<p>“Some might say Iraq and Saddam Hussein fall under the same pattern: It is a proven fact that he was slaughtering his own citizens. The U.S. stepped in (granted, also late and in some cases ineptly). There was collateral damage. Does stopping Saddam justify that collateral damage or should we just have sat back and continued to do nothing?”</p>
<p>Look at the result, and then work backwards. Does choosing to bomb wastewater treatment plants and withholding basic medical aid to children (when military installations, military barracks, and Saddam’s headquarters were not targeted) look to you like “collateral damage”? Which Iraqi citizens exactly did it "protect’? (Working backwards again, the question would not be rhetorical: it would be the Iraqi military - I think the assumption may have been that a war of genocide against civilians and children might result in the Iraqi military, left intact, rising up and overthrowing Saddam. I don’t know that – all I ask is that you look at the results first before assuming intentionality.)</p>
<p>Your question is a good one in theory - but the circumstances that would support such a question (no less an answer) are not much in evidence.</p>
<p>Carolyn, if your goal is to destroy/neutralize a mad mad, than for goodness sake, go after the mad man! As was pointed out earlier, it was often the infrastructure of the country that was often destroyed, which resulted in the further suffering of a people who had already suffered unimaginably (at least, unimaginable for most Americans). So instead of Sadaam, the target most certainly looked to be innocent children, women, the old and infirm—that’s certain to endear you to hearts and minds…</p>
<p>History tells us that (in most cases) societies that never act become extinct and societies that act, preserve themselves. If the U.S. is to survive (and other democracies are to survise) it is essential that we act to redress threats whether direct or indirect. If this means we have to place sanctions on an evil dictator and one of the side effects is that he lets his people starve rather than change his behavior, then so be it. If it means we have to drop bombs to destroy his military machine even though he keeps his weapons inside water treatment plants or other normally civilian buildings, then so be it.</p>
<p>George Bush’s “favorite philosopher” has a different take, razorsharp:</p>
<p>“But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.”</p>
<p>But to act dishonestly? TO claim several different reasons for acting? </p>
<p>And, while a certain kind of democracy is coming to Iraq, a large portion of its population is losing rights…and Iran is connecting up with Iran…so have we made things worse by acting as we have? And by not acting with proper plans? And deciding to act in such a way that has no end?</p>
<p>During the Cold War, fingers were poised over buttons for decades, yet “acting” was unnecessary…people power worked…down came that wall</p>
<p>Sometimes there ARE other ways, we seem to have figured that out with China</p>
<p>Only razorsharp has answered my question. I am not asking about for opinions about Iraq or any other recent US action. I AM asking this: Is it better to NEVER act, even to stop mass murders, because of possible collateral damage, even if not acting may lead to continue killing, or to act, knowing that there will be collateral damage if it is believed the result will save lives? Isn’t failure to act sometimes just as bad as acting wrongly with good intentions?</p>
<p>Let’s put aside Iraq as we do not have the long view of history to see how things work out. If you absolutely need to use an example, use Hitler. Should the US and the allies have never acted against Hitler because of the loss of life that action entailed or even the temporary loss of civil rights, both in Germany and elsewhere? Remember, there were people in allied countries who thought the allies should not intervene in the holocaust.</p>
<p>Again, I’m looking more for a philosophical debate, then a debate about any specific current situation. If you can not discuss this question without referring to Iraq, then please don’t contribute. I’m looking at a larger question and would appreciate well-thought-out responses on the larger issue.</p>
<p>Of course there are times when one must act, often in fact, where there is a risk of collateral damage. However, doing so is contingent upon an accurate and honest assessment of risks and rewards, with accurate premises. Change the assessments, or change the premises, and the decision will change.</p>
<p>I think our biggest recent missed opportunity was not intervening earlier in Bosnia. The siege of Sarajevo and the massacre at Srebenica were avoidable tragedies. But from a realpolitik point of view, the icing <em>and</em> the cherry on the cake would have been having the USA intervene in a conflict where the Muslims were the victims and the relative good guys. Certainly would have complicated OBL’s propaganda about the US being in a war against Islam.</p>
<p>I think it’s a bit naive to think that the Jihadists would respond favorably to subtle shadings in policy. The fact of matter is that the “vision” of the Jihadists for a fundamentalist Islamic rule is simply incompatible with ANY element of modern economics, secular rule, or political freedom. In many ways, this is a battle over the nature of Islam – a battle between a medieval church and a reformed church that has meaning in a modern, secular, educated, nation state.</p>
<p>Terrorism is the weapon of choice because, frankly, it’s all they’ve got. They have no other alternative because they are fighting for a “cause” that doesn’t really enjoy much popular support, outside of a disenfranchised minority – a minority that would be even smaller if the tyrant governments in the Islamic world would pay a little more attention to providing meaningful economic gains for their masses instead of maintaining corrupt dictatorships to line their own pockets.</p>
<p>Iraq is a unifying issue for both the jihadists and the secular tyrants. The thought of an actual democracy and working economy in Iraq is terrifying to everyone in the region. It’s certainly terrifying to the Shia clerics in Iran, much in the way that a thriving West Berlin led inexorbly to the fall of the East German dictatorship. It’s equally terrifying to the Sunni tyrannies in places like Syria and Saudi Arabia. A functional democracy on their borders would put tremendous pressure for reform in their own countries. Thus, it suits their purposes to continue funding the jihadists to continue a desperate attempt to derail progress in Iraq.</p>
<p>BTW, here are couple of interesting Iraqi blogs for a first-hand view of the difficult steps being taken towards democracy.</p>
<p>Sometimes I think we forget how much pain and suffering and bloodshed went into the birth of our democracy – bloodshed that continued to the abolition of slavery and halting steps towards true voting rights that continued into the mid 20th century. Anyone who thinks building a democracy in Iraq will be easy or quick is simply not being realistic. I think we are seeing an lot of bravery by the people of Iraq right now. It would be amazing if they pull it off.</p>
<p>Political and economic relations between Iraq and Iran are essential, so I would view this visit as a positive.</p>
<p>I would not, however, put much credence in reporting by the Tehran Times as to the nature of that relationship. Although, even in the officially-sanctioned account of the meetings, the rhetoric seems very mild – as if the Iranian officials were going out of their way to appear moderate.</p>
<p>Of course, it was all BS. The last thing in the world the Iranian government wants is a democracy in Iraq.</p>
<p>The “insurgents” want civil war between Sunni and Shia. The US wants a stable multi-ethnic republic. It is not entirely clear what the Iraqi Ayatollahs want.</p>
<p>The “insurgents” cannot win control of a unified Iraq but if they were to succeed in inciting a civil war they would probably succeed in partitioning the country. It is really unclear what the majority of Sunnis really want. The status quo ante is not an option. Civil war would also probably spread beyond Iraq’s borders to engulf other states in the region.</p>
<p>For the US the best outcome is a stable multi-ethnic Iraq but an Islamic civil war would not be a total disaster in the short run either. Bad guys butchering bad guys. Hitler vs Stalin, Nazis vs Commies, Shia vs Sunni. As long as they are busy killing each other they won’t have time yo kill us.</p>
<p>I’m not endorsing your suggestion of Shia/Sunni civil war being beneficial to anybody. I think a functioning quasi-democratic government in Iraq would be the best thing since sliced bread.</p>
<p>But, you are absolutely right: a full-blown Sunni/Shia civil war in Iraq would certainly upset a lot of comfortable tyrants in the Middle East, forcing them to show their cards, including our Sunni allies (Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia) who are funding the insurgency in Iraq.</p>
<p>It is not unreasonable to think that a full-blown civil war in Iraq would pit the Saudis/Egyptians against Iran. The last thing those regimes want is a second fundamentalist Shia regime.</p>
<p>I remain cautiously optimistic about the political process in Iraq as it lurches haltingly along towards a constitution.</p>
<p>For those of us playing along at home, I found a couple of fabulous overviews of the issues surrounding an Iraqi constitution written by an expert in Arab constitutions for the Carnegie Foundation. These provides a lot of context for understanding issues like Islam as a state religion and Shiara Law, some of which is “more symbolic than substantive”:</p>
<p>By which brilliant logic we supported Saddam Hussein vs. Iran to keep things in balance. And look at how well that turned out.</p>
<p>But it’s a false dichtomy anyway. Sunnis and a fair amount of Shiites would happily take potshots at us. The US Governments own survey in March showed that 46 percent of the Iraqis were sympathetic to the insurgency. That’s a majority of non-Kurds, a overwhelming majority of Sunnis, and somewhere around a third of the Shiites.</p>
<p>This is a variant of the simplistic and stupid “We fight them over there so that we don’t have to fight them over here.” </p>
<p>The insurgents in Iraq are 95 percent indigenous, taking advantage of targets of opportunity, and most of the Saudi’s etc., slipping over the border to become machine-gun fodder aren’t exactly the profile of the more sophisticated Al Qaeda operatives who operate with Western cultures. The fact that both groups are largely Arabic-speaking Muslim jihadists successfully blurs the distinction to many American observers but distinct they are.</p>
<p>The jihadists themselves aren’t interested in subtle shadings, as InterestedDad puts it, but they’re very good at exploiting the American presence in Iraq, Abu Gharib, Guantanamo, and support for anything that Israel does as evidence of the West’s desire to subjugate and inflict indignities upon Islam, this in a culture so prone to often believing conspiracy theories that Rush Limbaugh might be a big hit if translated into Arabic.</p>
<p>I don’t think the jihadists are going to go away until the Israelis and Palestinians come to a solution based on more than a wall and mutual retaliatory strikes but I don’t think either side has the will and the strength to go there right now. The prospect for a positive Israeli approach died with the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Palestinians, to quote Bibi, never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. </p>
<p>But however much the Palestinian/Israeli conflict drives the jihadists, there are things we can do or not do that can energize them or not. It’s a hell of a world when they do better meeting their recruiting quotas than we do. But that’s what you get when you commit the bulk of America’s ground forces to a red-herring like Iraq.</p>
<p>The insurgency has changed tactics since March and has been targeting mostly Shia civilians and leaders. Al Sadr was certainly a pro-insurgency Shia. Insurgents just assasinated one of his aides in a drive by shooting. Not sure how pro-insurgency he is now.</p>
<p>The Jihadists are not going to go away until the Muslim masses realize that the Jihadists only bring rack and ruin wherever they go.</p>
<p>I would rather see a stable multi-ethnic democracy emerge in Iraq than a civil war. But a civil war is not that bad a proposition either. To a Jihadist like Bin Laden secular Arab leaders are worse than Americans because they are apostates. Shias are almost as bad as secular Muslim leaders because they are heretics. Next on their S*list come the Jews. The Jihadists want the US out of the Mid-East so they can deal with apostates, heretics, and Jews reestablish the Caliphate and unify the Islamic world before turning their energies to Dar Al-Harb.</p>
<p>An Islamic civil war could do for Islam what the wars of religion did for the West - spread the Enlightenment East.</p>
<p>I guess it’s a glass if half full kind of thing. I believe the latest surveys show that just over 60% of Iraqi’s believe the country is “headed in the right direction”. That’s probably a few points higher than you typically see when that question is asked in the United States. </p>
<p>The level of open, reasonably serious political debate in Iraqi media right now appears to be quite high, a very positive sign and no small feat considering the extreme degree of repression they’ve lived under decades.</p>
<p>I’ve been rather impressed with the political sophistication that has been demonstrated among the various groups with a vested interest in establishing a legitimate, viable government. By and large, the politicians seem to be willing and able to understand how hard to push their agendas without unravelling the whole thing.</p>
<p>Although a lot of tough issues will be swept under the carpet, the drafting of the constitution appears to be featuring a lot of subtle compromise.</p>
<p>Of course, Bin Laden likes secular Arab leaders when they pay him “protection” money, like the shopkeeper who pays the mob to keep them from burning his store to the ground.</p>
<p>He also likes secular Arab leaders when they pay him to stir up trouble in Iraq and prevent a stable government from being formed. It’s a profitable contract and he can skim a little something off the top to finance operations in the West. Cost of doing business in Iraq is low; just round up a few stupid dead-enders who will strap bombs to their waists in the name of Allah.</p>
<p>Just like Bin Laden got along with Sadaam just well enough to take a nice fat slice of Kofi Anon’s Oil For Food corruption money in the form of discounted oil contracts for his intermediaries; none of which we can catch because our “allies” in the region protect him.</p>