What You Don't Read in the Papers

[kandrathe]

I think we can be honest with ourselves. Everyone was fooled. The US, British, Germans, French, Iran, Syria, Saudi's, etc. etc. He had remaining unaccounted for WMD in 1998 when UNSCOM bugged out, and there was no reason to believe that without a UN watchdog he would not rebuild his WMD programs. So, two things; Sanctions either did a better job of containment than we thought (to the massive suffering of the Iraqi people), or Saddam decided to play a cat and mouse game with his WMD program. I still believe that in another bunch of camoflaged holes somewhere are cache's of WMD materials sufficient to rebuild the entire program.

There was no lie. The only lie was the one we were telling ourselves; that we could avoid war by placating yet another ruthless dictator. It didn't work for Marcos, didn't work for Noriega, didn't work with Hitler, or Stalin, or Hiro Hito, or Mussolini. IMHO, tyranny thrives when free democracies show weakness and bury their heads in the sand.

For me it is the resurrection of an age old battle fought between Americans who believe that freedom is an innate human right, versus those who are unwilling to sacrifice in the face of oppression and tyranny. Back before WWII those people, called isolationists, were the majority which delayed the US entry into WWII for an embarrassingly long time. American pilots were going to Canada to join the RAF, and in China there was a famous bunch of rogues known as "The Flying Tigers". Even once we entered the war, in the European theatre, we were hesitant to commit our forces to the same levels that the Soviets, or Europeans had until D-Day. I do not hear the clamor for tribunals to examine the US / NATO led occupation of the former Yugoslavia. We were dragged against our will into that "nation building" exercise. How many US soldiers have died in the Balkans since the "official end of combat operations"? I mean, what is the daily body count tally? I really want to know.

Anyway, Shadow, this rant is not directed at you but to the topic. I feel that America has a very sad history of standing up to tyranny, and during the Cold War we did reprehensible things to prop up Dictators throughout the world in the name of Democracy. Sadly, some of the very same men we have dragged from power were put there by American interventions, including Saddam Hussain. This parallel has been mentioned in the Lounge before, but it is interesting to look back at the worlds attempts to contain Hitler prior to WWII. In 1933 Germany had strict import/export controls (Sanctions if you will) and they had a cadre of weapons inspectors insuring that Germany would not rise up again to attack Europe.

I would prefer the world body through the UN would choose to stand up to crimes against humanity, and to torture, and tyranny, but alas, there are a small handful of nations that have shown true metal. I will fault the Bush administration for wearing its trampling boots where diplomacy was called for, but still I think France, Germany, et. al. have made their point and the time has come for free nations to choose sides. Are they willing to set back and watch genocide, or wait for WMD to be used, or have a Tyrannt hold the world hostage, or will we intervene? I am one who thinks we should have done more to save lives in Sudan, and all of Central Africa. But we didn't and now MILLIONS of people are dead due to those confilcts. No, it's not our fault. But, we just watched it happen.

So then it goes back to balance, and the US certainly does not want to make these "who should be dragged from power" decisions unilaterally. So, to me, it is imperitive that the UN grow themselves a spine.