earthmann

Now that no weapons have been found in Iraq, it is getting pretty hip to distance oneself from the Iraqi war. Likewise, it seems the White House’s defense of war is to remind critics of the global consensus concerning Saddam's possession of WMD’s. Bush, Cheney, Rice, and Rumsfield need to be reminded, I think, why we opposed the war.

We did not oppose the war against the nation of Iraq because it did not pose a threat the rest of the world.

We opposed the war on three counts: the imminence of the threat, the preemptive doctrine, and the who-needs-friends approach.

It is difficult to imagine how an aging despot, handicapped from the first Gulf War, hamstrung with sanctions and surveillance, could sustain a threat to anyone. Even if Saddam tried to attain WMD's, which there is no evidence that he did, how would he go about building a deployment system sufficient to attack his enemies without triggering the ire of those who watch him for a living.

Before going to war, Bush succeeded in getting inspectors back in the country, succeeded in getting Saddam to agree to Drone fly-overs, succeeded in getting Saddam to destroy his most powerful missiles, and succeeded in allowing Iraqi scientists to meet privately with inspectors.

Now, please, tell how is this man posing a threat to anyone? I don't care if he packs his WMD's in the trunks of small cars and drives them around the country averting detection (as the administration asserted in the lead up to the war). The simple truth is there is no way that Saddam, given the bubble in which he was forced to live, was anything more than a paper tiger. The average American had more chance of dying from a bad taco, than Saddam's hand.

As for the preemptive doctrine, if one studied this situation in a vacuum one might conclude that utilitarian ethics justified a war in which 10,000 innocent Iraqi civilians were slaughtered (William Bennett’s estimate). However, one does not have the luxury of dealing with the situation in a vacuum.

To think we could break the centuries old rules for what constitutes a morally justifiable war without lowering the hurdle other sovereign countries much clear before launching similar attacks on others is nonsense. Every precedent breeds. For every action, let's say it together, there is a reaction. We traded the high road for God's know what.

Deciding to go attack Iraq on the advice of his Neocon hunting buddies, Bush didn’t feel the need to garner an international consensus. It was not until Bush received pressure from Colin Powell and, indirectly, Tony Blair's constituents did he began paying lip service to the UN.

I am not going to spend the time outlaying how Bush has systematically given the cold shoulder to our traditional allies for the simple fact that Bush’s proponents should not argue against this. His published foreign policy calls for a de-emphasis on international organizations, such as NATO and the UN, in lieu of ad hoc coalitions. Those not quick to sign on to these coalitions are publicly slighted, even longtime allies such as Turkey.

I, for one, do not see the point of abandoning the UN just because it couldn’t “break up a cookie fight at a Brownie meeting." The UN has always been a bit of a toothless watchdog, but yet for the past 50 years they have served the purpose of giving moral cover to most our policies.

Before Bush came along it was a rare occasion for America to not get its way at the UN. So much so, that had the blue helmets invaded Baghdad themselves, most of the world would have seen it as a thinly veiled American invasion.

I just don’t see the rationale in demeaning, and thereby weakening, UN and NATO, when they serve our national interest 95% percent of the time. By some estimates America, received so much economic support for the first Gulf War from UN members that America actually made a bit a profit (other estimates put our cost at seven of the war’s $92 billion price tag).

We did not say going to war was wrong because Saddam was no threat. Finding weapons tomorrow in Iraq, which is possible if not probable, does not justify the war. However, their allusiveness underscores the reason against the war: the threat was not so imminent as to justify a preemptive, unilateral invasion.