22 June 2004 Blog Home : June 2004 : Permalink
At the Motley Fool there is a discussion board with a generally high level of discussion about Iraq and the "War on Terror". A post there asked some good questions for those of us who support the war. So I thought I'd answer them not just there but here too:
1) Who are 'the terrorists'?
A bunch of religious fanatics who want us all to covert to a particularly unpleasant and intolerant religion - Wahhabi Islam
2) Where are they located?
Mainly in the Middle East but some are in other parts of Asia and probably also in Europe. They have bases in many of the failed states and parts of states (e.g. Chechnya, Somalia) and undoubtedly have a large presence in Saudia Arabia
3) How do we stop them?
A) Fix the disfunctional regimes and economies of the middle east. This removes the financing and the recruitment pool and also removes the sorts of governments that are likely to sponsor terrorism
B) Kill the ringleaders - ideally in a way that demonstrates their claims are utterly false
4) Since Al Qaeda is in Iraq now but was not (please..no Russian quotes/no 'funny' links..like maybe how about the photo of Rumsfeld shaking Sadda's hand..someone could say that was a linke between us and Saddam in some sinister plot...) before the war, how did this war help the 'war on terror'?
Removed probably the worst dictator in the region. Scared the $#!+ out of its neighbours. Also there is extensive evidence (which some people seem unwilling to accept despite it coming from numerous sources) that Iraq did indeed succour Al Qaeda and other related terrorists. True it seems like Osama may not have asked for Saddam's advice when planning 9/11 but there is considerable additional evidence that (parts of) Al Qaeda were in regular communication with Saddam and recieved aid from him.
5) How does killing innocent citizens en masse prevent terrorism from spreading? Doesn't it do just the opposite?
Define "En Masse". The US has not killed citizens of Iraq "En Masse" in my opinion. If the US were in the business of killing citizens "en masse" Fallujah would have been flattened. The failure to flatten Fallujah may in retrospect be seen to be a mistake although I think that so far it was a good choice. However it is worth pointing out that Syria flattened Hama and had no terror problems for 20 years or so after that. That was killing "en masse" with an estimated 20,000 deaths out of a population of 350,000 - see http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Hama_Massacre.
If you don't have answers to those questions, how can you support the illegal invasion of Iraq or any other military action?
A) I have answers
B) It wasn't illegal since Iraq was in direct contravention of the resolutions that resulted in the ceasefire at the end of Gulf War I.
C) The situation before the invasion was neither good nor improving. In fact rather the opposite. The strategy of "containment" flat out wasn't containing properly and there weren't any other options.