomplished using local materials. Timothy McVeigh didn’t have to import nitrogen fertilizer and diesel fuel for his bomb. He bought them here. The 9/11 hijackers didn’t have to import passenter jets; they got them here. The source of the anthrax attacks was never discovered, but the best evidence point to a domestic source of the anthrax.
And right here in my home state in 1984 we had 10 biological attacks by followers of Baghwan Shree Rajneesh. He and his followers purchased a ranch in the town of Antelope, and developed enough salmonella to cause outbreaks at ten restaruants, sickening over 700 people. Here’s how they did it:
http://www.precision.rotor.com/trialpgs/reconn-BioTerror.shtml
So if anyone wants to do an attack in the U.S., all they have to do is to go shopping. Even in the case of nuclear materials, every day there are literally thousands of shipments of nuclear materials to hospitals and university research labs. Most of this stuff is transported on ordinary delivery trucks and ends up on unsecured delivery docks. Need some low-grade nuclear stuff for a dirty bomb? No problem, just make friends with the local UPS driver, or the receiving crew at the local hospital. Oh, and while you’re at your local university receiving dock you can also pick up all kinds of biological materials. Shipments of various viruses and bacteria grown in monkey livers are available.
If I wanted to stage a chemical or biological attack in the U.S. I would simply send some nice foreign students over here, who, Allah be praised, have access to some of the finest science education in the world. And when it comes time to make the stuff everything they need wlll be right in their own labs.
Given all the above, what I want to know is, even if Saddam had chemical or biological weapons, how would they have been a threat here, especially since you can make all this stuff right here?
Jim
The threat was destablization in the world with Saddam possessing WMDs. Just as it is with Iran. Iran may not be able to reach the US with a missile, but it’s only a matter time whne they can reach Europe. What good then does it do to America if Europe is de-stablized?
Just because you cite bio and chemical attacks already committed by groups/individuals doesn’t justify your position. It only confirms the need to better monitor and secure those items. What good then is it if there is a rogue nation handing out chemical and bio-weapons to those eager to use them? Do you ignore it and hope it goes away like a bump in the night? Or do you get out of bed and ensure there is no threat?
JBL writes: “The threat was destablization in the world with Saddam possessing WMDs.”
But the rest of the world wasn’t clamoring for an invasion of Iraq. Iraq’s neighbors weren’t pushing for an invasion. When Powell and Rice said in 2001 that Iraq was contained, they were right. The Iraqi military was barely a defensive force. Saddam didn’t even control the northern part of his own country. Inspections were working in spite of attemts to block them. There simply was no threat that warranted an invasion.
But more importantly, even if Iraq had such weapons, what we have done through the invasion and occupation is to destabilize the region far more than those weapons could ever have done. We allowed the looting of vast stockpiles of weapons and explosives. We have opened the door to civil war in Iraq. We have provided graduate-level training in how to wage an insurgency war in that region, and people from all over have gone there to learn. We have put in power the very people most likely to ally themselves with Iran. In the event that full-scale religious-based civil war occurs, we run the risk of intervention by outside countries, with Sunni- and Shiite-run countries intervening on their respective sides. With the insistence on “democracy,” we have undermined the legitimacy of non-democratic countries and rulers that are friendly to us. Iraq has become a recruiting poster for Al Qaeda and their affiliates. We have made endless enemies inside and outside of Iraq. I hear that the latest poll in Iraq shows that 80 percent of the people want us to leave, and that 47 percent think that’s Ok to kill Americans. We have created a situation in which the supposed cure is far worse than the disease.
JBL: “Iran may not be able to reach the US with a missile, but it’s only a matter time whne they can reach Europe. What good then does it do to America if Europe is de-stablized?”
Let’s talk about Iran. What we have taught Iran is that without nuclear weapons they are an easy mark for one of our invasions. At the same time we are tied down in Iraq, and have no realistic capability of an invasion. So Iran sees this as a window of opportunity. And why shouldn’t they?
JBL: “Just because you cite bio and chemical attacks already committed by groups/individuals doesn’t justify your position. It only confirms the need to better monitor and secure those items.”
Many chemical weapons can be made from commonly-available chemicals that have other legitimate uses. Just for a lark one fellow ordered through the mail some items from a chemical company, and a few days later a package arrived with enough chemicals to make more than a pint of sarin, in aerosol form enough to kill hundreds of people. Sarin is not easy to make, but all you need is expertise and money. Tim McVeigh took out a federal building with fertilizer, diesel fuel, and a rental truck. There are all sorts of weapons that can be made with materials that can’t be controlled.
JBL: “What good then is it if there is a rogue nation handing out chemical and bio-weapons to those eager to use them? Do you ignore it and hope it goes away like a bump in the night? Or do you get out of bed and ensure there is no threat?”
Well, you start by not making things worse through an ill-conceived invasion of another country. I can just about guarantee you that any chemical or biological attack against the U.S. will occur with materials that were obtained right here. If they can make their own sarin locally, why try to sneak it in and run the risk of getting caught? If a nurse and a lab tech in a commune in rural Oregon can make enough salmonella to infect over 700 people, why get it overseas? It’s like arguing that we should have invaded Iraq in order to reduce the supply of small arms and ammunition, so they won’t be used against us here, when here you can go into any gun store or gun show and get what you need. Chemical and biological weapons are a problem, but you don’t need the help of another country to get them.
This whole thing of invading Iraq to protect us against terrorist attacks runs completely counter to history and reason. Every terrorist attack in the U.S. has been accomplished with materials and equipment obtained right here. Why will it be otherwise the next time? In my opinion this whole issue of chem and bio weapons in Iraq was vastly oversold by the administration — not because those weapons aren’t a concern, but because the invasion did absolutely nothing to reduce the risk.
Jim, you’re like the cow staring at the barn door, seeing but not comprehending.
You grab a hodgepodge of information and with the weakest of theses you try to connect the Bhagwan Rajneesh to Saddam Hussein. It’s not the same. There are real threats (notice the plural) of bio and chemical weapons. Saddam was but one scenario, but he was critical because he had plans to begin major production operations if he could get sanctions lifted. Second he was known to use them. Read the reports from the Iran/Iraq war. Read what Doctors without Borders wrote about the use of chemical weapons against the Kurds. Read about his desire to acquire missiles and super gun technology. Truthfully the problem with Saddam was more than just WMDs it was his desires for power, revenge, and support for terrorism (and before you take up the “Saddam wasn’t linked to Al Qaeda” mantra. I have one name, Abu Nidal) and his violation of treaties. WMDs were just a piece in the puzzle.
Your last few posts remind me of an undergrad who keeps asking the “what if” question to the prof. trying to gain prestige in the class by proving himself right at the expense of the instructor. It’s rather amateurish. The problem is that your hatred of Bush has closed your mind to any alternative that might suggest that he could have been right. Even if Saddam were to come to your house and present you with a signed copy of his plans, you’d still dismiss it. Thanks for fitting Krauthammer’s description perfectly.
JBL -
It’s Lent and I’ve alread done confession, so I’ll forego what I would like to say to you.
You wrote, “It’s wishful thinking and still shows your anti-Bush bias. Washington doesn’t work that way.”
Remember the discourse I gave you on Conservative thinking? You are still debating me as if I were a leftist who is angry at Bush for not spending enough money on one of my pet government programs.
As I said, the bureaucrats are rats fleeing a sinking ship. I’ve said that, I don’t know, probably three times now in one form or another. If the Bushian policy had been successful, then everyone would be writing books about how they had been the one who thought of it.
It isn’t working out, so the books are instead filled with, “Don’t blame me, I tried to tell him!!!”
Intelligence agencies are government entities. They live to spend more money and get bigger budgets. You get bigger budgets by inflating threats. That is why the CIA released, as I said, an inflated threat picture of the Soviets right before the whole Evil Empire went “poof.”
I don’t trust intel agencies for precisely that reason. Intelligence agencies are notoriously wrong, given that their natural bias is to also report what their superiors (who provide their budgets) want to hear.
That all being said, I again am simply saying that multiple private sources of information said that Saddam had no WMD and that an invasion was going to produce a massive insurgency. Again, either everyone in the inel game at Langley (which is possible) missed these two little nuggets of info, or the information was ignored higher up.
The CIA agents now writing their books claim that they got it right and the administration got it wrong. I have no way to verify either side of this. What I do know is that at least in terms of the future insurgency, while Bremer and Co. were suprised by it, independent Middle Eastern observers predicated this very result.
My suggestion? Fire the government employees and outsource this to a private contractor. The results are likely to improve. As for the foreign intelligence community, it simply isn’t true that they all believed Saddam had WMD.
Those intel services are also filled with career-oriented government weenies, so what it all amounted to was a bunch of hemming, hawing, and CYA. Everything was crouced in caveats and suppositions, just like any other set of documents produced by committee in a bureaucratic enviornment.
In the end, Bush made the call to move, so all of it is on his head. He’s the president, after all. He believed what he believed and went with it.
Now as far as WMD is concerned, wouldn’t Saddam have been a bigger threat prior to Gulf War I when his military was intact and we know that he had an extensive stockpile of all kinds of nasty weapons?
Jim has already made the reality-based case quite plain. By the time we actually hit Saddam, he was a military non-entity. He was absolutely no threat to anyone. Chem and bio weapons are not even really ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction.” I’ve trained to survive on NBC battlefields. Chem weapons and bio weapons are not particularly reliable and are not decisive. Nukes are, but no one with half a brain even begins to believe that Saddam was anywhere close to building a nuke.
Saddam with sarin gas or without sarin gas was simply no threat to us. Look at how his forces caved in when we actually attacked. And if he had had usable stocks in his inventory, why did he not use them when the end was nigh? A chem attack would have at least made all the grunts but on gasmasks. Wouldn’t have stopped them, but would have at least made them uncomfortable.
The fact is that the administration believed that this would change the Middle East for the better, and the WMD charge was simply a pretext to do what they wanted to do anyway.
Well, now we have the results of their experiment. A Shia-dominated government allied with Iran and pinning down over a hundred thousand of our best troops. All we’ve done is hand Iran convenient hostages to hold against the day we decide to attack them. Wait and see how the Iraqi Shia demonstrate their gratitude to us the day after any assault on Iran.
The reason to attack another nation is that it is a threat to the security of United States. Iraq was not. The entire case was built on what Saddam ‘might do.’ He ‘might’ give weapons to terrorists. He ‘might’ seek to strike at us. But, then again, so might Pakistan which actually has nukes.
I will be willing to bet money that in one year even Father Hans will be forced to admit that this was a dumb move.
JBL -
Why can’t someone just be opposed to the Iraq policy without being driven to that end by an irrational hatred of George W. Bush? All of your opponents, JBL, are driven by an irrational hatred? Does that apply also to those on the Right who failed to see a need for this?
Saddam had a desire for power, no doubt about that. All dictators do. So do all politicians. Saddam had managed to wreck the Iraqi economy, lose a 10 year war with Iran, and get his butt walloped by a multi-national coalition in Kuwait.
Instead of a threat, he seems more like a bad cartoon image of a dictator. Revenge? Did he sponsor attacks on the U.S.? Do you actually have any evidence that Saddam was behind a single attack?
Are you familiar with the evidence from the Iraq Survey Group that Saddam really wanted to patch up his relationship to the U.S.? After all, Saddam was a former CIA asset, having been recruited in Egypt.
Support for terrorism? Well, he did pay suicide bombers in Israel. That was to try and shore up his regime internally by appearing more ‘Islamic.’ That was a bad thing for Israel, perhaps they should have attacked Iraq and left us out of it.
Or, is attacking Israel the same thing as attacking the U.S.? Are we nothing more than Israel’s body guard now?
Abu Nidal? You mean the secular Arab nationalist terrorist, right?
Yeah, Saddam loved the guy so much he had him iced the year before the U.S. invasion. Saddam may have tactically given comfort to terrorists, but it was a matter of keeping up appearances of being a leader in the struggle. Saddam was never a true believer in anything.
Corrupt autocrats make great allies, because they can be easily bought. Saddam was in that class. He had no great ideological ax to grind, he was only looking to stay in power and keep living the good life in his 55 palaces.
But the guys we’ve unleashed in the Middle East are different. Those guys really, truly believe. And that makes them more dangerous that Saddam ever was.
Saddam was a tinpot dictator of a small, Middle Eastern nation. Turkey and Iran were both big enough to handle him themselves. He had no offensive military threat to pose, and even if sanctions were lifted, it would be decades before Iraq could recover enough to even defend itself, much less project power.
If Saddam were so dangerous, why was it so difficult to convince his neighbors to support overthrowing him? Turkey wouldn’t even let us transverse its territory. Saudi Arabia wasn’t really on board. Syria fought with us in the first Gulf War, and had no love for Saddam, but they weren’t on board for this.
Why did we feel so threatened by Saddam, when no one else seemed to feel that way?
Saddam could have been realistically dealt with in a myriad of ways. But we didn’t choose any of them, and we will pay the price for it.
No Glen I’m debating you as one who has aligned yourself with the leftists. Not as a leftist. You can cry all you want about not being a leftist, but the underlying premise of your posts is a hope for failure in Iraq. Nothing would comfort your ego more than dead American soldiers and a disastrous evacuation. Are you secretly wishing for images like Phnom Penh?
You should read Jane’s there are still many unanswered questions about who killed him or if it was self-inflicted. Whether Saddam ordered his death or not is irrelavent. The issue is Saddam allowed wanted terrorists into his country.
Thanks for the “but what if statement”.
JBL writes: “You grab a hodgepodge of information and with the weakest of theses you try to connect the Bhagwan Rajneesh to Saddam Hussein. It’s not the same. There are real threats (notice the plural) of bio and chemical weapons.”
I have tried to explain the situation from the perspective of the U.S. My points are
1) that every terrorist attack in the U.S. has been accomplished with local materials and equipment; and
2) the above equipment and materials continue to be freely available in the U.S.
I’m not connecting Rajneesh to Saddam. I’m saying that anyone who wants to engage in such an attack against the U.S. does not need the support or weapons from another country, and that this is confirmed by both history and reason. I don’t see that this is a controversial statement.
JBL: “Saddam was but one scenario, but he was critical because he had plans to begin major production operations if he could get sanctions lifted.”
But sanctions weren’t lifted! Let me put it this way: military invasions and occupations come with a tremendous cost and risk. For that reason we have to be extremely careful in the use of military force. From a practical point of view we have to balance benefits vs. costs and risks. By any rational computation, I do not see how the benefits of an invasion and occupation of Iraq could possibly have outweighed the costs and risks.
JBL: “Even if Saddam were to come to your house and present you with a signed copy of his plans, you’d still dismiss it.”
In assessing risk, one factor is intention. No one questions that Saddam was a bad dude. But it takes more than intention. Saddam was contained, and at least as of 2001 Powell and Rice knew that.
Glen writes: “Chem and bio weapons are not even really ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction.” I’ve trained to survive on NBC battlefields. Chem weapons and bio weapons are not particularly reliable and are not decisive.”
Absolutely correct. From a military point of view they can be a big hassle. One problem with their use in a military context is that you have to know where the enemy is. The whole point of maneuver warfare is that the enemy won’t know where we are. A barrage of chemical weapons sounds impressive, but if we are 30 kilometers away, it means nothing. In the first Gulf war, the coalition was able to attack with tens or hundreds of thousands of troops to the west of the Iraqi defensive positions, and they never knew what hit them. The Iraqis were blind and mute; they didn’t see us, and when they did they couldn’t report it. Six weeks of bombing destroyed their command and control.
Chemical weapons are great for trench warfare, but nobody with any sense fights like that any more.
JBL wrote, “No Glen I’m debating you as one who has aligned yourself with the leftists. Not as a leftist. You can cry all you want about not being a leftist, but the underlying premise of your posts is a hope for failure in Iraq. Nothing would comfort your ego more than dead American soldiers and a disastrous evacuation. Are you secretly wishing for images like Phnom Penh?”
Nope, my secret, underlying hopes are that we abandon our crusade for Democracy in the Middle East and around the world as Wilsonian tripe, reduce government spending, outlaw abortion, police our borders, inspect cargo containers thoroughly, reduce government intervention in the economy, reform our tax code to be simpler and less obtrusive, and that our forces are removed from Iraq prior to their getting into the middle of a Sunni-Shia civil war that we are actually not going to be able to prevent.
Whether we ’succeed’ in Iraq or not is irrelevent to a) the morality of our actions, b) the rightness of the policy, c) the justification of the policy in terms of human and material cost. Only leftists believe that the ends justify the means. A success can still be a failure. The reason the ‘leftists’ are afraid of success in Iraq is that it will invalidate their opposition to the war, since this kind of war is a quintessentially leftist enterprise. Modern liberals love to bomb people for their own good, to centrally plan nations, to take over economies, and to teach our little brown brothers how to live.
Liberals each that up for breakfast, so their only opposition to this can be centered around the effectiveness of the policies.
As a principled conservative, I can oppose this thing even if (by the Grace of God) something good is pulled out of the current mess. May God have mercy on Iraq, our troops, and our leaders. May He lead us to a better future.
It would be great if the Iraqis would stabilize the situation and put their nation back together. That still wouldn’t make me support doing this again in Syria, for example, because if that outcome is reached then it will be the Grace of God turning the hearts of the Iraqis to peace. It won’t be because we have some kind of magic spell for building other peoples’ societies.