Asymmetrical Information

Good one. Keep it up.

As a dem, I've come to the realization that Kerry better not win. Bush has f'd Iraq up so badly, that it will go down as the worst mistake in the history of the United States. It is the second war we will lose, and this one, like Vietnam, wasn't one we had to fight, but unlike Vietnam, it is one we had to win once we started it. So Bush has made the greatest strategic error ever, he's lost a war we had to win.

Bush took the most secular state in the middle east, and turned it into a hotbed of islamic fundamentalism and anarchy. When we invaded, I predicted he'd turn Iraq into another Iran, but it looks like the result will be even worse, its another Somalia/Afghanistan. Due to the right wing control of the media, it really hasn't sunk in to most. So if Kerry wins, the right wing media machine will push the "Kerry lost the war" theme. And it will work, because the right wing media machine is an awesome operation.

So keep up with your cheap shots at Kerry. Keep saying somehow this is not Bush's fault.

I hope you succeed -- because eventually, the excuses will run out. Maybe it will take until 2006 or 2007, but eventually it will become obvious to even the dumbest Fox News watcher that our invasion of Iraq has become a replay of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, that we are fighting ghosts we can't defeat, that every military victory represents a strategic victory for the islamists, that for every terrorist we kill in Iraq we make ten more, and that there is no way to turn this around.

I don't want that result, I just don't see how, after all of Bush's stupid mistakes, the US can turn it around, regardless of who is president. So I'd much rather see Bush finally have to take responsibility for his decisions.

Go George, win this one.

pj speaks of "right wing control of the media." Perhaps this explains Dan Rather's behavior. He's been pretending to be a liberal all these years, and now he's sacrificing himself in order to make the left look bad. Either that or pj is a little off base.

Those who are swayed by PJ's "f**ked it up" argument should read

http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/002544.php

Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS) is hurting us in Iraq. The Iraqis learned in '91 that American politics can leave them abandoned. They are nervous now because one candidate has offered to pull out of Iraq. He, of course, will "get other nations to replace our troops". The question of how is not answered.

I'll tell you the truth. Nobody follows you when you lead from behind. If you retreat, they will retreat.

The Iraqis will bandwagon when they know for sure supporting the Americans is a winner. BDS is fast becoming one of the root causes of terrorism.

Yes, expressing hope that Bush wins so that Republicans will someday admit to being wrong about Iraq is an excellent diagnostic for BDS.

Pitiful.

Hey, thanks for the link. I put that post up Friday evening about 6:30 EDT, but my readership is generally so small nobody picked it up. Apparently my readership is small, yet influential!

Hopefully she is being reined in.

However, if you'd like to see the other side of the coin, consider the remarks Bush's nephew, George P. Bush, made about the Border Patrol.

I believe his first set of comments could be considered a transcription of Bush dinner table conversation. Who needs a Border Patrol if you want the border to disappear? The second set of comments are nearly as bad.

Also see Michelle Malkin's "Bipartisan betrayal at the border".

Adding to support for the BDS theory, pj's post doesn't seem relevant.

You all have proved my point well -- its not the people in charge of the entire US government who are at fault for our failures in Iraq, its "BDS."

Whatever, continue with the excuses. When will you be responsible for what you have wrought? When is it long enough to grade you on the results?

The one thing that is clear is that this war is now unwinnable -- for Bush, for Kerry, for Superman. It won't matter, the war is lost. So win the election and continue to have fun with your toy. The Iraq war will still be an issue come 2008, because we'll still be dying over there at a rate of 1000 per year or more, and we'll still be no closer to building an oasis in the middle east that these fools set out to build with 15,000 ton bombs.

funny, i thought one of America's worst mistakes was keeping Chang Kai-chek's Nationalists from kicking the communists out of China when they had a chance to (stupid meddling American politicians. Give diplomacy a chance my ass). Can you imagine how different the world would be with a capitalistic, democratic China?

And yes, pj has bought into the "we can't beat anyone anymore" doctrine. If this was just about "winning", the entire ME would be a glass parking lot. Simple. It's not about just destroying the "Other." It's about building something to put in its place.

But most ABBers I've spoken to have plenty to say about what Bushie is doing wrong, but very, very, very little to say that's realistic about what the agenda should be, or what plans should be made, or what systems should be implemented.

But when your party has disintegrated into the Party of the Unman, what do you expect?

The Iraq war will still be an issue come 2008, because we'll still be dying over there at a rate of 1000 per year or more

Don't you wish...anything to make the GOP look bad, eh?

Oh, sweet Jeebus. You know, I've always been a centrist, so I've yearned for the easy common cause I used to feel with centrist Republicans. I've wondered if the new gap I felt was, somehow, my fault. But now I feel reassured – it turns out it isn't me. It's just that the Republicans have turned into hippies.

I probably should have seen it before. The clues were there from the start, from tying our post-war Iraq policy to “flowers and candy” Chalibi, to the vapid belief that if there was democratic (now “democracy-like”)government in Iraq, people across the Middle East would throw off their shackles and rush, rejoicing, to the New Freedom. (And, as always happens in these fables, there would be peace and happiness across the land.) I definitely should have seen it when some Republicans started complaining that people against the war were hurting our troops by being against the war – I guess we were hurting the troops' self-esteem. Maybe I was distracted by the torture memos, the indefinite jailing without counsel of American citizens, or, of course, the torture. I should have remembered that the Left had sanctioned some pretty unconscionable things for “the greater good.”

But it is impossible to miss in the Republicans' new take on accountability. What was once a cross brandished against Democrats (“poor people are poor because they won't take responsibility”) no longer exists. If people are tortured, it's no one's fault – Rumsfeld is a good boy, he just needs more encouragement. If things in Iraq go badly – it's no one's fault, and people making the case for a replacement of the present leaders are just mean. And now, the coup de grace. It turns out that problems in Iraq are not the responsibility of the Administration; they're the victims in all of this. No, it's the fault of the Democrats, who use their position of power as the minority party in the House, the Senate, and the Executive, to harm the Administration with their oppressive BDS.

Now that I see this, I eagerly await the announcement of Operation Kumbaya, under the direction of General Group-Hugs-For-Everyone.

Bkw:

That's because the end result of this is pretty much pre-determined. Whoever is in charge will waste a little more blood and treasure, install a strongman (who will ultimately turn against us), declare victory, and get out. The only question is how much blood and treasure we'll waste under the two candidates.

wellthere is always the alternative: end islamist terrorism permanently

problem is we'll have to kill 500M to do it quickly

tim and pj want us to retreat, but then we'll just keep getting attacked...

and, um they hate lefties more than they hate righties... but seriously tim and pj, what would you do to make the US mroe secure? surrender? let france run our foreign policy? tell israel to crew off? what?

Hey:

Go ahead, make the world a "safer" place and end islamist terrorism "permanently." Detonate that nuclear bomb; kill 500 M quickly -- but then don't start crying when some terrorist out of Pakistan/Iran/North Korea or somewhere else does the same thing in mid-town Manhattan.

I've never suggested "retreat." We never should have gone into Iraq because we had very little at stake there and the downside of heading in was enormous. If our goal was to kill some people and go home, OK, that was achieveable, but that was not our objective. The fools running our government had some pie-in-the-sky hearts and flowers dreams for Iraq. It seemed obvious to me that invading with an army perceived as christians, opposed by the entire muslim world opinion, was going to result in an Islamic state, not a western style secular democracy.

Worse, we gave away the scary, don't mess with us image that we had in 2002 following the Afghanistan war. And they gave that up for nothing - I mean, why were we there again, nonexistent WMD?

Frankly, if I were in charge, I'd look for a way to put a strongman in place, and get the heck out of there. The longer we're in Iraq, the worse the situation will get.

If Bush had been smart enought to declare victory and go home last year -- which I was saying back then was the only smart move -- we'd be a lot better off today. The situation is a lot worse now, but that's still the only move.

Find a face saving excuse, and get the hell out.

And on the way out, bomb Iran's nuclear facility to make clear that we still can't be messed with.

That's what I'd do.

That's because the end result of this is pretty much pre-determined. Whoever is in charge will waste a little more blood and treasure, install a strongman (who will ultimately turn against us), declare victory, and get out.

You mean, just like we did in Germany and Japan?

I can see how you might think this will all end in blood and fire, given how horribly the occupations of Germany and Japan turned out, fifty years later.

I agree with much of what PJ writes, its much in line with the Israeli PMs comments "The only thing in doubt in Iraq is the size of Americas humiliation." According to the latest intell, thirty six Iraqi cities are under insurgent control, it seems the Civil War scenerio in Iraq predicted by the same intell report to start in four years, has actually already begun. The very idea that Alleloli, the same sort of secular Baathist that Saddam was, can be an honest broker for democracy in Iraq is ridiculous. According to the Australian press, this guy personally executed 6 accused foreign fighters, one after another with no trial, the day before we handed over the interim government to him. That isnt very democratic.
Kerry has to talk about removing half our troops in two years, and all US Soldiers out of Iraq within four years. He has to move the discussion of our duty to Iraq to what it originally was, enforcement of the UN resolution on WMD. We were sold this war by jr specifically stating "NO NATION BUILDING", its time to realize we dont owe Iraq democracy, only the chance at it if they are willing to fight for it. Kerry should emphasise the primary role of the US over the four remaining years in Iraq is to train enough Iraqi soldiers to keep the peace, so that Iraq can have real elections in two to four years, without any American involvement. Like Powell told jr, "You break it, you bought it." Well Kerry is obligated to clean up jrs mess, hes not obligated to make Iraq something they obviously dont want to be. I dont think there is worse policy for Iraq than whats there now, I agree the Dems might be better off leaving jr to clean up this mess, but I think Kerry can get US soldiers that are otherwise going to die for NOTHING, out of Iraq.

Bkw:

I hope that the Administration isn't really basing its predictions of a democratic (sorry, "democratic-like") Iraq on the examples of Germany and Japan. I pray that those analogies are only sop for the public (meaning us).

There were, I suspect, a few differences in those cases. The fact that most of the interested powers had just spent, what, 6 years fighting a massive war that left the US as the only unexhausted combatant might be an important difference. Similarly, Germany's loss of about 9% of its people, half of whom were soldiers (NB: Inet figures - pls correct me if I'm wrong), might have made them a bit more pliable. Japan only lost about 2.5% of its population, but most of those were soldiers, and we'd nuke'd em; I assume that they were probably also inclined to be a little more docile than might otherwise be expected.

So, to be a plausible analogy, just on those points, you'd need the following: four more years of war, between 650K - 2+ million Iraqis dead, full scale war involving Iran, Syria, Turkey (on our side, I assume), Saudi Arabia (for us, again), and probably Israel (hate to do it to them, but they're the Brits), and our use of a nuclear weapon.

Hey, wait a minute...maybe the Administration really does have a plan.

Oh, sweet Jeebus. You know, I've always been a centrist

That may well be the single funniest thing I've seen you write, Dim...and you've had some doozies.

Yeah, you're a centrist alright...right inbetween the people who want to beat Bush with sticks and those who want to use concrete blocks. Sweet Jeebus, indeed!

S-C-Tim, pj, Begbee,
sorta like the three monkeys but slightly different.

Cant see no evil, can't hear no evil, but speak plenty of evil -- but only about the US and GWB.

You guys are quite pathetic, and confused. You're playing checkers and Bush etal are playing chess.
The repudiation of your insipid way of thinking and the people who support and espouse it has begun and is gaining speed.

So, to be a plausible analogy, just on those points, you'd need the following...

Do you really think that an area must be completely crushed before it becomes "pliable"?

Honestly, I would tend to agree with you -- in some ways, I think the handling of foreign insurgents in Iraq has been a bit too delicate. Who'd've figured you for such a hawk, Tim!

:D

And as far as things go, I'd be much more supportive of nation building than I would be of just leaving huge smoking craters in the ground. What's wrong with nation building anyway? Sure, maybe it's arrogrant and presumptious, but given the choice between nation building and Jenjis Kahn-like destruction, wouldn't you prefer the former?

I find it interesting that more and more people on the left are starting to agree that Bushie must see things through in the ME ... even if they're still fervently hoping he fails.

Well, no one ever said the left was still the party of Hope, eh?

Ah well. A wise man once said, "do what you can, with what you have, where you are." Bush is far, far, far, far, far from perfect -- I'm sure we can all agree on that. I just don't think Kerry is anywhere better -- frankly I think he'd be an unmitigated disaster. And right now, those are our choices.

Bkw:

"Do you really think that an area must be completely crushed before it becomes "pliable"?" Well, we clearly thought that about Japan - as I understand it, the argument for dropping the Bomb was that a conventional invasion would be too expensive in terms of the number of US soldiers lost.

"Bush is far, far, far, far, far from perfect -- I'm sure we can all agree on that." Look right above your comment, or at any number of other comments made on Iraq posts here or at Drezner. We can't all agree about that, and that basic disagreement about what minimal thought and competence looks like is probably what actually scares me. Iraq will go away, but if a lot of us don't know what a disaster writ large looks like, we're going to have bad outcomes down the road.

" I just don't think Kerry is anywhere better -- frankly I think he'd be an unmitigated disaster. And right now, those are our choices." I'm not crazy about Kerry either, but I'm at a loss as to how he could be worse than Bush. Even if you think he'll be as bad as Bush (seriously, how could he be worse?), you should vote for him because -

1. Incentives, as the Marginal Revolution boys constantly point out, matter. If someone does this incompetent a job for you, and you don't fire him, you're telling him (and everyone else) that it's OK to be incompetent. Well, it better be, because that's what you're going to get.

2. Kerry's movements will be severely restricted by a Republican Congress; any policy he pursues will have to be a compromise with the Republicans.

BTW, noted liberal and dove (joke) Jim Hoagland suggests we might be going the strongman route: "More significantly, the administration papers over widening inconsistencies in Allawi's approach to his country's main population groups and to the rule of law in Iraq. "

You seem to have badly mischaracterizes Diana Kerry's remarks. She did not criticize Australia but pointed out that our Iraq policy had made us a bigger target for international terrorists. This seems to be the truth. Even Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson seems to agree with Kerry.

Tim:

Yes, Kerry could - and IMO would - have handled Iraq much worse than Bush did. Bush was and has been relatively consistent in Iraq. Kerry would have been anything BUT consistent had he been running things.

Just look at how Kerry's "idol" John Kennedy handled the Bay of Pigs fisaco - get involved enough to give the US a horrible black eye, then back out at the last minute. To John Kennedy's credit, he did learn from this and other mistakes early in his administration. However, IMO John Kennedy was MUCH smarter than Kerry ever will be, and was a better judge of advisors.

Given Kerry's demonstrated practice of changing his course based on political expediency, I for one have no doubt that he'd have done something similar to what Carter did during the Iraq hostage crisis in both Afghanistan and Iraq. I'm certain that Kerry would have gotten the US involved enough to give us a black eye internationally - like Carter did - but would not have done anything worthwhile. IMO, it's a given with Kerry in the White House he'd have done something ineffective in one or both cases, then negotiated - interminably - and both the Taliban and Hussein would still be in power. (Can you say "more sensitive war on terrorism?")

Many don't agree with everything the Bush administration has done, either domestically or in Iraq (I don't). That is true - and is also irrelevant. Sometimes an election is a choice between an imperfect candidate and a totally incompentent and unqualified one. Bush, for all his faults, has demonstrated that he is competent to do the job. Kerry's record has demonstrated that he's untrustworthy, unprincipled, has a poor work ethic (check his record of bothering to show up and vote in the Senate), and is both incapable and incompetent. Nader and other minor candidates have no chance.

For anyone with more than 3 working brain cells, this should be a fairly easy decision.

Ah, revisionism, how simple you make the world.

Shall we discusss the actual quote that is the topic of this post?

Diana Kerry, younger sister of the Democrat presidential candidate, told The Weekend Australian that the Bali bombing and the recent attack on the Australian embassy in Jakarta clearly showed the danger to Australians had increased.

"Australia has kept faith with the US and we are endangering the Australians now by this wanton disregard for international law and multilateral channels," she said, referring to the invasion of Iraq.

Who had the US invaded with Australia by her side at the time of the Bali bombing? That would be Afghanistan.

Who had primarily Austrailian forces freed from their Muslim overlords at the time of the Bali bombing? That would be East Timor.

The Bali bombing took place Oct 12, 2002. The US was busy demonstrating "wanton disregard for international law and multilateral channels by getting the UN Security Council to get weapons inspectors back into Iraq. Iraq had agreed in September and inspectors were due to go in November.

The invasion of Iraq didn't happen until five months after the Bali bombing. But, hey, why let facts stand in the way of implications?

This just keeps getting more ridiculous. We went into Iraq to enforce the UN resolution, but since there were no wmd, we are now there to promote democracy. You people want to reelect Bush for doing a horrible job in a war we shouldnt have started in the first place. Its inconcievable that anyone could be worse than Bush, yet hes somehow the best candidate to clean up a mess that should never have occurred, which is currently completely failing under his leadership.
How does a guy that failed with Arbusto, failed with Harkin, failed with the Texas Rangers, whos failed at everything hes ever tried, have the stones to say he deserves to be reelected after his first term was yet another complete failure?

Lynxx:

No revisionism. The timeline is consistent. It's her remarks that are skewed from reality.

To refresh your memory: the terrorist attacks on NYC and the Pentagon were in Sep 2001. Bali bombing was in Oct 2002. The Jakarta embassy bombing was in Sep 2004.

Ms. Kerry's remarks clearly refer to actions occurring between Sep 2001 and the present, inclusive.

Australia has consistently supported the US very consistently since Sep 2001. I'm therefore forced to conclude that "Lady Diana" places US operations in both Afghanistan and Iraq under the heading "wanton disregard for international law."

If that's the case, I place her in the "damn fool" category.

Her brother should definitely tell her to shut up. Pissing off friends is counterproductive.

For Begbee: "The very idea that Alleloli, the same sort of secular Baathist that Saddam was, can be an honest broker for democracy in Iraq is ridiculous. According to the Australian press, this guy personally executed 6 accused foreign fighters, one after another with no trial, the day before we handed over the interim government to him. That isnt very democratic."

From Tim Blair:

Ha! Ayad Allawi is making fun of Sydney Morning Herald rumour-monger Paul McGeough. The New York Times reports:

Ayad Allawi will have his right wrist in a cast when he arrives in the United States this week for his first visit as Iraq's interim prime minister, and it will provide the 59-year-old neurosurgeon with a powerful talking point. Asked about the wrist in an interview here as he prepared to leave for London, New York and Washington, Dr. Allawi joshed: "I've been shooting people, didn't you know?"

This should please McGeough, who was earlier miffed that his Ayad the Slayer story didn’t get any attention. Not even from CBS! More from the NYT’s Allawi piece:

Shortly after he took office in June, stories circulated of Dr. Allawi visiting a detention center in the Baghdad suburb and shooting several detained insurgents dead. The story quickly faded, with American officials saying they had no information to confirm it, and Dr. Allawi dismissing it as a "ridiculous" fiction. But a curious thing happened: many Iraqis who heard the story told friends they would not be unhappy if it were true, because it would show that Iraq finally had a strongman at its helm again, one who might restore order.

Hmm. Sounds like the Iraqis are down with this whole "fake but true" concept.

Hondo: I somewhat addressed that on my blog in a post I wrote after my comment here. The specific line, "That terrorist's would respond to the US invasion of Afghanistan is something that just can't be said in certain circles, like the Democratic National Committee and the Kerry Campaign."

It's much easier for the Dems to say we should have 'used sanctions' and 'contained Iraq.' As if, while we were using sanctions and containing Iraq, we didn't have the first WTC bombing, the embassy bombings, the USS Cole bombing, and 9/11.

Lynxx:

Not familiar with your site, and missed the sarcasm. Sorry.

Still think she's a damn fool and should keep her mouth shut.

I have a question for those who say we shouldn't have gone into Iraq. It certainly looks like a bad move in hindsight, but let me ask you this:

You are president. Your CIA director is telling you Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. It is a "slam dunk". British intelligence is telling you the same. So is Israel. So is Russia. The UN still had not verified the destruction of the weapons that they believed Iraq had.

President Clinton believed Iraq had WMD. John Kerry is getting on the news claiming Saddam has these weapons and is an dangerous threat.

You go the UN and inspections route to placate France and Germany with the understanding that force will be used if IRaq does not comply. Iraq is uncooperative and France stabs you in the back by announcing they see no scenario where force would be used.

Tell me why, given all the intelligence available and given the double-cross from our "allies", why the president shouldn't have been thrown out as an incompetent boob if he DIDN'T do something militarily with Iraq. When you're the president, you just can't take the risk that EVERYONE is wrong about those WMD's.

Hindsight is 20/20 but I understand why Bush did what he did. I have a problem with the post-war handling of Iraq, but I have no confidence whatsoever that Kerry could do better, and I have no reason to believe that Kerry would act on similar intelligence consensus. I think Kerry, while veteran who deserves our thanks, is a dove who would take a very passive approach to protecting the U.S. I have not been given any reasons to believe otherwise.

> "According to the Australian press, this guy personally executed 6 accused foreign fighters, one after another with no trial, the day before we handed over the interim government to him. That isnt very democratic."

Since when is executing invaders "not democratic"?

As a campaign slogan, I'll bet that "I'd have killed more" would get more votes in Iraq than "I wouldn't have killed them".

Paul:

If I were president, I hope I'd have the sense to know that the only weapon that matters is a nuclear weapon. There were more than a few Dems pointing this out (though not enough) prior to the Iraq war. So, I probably would have said, "Please stop using that ludicrous term 'WMD' when we aren't in public."

And then I wouldn't have worried about Iraq. Why? The reasons are many:

1. Nuclear programs (as I understand it) have big footprints - we didn't see said footprint, so no mass production of nukes in Iraq.

2. Iraq with nukes is a much bigger threat to Israel than the US, so if we do see evidence of nuclear production, we'll let them know. They don't lack the will to bomb Iraqi facilities, and everybody in that neighborhood already hates them. The joys of having a strategic partner whose interests parallel our own.

3. One nuke is a deterrent, 20 nukes are weapons. I'm not happy if Iraq buys a pre-fabbed nuke, but I'm not worried either. I handle it either diplomatically or under cover of night.

4. Nation-states'aren't "wacky" by nature - no way is Iraq going to attack the US with nuclear weapons (or chem or bio) - we are too big to really damage, and too strong to really piss off. If we were attacked with nuclear weapons, the world would stand by with approval as we took ME nations off of the map.

5. If Saddam had really been suicidal, then he'd attack Israel, not the US. However much we're hated in that part of the world, Israel is hated more. Furthermore, a nuke is Israel could destroy her by making emigration attractive to her remaining citizens. Not true of the US - we're too geographically big. Obviously, Israel would nuke him, but we've posited that he's suicidal.

So in the end, I think I would have told my advisors not to worry about Iraq, and asked them if there was any other way we could drive up the deficit without actually getting anything for it.

For those keeping score at home, more support for the probability that we'll install a strongman and get the hell out: noted liberal Robert Novak suggests that's Bush's plan. (See http://www.suntimes.com/output/novak/cst-edt-novak20.html).

Pre-ordained, as I said.

If I were president, I hope I'd have the sense to know that the only weapon that matters is a nuclear weapon.

Tim, I agree yet disagree. Certainly, nukes are the most important of the WMD trifecta. But I don't think we can discount the damage that could be inflicted by chemical or, particularly, biological weapons. Once a killer germ gets out, it's damn tough to contain it (depending on what bug it is, of course).

Nation-states'aren't "wacky" by nature - no way is Iraq going to attack the US with nuclear weapons (or chem or bio) - we are too big to really damage, and too strong to really piss off. If we were attacked with nuclear weapons, the world would stand by with approval as we took ME nations off of the map.

I don't know, Saddam was pretty "wacky". Gassing his own people, invading a neighbor. He wasn't exactly stable. I don't see him lobbing a nuke at us conventionally, but I could see him trying to smuggle them into the US if he had them. That's where the danger lies, letting guys like him have these weapons. Who knows what lenghths he might go to to hit us. Or who he might partner with? Maybe he wasn't working Al Qaeda at the time we invaded, but who's to say he wouldn't once the UN lifted the sanctions like France and Germany wanted to do?

Bottom line, I think not worrying about Iraq would have been irresponsible, and I think John Kerry shares your view, which is why I won't vote for him.

That and his desire to ignore Social Security, raise taxes to "close the deficit" while spending far more than he raises with new taxes, and the Democratic party's general disdain for working professional couples.

p.s. Yes, I worry about Iran and N. Korea too, and no, I don't have any easy answers. But what I DO know is that neither of those nations have used WMD's or invaded their neighbors lately.

As I recall, going into Iraq was the proper thing to do for a number of reasons, only one of which was the non-imminent threat of WMD's. Once GWB declared the GWOT, invading Iraq was a foregone conclusion, with the only question being when. So go ahead and argue why declaring the GWOT was a bad idea, but don't argue that invading Iraq was a bad idea if you think that the GWOT was a good idea. Personally, I think the GWOT is a very good idea, but I was surprised that Bush declared it--I thought that it would take more than just a WTC-type event to finally get the American people off their butts.

I speak as a now-retired Marine who was sick and tired of us always being nibbled to death by ducks in the wide variety of terrorist attacks against us with little or no retaliation. (And I still have a personal stake in the matter--my son is an active duty Marine.) Would I risk my life to participate in the GWOT? You betcha. It's that important to our country. Pulling out of Iraq before the job is finished, which likely will take over a decade at some level of involvement, will affect our national security interests to a much greater degree than pulling out of Vietnam, which only caused the deaths of millions of "foreigners" but didn't directly affect our short-term national security interests. But most of my military compadres recognize that pulling out of Vietnam the way we did helped sow the seeds for the terrorists actions today.

I don't expect that people such as pj, Begbee, or SomeCallMeTim to recognize or agree with that, but that's the view from most of us who've risked our lives in our Armed Services.

Tim:

Uh, no. Bio matters. A lot.

A widespread smallpox epidemic, given the lack of herd immunity in the US population, would kill far more persons than would even a large thermonuclear weapon. Enough weaponized agent to initiate such an epidemic would fit in a Coke can - several times over.

The last known widespread outbreak of smallpox in the world (the one that got into Yugoslavia in 1972) passed through Iraq in 1970.

Weaponized plague would be nearly as effective, but probably wouldn't spread as easily and would likely "only" kill as many as a large thermonuclear weapon. Plague is endemic in SW Asia.

Any more naiive comments?

Spengler writes in the Asia Times that the US plan is to attack Iran while breaking Iraq into three pieces:

"To be specific, the United States will in some form or other attack Iran while it arranges the division of Iraq."

"That Sunni diehards and Shi'ite adventurers would prevent the pacification of Iraq never was in question (Will Iraq survive the Iraqi resistance? , December 23, 2003). Leaks of a National Intelligence Estimate warning last week of impending Iraqi civil war suggest that Washington is thinking past the loser's game of occupation. The phony war between reluctant Iraqi recruits and rebels will persist past November, but something deadly and different will follow on Bush's re-election. Russian paratroops will be busy in the Caucasus after the Beslan atrocity, making a Russian presence in Iraq unlikely, contrary to my earlier forecast. (That may have been the intended outcome of the incident.) Nonetheless, Washington has a winning card to play, and the decibel level of protests from Tehran as well as from the US opposition suggests that it is well anticipated."

Could President Bush be this ruthless, this farsighted?

Hondo

Kind of funny because nobody has ever suggested that Iraq had smallpox. And if they did, Bush sure fucked up big time because its long gone now.

Iraq's defunct bioweapons programs consisted of artillery shells filled with wet anthrax. Unlike the dry, airborne, US made anthrax that someone used to attack the US in 2001, wet anthrax isn't much of a threat. Saddam's bio and chem weapons were no more of a threat than the Japanese cult that killed about a dozen people in a massive sarin attack in the Tokyo subway and got absolutely no one sick in repeated attempts to use wet anthrax to attack apartment buildings. In contrast, a couple of conventional bombs killed more than 200 people in the Madrid subway, and a crazu guy with a bottle of gasoline and a lighter killed more than 200 people in the Seoul subway. $200 billion, 1,020 lives and counting, 7,000 plus wounded, and tens of thousands of dead Iraqis, just so terrorists could not gain access to weapons that are not as effective as a can of gas and a lighter. That's dumb. And don't even get me started on the lack of any connection between Iraq and terrorism.

Meanwhile, Iran, which has made terrorist attacks against the US, was harboring bin ladin's sons and other al qeada leaders, and has been openly building a nuclear bomb, was ignored.

Iraq's weapons programs rose to the top of the long list of justifications mostly because of international law. IL doesn't allow the invasion and overthrow of regimes because they are evil, corrupt, or visciously cruel to their populace, or because you just don't like them. But IL has always recognized the right of a belligerent to re-initiate 'hot war' when the other side violates a cease fire agreement. The '91 Gulf War never ended, it went on haitus with a cease fire agreement that Iraq routinely violated. The violations of the cease fire agreement, specifically provable violations in weapons development (whether WMD or just development of delivery systems exceeding the range limits) were the only handle that could justify armed invasion for the purpose of regime change -- all the other reasons could, at most under IL, result in hand-wringing, sanctions, and armed peacekeeping activities.

The existence of the cease fire agreement is also the primary answer to the question "Why Iraq and not North Korea, Syria, or whoever else?"

[If you look at international armed humanitarian interventions, none AFAIK, including Kosovo, have overthown an existing sovereign government; the most they do is protect certian populations from that government. Milosevic remained in power well after the Kosovo bombing campaign until he lost the presidential election, he wasn't directly removed from office by the armed intervention.]

Just found someone else who agrees with me: Victor Davis Hanson at
http://victorhanson.com/articles/hanson091704.html

> Meanwhile, Iran, which has made terrorist attacks against the US, was harboring bin ladin's sons and other al qeada leaders, and has been openly building a nuclear bomb, was ignored.

Is PJ advocating the invasion of Iran?

Or, will he be satisfied with the stern talking to that they got recently? If he wants more than that, he's advocating going around the UN because China has promised a Security Council veto for sanctions or anything stronger.

pj:

Take off the partisan blinders. They are affecting your ability to read and think logically.

Nowhere in my post did I assert that Iraq under Hussein had or was working on smallpox as a WMD, or any other WMD for that matter. I used smallpox and plague as hypothetical examples - nothing more, nothing less. If you jumped to conclusions, you saw what you wanted to see Rather than what was written in plain type (Georgia font, not Times New Roman).

My intent was to respond to Tim's statement that "only nukes matter" (or words to that effect) with respect to WMD. Only a complete idiot or someone very naive would make that statement. Tim seems intelligent but misguided; I gave him the benefit of the doubt and assumed he was naive. On this issue, most people are incredibly naive.

If I remember correctly, biological weapons have the distinction of being the only category of weapons that the US and USSR mutually banned during the Cold War. The presumed reason is that each found them simply too dangerous and horrible to contemplate their use. Anti-ballistic missiles were limited by treaty but were not banned outright; the ban on militarization of space was an area vice a categorical ban. (Whether the Soviets lived up to their agreement regarding biological weapons production and stockpiling is another question entirely.)

Biological weapons have been very appropriately termed the "poor man's nuke." In militarily significant quantity, and with even marginally effective delivery systems, they can provide an effective deterrent. For biological weapons, "militarily significant quantity" for deterrence would be from a few tens of kilograms to a few thousand kilograms of weaponized agent. By way of comparison, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nukes each were between 4,000 and 4,550 kg (9,000 to 10,000 lb).

The ability for biological weapons to produce wholesale death has already been demonstrated by history. The "Black Death" plague epidemic that killed roughly 1/4 of Europe's population during the Middle Ages is an example. It has been relatively conclusively documented that this epidemic spread from Caffa in the Crimea to Europe. The plague apparently was introduced to Caffa by way of a biological attack by a Tatar army besieging the city; the Tatars are reported to have catapulted many corpses of plague victims into the city.

Paul, Hondo:

Using Bio and Chem on His Own People

The only distinctive thing about "WMD" is the efficiency of the weapons at killing people. I don't know why we'd distinguish between using chemical weapons to kill 100,000 people and using a population armed with machetes to kill 100,000 people. Unless we're making a fetish of WMD, we're really talking about being very bad to one's own people as the characteristic we're identifying.

Given that understanding, there have been a tragically large number of people who fall into that category. Just looking at the time after WWII (to avoid encompassing most of the West), and off the top of my head, I would think that Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, whoever did the "disappearing" in Argentina, the government of South Africa, the older Assad, Idi Amin, and Castro qualify. All of these governments provided different risk profiles to the US. Very little, if any, of that profile depended on how cruel each government was to its own people. The world can be pretty awful place; be glad (as I am) you're an American.

Using Bio Weapons

It's a lot harder than people think to use the other WMDs. Bios for example, aren't really great weapons. I refer you to this article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A19900-2001Feb2¬Found=true. Money quotation - "[A]nalysis of terrorist behavior with chemical or biological substances does not provide much backing for the not-if-but-when catastrophic terrorism school of thought. "

There are other reasons to disfavor biological weapons, including tricking out transmission rates and latency periods, and a complete lack of control (as Paul noted) once the disease is out. If you attack the US with biologicals, there's a decent chance that it spreads anywhere and everywhere else. And then the entire rest of the world hates you. Particularly your constituency of poor states, since their access to great and organized medical care is enormously smaller than ours. Ultimately, we can contain it, and they can't.

Giving a Nuke to a Terrorist

It will never, ever happen. A nuke is the sin-qua-non in the modern world; you don't ever relinquish control of it. For example, it is, at present, the only apparent deterrent that the US recognizes (see Iraq vs. Pakistan, N. Korea). Why not use that fact to trade for something useful - money, land, whatever you want?

Moreover, why would you risk that the group you gave it to would use for a purpose other than the one you want? I mean, once they've got it, they could use it on you or your allies. They'd get a lot more bang for the weapon elsewhere - no US nuclear response, better chance of getting away - so how could you count on them?

I'm a lot more worried about failed auditing and control systems in the old Soviet states than of any ME country using a nuke, even through other parties, to attack the US.

The only distinctive thing about "WMD" is the efficiency of the weapons at killing people. I don't know why we'd distinguish between using chemical weapons to kill 100,000 people and using a population armed with machetes to kill 100,000 people.

Even though in both cases the initiating party has demonstrated reckless disregard for human life, you do need to rally a small army of machete-wielders, and even if you get them, the thousands of machete-wielders can usually be stopped at the border. If one or a few slip through, they'll usually leave a lot of evidence lying around, and quickly be tracked. The bearer of WMD, on the other hand, merely needs to throw a large capsule into a local water supply. So the efficiency IS the argument.

Also, grim though it is to speak this way, the machete wielders will usually be reasonably efficient; unless ALL of them are barbarically inhuman in their killing, most victims will die quickly and there won't be many peripheral survivors. WMDs, on the other hand, often kill in gruesome and painful ways and create many additional non-fatal casualties, who will live on with disfigurements and possibly prolonged suffering. So there is an argument to be addressed that WMDs are inherently more barbaric than machetes, and the person who kills with them is inherently a more dangerous actor.

There are other reasons to disfavor biological weapons, including tricking out transmission rates and latency periods, and a complete lack of control (as Paul noted) once the disease is out. If you attack the US with biologicals, there's a decent chance that it spreads anywhere and everywhere else. And then the entire rest of the world hates you. Particularly your constituency of poor states, since their access to great and organized medical care is enormously smaller than ours. Ultimately, we can contain it, and they can't.

This also works the other way. The fact that the US conceivably could contain such an outbreak potentially makes it all the more attractive if some nuthatch decided to use the stuff; i.e., hit a target where you're sure to kill many people with a very small starting point, but where the odds of it dominoing uncontrollably are comparatively low.

A nuke is the sin-qua-non in the modern world; you don't ever relinquish control of it. For example, it is, at present, the only apparent deterrent that the US recognizes (see Iraq vs. Pakistan, N. Korea). Why not use that fact to trade for something useful - money, land, whatever you want?

Pakistan became astonishingly cooperative after 9/11, and what's more, anything nulear in that part of the world will surely drag India into the fray. Not a good idea, sure, but more because of the scope of the fallout (both literally and figuratively).

North Korea will implode in its own time as long as the US et al have the patience to play the waiting game, and it's rather difficult to take strong action against NK without seriously irritating Seoul and Tokyo, two capitals the US presently cares about (unlike, say, Paris or Berlin). Also, there's a little problem called "China," which presently has us by an economic headlock and would also like a good excuse to move against Taiwan, and NK would probably be a sufficient excuse. IOW, I don't think that's a relevant example.

As for the nuke itself, you don't give away your nuke, you give away a nuke, preferably one that won't readily point back to you, and keep the rest as security just in case ("shocking! We really don't know how the terrorists got that nuke, and by the way, before you act hastily, we have a lot more"). That is, unless you are a country that is not known to have nukes and can't afford to have more for some time, in which case if you find one, it may be entirely expedient to analyze it for a couple weeks, file some blueprints for future reference, and then quietly slip the goods to a terrorist.

Moreover, why would you risk that the group you gave it to would use for a purpose other than the one you want? I mean, once they've got it, they could use it on you or your allies. They'd get a lot more bang for the weapon elsewhere - no US nuclear response, better chance of getting away - so how could you count on them?

Beats me. They managed to get quite a few suicidal hijackers into airplanes with a low defection rate; how hard is it to find two who will casually saunter into a Starbucks and then forget one of their suitcases (or just blow up with it)? If that still seems too difficult, there's always the shipping container option.

Hondo

Your very George Bush like in the way you imply your talking about Iraq and rebuking someone for suggesting that concerns about Iraq's bio programs were overwrought, then claim that you are not.

Bioweapons are nowhere near as dangerous as nukes. It is silly to compare them. The reason why both sides the cold war swore off of them is that it was easily to disarm a virtually useless weapon. The effectiveness of nukes made mutual disarmamente impossible.

Why did nobody use chemical weapons in WW2, because they sucked at killing people. Conventional artillery worked better.

Look the Japanese used bubonic plague as a weapon against the Chinese in WW2. You don't read about it much because it wasn't much of a weapon.

Shame on you folks! Treaties are *always* honored, especially by murderous and secretive dictatorial regimes.

Ho ho ho. I kill me!

With anthrax, mycotoxins and chlorine gas.

Anyway, Hondo writes:

If I remember correctly, biological weapons have the distinction of being the only category of weapons that the US and USSR mutually banned during the Cold War....Anti-ballistic missiles were limited by treaty but were not banned outright; the ban on militarization of space was an area vice a categorical ban. (Whether the Soviets lived up to their agreement regarding biological weapons production and stockpiling is another question entirely.)

The USSR certainly continued biological weapons research up to the end of the Cold War. As I remember reading during the time of the local Anthrax scares in DC, in the late 1970s an accidental release of Anthrax in a Soviet military base killed about seventy people.

The USSR sidestepped the ABM treaty as well, though their ability to comprehensively violate that one was limited by technological backwardness.

PJ writes:

Why did nobody use chemical weapons in WW2, because they sucked at killing people.

Um... No. I believe you're right that the Germans didn't use chemical weapons against the British, but the Japanese certainly used poison gas against the Chinese. I don't know what was used on the Eastern Front, if anything.

I do have a shadowy recollection of reading that German restraint during the Battle of Britain was the result of an unofficial agreement between British Empire and the Nazis -- the Germans wouldn't drop poison gas on London, and the British Empire wouldn't use its biological weapons. The Brits certainly could make the threat; after having some fun with anthrax in 1942, the whole of Gruinard Island was under quarantine until the late nineties.

In addition to the Iran-Iraq war, post World War II uses of chemical/biological weapons include those by communist forces in Indochina and possibly Afghanistan. ("Yellow Rain")

Look the Japanese used bubonic plague as a weapon against the Chinese in WW2. You don't read about it much because it wasn't much of a weapon.

I think you also don't hear much about it in US because after World War II ended, our government went out of its way to surpress a lot of what the Japanese did. "That was then, this is now, and the Russians are scary."

That having been said, I don't view bubonic plague as something effectively weaponizable against a modern industrial nation like the US. Pneumonic plague, maybe.

Yours truly,
Jeffrey Boulier

Jeffrey,

Of course, if some nation wants to make an argument on who's the biggest threat to use WMD'S, the United States is the prime suspect because of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We also had Condi Rice running around talking about low yield "tactical nukes" in 2002. So from an off shore vantage point, the pre-emptive strike against America is a better argument than the Bush folks had for invading Iraq.

--Cobra

Also, grim though it is to speak this way, the machete wielders will usually be reasonably efficient; unless ALL of them are barbarically inhuman in their killing, most victims will die quickly and there won't be many peripheral survivors.

Are you familiar with Sierra Leone? Machetes were used by rebels to cut off the hands of tens of thousands of civilians. Do a g00gle search on "Sierra Leone" and "maim" to learn more. You can't make an argument that machetes are inherently less scary or more efficient than bio-weapons. Sierra Leone is full of "peripheral survivors" who have no productive way to earn a living. Many are children.

My point is not to get into a detailed discussion of the efficiency of machetes--it's that the type of hairsplitting you're doing to defend Bush's policies doesn't bear much application to the real world. People have pointed out how machetes, guns, chemical weapons, and biological agents (an element of "WMD") have been used in the real world in the last twenty years. You need not waste your time on hypotheticals. Weapons are weapons. A third-world soldier wielding a machete will not use it to cleanly dispatch enemy soldiers only, and not civilians, just because it fits the worldview that says Iraq was the greatest threat to world peace in early 2003.

The lies just keep coming from the reps. Never mind that Bush called Iraq "a grave and gathering threat." How can Iraq be a grave threat when every single Iraqi scientist interrogated prior to the war said there were no active Iraqi wmd programs? How can they be "gathering" when everyones intell said the Iraqui military has been devastated and deteriating post desert storm? How can the reps continue to use quotes from dems based on Wolfiwitzs special Iraqi intell unit? Nobody told the dems quoted on Iraq that the intell they recieved on the exact location and quantity of Iraqi wmd came from ONE paid informant, known liar, double agent, and L Bush State of the Union date, A Chalibi. Nobody told the dems quoted on Iraq that the riveting mobile WMD intell came from one alcoholic Iraqi informant named "Curveball".

Of the three "axis of evil" states named, Iraq was certainly the least dangerous, and Afganistan didnt even make the cut, so why were they first? While we've been screwing around in Iraq, Iran is so impressed they are pursuing nukes while thumbing there nose at the entire world, and lil Kim just keeps on cranking out the nukes. Our presence in the mideast has sure scared them. We can never be completely safe, and that seems to be the argument for war in Iraq by the reps, since we found no wmd, the argument has become Saddam was a tyrant and a lil dangerous so we still did the right thing. Never mind the resources and lives wasted in Iraq has prevented us from fighting a real war on terror. I do believe in a war on terror, but one thats based on real threat assessment, not what Wolfy cooked up to justify an invasion planned long before 911. People here talk about wmd as if its something new. You ever hear about the small pox blankets we gave the native Americans way back yonder? How do you stop Bin Laden or his ilk from getting the biowaste of ebola victims in central Africa and sending typhoid ali's on planes going to the western world? We cant stop everything, but we have to go after real threats, not Iraq.

When did this nonsense about "going after threats" enter strategic calculations? The GWOT is not about going after threats; it's about combating terrorism. North Korea has a small role to play in either terrorism or "threats" to the U.S., primarily because its economy is so tanked that it doesn't have the wherewithall to fund terrorists the way that Iraq was. There is also the small matter of geography. I guess that Begbee just doesn't believe me when I said in an earlier post that as soon as Bush announced the GWOT, I immediately wondered when we were going into Iraq. Begbee, from a strategic point of view, its obvious why we're in Iraq, and why we need to stay in Iraq. There have been many posts, both on this site and others, as to why this is so. Do a little homework, please.

Begbee, have you read Bob Woodward's book? From your post, I would tend to think you hadn't. If not, you should. None of what you posted jives with what I read in "Plan of Attack". I tend to believe his account of what happened over other, more partisan sources.

Smallpox doesn't have to be weaponized to be a threat. Find a few people that can get tourist visas and inject them with the germs on the eve of their departure to various crowded areas of the US. It isn't even necessary to tell them it's a suicide mission - just give them tiny cameras and tell them their job is to get three weeks worth of pictures of Times Square, Disneyland, a session of Congress, etc.

There is the problem that the ultimate result would probably be tens of millions of dead Americans, smaller death rates in other industrialized countries that had more time to get quarantine and vaccination measures in place, but billions dead in the third world. But who says terrorists or middle-eastern dictators are rational?

As for chemical weapons - WWI proved that they are lousy weapons for conventional warfare against a western nation. Most of the troops attacked found ways to protect themselves even before gas masks were issued. If the gas attack was successful, the followup troops were too burdened with their own gas masks to gain much ground. Once both sides have and are trained to use protective gear, all a chemical attack does is force everyone on both sides into burdensome gear, while killing too few of unwary or unlucky soldiers to make a difference.

On the other hand, chemical weapons are great for wiping out civilians, guerillas, and underequipped militia-type forces. They don't have gas masks. Even if they do, just try to keep one on a toddler. And Saddam used chemicals this way.

Jeffery:

Pneumonic and bubonic plague are different manifestations of the same disease and are caused by the same organism. Only difference is the method of infection - you get bubonic if by flea bite, pneumonic if via aerosol. Bites infect the lymph nodes and produce lesions called buboles (hence the name, bubonic plague); inhaled germs infect the lungs and highly contagious pneumonia. Pneumonic plague is quite deadly (50%+) unless treated quickly. Miss a rather short treatment window and you nave a 50%+ chance of ending up a corpse. Bubonic plague is less deadly to start with, and patients have a much longer window where treatment is effective.

pj:

Thanks for the compliment ("George Bush like"). It's nice to be compared to someone who has backbone, common sense, determination, and a well-developed sense of right and wrong.

However, you are an utter fool if you believe bioweapons are substantially less dangerous than nukes. They are at least as dangerous; in practical terms they are arguably more dangerous. Moreover, they are especially well-suited for terrorist use.

Nukes kill wholesale, but - barring a general exchange that would produce nuclear winter or a salted doomsday bomb designed to kill humanity via global fallout - nukes kill only in a limited area. Fallout can be negligible to very bad, depending on the weapon and it's method of employment, but again generally severely contaminates only a limited area. The lasting effects are, therefore, bad but manageable.

Nukes are also generally relatively large, relatively easily detected (radiation shielding is not easy), and are not at all easy to make. Useful quantities (e.g., enough to kill tens of thousands of people) of weaponized biological agent are much easier to make and will fit literally in a Coke can.

Moreover, if contagious and deadly agents are used, biological weapons are the proverbial "gift that keeps on giving." Contageous diseases have killed more people in history than any other cause. If a population has little or no immunity to a disease, widespread epidemics can still happen today. SARS - which by the way isn't all that easily transmitted from person to person - is an example. The fact that SARS ISN'T all that highly contagious is the only reason it was contained fairly quickly; even THAT took great effort.

People today - you included - simply don't seem to realize that today's medicine still has finite limits with respect to disease. For many (if not most) viral diseases - smallpox, ebola, and Marburg are examples - THERE SIMPLY IS NO EFFECTIVE TREATMENT. You either get well on your own or you die; there's absolutely nothing medicine can do for you but attempt to keep you comfortable. With some bacterial diseases, such as pneumonic plague, you have a small window PRIOR TO ONSET OF SYMPTOMS (48 to 72 hrs, I believe, but I'm working from memory) where antibiotic treatment is effective. After that, effectiveness of antibiotics goes way down and you generally either live or die on your own. Ditto for pneumonic anthrax.

All of the diseases I've listed above kill between 25% and 90% of those infected without treatment; the viral ones have no effective treatment, while the bacterial ones have only a short window in which treatment is effective. Except for anthrax, all of these are also highly person-to-person transmissible. There is credible evidence that work was done in the Former Soviet Union to weaponize ALL of the above. In the case of smallpox, it was reputedly stockpiled in weaponized form by the ton.

The possibility of genetic engineering further complicates the problem. Suffice it to say that it is eminently possible, at least in theory, to produce a pathogen that is virtually 100% fatal, is easily transmitted from person to person, and for which no treatment exists. The possibility of killing off most of the human race with such a modified agent - think "The Andromeda Strain" - can no longer be dismissed outright.

It was precisely this concern - new diseases developed for BW use escaping into the general population and causing widespread deadly epidemics - that was one of the driving forces leading to the BW convention.

Regarding Japanese BW in World War II: a short history lesson.

The Japanese Unit 731 conducted rather extensive (and quite inhumane) BW experiments and research in Manchuria during World War II. The reason you didn't hear about Japanese BW in World War II is threefold.

First, we (the US) kept things quiet regarding Unit 731 in return for the data the Japanese had gained from their BW experiments and efforts.

Second, there was a Civil War in China after World War II, culminating in a victory by the Chinese communists. The Civil War kept things confused and unsettled for 4 years (1945-1949). The areas of China where the Japanese had conducted their BW activities - Manchuria - were under Soviet and/or Chinese communist control. As a result, when uncorroborated (by non-communist sources) Chinese allegations regarding Japanese BW were made by the Chinese communists, they were dismissed by most in non-communist states as communist propaganda.

Third - and most importantly - the Japanese use of BW in World War II would today be generally considered quite amateurish. An example: the Japanese used infected flea release (technically, vector transmission) as the delivery system for plague. Using vector transmission is among the LEAST efficient methods for dissemination of a biological weapon. In plague, this also generally causes the least contagious and less deadly form of plague (bubonic) vice the most contagious and more deadly variant (pneumonic).

Had the Japanese developed an efficient aerosolized form of plague and used it to dust some Chinese cities, this would have created contageous pneumoinc plague outbreaks; literally tens of millions would quite likely have died. Had this occurred, I'm pretty sure the world have heard much more about it much earlier.

Fortunately, the combination of technology and Japanese skills at that place andn time wasn't particularly well suited for producing efficient aerosolized agents. With today's technology, unfortunately, it's much easier to do so.

As for what Saddam might have done with a nuke:

I doubt that he would have nuked a US target. Certainly doing this in any traceable way would have been suicide, and what's the point of nuking Manhattan Island if you can't brag about it?

But Saddam would have used the nuke on Israel, and I think any other Arab dictator would do the same. He wanted to be the leader of the Arab world, and taking out Israel would seem to be a way to get the credentials.

So, will SomeCallMeAnIdiot and friends tell me what they think we should do about an Arab leader that nukes Tel Aviv?

Begbee:

Well, allow me spell it out for you. I'll use short words to the maximum extent possible.

We went into Afghanistan first because THAT'S WHERE THE GROUP THAT ARRANGED THE 9/11 ATTACKS - AL QAEDA - WAS BASED AT THE TIME. THEY WERE SUPPORTED AND PROTECTED THERE BY THE DE FACTO GOVERNMENT OF AFGHANISTAN, THE TALIBAN.

Regrettably, we didn't kill all of those responsible - yet.

Were you being deliberately and provocatively obtuse, or have you actually forgotten 9/11?

Brittain33:

Thanks for the counterexample. You will note though, that nowhere in my post did I exclude such a possibility, and I don't think the existence of that example, or more if you would like to produce them, refutes the theoretical grounds of the argument. If people want to behave in a barbaric manner, sadly there is no shortage of creative means; but that is all the more argument for dealing harshly with those who may be gaining access to, and are willing to use, the more efficient means.

Hondo I agree with the war in Afganistan. My point was they werent part of the "axis of evil", yet they were who we first attacked. Thats bad policy, we should have dealt with those countries in order of the size of the threat they posed.

Paul I did read Woodwards book. But I also read Clarkes book, and excerpts from Paul Oneils book. They both state that Bush was plotting a war in Iraq long before 911.

Rex if we are impotent in NK, why put them on the list of the axis of evil? The fear factor? There is absolutely no strategic reason to be in Iraq except the oil, and you guys cant cop to that.

If any arab leader used a nuke he would not be a leader for long.

"There is absolutely no strategic reason to be in Iraq except the oil,..."

And advancing the concept of "international law".

Saddam was unfinished business, with a dozen or more UN resolutions declaring him in violation of whatever approximation of law or civilized behavior the UN is competent to determine. Like a convicted felon skipping on bond and violating parole, Saddam was a danger to the community and a rebuke to the whole process of law enforcement, judicial authority, and cooperation among peers.

Imagine if the US had postponed dealing with Saddam to change regimes in, instead, North Korea. Wouldn't there have been protests (justified protests, at that) over neglecting the "criminal" Saddam while persecuting the "innocent" (or at least, unindicted) Kim Jong Il?

Begbee, in my opinion, the difference between Woodward and O'Neill and Clarke is that the latter two had axes to grind with Bush and Woodward did not. I do not take seriously the claims of people who have axes to grind. I just can't be sure that they're being truthful. If there is a non-partisan source, I am much, much more likely to rely on that source. I cast my lot with Woodward's account.

begbee:

You are correct to say that Afghanistan was not part of the "Axis of Evil" as defined by President Bush.

Perhaps that's because Bush didn't define said "Axis of Evil" until he gave his State of the Union speech on January 29, 2002. This speech was given a month or two AFTER we had already removed the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

That would be my guess, at least.

Begbee,
Nowhere did I say we were impotent in NK. I said that NK has a relatively small role to play in supporting terrorism.

I also happen to believe that they are not an imminent threat and can therefore be dealt with at a later time. And exactly HOW we deal with them will depend on the input we receive from S. Korea, Japan, and China. Just as how we dealt with Iraq was decided based on input from Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Kuwait (although you might continue to believe that Bush was "hotheaded" by finally invading Iraq 14 months after initially making a case for invading). Our foreign policy is not formed in a vacuum, and just because we sometimes take action that our "allies" don't like doesn't mean that we didn't listen to them in the first place.

Pouncer you cannot advance the cause of international law by breaking it yourself. International law didnt authorize this war, and while Im not one of the liberals that believe we always need UN approval to act, the war in Iraq is a clear violation of international law. The UN and most of the world were convinced the WMD inspections were working, and they were right.

Paul I give Oneill and Clarke the nod over Woodward on Iraq because they were both there at the beginning, and Woodward wasnt. They are both Bush appointees, their stories support each other and reflect whats since happened with Iraq.

Hondo I agree with your explanation of Afganistans not being defined as part of the axis of evil. I disagree with the idea we removed them from Afganistan. If you listen to Karzai(sp)hes just invited the Talaban to be part of the political process, if you listen to our intell the Talaban has already alligned themselves with the narco-warlords and are in control of much of the country right now.

Rex I apologize for putting words in your mouth. I agree that theres little we can do with NK, but I also think there by far the most dangerous of the three named AoE states. Not because they could nuke us themselves, but along with Pakistan they are the only countries known to have actually sold nuke technology to terrorist states. Imo, if we didnt have a plan to deal with NK, putting them in the axis of evil speech was stupid, fear mongering.

Begbee:
Bush was indeed planning to attack Iraq long before 9/11 - because he was using Clinton's attack plans.

Since it has been US policy to remove Saddam ever since the end of Gulf War I, I find it amazing for anybody to be surprised that any US president was actually planning to further official US policy.

begbee:

In my post, I indicated that we had removed the Taliban regime from Afghanistan. That in fact occurred in Nov-Dec 2001. Prior to our intervention in Oct 2003, the Taliban ruled roughly 90% of Afghanistan. Two months later, they ruled virtually nothing.

The conflict in Afghanistan was essentially a civil war with outside participation: al Qaeda and Pakistan (prior to October 2001) backed the Taliban; other nations (including, after September 2001, the US) backed the Northern Alliance and other non-Taliban factions. Our intervention was decisive and removed the Taliban from power.

Genocide against the Taliban and their supporters did not occur in post-Taliban Afghanistan. As a result, many former Taliban and/or their supporters still live in Afghanistan. Some still forcibly oppose the Afghan government, generally in small bands; others are trying to get along with their lives. That some of these former Taliban would seek to become players in the new Afghan political reality is not surprising. That happens in democratic societies forming (or attempting to form) after a civil war. Afghanistan is only one example. Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador quickly come to mind as well.

As to why Afghanistan first: the Taliban "allies" al Qaeda - who were in fact so influential in Afghanistan prior to September 2001 to the point that some questioned whether al Qaeda or the Taliban were actually running things - attacked the US homeland and killed nearly 3,000 US citizens. The other states you reference had not done this. This perforce made Afghanistan #1 on the list of threats to US security. Had we not taken out the Taliban and al Qaeda, I am personally convinced that September 2001 would have been only the first in a series of escalating attacks on US interests and citizens worldwide.

The criticism of younger sister is petty and silly. Nothing anyone can say will deter potential allies as effectively as the behavior of the Bush Admin. Right now Bush is allowing insurgents to establish themselves in major cities throughtout Iraq, promising only that he will "stay the course" but not actually fight until after the election. Who would want to help a comander-in-chief who so crudely plays politics with war? And why would anyone one join up to help fight a war that was sold to our people and our current allies on the basis of exaggerations, misconceptions, and outright lies? Nobody on this planet is stupid enough to come in now on our side.
And the British are reducing their forces.
The attack on the younger daughter was catty.

Begbee, O'Neill was forced to resign and was bitter about it. Clarke was not a Bush appointee but a holdover from the Clinton administration whose importance declined under Bush. He praised Bush publicly before he decided to sell some books. His testimony, prior statments to the press and book conflict on numerous occasions.

I do not accept anything either of them say at face value. As I said, Woodward is the only one with no axe to grind.

You can choose to follow those points of view if it feeds what you believe, I suppose, but I was very sour on the Iraq war when I read "Plan of Attack" and it has brought me around to my current line of thinking.

"Who would want to help a comander-in-chief who so crudely plays politics with war?"

The two, war and politics, are inseparable. War is the extension of politics by force. War in the absence of politics is nonsense, even though we engage in it on occasion (Bosnia, Kosovo). But if you don't have a political goal that war can help, you have no business fighting and risking servicepeoples' lives.

Or is it your objection that Bush is doing so "crudely"?

Hondo Ive already stated I supported the war in Afganistan. But the Talaban was not removed, they merely relocated to Pakistan until the heat died down. We have accomplished very little in Afganistan, Mullah Omar and UBL werent captured or killed, and the Talaban are again a major power in Afganistan. Beyond that, we have helped increase poppy production by 500% in the last year.

Paul, Oneill wasnt forced to resign. He disagreed with Bush on the debt, because Bush said, "Reagan proved debt doesnt matter." But Bush could hardly fire an appointee without looking stupid, so he had no leverage to make Oneill resign. Im aware Clarke served under Clinton, but he was originally a rep appointee, and Bush could have appointed someone else. Its not just these two that state war on Iraq was in this administrations plan from the start. Is it just coincidence that Clarke and Oneill describe the exact plan for war on Iraq?

Eric the occupation of Iraq is not connected to Clinton in any way. Regieme change, yes, Occupation, no.

Begbee:

I'm quite certain that Clinton-era attack plans went past the 'blow things up' stage - and therefore had some form of occupation planning.

“Now that I see this, I eagerly await the announcement of Operation Kumbaya, under the direction of General Group-Hugs-For-Everyone.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim at September 18, 2004 05:10 PM”

I just liked this post. The concept is apparently the only solution to the far left.

Back to the topic, Ms. Kerry is only doing in Australia, what her brother was doing in Paris. There is something quite loony about a mind-set that every thirty years wants to be “French” and throw in the towel especially after winning the war. The WWII victory was lost because we lost the peace (John Dos Pasos). Gen. Giap was at the point of surrender, but was saved from defeat by Walter Cronkite and the “peace movement” (John Kerry, Jane Fonda, & others) declaring surrender first. Now in a truly inbred fashion, the left is declaring failure in Iraq. They cost us an additional 40,000 lives using this tactic during Viet Nam how many lives will they cost us this time? Acts like Ms. Kerry’s are out of the same playbook, and from a family used to not caring about those souls that are in harms way.

Why would Ms. Kerry’s comments abroad declaring, Bush’s invasion of Iraq partly the cause of the Bali bombing, a terrorist bombing primarily involving the Aussies and which happened before the invasion of Iraq, be a matter to question? I think that Castro also blamed Bush for seeding the clouds, causing a hurricane. Both are in the same realm of sanity. I'm sure that there will be reports that Bush seeded the clouds to suppress the Black votes in Florida.

I think a lot of war supporters need to re-read Orwell's "Politics and the English Language."

Whenever I attempt to pin them down as to a viable strategy for stabilizing the insurgents and winning the support of the people, all I ever hear are chest-thumping bromides about "draining the swamp," "taking the fight to the terrorists," etc.

Whenever I ask HOW we can tell exactly WHO the terrorists are, I get accused of being an "appeaser."

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