Warfare is the greatest affair of state, the basis of life and death, the Way to survival or extinction. It must be thoroughly pondered and analyzed.
Sun Tzu -- 512 BC
Thus begins one of the greatest military books which has passed the test of time. Therefore my friend, the burden is upon you and everyone else who wishes to wage war to prove beyond all reasonable doubt war is the best course of action. The "hawks" have not presented a case. Their arguments jumps around too much and aims to cloud the issue by appeal to emotions and bunching together incompatible objectives. You, Dale, Cho, and everyone else who wishes to wage war are hereby invited to criticize this analysis of the coming US invasion. If you cannot, then you join me in calling for peace. If you do manage to refute my case, then I will join you for unleashing hell on Iraqis.
As I see it, there are two types of arguments for war: those based on intangible objectives, and those that are rooted in concrete material gains (feel free to add in whatever you think I have missed). The intangible reasons are one of these two types:
(A1) The United States stands for peace, justice, and liberty. Saddam is a brutal dictator who must be brought to justice. We as Americans are willing to pay the cost of war and sacrifice our lives so that the people of Iraq are freed and justice and democracy prevails in Iraq.
or alternatively
(A2) We are angry at/hate Saddam because...(fill in your reason here: he reminds me too much of Hitler, he is an Arab, I am angry at Osama and can't find him, etc).
The not so altruistic camp reasons like this: Iraq has the world's second largest oil reserves which the Europeans are milking for themselves. We cannot make similar deals with Iraq because we'd loose face. Therefore the only way left for us is to get rid of Saddam and replace him with someone favorable to us. "Us" however in this reasoning can be either:
(B1) the American public who's tax money and lives will be used.
(B2) the special interest groups who will stand to profit from the lucrative contracts and come ahead in political polls.
Again, I am all ears as to any cases that I have not covered. I am not assuming that these cases are mutually exclusive, so do not present a combination of them as a new case.
Fred seems to be in group A (and I'd like to think A1, though sometimes I wonder). Cho is in group B (again, I think him an honorable man so we make that B1).
Let's look at these cases:
A1 -- Justice and Liberty If you intend to do good, then you must first consider the consequences of your actions. Will you just remove Saddam and leave Iraqis alone? or will you create a government of the people for the people in Iraq? or do you purpose that an American General along with Iraqi "advisors" should rule Iraq for a long time to come?
The administration has already said they will not leave Iraq alone after Saddam. And who among you believes that the wishes of the majority i.e the Shia, and the largest minority i.e the Kurds will be met in the aftermath of Saddam? Those of you who do, please contact me privately for I have a bridge to sell you and some swamp land in Florida. The rest of you have to admit whatever government comes to power in Iraq will not be representing 3/4 of its population. This is in violation of the noble intentions declared and so I refute this reason for going to war.
A2 -- Anger/Hatred The rest of group A who are just too angry and want a head to hang, please try some therapy first. If it fails, go right ahead and be on the very front line of invasion. But do not sacrifice other people for your anger and hatred. On the grounds that your anger can be more cheaply and better cured via therapy, I refute this reason for going to war.
B1 -- It is in the interest of the people Despite what Fred says, I am very pragmatic and do not expect a perfect world. Convince me war is the best thing for the people and I will join your camp. But remember that the burden of proof is upon you to show this is the best course of action; war is serious business. Personally I can find very few reasons for this and all of them can be replaced with a cheaper, better, more humane alternatives. But if you can present your case, I am all ears.
B2 -- It is in the interest of special groups This is the only thing for which I can find plenty of reasons. I find it strange that Fred is willing to accept an animated drawing of a truck with gas tanks in it as proof that Iraq can produce WMD, but my pointing out how Bush's oil buddies are missing out on Iraqi oil and how the war distracts from economic woes of Americans at home is just idle conjecture and hypothesis. Exactly what kind of proof is required for this? I don't have recordings of Bush's discussions with oil executives, but is it really so much of a stretch that political and financial gains for Bush and big oil are the biggest factor in this? Especially since I have heard more discussions about how the Iraqi oil fields will be secured and next to nothing about how the Iraqi people will be cared for? Or even a shred of discussion as to how this will benefit the American people?
C -- Reasons for Peace Now I should not even have to argue for this; peace should be the default and the goal for all of us. Still, let's look at it. First of all, it is morally wrong to sacrifice other people for personal greed and ambition. Secondly, we are creating a very dangerous precedence with this "preemptive defense". Thirdly, we are really pissing the world off. This is important because of the magnitude of this anger. For example, 94% of Egyptians are now against us. Have you ever heard of such unanimous verdict in a nation? What percentage of them do you think will join or help a terrorist group? 1%? 1 in 1000? 1 in 10,000? even 1 in 70,000 translates into more than 1000 terrorists just from Egypt. Add in the recruits from the rest of the Islamic world and you will have a real army. And they will have plenty of sympathy. Not just in the middle east, but also in the rest of the world. A recent poll in Canada found more Canadians found US a greater threat to the world stability than Al-Qaeda! In Europe the numbers are much worse.
Now I really like to hear answers to these questions from the "hawks".
(1) What do you plan for Iraqi people after Saddam and what are the best, worst, and most likely outcomes of that?
(2) Why is this war more beneficial to American people than to Bush and his buddies?
(3) How will Americans will be affected by this both at home and abroad?
(4) How do you answer to the issues I raised in C
Sun Tzu
PS I leave you with this quote from The Art of War and hope that you take that to heart when you listen to the media.
All warfare is based on deception. |
