Moral Infantilism and the Anti-War Crowd

Wow.

Well, you pretty much summed up what we've been trying to say.
I wonder how well this is going to go over with the anti-crowd here?

/me ducks behind the couch....

Vive le spam.

By the way, is that a Cuban cigar?

Here's reality. Saddam has used poison gas on his own people 40 times. He has used the money from the Oil for Food program to re-arm his military, causing a half million deaths from malnutrition in the last 12 years by UN estimates. He deliberately drained a marsh in southern Iraq to create an artificial famine and ethnically cleanse the rebellious Shi'as. He has killed many thousands of people through hideous torture methods. 12 years of sanctions have done NOTHING to stop this killing.

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Here's history:

by Andrew Coyne (Canadian Post)

Having liberated France from the Germans, and having sheltered the Germans for 40-odd years from the Russians, and having poured billions of dollars into rescuing the Russians from themselves, the United States now finds, as it races to protect its own citizens from madmen with doomsday weapons, its most implacable foes are France, Germany and Russia. You know, the peace lobby.

I will leave it to others to speculate on the motives of these three nations, or to discuss their qualifications to lecture others on the evils of interventionism. (A poll shows 57% of Germans agree with the statement that Americans are "a nation of warmongers." Two, three, four ...) What is unarguable is that their hostility to any effort to rein in Saddam Hussein was in evidence long before this crisis; it has nothing to do with questions of peace or war.

When the issue was sanctions, they were against sanctions. When the issue was inspections, they were against inspections. And while they now profess to favour disarmament, they have not only consistently opposed any practical measure to effect it over the years, they have themselves been Saddam's chief suppliers of weapons of mass destruction -- and may be even to this day. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that they are not so much interested in opposing war as in supporting Saddam.

The French, needless to say, are the most deeply implicated. France has been romancing Iraq since at least 1972, when Saddam, already the number two man in the Ba'athist regime, nationalized the Iraqi oil industry, more or less at the point of a gun. Had the West held firm in its opposition, the putsch might not have succeeded, and Saddam would never have acquired the revenues to pursue his ambitions. But France broke ranks -- in exchange for a cut of the action.

The pattern was to be repeated three years later, when Saddam began shopping for a fast-breeder nuclear reactor, with a view to acquiring nuclear weapons within 10 years. No one was willing to provide him with the advanced technology he was seeking -- not even the Russians, who had sold him with a small research reactor some years earlier. It was not until he met with the French prime minister, one Jacques Chirac, that Saddam found what he was looking for. The French agreed, knowing full well what Saddam was up to, in exchange for $3-billion in cash, some oil concessions and a huge contract to purchase France's Mirage F-1 fighter planes. Oh, and one other thing: The Franco-Iraqi Nuclear Cooperation Treaty stipulated that "all persons of Jewish race" be excluded from participating.

More deals followed: armoured vehicles, surface-to-air missiles, anti-ship missiles. By 1982, Iraq accounted for 40% of all French arms exports. Other countries -- the Russians, the Italians, the British, less so the Americans -- also sold arms to Iraq, especially during the Iran-Iraq war, when revolutionary Iran seemed the greater threat to the region. The Germans, egregiously, provided Saddam with much of his chemical weapons capacity, from mustard gas to nerve gases like Tabun and Sarin, as well as the ballistic missile technology with which to deliver them to places like Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. But none did so with anything like the audacity of the French.Even after the invasion of Kuwait in 1990, French support for Iraq did not waver. François Mitterrand went so far as to make a speech to the UN in September of that year in which he lent legitimacy to Iraq's territorial claims. The French were early and ardent enthusiasts for lifting the sanctions imposed after the war, and did everything in their power to undermine the disarmament regime. In 1997, following a series of confrontations with UN inspectors, the Security Council passed Resolution 1134, which threatened to impose travel restrictions on Iraqi officials (quelle horreur!) if the harassment continued. France abstained (along with Russia and China). Emboldened, Saddam stepped up his defiance. The inspections regime soon collapsed.

In 1999, Resolution 1284 greatly expanded the existing "oil-for-food" exemption to the sanctions (around the Clinton administration, according to Kenneth Pollack, a senior advisor on Iraq, it became known as "oil-for-stuff"), and promised to lift all remaining economic sanctions. The only condition: Saddam had to let the inspectors back in, and show progress towards disarmament. Again the French abstained, this time after promising to vote in favour. The reason: The Russians had abstained, and the French were worried they would lose their share of the booming "oil-for-food" trade, by then worth about US $17-billion a year, if they did not do the same.

And so it continues to this day, even at the cost of wrecking the United Nations (and NATO) in the bargain. And yet, in the face of this sordid Franco-Russian record of trading Security Council votes for Iraqi oil revenues, it is the Americans who are accused, on no evident grounds whatever, of being motivated by oil-lust.

You would think the Germans would have some issues about being involved, however indirectly, in gassing Jews. You would think the French would feel a certain déja vu about collaborating with dictators. You would think the Russians ... But you would be wrong.

Leadership can be a lonely vigil -- remember Great Britain and Winston Churchill in 1939, 1940 and 1941. The World War thrust upon America the leadership of the free world. We dare not back off at this juncture. Since 9/11 the "sleeping giant" has again been awakened. Iraq is the second step in this lengthy war against terrorism.




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Alan Dewey
aed1@northstate.net
http://www.deweyfamily.org


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--goes to show just how willing these countries are willing to forget the horror of their pasts to decry war to protect their selfish interests.

~loribee59

Gee that's funny. I was inclined to define moral infantilism as using generalizations and ad hominems as a primary means of advancing an argument. But I guess that would catch me in a self-referential paradox. So, I guess I'll just suggest that people should refrain from doing so.

What the kicker is that I read recently in an old copy of Newsweek from 2000 that back then Sadaam had about 4.5 billion in an account sitting somewhere that should have been used for some type of aid to his country..but it just sat there..he refuesed to use it for what it was ment for.....

1st April 2003 at 08:36 PM Outspoken said this in Post #7

What the kicker is that I read recently in an old copy of Newsweek from 2000 that back then Sadaam had about 4.5 billion in an account sitting somewhere that should have been used for some type of aid to his country..but it just sat there..he refuesed to use it for what it was ment for.....

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Hmmmmmmmmmm..... an issue dating back in 2000, and what, it took abut a year to finally happen:

$$$ to pay for the terrorist schools and camps? There ARE some in Iraq!

$$$ to pay for terrorists' flying lessons in USA? (remember, they didn't have to work; anything they do in the name of terrorism is paid for...ooops, that was Osama's $$$ not Saddam's, but still....) Computers?
Papers? Weapons?

talk about hindsight!

*brrrrr*

~loribee59

ANti war protesters never give alternatives to war. They say get rid of Saddam peacefully. How may I ask is that going to be achieved???
Would asking him politely if he would kindly leave Iraq work?
He has no plans to go quietly and loves his brutal power and anyone with an idea of reality would accept that. He will go but he has to be forced out or bite the bullet.
Anti war protesters go on about civilian deaths but they are already dying and tortured. It isn't like like it is not already happening.
So come on then give us a good solid alternative to war.

One of the sources of error in this kind of archetype-critique is that by lumping people together in a common profile you get to mix and match different arguments and claims, some of which may not actually be part of the same position. Another problem is that the indivdiaul components of such a stance are presented in such abbreviated form as to render them meaningless.

One excellent remedie for both sources of error is to make sure you direct your critique at the specific positions of specific protesters rather than playing games with generalizations. Of course it's not half as fun.

But it is all they chant. I have heard dozens of different anti war protestors given their time to speak about why they think war is wrong and it is the same pitch everytime and yet give nothing material as an alternative solution to the problems in Iraq. They seem to think in to themselves that if war stops then Saddam will just fade away and problems will go away too.
Of course there is the anti-bush, American, British brigade that uses the war an agenda to turn the war on it's head and make out we are the evil dictators not Saddam. Where were the anti-war protestors beckoning Saddam to stop this war?

A lot of that is the result of the leftish, PC, anti-Western, anti-American attitude that has been all too prevalent for the last 15 to 20 years, web.

America and Saddam could commit equal atrocities side-by-side, and yet America would be the one demonized for it, simply because......well, I mean, just because it's America! I mean, come on, we all know how horrible they are! As for Saddam's commission of the atrocities, well, that's because he's a victim, poor thing----he's been oppressed by the Americans for so long, which has left him no choice.

Swallow much of that, and you won't need a laxitive.

Swallow much of that, and you won't need a laxitive.

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ROFLOL!!!!!!  I just about fell off of my chair when I read that Wols.......that was funny

As Brim stated earlier, to lump all anti-war protesters together is myopic and short sighted. It's like reading an earlier post where someone demeaned all the French and Germans, ignoring the fact that there were many who in those countries are just as vocal in their support of the war, even if mainstreammedia does not pick it up.

If you check the posts of many of those who have expressed an anti-war position on this forum they have done so without chaining themselves to a lampost or daubing stautues/burning effigies/ hating countries. Just a reasoned opposition based on historical, biblical and other arguments.

It would be like saying all pro war lobbyists are anally retentive, right wing, francophobic warmongers.

Dave

p.s. Anti-war does not mean one aprroves in anyway of the Saddamic regime neither does it mean we are not also praying for the troops.

America and Saddam could commit equal atrocities side-by-side, and yet America would be the one demonized for it, simply because......well, I mean, just because it's America! I mean, come on, we all know how horrible they are! As for Saddam's commission of the atrocities, well, that's because he's a victim, poor thing----he's been oppressed by the Americans for so long, which has left him no choice.

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Well, not to interrupt your certainity, but isn't it possible, I mean just the tiniest bit, that people tend to hold America, bastion of freedom and civil rights, to a higher standard than a dictator?

Offhand, if the Pope shot someone in cold blood, and a gang-member shot someone in cold blood, in the exact same circumstances, I would undoubtably talk more about the Pope.

After all, you expect nasty, brutish, thuggish people to commit atrocities. However, the Pope...he's a nice guy. Very loving. Kind. Not the sort of person you except to go off murdering people.

Personally, I'd condemn America far more for the same atrocities, because I hold America to a higher standard than I do some thuggish Middle Eastern dictator. I'm uncertain as to what you find objectionable about that.

SemperReformanda,

I really liked the OP.

Oh, and stay away from the spicey kobasa (there's a reason it's over peppered ) I understand that the Ukraine is a great place to minister, hope things are going wonderful for you and your church.

Slava Bohu!!

So we be the nice guys and don't fight and nasty Saddam can carry on with his wicked ways because it is expected of him.