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Yahoo! News - War on Iraq will heighten risk of further al-Qaida attacks - report
The Oxford Research Group just put out a report about the potential consequences of a war with Iraq. The AP bills this group as "independent", and it may be. But it is far from objective. The whole point for this group's existence is "to fund the resolution of conflict and the prevention of wars". A worthy goal, I'm sure, but it's not really objective now is it?
For starters, the resport was writtent by "Paul Rogers...a professor of peace studies at Bradford University". What exactly does "Peace Studies" study? "Look, see how those people are not fighting? Write an essay on that." Are we expected to take the word of a "Professor of Peace Studies" that war is not a good idea? I wonder if he might be just a little biased?
This group is essentially just a rehash of the same old liberal tripe we've all heard since 9/11. And I quote:
Since September 11th 2001 there is growing recognition that, if an international response to terrorism is to be effective, the conflicts and policy issues that generate grievance must be addressed.
Ah, blame the victim. But your honor, she was dressed like she wanted it!
Furthermore, preventing and resolving conflict without the use of force avoids the creation of martyrs and is more likely to enable the cycle of violence to be broken.
We'll break this "cycle of violence" the same way we ended World War II - by killing an awful lot of people. You see, we hawkish warmongers want to prevent war and promote peace as well. Our way will be far more effective. You and your dictator-appeasing Neville Chamberlain professors of peace studies can stay out of the way, and study the amazing peace that results once we have mopped up the source of the trouble.
Or how about these thoughts?
On September 9th, 10th and 11th Oxford Research Group launched Peace Direct at the Royal Opera House with Stephen Fry, Julie Christie, Mark Rylance, David Oyelowo, Annabel Brooks, Issy van Randwyck and many others, to explore how people are transforming terror into hope and power. The evening premiered the new album by Chloe Goodchild, the composer who sang for H.H. the Dalai Lama in Northern Ireland and who has used music to heal in conflict situations such as New York's High Security Prison for Women.
Through exquisite live music and poetry the audience celebrated the unquenchable power of the human spirit and introduced unknown heroes who in their personal lives have transformed hatred and revenge into understanding and reconciliation - people who lost relatives on September 11th, from N.Ireland and the Middle East.
I wonder if your event also featured the Afghan men and women who were dancing in the streets after American bombs and our allied soldiers drove the Taliban out?
The Director's Report further verifies the entirely non-partisan and objective stance this group takes:
From a European perspective, the unilateralist leanings of the Bush administration caused concern well before 11 September.
She then complains because we actually want to keep our weapons usable, and even managed to complain about our rejection of the ICC and Kyoto! I'm fairly impressed. Then she complains because the US is so much more militarily advanced than most of our NATO "allies" that we don't usually want to work with them because they get in the way. And she further complains that we actually want NATO members to upgrade their military capabilities.
She also gloats writes "the US, at the most powerful moment in its history and with the largest and most sophisticated capability in the world, proved to be utterly vulnerable." Well, this is one of the things we intend to fix. Unlike you Europeans, we maintain a relatively free society. And in a free society there's not much you can do to stop the terrorists. Except, that is, by killing them all and destroying their support network. We'll give that a shot.
On to the report proper. From the summary page, we see:
the regime will aim to draw the US forces into urban warfare in Baghdad. A civilian death toll of at least 10,000 is likely, three times as many as died in the 11 September attacks;
If cowardly Iraqi soldiers hide behind civilian human shields (like the Palestinian and other Muslim terrorists do), then they, not we, will be responsible for the civilian deaths. The 10,000 civilian deaths they cause will need to be added to the 3,000 they caused on 9/11. The blood is on their hands.
evidence of Iraqi military tactics in 1991 shows that the survival of the regime is the core policy and that chemical and biological weapons are almost certain to be used, certainly against attacking troops and possibly against targets in neighbouring countries;
I thought Saddam didn't have these weapons? By admitting that he has and would use these weapons, Professor Rogers makes the case for war! UN resolutions and negotiations have not been effective in stopping Saddam from developing these weapons or in returning inspectors to Iraq. Only the threat of unilateral action by the US, UK, and our allies has managed to get Saddam to consider the return of inspectors.
Professor Rogers writes
there is a palpable sense in Washington that full access for the inspectors is just about the last thing that is wanted. Part of the reason for this is that the security community in the Bush administration does not believe that inspections can uncover everything and that the Iraqi regime is so determined to develop
and deploy weapons of mass destruction that it will eventually hinder the inspection process.
Inspections probably won't uncover everything, especially if they are restricted (Prof. Rogers refers to unrestricted searches as "unfettered and coercive").
"Eventually" hinder the inspections? Now, what in the world might make us think that? Inspectors have not been in Iraq for 4 full years, and even now Saddam is adding conditions to the uncoditional return of inspectors.
Writing of the first Gulf War, Professor Rogers says
the Iraqis did not even commit their best troops to the war zone,
I guess "their best troops" are the ones that don't surrender to cameramen?
A second aspect is that the missiles fired against Israel and Saudi Arabia in 1991 were a damaging diversion for the US.
Would these be the missiles that we're told would not be an effective delivery system for WMDs? You liberals need to get your story straight. Either he has WMDs and the means and will to use them, or he doesn't.
The Iraqi policy of withholding its best troops in 1991 supports the idea that its military have a fair degree of tactical competence or al-Qaida comes from within
My nine-year-old cousin has this much tactical competence with his GI Joes. The best soldiers do the most important job. Which means we'll let France guard the mess hall.
appear to demonstrate the capacity of relatively weak states to deter even a
superpower, an entirely unacceptable situation for the United States.
Huh? That does not follow. The only thing that deters us from anything is us. We have the ability to project force anywhere in the world, with only minimal support from any other nation (and we could do without that if we had to).
The unilateralist outlook places US security interests at the forefront of foreign policy
And just what other position should our security interests occupy in our foreign policy? Isn't one of the major points of a government "to provide for the common defense"?
it is simply not acceptable to have rogue states in an axis of evil that are able to develop weapons of mass destruction that might deter the US from necessary interventions.
We are acting as a deterrent to keep a dictator's rogue regime, which has committed such atrocities and disregarded its cease-fire agreements (do I need to reiterate them?) from committing future acts of terror.
Do you realize what Saddam would do if he had a nuke? At a minimum, he'd use it to blackmail the rest of the world into letting him have his wicked way with his neighbors. Would we liberate Kuwait this time, knowing that Saddam could, via terrorists or other covert agents, probably detonate a nuke in NYC?
When we combine US unilateralism with a specific unwillingness to allow opponents to develop deterrent forces
Guilty as charged. We are unilaterally interested in our self defense, adn we are utterly unwilling to allow those who would harm us to do so, or to develop weapons that would help them to do so or permit them to blackmail the entire world into standing idly by while they oppress their own people and invade their neighbors.
blah blah blah...It's all about oil...blah blah blah
It's about terrorism. It's about planes crashing into buildings and killing thousands. It's about suicide bombers and snipers. It's about anthrax. It's about smallpox outbreaks. It's about nuclear explosions in Manhattan.
He then breaks into a very impressive description of US and UK weaponry and describes the likely course of the war. His main complaints are that (1) we'll kill people and (2) if Iraqi troops hide behind civilians, we'll still kill them.
It hardly needs to be said that the side effects on the Iraqi economy and the well-being of its people will be devastating.
Unlike the thriving paradise that Iraq has been under the benevolent leadership of Saddam. Make no mistake, we will rebuild Iraq. It's just something we do. We did it for Japan and West Germany, and we'll do it for Iraq. Iraq will come out of this much better off.
Even so, there is a belief that the war is a price worth paying, and that the end result will be a pliant regime, sympathetic to and dependent on Washington for security, and controlling some of the world’s richest oil reserves.
Actually, the belief is that the result will be a liberal democracy, like the US has and the UK at least used to have. It will be a sane, stable country. And its people will be immensely better off.
The US position in the Middle East will be secure and an effective example will have been made of an unacceptable threat and an unacceptable effort to develop weapons of mass destruction. Perhaps most important of all, there is a belief among the Bush administration’s security advisers that other states will have been impressed by American determination and will be far more cautious in their approach to regional security.
We don't just want to impress them with our "determination". We want to impress them with our stealth bombers and daisy cutters too. This will probably cause the other dictatorships there to think twice about developing WMDs and sponsoring terrorism. Hopefully we will do such an impressive job that we won't have to invade Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, etc. Then you can study the peace that results. Maybe the Islamofascists will start to realize that they have two options. Islamofascist terrorism will get them slaughtered. Western style reforms towards a liberal democracy will cause them to join the civilized world and result in peace, stability, and prosperity.
Professor Rogers does do a fair treatment of Iraq and weapons inspectors. He predicts that Iraq will "prevaricate and procrastinate mightily on the matter of inspections". He also points out "the UNSCOM inspectors only really ran into trouble in the late 1990s when they appeared to be getting close to these weapons and their production facilities."
He also discusses the possible escalation of the war where Iraq uses the WMDs that other liberals assure us Iraq doesn't have, and we respond with nukes. My only response to this is, let's stop Iraq before it gets the WMDs into civilian areas. If this is going to happen, let's cause it to happen when there are still logical targets for us to strike to put a stop to it.
We have already seen that the Islamofascists of that area are willing to strike us. The only question is whether we want to sit back and wait for the next attack, or if we want to bring the war to them and hopefully prevent future attacks.
it makes eminent sense to investigate and develop policies that present a viable
alternative to war.
Let's see. We've tried diplomacy. We've tried economic sanctions. We've tried weapons inspectors. By Rogers's own admission, these things have failed. Liberals cry that war is a "last resort". Given that we've tried everything else conceivable, I think we are at a last resort.
Hopefully, this will be a neat and clean regime change with minimal casualties. Hopefully other nations will see us, fear us, respect us, reform themselves, and join the civilized world. If not, it will be bloody and messy for a while, but we will emerge victorious and the world will be a safer place. Wait and see.