Is this an accurate description?

This is roughly true in the UK but lines are far more blurred, many right wingers are anti-war whilst Blair and his cabinet, a left wing Government are pro.

Personnally I am left of centre but am pro war. I believe that the Iraqi people have suffered enough under Saddam and international sanctions, not to mention 12 years of bombing. The only way to stop this is by removing Saddam, which will have to be with force.

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who are pro-war (I refer only to the current situation with, Iraq, not just any war) tend to be described as lefties and liberals, whilst the pro-war lot are conservatives.

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A number of prominent conservatives in the U.S. have spoken out against the rush to war, including Patrick Buchanan and General Norman Schwarzkopf.

In January, a group of Republican businessmen took out a full-page ad in the Wall St. Journal to publicly record their opposition to this completely unnecessary war.

For a quick impressionistic look at conservative antiwar sentiment, check out this recent Mark Fiore animation.

Also take a look at Antiwar.com, an antiwar site run by very right-leaning libertarians. Antiwar.com is one of the best antiwar sites on the net, and features article links to both right and left-wing writers.

drg

[ 09 March 2003: Message edited by: drgoodword ]

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Some people on the extreme right are against invading Iraq because they see it as part of the mythical Jewish conspiracy.

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I would say that most true conservatives in the U.S., like Pat Buchanan, are against invading Iraq not for reasons of anti-semitism, but for reasons of Old Right isolationism, which goes back to the American Founding Fathers. The best example of this kind of isolationist ideology is George Washington's farewell address.

Here's a good summary of the vision and impact of Washington's Farewell Address:

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Washington set out his vision of what would make the United States a truly great nation. He called for men to put aside party and unite for the common good, an "American character" wholly free of foreign attachments. The United States must concentrate only on American interests, and while the country ought to be friendly and open its commerce to all nations, it should avoid becoming involved in foreign wars. Contrary to some opinion, Washington did not call for isolation, only the avoidance of entangling alliances. While he called for maintenance of the treaty with France signed during the American Revolution, the problems created by that treaty ought to be clear. The United States must "act for ourselves and not for others."

The Address quickly entered the realm of revealed truth. It was for decades read annually in Congress; it was printed in children's primers, engraved on watches and woven into tapestries. Many Americans, especially in subsequent generations, accepted Washington's advice as gospel, and in any debate between neutrality and involvement in foreign issues would invoke the message as dispositive of all questions. Not until 1949, in fact, would the United States again sign a treaty of alliance with a foreign nation.

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You can read the entire address here.

I personally think this was very, very good advice from Washington. The greatest idea in history, in international relations, is the "sanctity of borders," supposedly enshrined as international law following World War II.

People too often forget that most invasions, from the time of Classical Athens, to Rome, to the Crusades, to the many campaigns of the British empire, and even to Hitler's agression in Europe, were accompanied by passionate arguments for all the good the war was going to bring, for the rescuing of the peoples being invaded.

But this is never true: all wars are about politics and economics, and never about compassion. But "the people" who must supply the taxes to pay for the war, and supply the sons and daughters to fight for and die in the war, won't be moved by spheres of economic influence and geo-political strategies. They can only be motivated by something greater, and so propaganist throughout the ages have declaime the savagery of the enemy, and the great good that will come from the true and right application of military might.

Is Saddam a bad man? I and the vast majority of the people of the world have no doubt that he is. But you have to see him in context.

Do you want to rescue the Kurds? Then don't forget to do the same for the Kurds in Turkey, who have it just as bad. You say Saddam has killed thousands of his own people? Then you'll have to also make war plans to change another dozen regimes, including China. Saddam has WMD? Not nearly as many as North Korea, and fewer even than Iran. Are you planning to launch military action against these countries as well? And if you're worried about terrorism, perhaps you could spare a few B2 bombers for Saudi Arabia, since most of the 9-11 hijackers came from there, and none from Iraq.

The U.S. & Britain are playing a very, very old game in this entire Iraq debacle, applying time-tested methods of propaganda for a naked and tremendously dangerous bid to expand control over the middle east, for multiple and intersecting strategic reasons tied to that regions massive oil reserves.

Yes, it is about oil...try running a modern industrial state without it...you won't get very far. And it's not just about the dollar "worth" of the oil, but how control of that oil impacts control of the economies of the U.S. and other nations--this is part of the complex and long-term American strategy of indefinitely maintaining global supremacy, which has been clearly and unambiguously proclaimed in a number of Bush speeches since 9-11. No other nations will be allowed to challenge the United States, either militarily or economically, and this is simply a matter of stated administration policy.

If nothing else, the first half of the 20th century taught us that this is a surefire recepie for disaster. An agressive stance from this magnitude can only invite agression in response, whether it be from other states, or from stateless terrorists. As Chretien, in his finest moment, has recently said on public record, "where does this stop?" There is always a dictator that must be toppled and an oppressed peoples must be liberated now (nevermind that American and other allied tax dollars went into nurturing, empowering and supporting most of these dictators).

It is too easy for a great power to continue "rescuing" the world, and those who want to avoid being rescued will have no choice but to fight. This new world order, which has no respect for international law, is a nightmare of anarchy and perpetual violence.

We do not live in a perfect world. An estimated six million American children go to school each day hungry. Millions more are homeless. Millions more still have no medical coverage, something the rest of the "civilized" world has declared a basic human right. And yet the American government has somewhere found $100 Billion dollars to wage an unnecessary war, where thousands of civilians will suffer horrors Saddam never even dreamed of, and millions will thrown into utter poverty and desolation.

There is not a single good aspect to this impending war against Iraq, and the fact that the men and women who occupy the positions of the highest trust in Western society have managed to convince so many people otherwise is a thing of utter astonishment and despair.

Even if it is about personal opposition to Bush, I don't think that's a bad thing. He's a scary, scary man, and so are Cheney and Rumsfeld and the rest. I simply don't trust this particular administration to do what needs to be done to minimize the damage to Iraq and/or to rebuild it after a war. Their track record is no good.

[ 10 March 2003: Message edited by: Smith ]

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Some people on the extreme right are against invading Iraq because they see it as part of the mythical Jewish conspiracy

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These would be the same people who burble on about a new world order, we dont have many of them in the UK, they are anti war too? How bizarre I assumed the far white would be for attacking Iraq.

drgoodword - Thanks for the link, that animation is very effective, and funy.

I do find it strange that storming Norman is not for an attack. Fair play to him for having the courage of his convictions.

Additionally, as others have pointed out, Bush is reducing US diplomacy and influence in international affairs to the point that his enemies will seek and develop appropriate "counter measures". Once the "bad guys" get things like tactical nukes and "death rays" (now being developed) there wil be no military force that will not be vulnerable.

This war against Iraq and Afghanistan will effectively globalize terrorism. It will create a "market" for it. In my crystal ball I can see nonArabs hired for astronomical sums to do these despicable deeds.

As the domestic situation in the US gets worse with higher unemployment, massive deficits that prevent social spending and thereby cripple economic growth, dissent will fester and become fanatical under the neoconservative clamp down on civil liberties.

Ther will be a rise in domestic, home grown terror, like the Oklahoma City bombing...I mean this is just terrible...

To address the problems the world has presently we need the best leaders and the best situation where the slim opportunities for global survival are maximized. Instead we have the worst situation and the worst leaders imaginable....

It is so bloody ridiculous you have got to laugh at the predicament....only for some reason I just can't.

[ 10 March 2003: Message edited by: Boinker ]

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From where I sit, I see much of the opposition to the Iraq war as significantly more an opposition to overweening American power and especially Bush;

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I think this is correct; overweening American power is a big part of it. Furthermore, the anger at Bush comes in part from his wilful destruction of previous US internationalist commitments; he is not only attacking Iraq, but also destroying the work of the last sixty years in international relations. The UN was an American idea, and the network of international agencies created post-1945 had bipartisan American support. Many people think an unelected President has no right to simply break up what has been carefully built up.

Americans may underestimate how much anger Bush's attempts to scupper institutions such as the International Court of Justice has created, but surely this anger resurfaces when Bush once again decides that the US is bound by no law.

There may be some "cultural" anger, too, which has less justification. Bush seems to be an ignorant fellow who comes from a wilfully-provincial state.

The Americans will undoubtedly seize Iraqi oil to pay for all of this nonsense. Otherwise, who would cover the cost? American taxpayers? If it isn't really about the oil (as is claimed by the pro-war crowd), then generations of Americans will be paying for this.

Fiscal conservatives should be outraged.

[ 10 March 2003: Message edited by: albireo ]

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Americans may underestimate how much anger Bush's attempts to scupper institutions such as the International Court of Justice has created, but surely this anger resurfaces when Bush once again decides that the US is bound by no law.

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Kyoto is classic. 98% of senate Dems and Repubs gave Kyoto the thumbs down under the Clinton administration. Kyoto never stood any chance whatsoever in the US. Clinton knew this, so he wisely shelved it and moved on; remaining pensively supportive when giving speeches abroad and mostly silent at home. Then Bush moves in – promptly putting his foot right in his mouth – and states the obvious: (‘Kyoto is dead’) and will now forever be thought of the guy who killed something that never had any detectable pulse. Bush didn’t kill Kyoto, but he did blunder politically and will forever pay the price. Much of the same is true with the ICC. Clinton was soooo much better at the perception game.

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While a smoother, more internationalist American spokesman might sell this war better than Bush, I doubt that his Texan accent accounts for much of the opposition to the war.

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I can certainly understand this. Drives me nuts. But ideally, when presented with situations as somber as Hussein and Iraq, I would hope that people try their best to set these assessments of personal or stylistic off-puttings aside in favor of an honest evaluation of the arguments at hand.

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It is thus a tragedy of historical proportions that America's own leaders are today corroding and dissolving the links that bind the US to its closest allies in the international community. The US is about to make war on Iraq for reasons that remain obscure even to many of its own citizens. The war that they do understand, the war on terrorism, has been unconvincingly rolled into the charge sheet against one Arab tyrant. Washington is abuzz with big projects to redraw the map of the Middle East; meanwhile the true Middle Eastern crisis, in Israel and the Occupied Territories, has been subcontracted to Ariel Sharon. After the war, in Iraq as in Afghanistan, Palestine, and beyond, the US is going to need the help and cooperation (not to mention the checkbooks) of its major European allies; and there will be no lasting victory against Osama bin Laden or anyone else without sustained international collaboration. This is not, you might conclude, the moment for our leaders enthusiastically to set about the destruction of the Western alliance; yet that is what they are now doing.

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the complex and long-term American strategy of indefinitely maintaining global supremacy, which has been clearly and unambiguously proclaimed in a number of Bush speeches

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. . . not to mention in at least one of his Daddy's speeches, which I heard on CNN during the closing moments of the Gulf War. At an air-base in Georgia, Bush Sr. made a remarkable statement, which was so provocative that I've remembered it verbatim, and which I've never heard repeated:

"We have shown the world that we are the most powerful nation on the face of the earth . . . and what we say goes!! (emphasis his}

I recall thinking that this was what George had meant by his invocations of the "New World Order" . . . and being absolutely stunned at his actually voicing such words.

Does anyone else recall this particular speech? As I say, I never saw it commented on in print (other than in one of my own letters to the London Free Press) or re-broadcast, but I'll never forget it.

Make no mistake, the Bush Administration sees itself as having a divine mission to make America supreme, in perpetuity.

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Shifting gears a bit, I heard a UN historian on NPR today noting that every permanent UNSC member has attacked another nation without UN approval since the UN’s creation.

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Well, let's see: Britain and France attacked the Suez Canal and Egypt, and the US complained that it was aggression. China attacked Vietnam, and the U.S. said it was aggression. Russia attacked/invaded Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, and the U.S. complained in the U.N.

Yes, that's right! Each member of the Security Council has attacked another country since 1945, and in each case, the U.S. claimed (correctly!) that it was aggression.

As far as "going to the U.N." is concerned, this was not commonly done because of the Societ and Chinese vetoes, which were regularly deployed against the West. Only when Russia walked out, re Korea, did the U.S. use the UN to justify a war.

[ 11 March 2003: Message edited by: jeff house ]

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Make no mistake, the Bush Administration sees itself as having a divine mission to make America supreme, in perpetuity.

This is, I believe, why France, Germany and the rest of the world are so opposed to this war.

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Far more people who oppose war have been involved in one than is the case with those who are for war.

Back in 1999 NATO had no UN authorization for war, Yugoslavia was a sovereign country, and Kosovo legally a constituent part of Serbia. (Actually that final point was constitutionally debatable, but that was never a serious justification for the war.) And yet, the war was widely considered legitimate and good, even by most on the Left. (I'll discount the Chomskyites -- influential, but a minority.)

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I'd like to hear why those who supported war in 1999 without the UN, and against a sovereign country, now oppose war against a far more vicious and dangerous tyrant.

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I love strawmen. Do you enjoy the sound of silence, Whazzup?

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To my mind, the UN should learn from the debacles in Rwanda and Serbia, and respond more quickly to prevent genocides, rather than simply punish civilian populations after the fact.

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But they didn't respond. Indeed, they never respond in such situations. The situation in Iraq is just one more example of this. Have you seen any demonstrations in France in the past 5 years calling for UN peacekeeping operations in Iraq? Attended any similar demonstrations in Canada?

US and Britain have (belatedly) employed the force of their military power to protect Iraqi Kurds and Shiites for 12 years now. I haven't seen the UN offer to step in and relieve them of their duty. Wake me up when they do.

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Turkey has killed even more Kurds than Iraq has - but nobody is mentioning that since they are being courted as an ally.

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Whazzup...if you'd bother to notice, I am as annoyed with the UN's apparant inability to defuse conflict as anyone. The fact that most of us in the west didn't even know Rwanda was happening until after the fact is the sad truth, much to our own shame. I am annoyed that the UN has done nothing substantial to defuse the Kashmir conflict; to address the cycle of murder in Israel and the occupied territories; to prevent the continued violence in Chechnya. There are far too many examples for me to list. Waiting for these situations to go away on their own has rarely worked. Punitive attacks after a conflict has gone out of control does nothing to help the dead, and very little for the living. It tends to only promote the cycle of violence, rather than stop it.

If the no fly zones are working in protecting the Iraqi minorities, than why is a full-on invasion and occupation of Iraq necessary?

[ 11 March 2003: Message edited by: Sarcasmobri ]

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I'd like to hear why those who supported war in 1999 without the UN, and against a sovereign country, now oppose war against a far more vicious and dangerous tyrant.

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That's a good question. Here's my answer. I supported the war in Kosovo because it was undertaken by NATO, which was, at the time composed of most of the countries directly affected by the break-up of Yugoslavia and the
ethnic cleansing of minority areas.

I probably would not have accepted an overt invasion of Serba proper, though, and I would not have supported to an imposed regime change to be followed by a ten-year occupation.

In any event, I am not sure that Saddam is "a far more vicious and dangerous tyrant" than Milosevic was. Those who remember that far back will recall that Milosevic was analogized to Hitler by the western powers. But perhaps they were just exaggerating to fool their populations.
Like now.

[ 11 March 2003: Message edited by: jeff house ]

[An aside about Iraqi and Turkish atrocities against the Kurds: Human Rights Watch reported in 1995 a total of "over 19,000 deaths" in the civil war in Turkey over a period of 11 years. In Iraq, by contrast, they reported that "at least 50,000 and possibly as many as 100,000" were killed, in the space of a single year. 10-15 million Kurds live in Turkey, while 4 million live in Iraq.]

Edited to add: I don't support comparisons with Hitler in general. But nobody exaggerated Milosevic's crimes -- he initiated several local brutal wars in which hundreds of thousands perished and over a million were displaced. That is quite a feat in a country as small as Yugoslavia. And Saddam's brutality has been amply documented by human rights organizations, if Rummy ain't your cup of tea.

[ 11 March 2003: Message edited by: Whazzup? ]

One interesting difference exists in these two conflicts: while the 'ethnic cleansing' of the Milosevic regime was begun as a result of their own initiative, the violence against the Kurds in Iraq was, largely, the result of their having begun a rebellion during negotiations with the Baathist regime over self-government, in the midst of the war between Iran and Iraq.

They did this at the suggestion of the CIA, who offered the Kurds money and weapons. The reason for American support was to weaken the Iraqi war effort against their client state of the moment, the Iran of Shah Reza Pahlavi. Of course, they also did not wish to see the Kurds actually win, so they provided only enough support to make them a hindrance to Iraq, not a serious threat, though the Kurds were never informed of this policy. When the Shah was deposed by the Khomeini uprising and the Americans were ejected from Iran, the Americans switched clients, backing the regime in Baghdad against their new, 'more dangerous' enemy, cutting off all support for the Kurds and leaving them at the mercy of Saddam, et al.

The head of the CIA at the time was, of course, none other than George H. W. Bush, who didn't bat an eye about the plight of the Kurds until his decision to sucker Saddam in Kuwait by giving him permission to invade (remember April Glaspie?) and then attacking him when he did just that.

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One interesting difference exists in these two conflicts: while the 'ethnic cleansing' of the Milosevic regime was begun as a result of their own initiative, the violence against the Kurds in Iraq was, largely, the result of their having begun a rebellion during negotiations with the Baathist regime over self-government, in the midst of the war between Iran and Iraq.

They did this at the suggestion of the CIA, who offered the Kurds money and weapons. The reason for American support was to weaken the Iraqi war effort against their client state of the moment, the Iran of Shah Reza Pahlavi.

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Something about this doesn't add up.

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Oops -- Brain Fart

Sorry, it's been years since I actually referred to these sources, so I dusted off the records.

I should have said that the incitement of the Kurds took place during a *border dispute* between Iraq and the Shah's Iran, not during a war. The decision to destabilize Iraq came on the day that they nationalized their oil industry, and the Kurds were enlisted immediatly after the fact. When a treaty between Iran and the Baathists was signed, in 1975, all aid was cut off to the Kurds, and Saddam (who negotiated the treaty) was apprised of the impending cessation of support. He launched a search-and-destroy campaign the following day. Except for the Ayatollah Khomeini, the cast of characters remains the same: Bush, Saddam, the Shah, Nixon and Kissinger. Another tidbit about this, straight from the Pike Commission Report:

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"The insurgents were clearly taken by surprise. Their adversaries [Iraq], knowing of the impending aid cut-off, launched an all out search-and-destroy campaign the day after the agreement [between Iraq and Iran] was signed. The autonomy movement was over and our former clients scattered before the central government's superior forces. The cynicism of the U.S. and its ally had not yet completely run its course, however. Despite direct pleas from the insurgent leader and the CIA station chief in the area to the President and Dr. Kissinger, the U.S. refused to extend humanitarian assistance to the thousands of refugees created by the abrupt termination of military aid."

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Clear enough?

So it wasn't the Iraqi war effort that was being undermined, but merely what was perceived by the Americans as an increasingly 'socialist' government.

My apologies for the time fog.

[ 12 March 2003: Message edited by: John Collins ]

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I'd like to hear why those who supported war in 1999 without the UN, and against a sovereign country, now oppose war against a far more vicious and dangerous tyrant.

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Here is my attempt whazzup

First of all, let me state that if the UN Security Council explicitly authorizes a military attack against Iraq, I will support it, the same way I supported the legality of the 1991 Gulf War. I do have to be consistent. If I support the UN, I have to support its decisions.

Barring that UN authorization, some of the reasons against unilateral war now have already been given: 1) timing - there is something odd about going to war because of the Kurds, more than a decade after Saddam's genocide. Normally, the lawyers will tell you that the use of force has to be relatively close to the events you want to stop/prevent 2) the consensus is to contain and force Iraq to disarm. "We" (the international community) have agreed on a process of weapons inspections and the inspectors call the shots about what is happening on the ground. Saddam without WMD is just a tin pot dictator, but not a threat - the world can beat him, the world can severely damage the foundations of his dictatorship without war 3) I'm not 100% convinced of this (let's say 80-90%) but the war does not seem to be about democracy in the Middle East and about disarmament. I won't go into the arguments about White House and Pentagon blueprints for the international order but this has been extensively covered in the press: the US goals are to be militarily dominant, control access to resources, ensure no rogue regimes have the means to challenge US security etc. So this war seems to be about US control of strategic regions

Why support the war in Kosovo despite no UN go ahead? By the way, supporting the war to break the back of Serbia does not in any way mean supporting the specific tactics used (bombing from 15,000 feet, bombing Belgrade's TV tower). There is a major difference between saying a war is justified and agreeing with every action undertaken in war. Basic distinction.

My major reason for supporting the NATO campaign to smash Serbian fascism: there was an ongoing campaign of genocide occurring right after the Serbian campaigns of ethnic cleansing and genocide in Croatia and Bosnia. The genocidal actions of Serbia in Kosovo did not occur 10-12-15 years before the NATO attacks. It was ongoing as NATO debated what to do through the summer, fall and winter of 1998 and spring of 1999. Serb violence against innocent Kosovo civilians in fact escalated dramatically during the Kosovo war.

In the summer of 1998, almost one year before the NATO campaign, Milosevic's forces began increasingly indiscriminate assaults against villages in central Kosovo, driving a total of 300-400,000 people into the hills and blocking virtually all efforts to provide humanitarian assistance. International outrage led to an agreement to alow humanitarian observers - but many argue the Serb paramilitaries quickly violated this.

Most estimates of deaths used by NATO during the spring of 1999 were in the 10,000 range (I refer to Kosovar civilians masacred by Serb security forces). Investigators continue their work in Kosovo as we speak. Based on forensic investigations, it is estimated that ultimately there will be several thousand unaccounted for and presumed murdered in Kosovo. Forensic experts have already dug up many thousands of Kosovar corpses where the Serb paramilitaries and army murdered and buried them.

There is a major controversy among jurists. Can international humanitarian law, in particular the obligations under the Genocide Convention that call on states to do everything in their power to prevent and STOP genocide, override other international laws such as the idea that war can only be undertaken in self-defense or through explicit UN authorization?

I believe the prevention of genocide must always override other laws. Thus I think the UN was wrong in not intervening and NATO was correct in going to war to break Serbia's back and free Kosovo Albanians.

That is my explanation for the different positions. War against Serbia was totally justified because of the undeniable fact of Serb aggression and genocide against Kosovars AT THE VERY MOMENT THE DECISION WAS MADE to go to war. War - right now - against Iraq does not meet this same test. It would have in 1988-89 after the acts of genocide committed against the Kurds by Saddam Hussein.

[ 14 March 2003: Message edited by: Mimichekele2 ]

Your two main points, if I understand them, are that

1. a genuine humanitarian intervention would have taken place 12 years ago – not today, and
2. Saddam’s power can be effectively "contained" without recourse to war.

On the first point, I would say that anyone who supported the overthrowal of Saddam 12 years ago, and continues to do so today, is untouched by your criticism. That would include all of Iraq’s opposition groups, and all who continue to support them today.

Bush, on the other hand, might allude to the internal victims of Saddam, but he has never seriously put forth the notion that this is a humanitarian war, so he too is untouched by this criticism. The problem is that these two different forces now find themselves in a strategic alliance of sorts. Those supporting a war to topple Saddam for humanitarian purposes are trying to use Bush’s war to further their own purposes, and to persuade Bush to make a far-reaching commitment to establishing genuine democracy in the Middle East. It is easy to be cynical about Bush. It is more troublesome to face the widespread support for the war among Iraqi Kurds, and wide swathes of Iraqi Shiites – and also among expats, who are remarkably aloof from the peace movement.

On the second point, this is at least plausible. But earlier attempts to contain Iraq through sanctions have attracted broad popular outrage. I haven’t yet seen a plausible alternative. Unless, of course, you believe that keeping 200,000 US troops on the ready in the Persian Gulf, and non-stop patrolling of the Iraqi "no-fly zones" is a good permanent solution. Without that, Saddam would revert to his usual butchery.

Which brings me to my final point, your idea that

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Saddam without WMD is just a tin pot dictator, but not a threat

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And I fully support the maintenance and even extension of the no-fly zones. The no-fly zones have prevented the continuation of genocide against the Kurds.

On this point, I have no sympathy with others in the "anti-war" movement who argue against the no fly zones. It is because of the no fly zones that the Kurds are still alive to fight. People have tried to argue to me that the zones violate Iraqi sovereignty - well, screw their sovereignty, their sovereignty means hundreds of thousands of Kurdish and Marsh Arab corpses.

I also have no political nor moral objections to providing support - both financial and military - to Iraqi opposition movements that are trying to destroy the Baathist dictatorship. I don't have any specific ideas on how best to accomplish this but I see no reason not to support the broad-based opposition in its efforts to get rid of what is perhaps one of the most ruthless dictatorships on the planet today.

I think it would be a good idea for people on this side of the fence to start openly defending that position and campaigning for active support to the Kurds and other opposition movements. Right now, only the US administration supports them, for reasons I am not sure are honest ones.

[ 14 March 2003: Message edited by: Mimichekele2 ]