Hi CobaltBlue; Time for me to pick apart your inference regarding Iraq and chemical WMDs.
You wrote: "... He must ... He resists doing this ...". These two sentences are mutually exclusive. If Saddam must allow sanctions, but doesn't, then what is the meaning of the word "must"? In fact, there is an implied bargain, but you don't explicitly mention it. In return for allowing inspections, Iraq will have its sanctions lifted. I'm rewriting your logic to include the quid pro quo, (and to also distinguish between Saddam, the subject, who is not the same as Iraq, the object of the verb "to sanction", LOL). I do not mean to imply that your thought processes are faulty, but I couldn't answer your logic the way it was written. I'm guessing you typed it in very quickly. (This all must be very obvious to you, how could anyone possibly disagree with you, LOL.) And I've removed the unnecessary BS:
Bilow rewrite of CobaltBlue inference: Let us analyze the problem of the head of a country, which could have been free of UN sanctions which, he alleges (and you allege) have killed over a million of his people. Iraq must suffer sanctions until UN inspectors have completed their inspections of the country, and certified that there are no weapons of mass destruction. Saddam Hussein, as the leader of Iraq, resists doing this for many years until finally the head of another country tells him in no uncertain terms that if he does not comply he will die, and many of his people will die. I infer from his behavior that he must have something to hide. Something of great value to him. Something which is worth all the dead people. Something which is worth the incredible burden and humiliation of sanctions, no fly zones, and the like.
Re: "... of a country which could have been free of UN sanctions ..."
The problem with this statement is that while it may be obviously true to you, it is not necessarily obviously true to other people. As far as the logic in your inference goes, the question is not whether or not this statement is true, but whether or not it is a statement that Saddam believes. Your inference reads on the motivations of Saddam. As such, you must analyze the beliefs of Saddam. You have exhibited zero evidence that Saddam believes that submitting to inspections would lead to the relief of sanctions. I, on the other hand, here exhibit evidence that not only would indicate that it is likely that Saddam would assume that there is nothing Saddam could do, short of resigning, that would have ended the sanctions, but that it is clear that at least some Americans would be likely to believe that too:
One day in 1998, I was invited to have an off-the-record chat with an important staff person on the Clinton administration's National Security Council. ...
...
The important person leaned forward, his eyes unusually ablaze with deep and subtle and clever thoughts, and he said, in a demi-whisper: No, you don't understand. As long as Hussein behaves like this, the U.N. sanctions will stay in effect, and as long as the sanctions stay in effect, Hussein will stay weak. If he obeys the U.N. mandates, then the sanctions will disappear, and he will become strong again. We've got him just where we want him. #reply-18278957
The situation continues to the present:
What will be the trigger for war?
The Guardian, November 27, 2002
...
The Iraqis cooperate and the inspectors find nothing
Many former inspectors believe this the most likely scenario. They say Iraq has had plenty of time to hide any incriminating evidence, perhaps burying it deep in the desert. In that case, the US and Britain will face a serious dilemma which is likely to drive a wedge between them. Britain would be content to maintain increasingly aggressive inspections. The US would be more likely to demand action.
... #reply-18278439
In the face of repeated declarations in the US and British press that Saddam will still be attacked, despite his complete cooperation with inspections, your assumption "country which could have been free of UN sanctions" is silly. If we don't believe it, how the hell do you think that they're going to believe it? Jesus f'ing weeps.
Re: "... he alleges (and you allege) have killed over a million of his people."
I've never alleged such a thing. I've noted that sanctions have led to starvation in Iraq, but I've never indicated how many, or even that anyone at all was killed by it. I don't trust the numbers that Saddam (and other organizations) give. I use the word "starved" in the sense I mean in the sense of "having insufficient food". Plenty of people are "starved" but are not "killed". I myself regularly forget to eat and am "starved". For clarity, here's the definition of "starvation":
To suffer or die from extreme or prolonged lack of food.
[Informal]. To be hungry.
dictionary.reference.com
Re: "I infer from his behavior that he must have something to hide."
In addition to the problem with the assumption that inspections would lead to the end of sanctions, you are also mistaken here (especially in your own version of your logic), in conflating Iraq with Saddam. Saddam is not starving. In fact, he has a minor problem with his weight, or so I read. He's coping with sanctions just fine. One of the longest lived dictators on the planet has been putting up with sanctions for many decades. In the sense of Iraq as the playground of Saddam Hussein, sanctions have not been a problem for him. If anything, sanctions, and the exaggerated suffering of the Iraqi people, have resulted in an increase in his popularity not just in Iraq, but also around the rest of the Arab world.
Since even Americans are publicly stating that full cooperation with inspections would not lead to the lifting of sanctions against Iraq, I need merely note that the weapons inspectors themselves admit that the inspections were used for spying. That's plenty of reason to throw the inspectors out, and it doesn't require that Iraq possess chemical WMDs.
I do agree that Iraq once had chemical WMDs, and that they were hidden from the inspectors. But here I have an advantage as compared to you. I should explain. Finding WMDs is similar, in certain ways, to finding errors in systems. As an engineer, I have massive amounts of experience finding errors. Here are some attributes of the process I'll share with you:
(1) The bad news is that you can never find all the errors. There will always be "WMDs" in Iraq. Stuff gets lost in a single room in just one laboratory. Iraq, on the other hand is huge. The good news is that Saddam probably can't find them either. In any case it doesn't matter so much. The more significant errors typically show up early, and note that the UN resolution explicitly allows for minor problems.
(2) Subject to certain limitation, you can estimate the total number of errors remaining, by keeping track of the number you're finding per some suitable measurement such as number of customers shipped to, or amount of labor spent looking for errors. Some of the previous inspectors say that the number of WMDs being found had already fallen off to near zero by 1998, and that there were likely few WMDs, or evidence of prior work on them, left in Iraq.
I admit that we have wildly different opinions from the weapons inspectors themselves over how much further inspection is needed. But one of my observations on human nature is that when a question comes up as to whether or not an expert's assistance is needed, it is a fact that the "experts" will almost always aver that expert assistance is not only needed, but, indeed, is demanded! This observation applies to experts of all types, inspectors, college professors, high school teachers, accountants, etc., and of course, lawyers. The fact that the weapons inspectors are collecting paychecks for inspecting is plenty of reason to apply a discounting factor to their insistence that inspections are extremely important.
-- Carl
P.S. This is not some trial to determine whether a home owner should have to pay a contractor for a faulty roof. Nor are we arguing a judgement on whether or not to execute a prisoner.
We are not talking here about the prospective, society sanctioned killing of a (very likely guilty) individual. What we are talking about is the society sanctioned killing of at least thousands, and possibly as much as hundreds of thousands of innocent people.
So, in a case which is far more important the most important case ever argued before the US Supreme Court, would you really make the assumption that anyone who refuses to talk to the police is guilty? That would simplify our criminal justice system considerably, LOL.
A guy who refuses to talk to the police about where he was last night may have spent the night with the widow next door rather than with a gun in his hand. And Saddam kicked the inspectors out because (he believed that) sanctions were not going to be lifted no matter how long he let the inspectors run loose (as indicated by our own free press), and the inspectors were asking questions about things he didn't want public knowledge (like where he sleeps at night, also as indicated by our own free press). |
