Saddam and 9/11

[anitram]

I will slink back out. Have fun. Clearly I do not know what I am talking about.

Dread you're a nice guy, but it looks like you have taken my comments directed at your post as a personal affront to you. I like you, you've been wonderful to me for a long time. Because I have a lot of respect for you, I won't debate in here with you anymore because I'd rather continue to hold you in that high regard than to have to wonder when you come up with, a statement like the above, which I view as unprovoked and uneccessary.

Have a nice weekend. Take the wife out to dinner. Dessert too.

 

[Dreadsox]

Because I have a lot of respect for you, I won't debate in here with you anymore because I'd rather continue to hold you in that high regard than to have to wonder when you come up with, a statement like the above, which I view as unprovoked and uneccessary.

Not to sound glib but, So?

I posted numerous MAINSTREAM media articles before 2005. Shall I link to the 9/11 Commison too?

 

[Dreadsox]

The whole adage, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," during the Cold War really just came back to bite us in the ass. After all, Saddam was our best friend when we hated Iran in the early 1980s.

I'm sure Donald Rumsfeld would love to see this image destroyed.

Melon

It was the way foreign policy worked for YEARS. Not just a Reagan policy.

 

[verte76]

Ludicrous.

 

[melon]

It was the way foreign policy worked for YEARS. Not just a Reagan policy.

Ahem...

You can blame the leadership of the 1950s for overthrowing elected leftist governments in favor of loyal dictatorships too. All the "moderates" just ended up dead.

Melon

 

[yolland]

The Bush administration is responsible for the war, the flaws in planning post-war and a litany of other mistakes. But this thread is truly telling in that it seems that people are more than willing to both have their cake and eat it too in regards to who built up the threats about Iraq .

So...at what precise point does holding the Bush administration "responsible for the war, the flaws in planning post-war and a litany of other mistakes" cross the line into "having one's cake and eating it too"? Is melon, say, less worthy than Dreadsox of holding the Bush administration accountable for their mistakes because he's more opposed to them generally, and less inclined to insist on exhaustive cross-examination of all criticism of them? When you encounter firm Bush supporters equating media focus on this Administration's Iraq mistakes with "Bush-bashing," do you likewise insist that they be able to unpack their arguments and provide a long paper trail to back up their own claims of hypocrisy? Do you insist on this same level of nuance, distinction and close self-scrutiny when analyzing the trajectory of, for example, Islamist politics?

 

[yolland]

It's not that hard to imagine that many American people, pre-9/11, thought Saddam led a terror state and maybe had terrorist connections. Not to disparage the general American publics' knowledge about world affairs or mid-east politics, but it would be easy enough to understand if they thought of Bin Laden, Iraq, Iran, Syria, PLO, Hamas, and all those other groups as generally being the same one-big enemy.

And that is certainly what I remember the popular perception being at the time. Clinton administration insiders and armchair foreign policy wonks were well aware of al-Qaeda and bin Laden, but the average American was quite unfamiliar with these names prior to 9/11--the 1993 attacks notwithstanding--and would have been at a loss to define who they were in context. Saddam, on the other hand, was nationally known and perceived (rightly or wrongly) as the symbol par excellence of armed-and-dangerous anti-Americanism in the Muslim world.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Oh but we do. How many in the Bush Administration have actually fought in a conflict? Blowing off your National Guard service and getting five draft deferrals don't count.

Melon

So you are advocating a form of military dictatorship here. In this type of world nobody would have been able to dismiss McArthur and frankly that would be a pretty fucked up world.

 

[melon]

So you are advocating a form of military dictatorship here. In this type of world nobody would have been able to dismiss McArthur and frankly that would be a pretty fucked up world.

I think you've made too many assumptions about what I've written. First off, I think that civilian presidents are perfectly capable of waging war. But the Republican Party made a huge fuss over Bill Clinton when he had never been in the military. They were the ones campaigning on "military dictatorship" for years, not I.

And since nbcrusader talked about "armchair generals," we have plenty in the Bush Administration. It's easy to be pro-war when you never ever have to be in one, now isn't it?

Melon

 

[A_Wanderer]

Not as easy as it is to be anti-war I assure you.

 

[melon]

Not as easy as it is to be anti-war I assure you.

For what it is worth, I'm neither. But I do think it is valid to question your leaders who, at the very least, misled the public regarding the nature of this war and now have us mired in a conflict with no apparent end. I certainly think we can do better on the leadership department, even if that means having a Democratic president or a different Republican president.

Melon

 

[Dreadsox]

Ahem...



Melon

That ahem is duely noted,,,I stand corrected.

Interesting to see you type ahem. It is pretty much the noise I made tonight to make Steven Tyler of Aerosmith turn around at the movie theater. He was watching Harry Pottter one row in front of my family.

 

[financeguy]

Not as easy as it is to be anti-war I assure you.

Self serving nonsense.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Isn't it, to advocate war is to be advocating the killing of innocent people.

 

[melon]

Isn't it, to advocate war is to be advocating the killing of innocent people.

Ah, but in the spirit of postmodernism, are they really "people" if you never have to see them? Would all the pro-war "armchair generals" be so fervently in favor of the war if they were forced to humanize the conflict?

"War," to those of us not in Iraq, is nothing but a simulacrum. In the most literal sense, we support--or condemn--the war based on what we are selectively told and what we are selectively permitted to see on television.

But, for the record, "dehumanization" is not solely an American phenomenon. With Arab television, the roles are just switched. With the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, American television will tell you the name and sometimes a picture of the Israelis killed. The Palestinians are merely given a number--i.e., "20 killed in retaliation" or something. The opposite is true for the Arab world. Killed Palestinians are given a human name and face, whereas Israeli fatalities are merely a number.

When the Bush Administration, rather naively, complained about Al-Jazeera's media bias, they neglected to realize that American media was guilty of the same, if opposite, bias. News, for better or for worse, tells stories just as much as Hollywood. It just happens to be very entertaining to frame everything in a "good versus evil" doomsday scenario. Life, of course, is not that simple.

Melon

 

[A_Wanderer]

With the internet I think that line gets blurred a lot more. Information is no longer able to be consolidated. You can find images, video, diaries and testimony of what is going on from a variety of sources on the ground. It works both ways, there are a number of forums that routinely post videos of attacks against US forces and Iraqi targets as well as images of the bodies. The blogosphere is an invaluable part of this and the diversity of opinion freely expressed certainly humanises the victims. It is also bringing to light the victims of abhorent regimes, the stories and documents that never get reported for one reason or another.

I think we should distinguish between passive and active dehumanisation. I will not generalise about the entire Arab press but there are some sources (mostly state run stations) that will actively dehumanise Israelis as a means of state control. Now there is a difference between reporting 3 dead Israelis without elaboration and airing "documentaries" on how Mossad was behind September 11 or how the Jews steal the eyes of Palestinian children. That is active dehumanisation, as opposed to passive dehumanisation which is done by not saying any more.

There are also exceptions to the rule of western press being anti-Arab, the Palestinians were able to work propaganda miracles with the western press over the death of Mohammed al-Dura. I also think about the "Jenin massacre" and how that was spun.