On CBS News tonight, they were positing that Saddam is preparing to hit the US troops so nicely gathered in one place, before they had a chance to launch their assault. If someone wants to start a thread about whether or not that's a good idea, please do so. This thread is to discuss the morality. Would Saddam be justified, using the doctrine of pre-emptive war that Bush is stretching to preventive war? (SIDE NOTE: people keep saying we're launching a pre-emptive war, but we're not. It's preventive. There's no imminent threat from Saddam.)
Understand your logic I cannot. Actually, I get the point and yes, Saddam seems to have been given that right. You just kinda lost me at the end there. Then again, I don't know the definition of "sexual relations" anymore. Thanks Bill. In fact, he could disarm by using his WMD. Technically that would be in full compliance with the UN.
Do you mean you didn't understand my distinction between preemptive and preventive war? Preemptive war would be Saddam saying, look, there are hundreds of thousands of enemy soldiers who have traveled thousands of miles, Bush keeps saying he's going to attack, so there's gonna be a war. I might as well get in the first punch. As long as you can get past the morality of the two nations involved, no way is preemptive war immoral. Preventive war is something else. There's no evidence that Saddam is going to do something to us, at least when compared to the divisions and fleets we've sent to knock on his door. Well, that would certainly explode everyone's iron-o-meter.
He certainly doesn't have anything to lose with a move like that. And I doubt that Bush's administration isn't looking into the possibility. Does Saddam have a moral right? I don't know if that is even a relevant question now. Saddam has lost his moral right to defend himself from an attempt by the west to get rid of him for good. He is not an innocent leader under siege. He is a war criminal who has brought whatever happens in the near future upon himself. But a first strike on his part, if it is a damn good one, could be a key victory for him in the early stages of a war. He can never win in the end, but the longer he can hold out will only add to the possibility that support in the middle east could grow for Iraq.
Most anything Saddam does is immoral. It doesn't seem likely that he looks at thing as right or wrong. It doesn't even seem like he is attempting to defend his people or his own life. Having written that, he is probably laughing various body parts off, knowing that the USA is stretching pretty thin, committing vast resources to overthrow one guy. Well, Dan Rather could've saved probably a million lives and a trillion dollars, if only he'd gone in as a suicide bomber when he met Saddam. Lost opportunity.
Israel did the same thing in 1967, so the precedent is there. The only difference is, Israel would have been stupid or suicidal not to strike, while Iraq would have to be stupid or suicidal to strike. There are plenty more Americans where those came from - assuming Iraq can even defeat what we have striking first, which is far from a given. And the fury of the United States towards such an act would be absolutely Wagnerian. See it from Saddam's point of view, we wouldn't. The only debate of the legality, as opposed to the wisdom, of striking first would be whether one saw the American forces as a vanguard of the United Nations. Except Bush has said he would invade, UN or no UN, so this legalization doesn't apply. EDIT - the fact that we have so many forces just sitting there waiting to be Pearl Harbored, while Saddam does nothing, argues against any of the following: Saddam having WMD, Saddam being irrational, Saddam being undeterrable. Wow, this whole situation has been going on so long, I remember when this was about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction! What was that, about fifty years ago now?
Also, the fact that we (a nation with WMD), have so many forces just sitting on his borders could also build up sympathy towards his keeping whatever WMD he may have.
I dont think Saddam COULD have a successful attack even if he wanted to. And that will only push the political crap aside and make it easier for the US as they wouldn't need any UN peeps to approve anything. Cause the UN cant say sh!te after he tries something.
What were his war crimes? OK, I guess gassing the Iranians. In which case, the US is guilty of being an accessory after the fact.
Someone will then probably say how Saddam annihilated the Kurds in his own country... ..oops...i forgot...Turks have done that too...AND NOW THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BE PROTECTED BY THE US!!! (poor Kurds...always seem to get the shaft)
I suppose US troops are on constant alert from attacks from the feared and much repsected Iraqi army. You know, those battle-hardened soldiers who dropped their rifles and came running out of bunkers to surrender to US troops in the Gulf War. They would've surrendered to Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders waving pom-poms. So the answer is a definite NO on the Saddam preemptive strike idea IMO. Morality & Saddam Hussein go together like brussels sprouts and vanilla ice cream. Plus the fact that we would bomb, burn & bayonet every standing Iraqi soldier if they pulled that sh!t in the 1st place. Saddam is crazy but not that crazy.
Sure he would be justified. He'd also be dead. Morality has little effect. But one of the reasons thae inspectors are there is so that he would have difficulty doing this, diplomatically speaking, while inspections are still in the country.
So... how do you reconcile the fact that it wouldn't be moral for Saddam to attack forces massed on his borders... yet it's not only moral, but imperitively so, for America to attack a country half a world away who isn't threatening to attack us? And conservatives despise moral relativism? Hrm.
Foosinho...exactly. The purpose in me raising this question was to try to force the hawks here to a) think about how this whole thing is perceived in the 205 nations not named the USA or Iraq and b) think about the morality of Bush's actions.
this isn't going to happen. A respectful try, but so far the thread has been pretty much ignored. Oh well.
I'd much prefer that the Iraqi people boot Saddam out of power but that won't happen. I'd also prefer more support from some allies, but we do have significant support. I'd prefer that the UN take the threat from Saddam more seriously but they'll keep tap dancing around him for as long as they can. I have trouble with people questioning Bush's "morality" and not pointing out that Hussein is far more evil to his own people and is hated by all of his neighbors. Nobody will shed a tear if a bomb "accidentally" drops on this guy's head, least of all his own people. How do liberals feel about Israel's pre-emptive strike on the nuke reactor Saddam was building (with the help of the weasly French govt.) in the early 80s? The Israelis knew back then that the reactor wasn't for boiling tea.
All the hawks here think that there is no fear of preemptive strike by saddam. If there is the case, it meant Saddam is contained. If he is contained, why are we going to war with him?