So… on to Damascus, eh, Larry?

Yup, everything evaporated; including the transparent excuse for the war: weapons of mass destruction.

But the oil etc, the real reasons for US aggression, didn’t evaporate. And don’t expect the “patriot act” to evaporate either.

And let this war be an example for other nations. The US government will lie through its teeth and use the same excuse on them next.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63436-2003Apr9.html

And let’s celebrate American imperialism further with this little tid bit: the war on American liberty is kicking into a higher gear.

Republicans Want Terror Law Made Permanent

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/09/international/worldspecial/09TERR.html?ex=1050465600&en=ebe5ae1c4c5c91c2&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

More anti-American whining from the Anarchists. How pathetic that they cannot even muster the shred of moral decency to at least celebrate the courage and skill of our troops. The sooner Mr Salzer and his fellow travellers leave, and move to France where they will be much more at home, the better.

The difference between us Shawn is that you approve of the type of government the US just overthrew, and I do not. You are only celebrating the troops, ie your authoritarian state, where as I never approve of any authoritarian state.

“The difference between us Shawn is that you approve of the type of government the US just overthrew, and I do not. You are only celebrating the troops, ie your authoritarian state, where as I never approve of any authoritarian state.”

The Baathist regime was a totalitarian socialist state ruled by one dictator for life. To say that that is the kind of political system I support is a childish and ignorant lie. I celebrate our troops because that is what all decent Americans who love their country do. You do not because you you are an anti-American Anarchist hate-monger who spits on the country he lives in at every opportunity. You say you do not believe in any authoritarain state but the fact is that, like all Anarchists you do not believe in any state at all. Anarchism, including its form of paleo-libertarianism (which is just another anti-American liberal Marxist ideology dressed up in psuedo-conservative double speak)is one of the most laughable political ideologies in history. The notion that sinful humans could live without anjy gocvernment at all is not only intellectually absurd, it is utterly un-Biblical, and a denial of Christian teaching. As I say, move to France. Decent, patriotic, moral Americans do not want your ilk polluting our land any more.

“Given the sort of horrors reported about Iraqi civilians sliced to ribbons by U.S. cluster bombs, can one imagine that an Iraqi puppet government is going to be greeted with cheers and bunting by Iraqis?”

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=14812&CFID=6522351&CFTOKEN=33733146

Shawn,

I am NOT an anarchist, nor have I ever promoted anachism.

The rest of your irrational comments are complete nonsense and a waste of time arguing against.

In my opinion, neither Shawn nor Salzer are representing the other’s views accurately. On Salzer’s part, it’s going too far to say that Shawn approves of the type of government the US just overthrew. While the US government has become highly consolidated, in the sense that the states in most ways might as well not even exist, the federal sector is still divided into three branches that check each other to some degree. Even then, it’s not what it used to be, but it’s not single-figurehead dictatorship, either, which is what Iraq’s government has been. To be in favor of a consolidated government with divided powers is not the same as to be in favor of a consolidated government with undivided powers, and in neither case is it to be in favor of brutal madmen.

For Shawn’s part, it’s not any more fair to characterize Salzer’s views as anarchic. As I understand him, Salzer is not for no government—that would indeed by a very unchristian, uncatholic thing. He is for a radically diminished, divided, and local government, which is a decidedly different position. I don’t know exactly how far he tends in that direction, but we’d do well to bear in mind that Salzer’s views are closer to those of Founding-era Americans than those of most so-called conservatives today. (I’m not necessarily speaking of his other views, such as the anti-war thing and all that; I’m only talking about his attitude toward government in general and his mistrust of it.)

So, not that anyone’s authorized me to be a referee or anything, I think you both should cool it. The truth will out before too long. Either we will turn Iraq and its oil over to its people, in which case Salzer will be proved wrong, or we won’t, in which case Shawn will.

It seems as if the pro-war partisans should be the ones with “egg on their face.” After all, the sole and only purpose of the war was to rid Saddam of his “weapons of mass destruction” that placed him in violation of the cease-fire treaty concluding the first Gulf War. However, now the pro-war propagandists state that we will pursue Saddam until his strangehold on the Iraqi people comes to an end. Why did it shift from a war of disarmament to a war of liberation? After all the UN weapons inspectors were in Iraq to oversee its disarmament, not to make insure he was adhering to republican government.

Also, another disproven claim the pro-war side made was that Saddam was a “threat to his neighbors.” Given the ease at which the Iraqi army collapsed in the face of US troops and the only real opposition Saddam could mount was to fire off a few over-sized bottle rockets, it surely seems that the propaganda that Saddam was a “threat to his neighbors” was pure agitprop designed to rationalize and justify an unjust war.

Finally, there was the claim that Iraq would use weapons of mass destruction if attacked. After the war got underway and no bio-chemical weapons were used against our troops, there was the claim that he would use them once we got inside a “red-line” close to Baghdad. Oops wrong again. If Saddam has bio-chemical weapons and is not willing to use them when his nation is under siege and when his reign is coming to a decisive end, then why would he been inclined to use them if we were on relatively good terms with his country, like the French?

Moreover no connections have been made to bin Laden and Saddam. This war was one big neo-conservative lie to destroy a pitiful regime that threatened no one, that has no ties to terrorists, that has no stockpile of WMD, and whose only crime was to be the target of bloodlusting neocons who will concot any lie to promote “global hegemony” in the service of Likud interests. A sad day for America indeed.

Saddam wasn’t just a potential threat to his neighbors and our allies; he was an actual, proven one. As to the terrorism ties and WMD possession/development, my guess is that it is too soon to make a factual assertion about these sorts of reports:

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/prine2.html

I suppose it is possible that Hussein played his cat and mouse game with the UN as a bluff; although it would be a peculiar bluff to make given the retrospective fact that it brought down his regime. If he really didn’t have anything and wasn’t working on anything it would have been easy to hold onto power just by opening the kimono.

On the ties-to-terrorism front Hussein is either guilty, or his minions are unnecessarily creating an impression of guilt with all the document fires. There is also the small matter that many of the “defenders” in Baghdad were/are Islamic terrorists not Iraqis:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59685-2003Apr8.html

My advice in general on all this is to let the fog of war dissipate before getting too convinced that a particular spin represents the absolute truth of the matter.