Wednesday

(Recent) History Lessons

This is a response to Larry Lessig's latest post re:Presidential Politics. Tried to post to comments, and it just didn't work.

Was WMD the only reason we went to Iraq? People seem to keep repeating that as the main justification. Even if that's the case, and WMD was a legitimate mistake, I think at this point it's obvious that the sanctions were not working (Oil-For-Food? Iraq shooting at our planes with French-made missiles?), and that Saddam fully intended to reconstitute a WMD program the instant sanctions were over.

Would we be better off if Saddam were still in power? Would the Iraqis? I think not. WMD wasn't found in Iraq. Thank goodness. But what was found? This. So I don't think going in to Iraq was a mistake at all. If anything, we were late.

UPDATE: Guess it was just a temporary problem at the good professor's blog - my comment is up now.

FURTHER UPDATE: Turns out it's a pretty good conversation.
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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'd be careful about making statements about what's best for the Iraqi people. For the thousands of innocent civilians who have died at the hands of U.S. forces, I'm not sure they would agree with you. Additionally, don't you think it's just a tad paternalistic to assume that we know what's best for the Iraqi people?

5:43 PM
Zach said...

It's going to take a full post to respond to this, but I don't have time to do it right now.
In the words of Inigo Montoya, "Let me sum up".

I dispute that there are thousands of dead Iraqis at the hands of U.S. troops. However, I'm very comfortable with laying the death of thousands of Iraqis at the feet of Saddam. As for "what's best for the Iraqi people", "paternalism", etc., I don't believe in moral relativity, period. Freedom is always preferable to oppression, democracy is preferable to dictatorship, the Iraqi people will be better off as a free, democratic people than they ever were under the heel of a dictator.

Period.

1:53 PM
Anonymous said...

"Was WMD the only reason we went to Iraq?"

It was supposed to be the only legitimate reason why the U.S. invaded Iraq - you know.. "smoking gun" "mushroom cloud" "Iraq poses a clear and imminent threat to U.S. security" and all that jazz. The whole "he was a dictator, he tortured his people and used chemical weapons" song and dance really insults the collective intelligence of the rest of the world. If the U.S. had condemned Saddam right from the 80's for human rights abuses and using chemical weapons (which they in part provided to him) then it would be a different story.

The U.S. has a long history of supporting oppressive government figures (Saudi Arabia anyone?) in situations where alternative governments aren't appealing to them. That support seems to continue while it benefits them and naturally ends when they prove to be no longer useful. Pointing out attrocities commited by these governments or dictators after they were previously supported doesn't make your case for war any stronger - it's just convenient.

This reminds me of the CBC coverage of Iraq after the invasion. I recall several Iraqis echoing similar sentiments - the U.S. first supported Saddam while he was oppressing them, then their houses were bombed when he invaded Kuwait (and years after Desert Storm while enforcing the no fly zones) and now the Americans are bringing them freedom with more bombs. I doubt the average Iraqi citizen is as gullible as this current administration (and part of the U.S. population) thinks. If possible, it would be interesting to see polls conducted in Iraq and find out just what Iraqis think of the U.S. efforts.

3:15 PM
Zach said...

Interestingly enough, the BBC recently concucted that kind of poll. Here is the link. I'm giving the link without commentary here - read it yourself, and make your own decisions about it.

3:25 PM

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