chrisruzin.net :: French Military Victories (January 29, 2003)

Chris:“Laurent, I wasn’t talking about you when I was referring to mud-slingers. I was in fact defending your posts and others like Kevin’s. Your snide comments to me will be ignored on that topic.”

Sorry about the dumb comment, I apologize.
What I say could easily be dismissed as Bush-hatred bullshit, which I’d like to think it isn’t. I have no certainty, and that’s why I want to talk about it.

“So you think Bush lied because his speeches weren’t the “appropriate mixture” of WMDs, democracy, War on Terror and Axis of Evil? Are you kidding me? Bush’s speeches didn’t meet your criteria so he lied.
Amazing.”

The point is not about having an “appropriate mixture”, it is that the mixture was changing.
When you send to death thousands of soldiers and you spend hundreds of billions, you have to have a crystal clear motivation to do so in your mind.

Bush was not even able to tell consistently what was the threat to the US.
Thus I’m doubtful this threat is the main motivation behind this war, does it make sense?

“I know that OPEC doesn’t finance the US government’s debt. That distinction goes to Japan (40% of our foreign debt), followed distantly by China, the UK and various Caribbean banking centers. There’s no doubt the US government’s spending is WAY out of hand. There’s a push for spending accountability within the government, but I don’t know how that can be enforced.”

Did I say OPEC finance US debt? Today, dollars are needed to buy oil, so every oil importer HAS to keep a huge amount of dollars (no choice of currency). These reserves is what keep the dollar afloat even though US debt is huge, and thus these oil-importer are actually also those who finance a great part of this debt.

Let’s say tomorrow OPEC is going to accept euros.
If too many countries get rid of their huge dollar reserves and replace them by euros (because of the US debt burden), the dollar would fall so low that the US economy would collapse.

“I also know that if the US dollar dropped suddenly, it wouldn’t just be bad news for the US economy, but for the entire world’s economy.”

I guess Saddam just didn’t care.

It’s become mud slinging. “ we have clearly showed that we’re not agree with americans” “I’ve just said USA crushs other nations” “The concept of us Europeans being rules y midwestern cousinmarrying hillbillys with no sense what so ever of culture”.

Kevin I know that English is your second language and I respect that. I lost my temper when I critisized you, what I meant is that it whould be easier for you if you went to a web site that translates your comments from French to English. Then posted it here.

Where did Quift go?

Chris: “Laurent, I can understand where you’re coming from regarding Bush. He’s not the best public speaking president we’ve had. He might be one of the worst. However, I don’t believe he’s an evil warmongerer hellbent on slaking his thirst for oil. Can you point out some inconsistencies you’re talking about?”

I could but I won’t because I’m lazy and also because you made a point here: Bush could indeed be nothing more than a terrible public speaking president.
So you’re right, Bush’s speeches is not reason enough to conclude anything about his motivations. Which by the way is also my point, I don’t assume or “believe” anything about Bush, and to me his speeches are just clues to understand what’s going on.
I have to confess that when I listen to his speeches, what I hear is how he wants the crowd to react. He says “WMD”, “Al Qaeda”, “Saddam”, I hear “I want fear and anger!”. He says “democracy”, “freedom in Iraq”, “constitution”, I hear “ I want you to know this is worth it, i want you to feel good about this war”.
But I don’t think this is Bush, I think this is just the way politics is. When a politician gives a speech, truth sometimes doesn’t matter as much as what he/she wants from the crowd.
And Bush is not better, nor worse in this regard.

So you’re right, these inconstitencies I was talking about do not matter much. I shouldn’t have talked about this, since this is not the reason why I believe WMDs/terrorism/evil is not the main motivation behind the war.

Here is what makes me doubtful:
1) there were no WMDs left in Iraq
2) as I said above, for the war to be about WMDs, the CIA should have been unable to figure out that Saddam had no WMDs left
3) UN inspectors found no WMDs, and had not even finished their work when the war was lauched
4) There was no to very little proof (cf. Collin Powell at the UN) about Saddam having WMDs left
Chris, maybe it was about terrorism, but do you agree with this: this war was not about WMDs?

Chris: “I didn’t state myself clearly on the OPEC deal. What I meant was that the US’ foreign debt isn’t highly dependent on OPEC. It would certainly have an effect on the US economy if they switched to euros, but I don’t believe it would be catastrophic.”

I won’t argue with this, but I invite you to DAFS.
By the way, this is not about believing.

“You misunderstood me about the world economy depending on the US economy too. If the US economy had a sudden collapse, it would affect the entire world in a negative way. All kinds of currencies and economies would be negatively affected. I think that’s why OPEC as a whole wouldn’t shift from dollars to euros anytime soon. If it threatened a lot of countries’ economies, then those countries wouldn’t be able to buy as much oil. The price of oil would then have to drop to accommodate this. So OPEC would’ve effectively shot itself in the foot. I’m not saying that the switch to euros won’t ever happen, but I doubt it will be a sudden, en masse shift.”

You’re right about this, OPEC does not want the US economy to collapse, but if some oil-importers (like Europe…) want petroeuro-oil, they could very well eventually get it!
Most probably, it would indeed not be a sudden, en masse shift but a gradual one. This is enough to make serious damage to the US economy in a way that would be far more expensive that even this war is.

Chris: “Laurent, at least you’re admitting to having preconceived notions about Bush’s speeches and their purpose. A lot of people won’t even do that. Everyone’s view of life is based on their underlying beliefs. Since your beliefs differ from mine on this, the way you perceive Bush’s speeches is different than how I do.”

I agree with that. We have preconceived notions about Bush that lead us both to look at things from different perspectives, and that’s why we arguing: because of our beliefs.
But fact is that no matter how we feel about him, we don’t know what Bush thinks. Maybe he is a good person, maybe he is not. Maybe he is a liar, maybe he is not.
So let’s put beliefs aside for a second and try not to assume anything about Bush or what he wants, or about CIA’s abilities.

“When 9/11 occurred, it really rocked the US. Not so much the damage and death, which were indeed horrific, but people suddenly realized they weren’t immune to terror attacks. For most Americans, when something that life-altering happens, they first want to know “who did this?” and then “why?” They want to put a face or faces on the source of the problem. In Bushes speeches, when I hear “Bin Laden”, “Al Qaeda”, “Taliban”, “terrorists”, I hear “here’s who did this”. The War on Terror is still supported by a majority of Americans. They want to see this through, or at least see the major players brought down. The focus was first on Afghanistan. Then the focus shifted to Iraq. Of course his speeches would then include “WMDs”, “Al Qaeda”, “Saddam”, “democracy”, “freedom in Iraq”, “constitution”. Without giving the who and why, no one would support it.”

So what can be objectively deduced from these speeches about Bush and his motivations?
He wants a war in Iraq. What else?

“Regarding your points that make you doubtful:
1) no one could say that for sure. In fact, many people still expected to find something since Saddam was known a) to previously have a lot of weapons b) use them c) hide them and move them around and d) keep UN inspectors away from various places for no reason before letting them in.

2) Maybe you wrote the wrong word here “unable”, but I don’t follow this one. If you used the right word, you’re right. US intelligence, and others, couldn’t figure out what was left and where it had gone.”

The world unable was intended.

“3) The UN inspectors were only let back in after several years of being out. Several years is plenty of time to hide WMDs. Saddam gave no one any reason to believe him anyway.

4) Again, no one could be sure about there being no WMDs. When you’ve built up a reputation with WMDs like Saddam, it’s going to take truckloads of information proving otherwise before you’ll believe there are none left. Without actually being in Iraq, unhindered by Saddam’s goons, no one could be sure. And no, I don’t believe the war in Iraq is all about oil. I’m sure that was an unspoken factor, but so was national/international security, terrorism and bringing down Saddam. I think a lot of countries stances on the war in Iraq were influenced by oil, including Russia, Germany and France.”

Probability is great (but not 100% since we’re not assuming anything) that this reputation of WMDs in Iraq was one of the things that was keeping Saddam from being overthrowed or from having to deal with rebellions: he was a feared dictator.
So it would probably (and not certainly) have been more dangerous for him to provide truckloads of information than to let some doubt about his WMDs.

Now, let’s see what we have to <b>assume</b> in order to <b>believe</b> that this war was about WMDs :
1) The CIA was unable to figure that there were no WMDs left (that’s what you said)
2) UN inspectors were unable to do their job (that’s also what you said)
3a) There is evidence that shows that these WMDs were a threat to the US (that is Saddam was either willing to use them directly on the US or to give them to anti-american terrorists)
OR
3b) No evidence is needed
4) No evidence that shows the existence of WMDs is needed for Bush to start a war against WMDs (indeed since there were no WMD left, there could not have been evidence of their existence)

Why are you making these assumptions?

Here are the assumptions that make me believe that this war could POSSIBLY (nothing more) be about money:
1) Threat of serious but not catastrophic damage to the US economy is possibly enough for Bush to launch a war
2) Gradual switch to petroeuro could do serious damage to US economy
3) The truth about a war for money can not be made public
4) Politicians (and thus Bush) are able to lie

Please tell me wether you think these assumptions are unrealistic/unfounded or not. I’m sure you will find more (assumptions)… let me know!

sorry for the late answer…

Chris: “I disagree with you on the importance of his reputation with WMDs within his own country. I’m sure his own people feared them, but from what I’ve read they feared his secret police and spy networks MUCH more. It was the torture and rape rooms that loomed large in their minds.”

Since you cannot use it against a whole population, I think torture and rape rooms are not enough to stop a massive rebellion. IMHO, only WMDs or heavy military action can do that.

“I also disagree with you that providing truckloads of information would be more dangerous for Saddam than hiding information. Both can be used to hide or cover-up information you don’t want known. By providing “information”, or at least acting like you are, you give the appearance of cooperation, and buy yourself more time. Look at Iran’s tactics with the EU and IAEA right now. Classic example.”

My point was that despite the fact that it is very dangerous not to cooperate, it could have been even more dangerous for Saddam to give up the WMDs threat, or even to act like he does.

“Here’s my reasoning behind the three assumptions you listed:
1) The CIA was shown to have a major problem with information gathering and in communication with other agencies and even its own agents after 9/11. The internal bureaucracy made things much more difficult than they should’ve been. That very same sluggish bureaucracy has been highlighted at all levels of government in the recent Katrina disaster, which is why there’s such a huge outcry for an evaluation and possible overhaul of current governmental procedure.”

I agree that CIA have had great communication troubles. And the consequence is that information that should have been reported to appropriate people, has not actually been reported.

But why is communication such an issue when you try to find out wether yes or no there are WMDs in Iraq?
IMHO it is irrelevant.

“2) The UN inspectors said they couldn’t finish their work in their own reports.”“

Could you please elaborate on that?

“3) Saddam used WMDs on his own people and on Iranians. That’s widely known.”

Saddam did use WMDs against Iranians and Kurds which are arguably not “his own people”. Actually, Kurds were helping Iranians. This use of WMDs was coward and unnecessary, but it nonetheless happened during a war…

“Saddam aided and harbored terrorists. He admitted to this himself, and so did those he supported.”

Saddam did finance palestinian terrorists.
But could you please point out his links to anti-american terrorists?

“Regarding your assumptions:
1) It’s possible
2) This is true
3) That’s only if the war is all about money, which is a MAJOR assumption
4) That’s the absolute truth”

Let me rephrase assumption #3:
3) IF a war is fought mainly for money, it could not be made public
I don’t make any major assumption here.

Now do you think these 4 assumptions are enough to say that this war could possibly be mainly about money?

Chris: “I see. So in your opinion, even though it’s documented that Saddam’s secret police and torture tactics were greatly feared by Iraqis, it wasn’t enough to keep the population down. Care to explain how fear can’t be used on an entire population?”

When I said “you cannot use it against a whole population”, I forgot one word: “physically”. You cannot physically put a whole population in torture rooms, this is what I meant. (and this is not what I said, sorry about that)
Torture rooms and fear can of course be use against a whole population.

Were we disagree is on wether it is enough to keep the population down.

You can argue with this, but I think there is something stronger than fear: hope.
Without WMDs, there would have been some hope that a rebellion succeeds. It would have been POSSIBLE.
But a rebellion could have done next to nothing against the power of WMDs. With WMDs, there was no hope AT ALL. You just can’t fight if the first consequence is a genocide against the people you want to defend.

Are a secret police and torture rooms enough to keep a population down? I don’t know. And maybe Saddam didn’t know either.
One thing is for certain, WMDs are enough.

“I know what your point was about giving information to the UN and US. And I disagree with it. You’re assuming the information he provided was true, which going by Saddam’s track record would be a foolish assumption. And you didn’t say “it would be more dangerous for Saddam to give up his WMDs”. You said “truckloads of information”.

I said “truckloads of information”, and then I said “to give up the WMDs threat”. THREAT. For me, both mean the same thing : Saddam makes UN inspectors AND his own people believe that he has no WMDs left.

And no, I am not assuming the information he provided was true. It doesn’t matter, what matters is that it would seem true both to UN inspectors and to his own people.

“You left out the other half of my argument, information gathering. What would you communicate if you had no information to communicate? How in the world is botched communication and intelligence gathering within the CIA irrelevant to this discussion? It’s fundamental! How can you possibly find out whether there are any WMDs if you have poor communication and/or wrong information?”

Sorry again, I didn’t leave out this part voluntarily, I just didn’t see it. Information gathering is obviously relevant, could you please elaborate on that?

However, I still think that communication is not such an issue when it comes to answering a question like “Are there yes or no any WMDs in Iraq?”.
The answer is either yes or no, no need of outstanding communication.

(I’m oversimplifying a bit, but you get the point)

“CNN article on 1998 UN report. The chief UN weapons inspector in 1998, Richard Butler, said in his report to the UN, “Iraq’s conduct ensured that no progress was able to be made in either the fields of disarmament or accounting for Iraq’s prohibited weapons program”. Read the article. There’s more.”

In 1998, Saddam do not let the UN inspectors do their job.
Then the US thinks he is hiding WMDs.
Then in 2002 Saddam lets the UN inspectors do their job.
The US thinks the WMDs are hidden and so strikes.
Is this your scenario?

“Oh I see. So even though Saddam deliberately gassed the Kurds and killed thousands of non-combatants, it’s ok because it “happened during a war””

It’s ok?? You aren’t telling me that I said it was ok to “gas the Kurds and kill thousands of non-combatants”, are you?

“That is exactly the opposite tune the anti-war crowd is whistling with Bush”

I couldn’t care less.

“even though Bush isn’t targeting non-combatants.”

What is your point here?

“So which is it? It’s either ok or it isn’t.”

It is not ok.

“And don’t forget that Saddam gassed the Marsh Arabs in southern Iraq.”

This is true.

“Here’s a laundry list of Saddam’s connections with terrorists.”

I have alreadt read a part, but unfortunately I can’t read it all now, I’ll answer later about this.

“However, I don’t agree with you that your four assumptions taken together, even if they are true individually, point towards a for-profit war.

Let me give you an example.

Assumption #1: Men are physically stronger than women
Assumption #2: Men are usually taller than women
Assumption #3: Men think about sex more than women
Assumption #4: Men are capable of lying
Conclusion: Men are only good for lifting heavy things, reaching high places and procreating. All of my assumptions are true taken alone. However, my assumption based on them as a whole is way off.”

How is my reasoning similar to this complete nonsense?

But let me change what I think are the assumptions I need:
1) Gradual switch to petroeuro is happening
-> you said you agree
2) Gradual switch to petroeuro could do serious damage to US economy
-> you said true
3) A war against Iraq could prevent or slow done gradual switch to petroeuro
-> facts say so: Iraq oil has been switched from euros to dollars
4) Threat of serious but not catastrophic damage to the US economy is possibly enough for Bush to launch a war
-> you said “possible”

From 1), 2) and 3), you can deduce:
6) A war against Iraq could prevent or slow done serious damage to US economy

From 6) and the fact that the war is against Iraq, you can deduce:
7) This war could prevent or slow done serious damage to US economy

From 7) and 4), you can deduce:
8) This war has possibly been launched by Bush to prevent or slow done serious damage to US economy
That is, this war is possibly mainly about money.

Thank you for the formating!

Chris: “You need to have multiple ways to instill fear. First would be to have spies and secret police all over the place. Second would be the rape and torture rooms. These two would be enough to make people fear joining together and overthrowing Saddam.”

Maybe…

“You never know who is really a spy that can get you or your family members tortured or killed. And finally, WMDs to crush any rebellions that actually do manage to materialize. Taken together, these tactics can (and obviously did) keep an entire population in check.”

So… we agree!

“When Saddam delivered his truckloads of information, the UN didn’t believe him. Read what both Blix and ElBaradei reported to the UN on this. It was simply a ploy by Saddam to buy time and everyone knew it.”

Great, this is my point!

“How can you come to a conclusive “yes or no” about WMDs if you have poor communication and/or wrong information?”

My point is that you can come to a conclusive “yes or no” about WMDs if you have poor communication and right information.
How many agencies are needed to answer such a question? My guess is it is not that much, and even poor communication would be enough.
But let’s say it is not enough. Here, we are in a situation were the CIAs would badly want to get an information. That means that, contrarily to previous problems, the lack of communication would be obvious.
What do you think CIA would do in such a situation? Would they do something about it or would they say “OK, we have bad communication, we are not able to tell if Saddam has WMDs, let’s forget about it”?

On the bad information gathering part, I am not aware of such a problem, so please elaborate.

“The inspectors in 2002 were not given free access to wherever or whatever they wanted, therefore they couldn’t do their job.”

Could you please elaborate?

“Reread what you wrote about gassing the Kurds and Iranians. It certainly looked like you were condoning it. Why do you think I responded the way I did?”

I think this is because you forgot what we were discussing, which is not wether it was ok or not to kill thousands of innocent people, but wether Saddam would do the same with the US during a time of peace.

“I never said I agreed the switch to petroeuro is happening. I said it might happen if all OPEC nations wanted it to, but that it wouldn’t be a sudden shift.”

You don’t have to agree with it. It IS happening.
Iraq made this switch in 2000.
Iran also made it in 2003.
Venezuela made it for some importers.
(which by the way weakens my initial point about the dollar going down because of this: actually, the dollar is still going up)

“Because #4 is possible doesn’t mean it’s probable. And that’s the main problem with your assumptions. All your assumptions are possible, but not all are probable.”

So you agree that my conclusion is a possibility?

“Even though it’s possible the US economy would be damaged by an OPEC switch to the euro, that hasn’t happened. The US economy is fine and was doing relatively fine before the war. Even at the lowest point in the downturn, the US economy was better than most European economies, and is certainly better than most if not all now. If the OPEC switch had already been made and the US economy was in a record downfall, then your conclusion would carry more weight.”

My guess is that the switch to petroeuro is still not advanced enough to do damage to the US economy.

“As it is now, you’re arguing an event that has already happened took place because of an event that might or might not happen in the future.”

… which is not easy

PS: I don’t forget your “laundry list of Saddam’s connections with terrorists”!

Chris: “There is no “maybe” about it. There are documentaries on Saddam’s spies and police that have Iraqis saying they greatly feared them. Think about it. Would you not be afraid for yourself or your family if someone in your little group was a spy? Even if you were 100% sure those in your group were not spies, you’d be afraid to invite others for fear of your little rebellion being discovered too early. And out of nearly three decades, how many rebellions were there? Not very many. And yes, we agree that Saddam’s people were suppressed.”

Did people fear Saddam’s police and spies? Sure!
Is it enough to stop them? Maybe.

“If the most of the world not believing Saddam’s reports is your point, then why were you arguing that what mattered is that the UN and his own people believed his fake reports? Maybe I’m misunderstanding you?”

This is what I said:

“My point was that despite the fact that it is very dangerous not to cooperate, it could have been even more dangerous for Saddam to give up the WMDs threat, or even to act like he does.”
…
“I said “truckloads of information”, and then I said “to give up the WMDs threat”. THREAT. For me, both mean the same thing : Saddam makes UN inspectors AND his own people believe that he has no WMDs left.”
…
“And no, I am not assuming the information he provided was true. It doesn’t matter, what matters is that it would seem true both to UN inspectors and to his own people.”

Maybe I wasn’t clear. My point was that Saddam had good reasons to let the world believe he could have WMDs left.

“The CIA and probably the NSA are really the only obvious US agencies needed to figure out whether Saddam has WMDs, but there could’ve been others involved. And there were certainly other international agencies sharing information (right or wrong). Poor communication would hamper their conclusion because they wouldn’t have all the information (right or wrong) on the table. The lack of communication IS a problem. It’s written plainly in the 9/11 Commission’s report and acknowledged by the agencies. It’s apparently been a problem since the early 90’s.”

OK, poor communication would be a problem.