TheAgitator.com
A Screaming Omission
Thursday, March 6th, 2003I’m aghast. The Bushies have decided against placing Saudi Arabia on a State Department list of countries that violate religious freedom. That’s a little like compiling a list of great 90’s southern rock bands with lanky lead singers married to one of Goldie Hawn’s kids….and not including The Black Crowes.
More troubling, the official position of the U.S. State Department toward Saudi religious tolerance is that it is “of no particular concern.” Heresy in Saudi Arabia is punishable by death. Prosyltizing, by deportation. Women can’t drive, or eat with men. There’s no dating. Over at Fark, they keep a running total of Saudi beheadings.
All this, “of no particular concern.”
I know I should find none of this surprising, but it’s an abolute outrage.
We’ve sold out any claim to make any future moral judgment on religous freedom. Ever. And for what? For the Saudis continued assistance in the war on terror? Rubbish. Remember, these are the bastards who held a telethon to benefit the families of suicide bombers in Israel.
As the article points out, now that we’re rid of the Taliban, the Saudis are very likely the single worst regime in the world when it comes to religous tolerance. So to have a list without including them sort of defeats the purpose of even having a list, doesn’t it?
Saudi Arabia = Barry Lynn. Pakistan = Ally. We’re at war with radical Islam. So we’re going to war with a secular regime. Doublethink. Doublespeak.
And some of you wonder why I don’t take the White House at its word?
BTW - you might want to compare this post with your posts in favor of torturing those whom the government wishes to torure. Then meditate on reasons checks and balances on the powers of government might be useful, and should be abandoned very, very reluctantly.
Or you might not. It’s all up to you.
At the moment it is very important to our national interests to have Saudi Arabia as an ally. They are critical to help us develop stability in that very troubled & dangerous region. They are our ‘in’. Kuwait as well. The same for Pakistan. And China. And dozens of other morally suspect nations around the world. This means we will have to make decisions incongruous to our national morality and ideologically contradictory in the interest of self-preservation. This is not difficult to understand. Your Orwellian references were boring and offensive.
The Iraqi regime was given 17 very clear directives to disarm totally. They have refused to do that. This is NOT a question of whether they ’should’ disarm. That has already been established 12 years ago. Their limited & pathetic cooperation is only with 250k American troops surrounding them. Are we to keep them there forever? How long? When is enough enough for YOU? When is it France’s turn to put 250k troops around Iraq to contain that monster? Or are you saying that hey, it’s ok if he has weapons of mass destruction, that this issue isnt our business? Is that your argument, that the whole disarming ‘thing’ is misguided?
Inspectors would not even BE THERE if it wasnt for our massive military build-up and pressure. The world would still be doing NOTHING if it wasnt for GW. Every anti-war protest provides Saddam with hope which translates into a greater risk for conflict and death for our troops and his people. If world opinion was solidly for disarming him NOW, there would be a MUCH greater chance he would cave in.
We are going to war with Iraq and we are going to liberate the Iraqi people from this monster. Yes there are other monsters and some of these we are diplomatically close to. First Iraq. Our President has determined it is important to national security that Iraq disarm. That is his JOB and he has the courage to do it. He doesnt need to convince every whiney & ever-so-thoughtful moron in our great country that it is the correct direction. In fact why dont you and your bloated intellectual ego join the military and serve your country? Oh, wait you are too busy developing web sites for Cato or whatever and writing stuff comparing our country to a fictional & horrible dictatorship. How…courageous. You can kiss my Marine ass.
Tom–
A few thoughts…
1) The President doesn’t have the authority to go to war. He has to convince Congress that we need to go to war…so that includes convincing all the “whiney & ever-so-thoughtful moron(s)” as well.
2) Your “Marine ass” answers to the Commander In Chief, so I don’t expect you to question the President’s direction or motives, but us civilians can and should. The President is a public servant as well as a leader. We don’t owe him anything.
3) Serving in the military is not the only way, or necessarily the most noble way to serve one’s country. It doesn’t make you a better person, although I’d be willing to thank the people that do serve for being there to beat back other nations from our borders.
It seems that most of the libertarian anti-war folks attack Bush because he hasn’t answered ANY of the opposition points that they have come up with. He just harps again and again on points that the opposition does not care about (ie. “Saddam is a tyrant who could develop weapons that could be used against us), but if he is going to harp on them, he at least should be consistent with his charges. No matter what U.N. resolutions Saddam has broken, it is not the obligation of the US to enforce them, despite the fact that GWB seems to think it is our moral imperative.
WTF? Out of that entire message you get that I don’t think there are other ways to serve your country than the military and Bush hasnt answered opposition ‘points’?
IRAQ HAS NOT DISARMED in 12 years and 17 resolutions. It has taken 250k US troops massed around him to even let inspectors back in and provide token cooperative efforts.
Are you questioning whether or not we should care if Iraq has these weapons? Well that is a DIFFERENT issue, and not really up for debate at this point. That was a debate for 12 years ago. Now the question is how do we insure he disarms. Well, we could keep 250k troops massed around him forever. We could increase inspections 10000x. And we could continue this forever to be sure that him and his sons dont develop more (which they will and ARE). My question is…for what? To keep this monster in power? What a joke.
Are you worried that toppling this madman will generate instability in the region? It isnt stable NOW, wake the hell up.
Bottom line is that the war is GOING to happen. And NO, the president does not need congressional approval for war. So the war is coming, I happen to agree with it and you do not. Fine, but since we all know it is GOING to happen, the best course of action is to stand firmly behind it to insure decisive victory. We do not need a divided nation and world over this disgusting piece of human garbage.
Thousands of men and women are sitting in the sand scared and worried. They will soon have to kill other humans and may die themselves. The longer they wait the greater the anxiety. They deserve your unconditional support.
Plus, please do not speak as if being against liberating Iraq is some common libertarian ideology. I am a libertarian from my heart, and 100% agree with our president and our military on this.
I am not an active Marine, so NO, I am not responding to our president as my Commander in Chief, though I highly respect the position.
Again, if your issue is whether or not he should disarm or if we should even care…TOO LATE, that was decided 12 years ago. Now support our troops.
Tom- A few more….(sorry boo for stealing the format)
1. If we’re fighting a “war on terror”, which is exactly what Bush started his aggression with, Saudi Arabia is not in “our national interests as an ally”. On the contrary, they have contributed more to terrorism than any other country in the region.
2. Everyone who is pro-war says “we can’t rely on the UN to support us, they are idiots/useless, etc.” I can’t say that I disagree, but if that is the case, we can’t rely on a resolution established by the UN as a reason to go to war. If we don’t respect their decision on war, then don’t respect their laws to begin with.
3. GWB is not all knowing, all powerful, etc. He is supposed to be serving his people. He hasn’t addressed the issues that skeptics have brought to the table. His only backbone is that they have not disarmed based on the UN’s standards. But, see point #2.
Lastly, and most important…
4. You said “President has determined it is important to national security that Iraq disarm. That is his JOB and he has the courage to do it”. Later, you said, “writing stuff comparing our country to a fictional & horrible dictatorship”. If determining our national security and acting on behalf of the nation is his job and no one else has a say, isn’t this great country becoming more and more of what you described in the second passage?
All I’m asking is what has Iraq done that’s worth the war? Our economy is in a rut, we have a potential to lose many men, we are destabilizing the region, we will have to control and rebuild the area for years following the war, we are giving fuel to the “jihad fire”, we are going behind the backs of our allies without consent, etc, etc. And for what? I need reason enough to balance all this besides, they have not disarmed according to UN guidelines, because apparently, they are willing to work through it.
They are willing to work through it as long as we have what 300k of our troops applying ‘pressure’? How nice of them.
It is OUR country primarily in the crosshairs, not anyone else. I do not agree we will destabilize the region, I think we will stabilize it. UN backing is important to help with the aftermath and help recreate the UN into a force for world peace and stability.
But personally I could give two shits about UN approval. In fact, I think we should destroy Saddam, liberate Iraq and never forget those around the world that were not there for us, that chose Saddam over the US.
It makes me ill to watch people in this country actually debate this issue at this late stage. It’s too late so shut up and support our troops, our country and our president. If disarming Saddam was a huge issue it should have been debated 12 years ago, not now that the US is demanding action.
What has Iraq done to ‘deserve’ war? Well, lets see…hmmm…
1. He WONT DISARM as mandated by us 12 years ago. WE (the US) agreed to stop destroying him 12 years ago under the condition he disarm and we use inspections to assure it happens. This FAILED MISERABLY. Hans Blix even today after months of inspections (that never would have happened without our pressure) is still very skeptical about the sincerity of his disarming.
2. He IS a brutal sociopathic dictator holding millions of innocent people hostage.
3. He openly supports terrorist activity and his past behavior strongly suggests, even gaurantees he is NOT above giving terrorist organizations a few vials of anthrax for example. Maybe we should wait until he does do this, there is a disaster of epic proportions and then act, huh? You want the exchange on video tape maybe to be super sure? Or wait, I know…we can erect a huge fence around Iraq and place 1 million troops all around it forever and check everyone’s handbags for anthrax.
Or we can rid the world of this menace once and for all and liberate millions of innocent people in the process.
Duh.
Tom -
A few thoughts…
1. I sincerely thank you for your service to our country.
2. Contrary to Boo’s position, I believe that your willingness to serve is evidence enough that you are indeed a better person than most of us.
3. I am probably about 85% Libertarian, and support the “War on Iraq” wholeheartedly. I guess that must be the other 15% of me talking, though…
It really shouldn’t surprise anyone that S. Arabia does not make the list. George Bush, Sr. and Bush family counsel James Baker have both made very profitable careers with the Carlysle Group as the point men for Saudi defense contracts. This work not only strengthened relations between the Bushes and the Saudi gov’t, but also brought him into contact with bin Laden, Sr, a wealthy oil baron. It was perhaps due to this business relationship why Bush, Jr., called off our investigation into the bin Laden, Sr.(whom the Clinton admin. suspected of having terrorist ties) money-trail at the beginning of his administration. This is public knowledge, for anyone who is interested.
Of course, no one, as far as I know, has ever seriously suggested that the elder bin Laden shares any of the attitudes of Osama. From what I know, after the Saudi gov’t banished OBL from the country in the 90’s, the elder bin Laden dissasociated himself from his son. In any case, business is business and, as a result, the Saudis get favorable treatment.
I know we’re not going to agree, we could go on for days likely. But, you said “It makes me ill to watch people in this country actually debate this issue at this late stage. It’s too late so shut up and support our troops, our country and our president.” What makes me ill is that GWB has not debated this issue, EVER.
Why not? Give him a mic, attach Pops, Ari and Colin to his headset, and have an *American* anti-war leader debate him. Prove to us skeptics that he has the better argument. Prove to the nation that he is a leader and will stand in our eye and stand up for what he believes in.
Is it courageous addressing his own points in numerous Presidential Addresses? Or is it courageous standing up to adversity when he feels the nation is splitting(as it already has)? Unfortunately, this won’t happen, because like you, he doesn’t think that he has to defend himself to the country he is representing, NOT IN CONTROL OF.
Dave:
There is a fine line between bravery and stupidity.
Bush knows that, were he to agree to such a debate in today’s media climate, his words would be parsed/sliced/diced/folded/spindled/mutilated and spun by the political Left.
Both he and they know that his arguments need not be refuted with the direct application of logic — all the Left has to do to further their agenda is spread enough fear, uncertainty and doubt to cause us to hold back some more.
Remember, it is the Left that has embraced moral relativism — the end justifies the means, regardless of the intellectual dishonesty involved. They do not hold themselves to the same level of accountability as President Bush — even when they have assumed equivalent positions of leadership.
Hey, your side can get all the TV time you need to present a logical refutation — you certainly get more time than the pro-America rallies.
Problem is, virtually every anti-warrior I see on the news is more interested in trashing Bush than they are about the threats we face. And some of the conspiracy theories from these same people make the 1990’s militia movement look downright docile.
President Bush has already proven himself to be a leader — by putting an end to five decades of overreliance on diplomacy and negotiation, that not only coddled dictators, but made them allies out of geopolitical expediency.
It don’t take a debate to see that he’s got it pretty much right — only common sense on our part.
…what Rich said.
Hey, your side can get all the TV time you need to present a logical refutation — you certainly get more time than the pro-America rallies.
pro-America = pro-war?
anti-America = anti-war?
This isn’t a debate about being more libertarian than someone else or more American than anyone else. What is being debated is whether the US’s best interests will be served by sending 250,000 armed men and women into a hostile region of the world where they could be killed, maimed or diseased.
I don’t think the President has shown that it is in this country’s best interest. Saddam’s a bastard. He’s killed and tortured a lot of people. He has the motive and capability to someday attack other nations, including ours. Because of that last fact, the President thinks we should go to war. He thinks that preventing Iraq from ever harming another country is important.
I, on the other hand, think that we are doing everything we can to help Saddam and very little to help our own position in the world. We are acting like a bully and helping the propaganda campaigns of our enemies. It’s not our job to make sure everyone in the world plays nicely. But if they attack our country, we should squash them. Will the US be safer from “terror” if we bring about artificial “regime change” in Iraq? Maybe or maybe that will motivate more people who will want to fly planes into buildings. Maybe all we will be saddled with is a country where thousands of American men and women will have to be stationed in order to stem a massive civil war. Lastly, I don’t think pre-emptive war should be perpetrated by a Constitutional Republic that was founded on the ideas of the Enlightenment.
Maybe I’m just naive and stupid though. I do know one thing: in this coming war, my opinion, either way, means nothing to the people making the decisions (Which makes sense, because who am I?). However, they seem to think that it is not even important for them to address the objections that have been raised by notable and learned anti-war advocates.
Well, I guess the only time I’ll matter to this administration and Congress is when I get to vote again.
Boo:
I use the term “pro-America rallies” because this is how they are advertised. I can differentiate between those who are simply unconvinced about the threat of Iraq (like yourself and Radley), and those who persistently seek (an unstable) peace through the adoption of impotence as American policy.
It is the latter group that I consider anti-American — unfortunately, it appears that this group dominates the anti-war protests; looking at the signs, they think it’s All About Bush, and Saddam doesn’t matter.
These are the same idiots who march against globalization and for a socialist/anarchist paradise (translation: “I want a nation that will take care of me, and let me smoke dope, too.”). They don’t want the America I know and love — where all its people have both freedom and responsibilities — to exist, and are willing to use Iraq as a lever to further that agenda.
You say that we are feeding the propaganda presses of our enemies by our actions. I assert that any increase in this area is insignificant — do you think that Al Quada will hate us any less, or that Saddam’s son will stop using us as a whipping boy in the Iraqi papers, if we stand down?
Remember that 911 occurred while we were relatively disengaged with Iraq.
The way I see it, Islamofascist hatred has already reached the saturation point. They are already motivated enough to attack us — what President Bush is attempting to do in Iraq is deny these pigs access to weapons that would, in a single attack, produce 300,000 (not 3000) dead.
If “playing nicely” means they stop directly or indirectly posing a threat to the lives and liberty America, or our allies, it is in our interest to intervene to make that happen.
This includes the disruption of free trade by free people — as in a Saddam Hussein monopoly on MidEast oil. What kind of message are we sending to nations like Jordan, Qatar and Bahrain who are willing to interact in peace with us, if we just leave them to the tender mercies of the Iraqi armed forces?
We can no longer count on the oceans, or even the imposition of a Fortress America, to insulate us from meglomaniacs and fascists. We have a choice — stay engaged worldwide, detect the threats, and battle the threats on the enemy’s turf, or retreat (throttling back our economic and aid engines, thereby reducing the prosperity and well-being of everyone) and let them bring the battle to our turf, sooner or later.
If executed properly — with a resolute and sustained effort that will bring about the adoption of a rights-respecting, representative, limited government in Iraq — regime change will make us safer. (1) It will reduce the number of meglomainics in the world by one, (2) it will deny that meglomaniac and his Islamofascist allies the resources to develop, keep, and deploy WMDs, (3) it will give us the opportunity to show the Arab street that there is another path for them to follow besides those of dictators and fascist clerics.
The key for President Bush and our leaders in this undertaking is the application of what I call “precision-guided ruthlessness”. Once the war is over, we must maintain the utmost of respect for those in Iraq who will live in peace and respect with their fellow Iraqis and with our forces (even if they express dissent with policy), while insisting upon the type of government I described above, so that another Saddam cannot take power — and ruthlessly put down those who would continue to perpetrate violence against not only our forces, but the Iraqi people.
While the Islamofascists like OBL may still hate us, they, along with the Arab street, will respect us.
Remember OBL’s assertions that we were vulnerable for attack because we (in his eyes) were weak? That perception of weakness was a result of our overreliance on diplomacy and negotiation, based on the flawed, overidealistic assumption that every man is reasonable.. For some, like OBL and Saddam, their minds are changed only by diplomacy in the language of force. President Bush realizes this — and all of us must share that realization, if we are to truthfully percieve our world.
You stated, “Lastly, I don’t think pre-emptive war should be perpetrated by a Constitutional Republic that was founded on the ideas of the Enlightenment.”
Check this commentary on containment. We engaged in acts of pre-emptive war, four decades ago, during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It pre-empted our entry into hostage status by a nuclear-armed Cuba.
Diplomacy, negotiation, and even containment only works when your adversary is reasonable — and respects you. That respect can come from their own enlightened philosophy — or from the threat of credible force that is ready to be used against you.
For that force to be considered credible, a nation must be ready to use it upon nations that have shown they no longer possess reasoned leadership, and dare to persist in their threats.
Or, do we wait to attack until another city goes through what New York did — ten or a hundred times over — before we attack those who, by word and by deed, show their intent to harm us if they can get away with it? Is that responsible and compassionate action on the part of our leaders?
I’m at work, so I can’t respond to everything in Rich’s post, but I will question this:
Or, do we wait to attack until another city goes through what New York did — ten or a hundred times over — before we attack those who, by word and by deed, show their intent to harm us if they can get away with it? Is that responsible and compassionate action on the part of our leaders?
When has Iraq been tied to September 11? Did I miss something? Did that attack even need the backing of a country to be successful?
As far as I know, the “War on Terror” and the war on Iraq are two distinct military campaigns that are only linked together by the fact that Iraq could, someday, give weapons to terrorist groups.
If I’m wrong, and there are credible ties between Iraq and the fundamentalist terror groups, point me to it, and maybe I’ll start to consider this war in a different light.
Boo:
Read Ken Adelman’s FoxNews piece today. While his ties to Al Quada itself may not be crystal clear, Saddam’s been in bed with Islamic terrorists for years — and these groups share a common agenda; to impose Sharia law upon the entire Middle East.
Saddam is to them what Bill Clinton was to our ideological Left — a political animal who can complement their ideologically-driven efforts. The difference is, of course, that Bill Clinton didn’t finger traitors in his own political party, and ask party loyalists to serve in firing squads against them (as Saddam did when he took power in Iraq).
I’ve seen evidence from many sources (even in the ordinary media) for years about his WMD efforts. And his shell games with the inspectors have always had the sour smell of deceit — as opposed to the example of South Africa giving up its nukes, for instance.
Taking Iraq fufills a major objective of any war, even a War on Terror — to deny your enemy the resources to wage war.
While it is true that 911 did not need the backing of a government to achieve its aims, do you think they would have stuck to box cutters and airplanes if they had had access to a WMD at the time? This illustrates their need for support over and above ObL’s millions if they are to “graduate” to the next level of terror.
We must deny them that support, for the graduation party could be in our own streets — or maybe worse yet, in Tel Aviv, followed up by Israeli “fireworks displays” over Baghdad, Tehran, Damascus, Ridyah … and Mecca.
Talk about destabilizing a region!
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