Not at all. If the UN found it necessary, that's OK with me.
Zonder.. We went to war based upon a binding UN resolution for Saddam to withdraw, and then failed to back up the disarmament resolution with military might... That sounds rather hypocritical to me.. That we would be willing to use force on one, but not on the other.
Thus, since Saddam has CLEARLY NOT COMPLIED with disarming, nor has he done anything but obstruct and delay the inspection process, we have the right to invade and throw him out of power.
NO non-democratically elected government truly has any legitimacy. We, as democratic nations bestow it upon them as a courtesy, not a right, in order to "get along.. But some regimes, such as Saddam's are beyond the pale. In fact, I suggest by "dealing" with him and continuing to permit his brutal regime to exist, we're accomplices to his evil.
Then let's not permit it. Sanctions and all that, you know...
Sanctions, and even kissing N. Korea's butt, didn't prevent their going nuclear.. And the past 12 years of sanctions against Saddam has generated nothing except outcries from the world that we're starving the Iraqi people..
They way I look at it, we've dragged this out since 1995, and lots of Iraqis have ALREADY suffered more than they needed to. The Iraqi people have been denied 13 years of economic progress and prosperity because of Saddam's brutality.
And if you listen to Robert Bauer, former CIA agent, Clinton had a beautiful opportunity to overthrow Saddam back in 1995, but National Security Adviser, Anthony Lake vetoed the plan:
"Without the imperatives of the Cold War to drive it, the agency idled and stalled. The cost of this is painfully clear in Baer's chapter on the failed 1995 coup in Iraq. Baer, who had volunteered to head up an operation in Northern Iraq, was approached by an Iraqi general who had defected and was representing a group of military officers who planned to use their forces to oust the dictator. Baer was also in touch with a Kurdish leader who was willing to join in the attack, but both men wanted Washington's blessing, if not outright assistance.
Baer thought this plan had a shot at success, but his many urgent pleas to Washington went completely ignored -- until the very eve of the intended coup, when he was ordered by National Security Advisor Anthony Lake to tell the rebels that they were on their own. Baer never offers an explanation for Lake's decision (others have suggested that he thought that the coup's leaders wouldn't have been able to prevent Iraq from descending into chaos); he simply calls it a "failure of nerve."
salon.com
Here was a chance for an internal coup and the Clinton administration failed to support it. Thus, these groups no longer trust the US, nor are they willing to risk their lives taking on Saddam when they can't be sure if the US will be behind them should the going get rough.. |
