| Subject: Re: Why the sudden push to get Saddam? |
Author:
Raisinmom
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Date Posted: 05:54:08 09/16/02 Mon
In reply to:
Astrid
's message, "Re: Why the sudden push to get Saddam?" on 13:16:13 09/15/02 Sun
>Again, Saddam hasn't been linked to al Qaeda. He is
>known to support other terrorist groups, but not the
>Muslim fundamentalist ones. But guess who DOES
>support Islamist terrorism?? Saudi Arabia. Why not
>deal with this nation, aren't they a greater threat to
>US security?
Well, as noted in my first post, there *are* links between Saddam and Al Qaeda; I'll try to dig up some Safire columns later today. Second, I don't believe that Saddam differentiates between those terrorists that he will support and those that he won't. Rather, I believe he will provide arms to any group that may be able to succeed in killin the West or Israel, regardless of the group's motivation for doing so.
As for Saudi Arabia, yes, it is a threat, but less urgent than Saddam. Saudi Arabia inculcates hatred and teaches intolerance, and creates the conditions that lead to terrorist groups and cells. This is certainly very serious. But Saudi Arabia's corrupt royal family is not giving arms to any who can destroy America (though they may be doing this for groups who wish to try for Israel). Moreover,
Saudi Arabia at least wishes to keep the appearance of cooperation, and thus gives some concessions in the "war against terror." So from Bush's perspective, Saudi Arabia is a threat, but one to deal with later and differently (ie, not regime change probably).
>Surely the US electorate cares about flouting
>international law...?
No, not if the electorate thinks it's right. It would be different if the UN actually represented the moral right, but it doesn't (Rwanda?), and neither does the EU (Germany's stance on Iraq right now). Moreover, much of the US electorate believes that Europe is too prone to appeasement and blindness, too slow to use the force that should be used to stop evil, and too full of anti-Americanism to see the writing on the wall.
>
>> My point is that it should give Americans pause.
Fair enough, and I think it did -- but now many Americans have considered the matter and found that invasion is warranted.
>I think the international community agrees that
>Saddam's abuses have been and are intolerable. The
>concerns, it seems to me, lie with the problems
>inherent to the destablisation of the Middle East.
Yes, this is troubling. But I guess Bush et al. would say that it's not like the Middle East is stable now, or that the "acceptable" regimes (like Pakistan or Saudi Arabia) are really all that great (of course they could easily be worse). Moreover, I suspect the hawks would argue that destabilization is certainly a grave risk, but that the risk of Saddam having and providing biological, chemical or nuclear arms to terrorists is much more grave. They may also be emboldened by the disavowal by some of the "domino theory" that got the US into several ugly situations in the past. Powell and Rummy -- well, I'll be frank, I don't have enough basis to judge these guys to know whether I trust their opinions. I think it's very difficult for even a politically aware, educated American to accurately gauge the competence of those involved in foreign policy and defence at the time of the actions -- we don't know the whole story, the threats, the side-deals, the coups we could back, the dictators waiting in the wings.
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