You're opposing war because you are sick of Bush and his crappy methods? The guy is extremely unpleasant in all sorts of ways of course... but don't you think that the question of war deserves to be decided on the basis of something a little more sturdy?

Same Agonist who insisted that Saddam had to be stopped because he was going to get nukes (or whatever it was)? I am guessing you have not decided that the inspectors and Saddam were telling the truth all this time and that Saddam disarmed around 1995 (as the key informant / defector said) and has had no weapons of "mass destruction" so-called since then. So why the change of mind?

While emotional reactions are often a spur to a change of mind, and I do welcome this change of mind, I expect you will want to explain your change of mind in more logical terms eventually. By Monday, say...

i believe that march 17th is the day of that all this ends. one side will be proven right beyond a shadow of a doubt. i'll put money on it that bush, et al is correct. i'd also like to see anyone that disagrees fess up to the fact that they were wrong.

i want you all to keep in mind that this is also a humanitarian issue. freeing the iraqi people from this meglomaniac saddam. check out this post about a lefty that actually went to northern iraq and visited with the kurds and how she changed her mind that saddam has to go. http://www.ondragonswing.com/journal/gaggle/archives/000688.html#000688

Of course it is a humanitarian issue when a war criminal invades a country. Millions of lives are at stake. This new Hitler must be stopped. But you want to be one of Hitler's henchment don't you? You shouldn't speak of morality or law - you oppose both.

I'm glad you're opposed to the war, but can you not make your links open in new windows? Everyone knows how to use the back button or right click a link. I know it's a minor gripe, but still...

hitler is dead.

check out this post about a lefty that actually went to northern iraq and visited with the kurds and how she changed her mind that saddam has to go.

And in the aftermath, the Bush administration follows through on its commitment to sell out the Kurds?

That's just one of the differences between the war that liberal hawks have wanted, and the war that the Bush administration is giving them. And those differences are important.

WD, re: the Kurds....

What do you think will happen when the Turks invade northern Iraq after the US starts the war from Kuwait?

The Turks (who have a horrible record regarding the treatment of Kurds in their own country) are NOT going to stand for an independent Kurdish republic on their eastern frontier.

Bush has not made any promises regarding Iraqi Kurdistan's autonomy-- in fact, his statements have come out against it.

You are deluding yourself if you think this war will be fought for the people of Iraq, especially when low estimates place the civilian death toll at at least 500,000.

Good. Glad to hear it.

Aside from the intelligence of the decision, I'm pleased that I can now check you off as one who has moved on from the Blogger Boardgame Bullshit Strategizing of Life and Death Global Issues.

Happy to see you've seen the light.

L

ONE too many lies? He's been lying for months. He's lied about everything. The only thing we know is Saddam and his sons are sadists and Iraq would be better off with them.

Everything that comes after that has been lied about by the Bush Administration.

If Tony Cordesman and Anthony Zinni jumped off the train last fall, if not earlier, what was your excuse for staying on so long?

Saddam is evil, but this war is not the way to get rid of him.

And the Kurds? This time, we sold them out before the war even started. Amazing.

The UN Inspectors said there was no nuclear program in Iraq. El Baradei looked at Powell when this was said.

Hans Blix, thanked Powell for the "leads" from US Intelligence but they had yielded nothing.

Most importantly, Blix said the inspections needed more time "not weeks, not a year, but MONTHS". I

One day you who oppose the war and President for Life Bush are going to feel pretty damn foolish.

Why is credibility the worst reason not to go to war?
You debate going to war. It turns out that the evidence you base the decision on is false (not once, but repeatedly). That's a credibility problem, and it seems like a pretty good reason against war to me. In fact, you know I think it's my primary reason. Similarly, if I planned to go shopping, but then found out my fridge was full, I would cancel the shopping trip. That's just the kind of crazy guy I am.

Not that it matters what any of us thinks, really. But I support this as long as the Iraqi people do, I stand with them. I believe they still do support this. And we'll all see for sure before the end of the month, it appears. I wonder what you'll think then, if we're staring into the face of the obvious joy of the Iraqi people, and you having decided to oppose their liberation from Saddam's fascist regime. Will that make you uncomfortable?

I support the Iraqi people more than I dislike the President. Pity more people on the liberal-left can't do the same.

And I believe that anyone who seriously doubts the evidence against Iraq concerning WMD is going to be mighty surprised by what Saddam tries to unleash during the war, and what we find out afterwards. These people are going to seem naive at best.

everybody knows Hussein is an evil bastard

everybody knows we're supposed to be the good guys

we're never supposed to be bad guys ever ever ever

it is a very difficult emotional and intellectual hurdle for even the brightest and most thoughtful among us, to come to grips with the thought that bad guys are serving on our side

the main thing is to understand that the bad guys are bad, and that they will try to infect us, and ruin us and destroy our goodness in absolutely every possible way they can

not just with war, but with respect to the economy, health care, employment opportunity, equal rights, civil rights, privacy, the courts, control of speech

the bad guys have used Orwell's "1984" as a how-to guide, and they are intent upon changing our democracy into Robert Bork World

so while I might naturally wish to have it happen sooner, I'm just glad that anyone recognizes the truth, because it's never too late to fight back

when the stories about saddam's attrocities start pouring in after iraq's liberation.. i hope you stand up and count yourselves as the ones that were wrong about whether the war was just.

turkey won't try to manhandle the kurds while the 101st is in that region. and no one from the government has ever agreed to a free and independent kurdish nation.

Ok, so as one of the "reluctant hawks" who is fervently against the war:

1) I believe Saddam has committed atrocities in the past, and will continue to do so.
2) I believe that not going to war is allowing torture, rape, and murder to happen.
3) I believe, further, that torture, rape, and murder are happening under cruel regimes all over the world.
4) I believe that a war will kill many innocent civilians, either through our own actions or through Saddam's malevolence.
5) I know that Bush has failed to give more reasons than those he gave initially for why a war, and has consistently failed to back those reasons he has presented with data.
6) I know that Bush has failed to address many of his promises in the past--of reconstructing Afghanistan, of providing funding for domestic security and "the heroes of 9/11", and many other causes.

The questions, then, are these: If we are generating outrage about Saddam's cruelty, do the hawks believe that it is worth following this war with wars all over the world? Are we ready to become an international nation of nation-builders?

Do we believe that more will be gained than lost by attacking Saddam, keeping in mind the damage this might do to American safety throughout the globe?

Do we trust Bush to follow up fully in Iraq, creating a state free of the instruments of torture that Saddam uses? (If so, what if Saddam does fully disarm tomorrow? Do we accept that the torture continue?)

WD:
Are you for real? You don't seem quite over-the-top enough to be a satirist (even though you're close) so I'll assume you're speaking honestly above.

Sean-Paul writes above that he's had enough because of the constant lies regarding the coming invasion of Iraq.

Here's what you wrote:

when the stories about saddam's attrocities start pouring in after iraq's liberation.. i hope you stand up and count yourselves as the ones that were wrong about whether the war was just.

One question. Why should we believe one thing that comes out of this administration's mouth?

If you can answer this, I'd like a followup.

Regarding the humanitarian reasons to depose the Ba’ath Party in Baghdad, Saddam's been a brutal, murderous tyrannical pig since at least the mid-seventies, but we were fine with him until 1990. Liberating Iraq, killing Saddam, and establishing a secular republic in place of this secular dictatorship is the one worthy goal around which we could rally the West. And the dozens of other Arab democracies wouldn’t object, either, right?

So it's a tough sell in some quarters, at best. But given the parade of immense and incredible screw-ups that have come to characterize work of this White House, retrospectives are popular right now, and in one of them we should have grabbed onto the humanitarian cause and run with it, by itself. Instead, Bush flipped through reasons to invade Iraq the way an old woman shows off pictures of her grandkids: "Oh that was from last summer. And that was around Christmas. And that’s from 1993, when he tried to kill my dad."

If Bush had been truly down with the cause of the Iraqi oppressed, he would have brought it up in his campaign, and begun serious invasion preparations and started rallying the world to his cause on the day after his inauguration. But he didn't, which leads the skeptical among us to think that the genuine sufferings of the Iraqi peoples under Saddam are being trotted out to cloak another purpose altogether. Bush's campaign courted the military vote in 2000 by voicing disgust with "nation building" by the armed forces. His Administration forgot to request money for this very activity in Afghanistan in its recent budget proposal. These latter two items give me great pause that Bush is ready to stick it out in the Middle East only on the cheap, which is the least secure scenario.

I remember that rumors were slipping out of the Pentagon that a special "working group" of intelligence analysts had been created to report to Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld directly, because the regular experts weren't finding evidence against Iraq in the quantity required. Could the bunch "fooled" by the forgery be this group?

George W. Bush is a fucking lying sack of shit and a total moron. He doesn't give two shits about the USA and he only stole the presidency so he could kill Saddam Hussein for his failed president daddy. The fool needs to be impeached before the entire world delares war on America. Enough of the fascist shit, write your Congressional representative and demand that this madman George W. Bush be put away in federal prison for the rest of his goddamn miserable life.

edub,
let's revisit this topic in a couple of weeks. then we'll all have the answers and we will see who is right. everything now is speculation.

i personally don't care to get involved in areas that don't concern american interest. we don't have to become international police but i have no problem using force to protect american interest. even if it pisses others off.

IMPEACH THIS SQUATTING MOTHER ******* CLOWN BUSH BEFORE ANY WAR STARTS. THIS ****ING ***HOLE IS A WAR CRIMINAL AND A COCKSUCKER. HE IS A SICK BASTARD THAT WANTS TO KILL INNOCENT PEOPLE. NOT IN OUR NAME. THIS SON OF A ***** NEEDS TO BE IMPEACHED. NO OTHER PRESIDENT HAS STARTED AN OFFENSIVE WAR. THE LITTLE WEASEL IS NUTS.

YOU ******** THAT SUPPORT GET THE ******* H*LL OF THIS BOARD. GO WALLOW IN YOUR OWN **** SOME ******* WHERE, IF YOU WERE REAL MEN YOU WOULDN'T NEED TO FIGHT A PHONY WAR AGAINST SOMEONE THAT CAN'T EVEN DEFEND THEMSELVES. GET SOME HELP YOU RETARDS.

No one will be proven right or wrong in a couple of weeks. This debate is over much more than Iraq. I am opposed to this war even though I do expect the war to be quick and that it’s entirely possible that our soldiers will be greeted as liberators. The damage our methods will cause will show up later -- in the hatred and humiliation that will grow and fester in the Arab world (and also, let's face it, in the rest of the world). This debate is over whether Americans want their government conducting foreign policy with intimidation, withering contempt, and blatant, shameless lies. Americans will not be safer in the world after this war, even if the Iraqis throw flowers in our path.

Credibility is NOT the worst argument. It is just in this case, with the complete absense of any sort of hard facts or figures coming from the Bush admin, all they have is their credibility. If they budgeted for the war, and acknowledged the possible worst case scenarios and were activly doing something to stop them..then maybe we could have a real debate on the issue.

But with all these lies, exaggerations and just plain falsehoods, we cannot have a real debate regarding this. I as well want to see Hussein out of there. (I also want to see Rumsfield, Cheney and anybody else who HELPED him out of there) However, this really does need to be done right or not at all.

War has truth as its first victim. Once the war is well underway we will understand a whole lot less about Iraq.

OIL.

I expect if Saddam turns out to have no weapons --- as seems likely now --- Bush will manufacture the evidence. After all, he's lied throughout this campaign. We've seen empty rockets become "chemical warheads" and private papers become a nuclear bomb program in the reporting... He would certainly lie again.

On the other hand, Bush lies badly. It's because his comments are largely aimed at people who won't be looking in any detail at what he's doing - the domestic audience. (As opposed to lying badly because he's incompetent - I don't think he's incompetent at lying).

Therefore we will probably be able to get a fair answer to whether Saddam really has weapons still or not, although not immidiately. It'll come out a few years after the war that this or that fact wasn't exactly correct -- like the "success" of the Patriot missiles in Gulf War part 1. Once the next election, or the one after that is over there will be little reason to keep a lid on the truth.

bravo, kevin. welcome back to the side of logic, truth, and reason.