Colin Powell presents the case to the UN...

2) "If it comes to war despite the wishes of the majority of the populations of the countries invading, we should have demonstrations that make the anti-Vietnam protests look like a picnic."

Maybe the case is different in Europe (to which the American response is 'remind me again why we should pretend to care what Europe thinks? '), but in America the majority of the people are pretty strongly in favor of this war - the numbers were high already, jumped higher after the SOFTU (higher than Bush's actual approval ratings, and I don't think anyone who wasn't in a cave last November can pretend the majority of the American public doesn't approve of Bush). Here's the freaky part - among registered Democrats Bush still beats the Dems on foreign policy by 30%! As for the volatility of the protests....
America is at war with itself!

2. If this happens without democratic backing in the nations participating I want leaders of the nations and the fuckpig middlemen involved put in prison for the rest of their lives.

3. And this is the most important to me - If this happens without full and proper debate I want leaders of the nations and the fuckpig middlemen put in prison for the rest of their lives. It's a crime against democracy. At least give me some debate, not this awful inevitability.

The amount at which I am personally powerless to stop this mass murder depresses me beyond words. Before you start I'm a supporter of the removal of Hussein WMD or not. I just object to the way this is being done. The fact the US is treating the UN as its bitch is depressing. The fact we've been powerless at every stage of this shellwank from inception to action is minky piss. The fact so many leaders, my own included are wagging tails despite the complete undemocracy and sheer fucking cheek of how this is being carried out depresses me. The fact I find myself becoming dis-interested in this pissyard gungame due to its sheer monotony and its bland newsness again depresses me. More than anything the fact it is being so deliberately separated from the general public is now making me physically sick.

I don't care if its oil, I don't care if its a strategic air base, I don't care whether WDM I don't care whether human rights abuses within the state, I don't care I don't care I don't care. The humanitarian need is cause enough for "regime change". It needs doing. The guys a medieval wierdo. What fucks me right off is the fact its all going on with so little input from the populace behind these giant killing machines. I get the feeling about this sort of thing that its the government(s) saying "THIS IS INTERNATIONAL POLITICS THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU". I'm sick of being dictated to as far as international politics go. As a British citizen I must look to Blair and Blair looks to spout a lot of determination without wanting to reveal any cause and detailed evidence to his nation or any other. He sounds as if he knows the whys and the wherefores but just can't tell us. How fucking dare he. Democracy should extend further than rosettes, press junkets and NHS policy. The world of politics stretches far beyond the local or even the national now. Especially when you're living in a G8 country. Fucking hell. I want to be involved.

We've been told in a Bush speech that "UK intelligence has evidence of Iraq attempting to buy nuclear materials in the 90's". Really? As a British citizen I'd like to have seen this in parliament, special committee, fuck it a LEAK before I'd like to see it as a throwaway line in a bullshit political speech in another country. So our intelligence is property of foreign speechwriters more than our own. Lovely. We've been told of the "small war now stops bigger problem later" arguement. Whats this bigger problem, guys? Explain it to us. Now. No more rhetoric, I want to be treated with a shred of intelligence. I want detail, I want all context revealed, I want evidence. And I want the international politics of a country to be a reachable resource for everyone which they can comment on and effect.

I get the feeling that what I'm being told is - You don't need to know the whys and wherefores for our country to enter into a war do you? You don't need to debate or have opinion on something which Blair looks so stone-faced about. He must be serious. We don't need to influence this anymore than a rape victim doesn't need to influence is happening to their sexual organs during violation, do we?

I'm drunk and rambling. Please tear my shitsweep metaphors apart. But don't please fall into my trap of seeing this as something out of my control. If this goes down the wrong way and you feel bad about it, then lets you and me do something about it. This is dictatorship under the guise of global realpolitik. Me and you will not be dictated to.

Whether you agree or disagree with this inevitable war is by the by. The fact we've been bypassed when there is blood in the air is an insult to each and every one of us and to our democratic rights.

(to appreciate this post fully, stick a hip hop instrumental on and put the text through a voice synth)

"These men have things to do".

I can't even muster a response to that. I really can't.

Yes, actually, I do.

See how jm did it?

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/bush_iraq_poll030202.html

You obviously didn't follow.

The claim the administration makes about a war on Iraq is that Iraq have connections with terrorists and have WMD, and therefore, it is imperative that they prove not only that Iraq is in breach of the security council (which is justification for a multilateral military action in order to disarm Iraq, as it is illegal for them to possess WMD under international law), but that Iraq poses a serious threat to the US and Britain (who seems to be going to war with the US) because they will hand these weapons to terrorists. Otherwise, there is no delivery system in place for Iraq to drop these things in the US or UK, and therefore they are not an immediate threat.

So, in order to do that, the US must try and prove that A) Iraq has ties with international terrorism aimed at Western Nations (especially the US and UK) and that B) Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and finally C) that A and B will be brought together in almost complete certainty and therefore poses a threat to the US and UK. Otherwise, there is no justification for a unilateral military action. The US is just trying to show that Iraq is lying about its stockpiles of WMD (which almost certainly exist except in the mind of only the most hardened pacifist) and therefore get international approval for the act of invasion.

I'm not claiming that this isn't Wag The Dog. I'm not claiming that this isn't a cover for the US to gain a foothold in the Middle East with a puppet gov't. All I'm stating is the official position as to the US government and action in Iraq. And frankly, if they were somehow able to prove all of this without a shadow of a doubt, I'm not sure how anyone could ignore what would then be a certain attack by terrorists using chemical or biological means. As I stated, I've yet to be impressed to the point where I support war.

>>That said, I think the case for attacking Iraq has been made. However, a solid case for what a post-Saddam Iraq should and will look like has been largely ignored, in part because I doubt the administration really knows. While the goal may be for Iraq to be a prosperous democratic nation, I think the White House's real goal is just for Iraq to be relatively stable and passive. To do that, of course, will require what U.K. and U.S. leaders have acknowledged will be perhaps a three-year occupation to ensure that the transition (which is an awfully bland word for what will surely be a painful process) happens. But I think three years will be more like five to ten, if they really do want to see it through to some sort of positive outcome. <<

I brought this up in the last thread on the subject, and it was one of my two huge sticking points as to why I don't believe that (war at this point) is the best solution. Three years is nowhere near enough time. If that ends up being the case, then there will be nothing short of a US supported dictator in that country, and likely insurrections from the north (and perhaps military action involving Turkey). Japan and Western Germany (which were sucessful rebuilding projects) took many, many years to get them to being industrial powerhouses. 3 years isn't enough. Period.

-
Alan

Salon magazine on the recent Knight Ridder poll which found that 50% of Americans believe there were one or more Iraqi terrorists on the 9/11 planes (click through the Well ads to read the whole thing free):

'At best, the administration hawks have only lukewarm support among the American public, with various polls suggesting that less than one-third of Americans would support military action outside the aegis of the United Nations Security Council. Though we regularly hear talk of drawing together U.S. allies if the U.N. does not sanction war, the only materially committed members of that allegiance appear to be the British and the Australians. Similar recent polls in those nations reveal support of 13 percent and 6 percent, respectively -- thrusting leaders like Tony Blair and John Howard into politically hostile territory with their own citizenry should they choose to follow George W. Bush into non-U.N. battle.

'The Knight Ridder poll raises the specter of an unsettling truth. It suggests that whatever support there is for a war against Iraq, it owes much to the erroneous belief of at least half of the American people that it was Saddam Hussein's operatives who flew the planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon.'

I fail to be convinced by the args. of Bush administration that attack = the only way. I will be going to Hyde Park on the 15th to add my voice to others who agree with me.

I don't think public opinion whether pro- or anti- war is neccessarily to be trusted or even taken into account: war fever can grip a population quite easily, as can a disinterested global nimby-ism. What were the public saying before Kosovo, for instance? Or before the Boer War or WWI?

Does it ever occur to you that you're making someone against the war defend the arguments for it? This is persuasive how?

ditto to suzy also; again the evidence means nothing or little to me - I never doubted the worst about Iraq; I still don't think it makes war neccesary.

Oh come on, they can't even get spares for their tanks! The reason Bushco wants to invade now rather than later is because Iraq doesn't have the scary nuclear weapons that bristle from every European country -- and North Korea. The message they are sending to the world is 'Get nuclear weapons quick, because otherwise we'll just roll into your capital, humiliate your leadership, and take your resources.'

(Hey, what's with the HTML syntax checker, it's gone haywire!)

(What's all this bullshit about no debate? I just watched Tony Blair on C-SPAN the other morning doing the back-and-forth in the House of Whichevers...)

The problem we've got is the opposition party are vehemently pro-war. There were minor kickoffs by cuddly Charles Kennedy and a few backbenchers but the debate happened in the mid afternoon when everyone is at work and was 3/4 item on the evening news, buried by more "positive" war news. As a debate it wasn't a debate. PMQ's stopped being a debate a long time ago anyway and this one was particularly ridiculous as no-one was actually going to change their views based on it.

(Powell did it in the UN today... Fleischer and Rumsfeld do it with the press every day)
Dagnammit, those press boys ALWAYS ask the questions I want asked. That 10 second soundbite on the news tells me EVERYTHING I need know. Grow up.

(What the hell are you asking for? What would it look like? Who would participate? You want Bush or Blair on TV taking calls from the public?)

Yes. Yes I am. The Paxman interview tonight should be decent, but is a little too late now things seem inevitable.

(There's a WAR ON. These men have things to do)
Well, you say later on in this thread that "I don't think it's that outrageous that there hasn't been a lot of official explanation of what we will do after we win a war that hasn't started yet". Sort your point out. The line "these men have things to you" . . . sorry that sounds like the tag line to a Steven Segal / Sly Stallone teamup. I can't take it seriously.

judgments of "mood of the country" are doubtless pretty specious (you pick the experts who give you the figures you like), but i wz struck by the absoluteness of the claim (political correspondents don't like to be caught out by events so mostly they just hedge meaninglessly)

The last time the US went into the Middle East in force, to kick Iraq out of Kuwait, did the US seize Kuwaits natural resources? And since they were in Iraq at the time, did the US seize Iraqs natural resources?

If your answer to this question is 'no', then why is it going to be different this time?

interesting to read these threads 18 years later

pic.twitter.com/U32mZrjF8g

— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) October 19, 2021

ackerman: https://foreverwars.substack.com/p/the-only-man-who-could-have-stopped

momus OTM

The US is just trying to show that Iraq is lying about its stockpiles of WMD (which almost certainly exist except in the mind of only the most hardened pacifist)

Holy shit at how conservative/blinkered 2003 ilx was. "I just assume Iraq has WMDs and connections to Al Q", "Taking oil is a legitimate foreign policy action".

The invasion of Iraq was the turning point in my radicalization from a somewhat apolitical former conservative toward a progressive. So, thanks, GWB.

Momus and Lynsk3y as the voices of reason!

tbf I'm guessing a lot of what was happening here was ppl pushing back against Momus because of his hot takes on, like, a hundred other topics

I didn't expect to spend 40 mins yesterday destroying Colin Powell's rep on Facebook with Democrats.

Yeah lol same. I was raised v conservative yet entirely put off by W’s affect and evangelicalism. So even when I’d moved to voting solely for Democrats —mostly for aesthetic reasons tbh—I spent most the two years between 9/11 and the invasion and fallout thinking “well gee whiz they clearly know things we don’t and surely they wouldn’t just cook this up whole cloth. It’s just been eXeCuTeD pOoRlY”.

What a fucking rube. The absolute state of public school history classes in this country.

(Re - The invasion of Iraq was the turning point in my radicalization from a somewhat apolitical former conservative toward a progressive. So, thanks, GWB)

I'll admit being the first black national security advisor, chairman of JCOS, and secretary of state are important, and, according to the former State Department employees I argued with yesterday, he "modernized" the joint; but fuck him and fuck these people who accused me of lacking nuance.

*Black

(public school history classes and a compliant housebroken MSM)

robin wright’s take too, also apparently a very nice guy! she stumbles over cliched reverence for his path like only a white liberal could

https://www.newyorker.com/news/postscript/colin-powell-the-humble-american

After Bush was reëlected, in 2004, Powell drew up a list of things he wanted to work on during the second term. He took it with him when he was summoned to the White House. He never had a chance to explain it, he later told me. Bush blindsided Powell by announcing that he had just asked Condoleezza Rice to serve as his next Secretary of State. Powell had been fired. He was clearly stung. It was an ignoble end to a lifetime of public service.

Wait -- so he was fired? How did I not know this? This makes him more repugnant. I thought he'd resigned.

Apropos of nothing, did anyone go from opposing the war at the start to enthusiastically supporting it?

Colin Powell lol jk

no joke, him signing on was really key for me (and clearly a lot of people, which the Bush admin and pro-War media leaned on hard obv) initially thinking that It Just Has to be Done

Sorry I fired you, guy

https://www.bushcenter.org/about-the-center/newsroom/press-releases/2021/10/statement-by-president-george-w-bush-on-colin-powell.html