[lit-ideas] Re: Hitchens' Hypothetical Iraq War
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 09:51:44 -0800
Eric,
Perhaps you should have written, "Read the materials Hitchens is referring
to and then try to imagine a scenario . . . ." I subscribe to the
publications Hitchens refers to and thought it only a matter of time before
everyone would be up to speed on these matters, but not so. I suppose it is
tough for some to learn that Saddam's generals were astounded to learn that
he had no WMDs to give them. They thought they were available and hoped to
use them against the American forces. It is so much easier to imagine that
Bush had better information than Saddam's generals, concealed it, and lied
about believing Saddam had WMDs. Given what we now know, the Bush Lied
imprecation has as much sense behind it as the Death to American
imprecations heard at Iranian rallies.
And then the implication that whatever has been achieved isn't worth the
loss of 2,000 Americans is precisely the presupposition Bin Laden and others
invoked in many of their speeches. They witnessed Americans scurrying off
after suffering a few casualties here and there and concluded we didn't have
the guts to engage in a bloody war with anyone. This isn't conjecture. It
is contained not only in Osama's speeches but those of others. Saddam
boasted that we didn't have the guts to face his army in the first Gulf War.
He pulled back to Baghdad to face us and we ran away. The very justified
impression that we are afraid of losing troops caused the death-oriented
Islamists to hold us in contempt. This contempt almost certainly
contributed to 9/11.
Also, the Oil for Food scandal show the sanctions weren't working. People
say "sure they were, they kept Saddam from building nukes." But the idea
behind the Oil for Food program was to keep the common people fed at the
same time we were inhibiting his weapons programs, and Saddam didn't use
this money to feed his people. Saddam published pictures of starving
children and blamed the U.S. and U.N., but the Oil for Food program was to
assure that there were no starving children.
Also, Saddam was firing regularly at the American and British planes that
over-flew Shiite and Kurdish regions to make sure Saddam didn't engage in
any more pogroms, which he assuredly would if we quit our over-flights.
Also, we didn't get Saudi Arabia to cooperate with us in our endeavors to go
after Al Quaeda members until we removed the threat of Saddam Hussein. Our
timidity in dealing with him the first time and our well-known fear of
casualties convinced the Saudis that they should be more afraid of Saddam
than of us. After we took out Saddam the Saudis were much more cooperative
with us - and not just the Saudis.
Lawrence
-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Eric
Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2006 8:36 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Hitchens' Hypothetical Iraq War
> As I read Hitchens' latest diatribe, he is finally
> beginning to see that Iraq aint'working. Gotta find
> someone to blame quickly now.
Imagine a scenario where Saddam remained in power
that could produce a better result than what we
have now. Might be an interesting thought experiment.
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