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Iraqi Civilian Deaths ... caused by Bush's unprovoked war

 

Faulty Justifications for War with Iraq
Here are some reasons why the U.S. military should overthrow Saddam Hussein -- all of them have major flaws. Going to war is serious business. The issue is not whether Iraq has cooperated sufficiently with U.N. inspectors or complied with U.N. resolutions. The issue is not whether the Iraqi people and the Middle East region would be better off without Saddam Hussein. The issue is not even whether Iraq possesses chemical or biological weapons. The only pertinent issue is whether Iraq poses a serious, imminent threat to the United States, thereby justifying preemptive war. The pro-war camp has utterly failed to make the case that Iraq poses such a threat.

- Overthrowing Saddam would weaken the terrorist threat and intimidate other regimes that might be tempted to cooperate with terrorists. A war with Iraq is likely to have the opposite effect. It will serve as a recruiting poster for Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. However much Americans might believe that an attack on Iraq is justified, it will be perceived throughout the Islamic world as aggressive U.S. imperialism. That perception will be intensified if the United States occupies Iraq for an extended period and takes control of the country's oil resources.

- If we do not oust Saddam, Iraq will someday use its weapons of mass destruction to blackmail the United States, or even worse, will pass along such weapons to Al Qaeda, which will use them against American targets. The United States successfully deterred the likes of Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong -- two brutal and erratic rulers. And those dictators possessed nuclear, not just chemical and biological, weapons, whereas there is no credible evidence of an active Iraqi nuclear weapons program. The pro-war faction has never explained why the United States cannot deter a garden-variety thug like Saddam Hussein. Saddam and the other members of the Iraqi political elite know that threatening, much less attacking, the United States would be an act of suicide. Young, useful idiots like the September 11 terrorists may be suicidal, but rulers of countries almost never are. Iraq's rulers know that attacking the United States would lead to an annihilating counterstroke from the world's largest nuclear arsenal. The only circumstance under which Saddam might pass a weapon to Al Qaeda is if the United States invades Iraq because he would then have nothing to lose.

- Saddam Hussein is an evil ruler who represses, tortures, and murders his own people. His overthrow would be an act of liberation. There is no doubt that Saddam is a murderous tyrant. But that characteristic does not distinguish him from several dozen other rulers around the world. If overthrowing a dictator is sufficient reason for the United States to go to war, one must ask how many other holy crusades are in our future. When does the United States attack North Korea's Kim Jong Il, Cuba's Fidel Castro, Sudan's genocidal slave-masters, or Burma's murderous military junta? ... to name just a few of the world's most odious regimes...

posted by Hal 10:38 AM