>Does it really make sense for the same body to decide
>whether the constitution grants it the power to do
>what it wants to do? This is one of the reasons why
>government spending as a percent of GDP is so much
>higher in Britain than in the US.
The other reason being the far lower welfare standards in the US than in Britain...
But seriously, I have to come in on Chris' side here. In theory the US system has a lot going for it - balance of power between government branches, each acting as a check and balance on the other, with a written constitution to protect individual and minority rights and give a base line for decisions. There's some problems along the way, but on the whole its a hugely preferable system to the one we suffer in the UK. The only major issue is the two-tone political system which makes it difficult to appoint (for instance) a visibly independent judge. Given that the US is pretty much unique in developing a two party system, I doubt that's such an issue for the UK.
> > I'm sorry, but it appeared obvious to me at the time
> > that no WMDs would be found.
>
>It certainly did not to me. He was known to have
>developed and used them in the past; he continued to
>refuse to cooperate fully with inspections. What
>conclusion do you draw from that? That he had nothing
>to hide? The conclusion does not make sense.
It was obvious to me too, I'm afraid. Hussein cooperated too much to have the weapons. Sure he was grudging, sure he was hoping to keep little bits and pieces going to regain his weapons later - the man is an evil dictator, okay. But his posture was wrong. He looked at North Korea ("We've got two nukes, back off USA!" "Er, okay...") and he doesn't threaten with what he has?
But the real give away, the bit that decided me he hadn't any weapons was the actions of our leaders. Bush and Blair started out on this with a "he has weapons, and we have the intelligence to prove it" line. Then they refused to share this supposed intelligence with anyone. They started hedging. For two men so desperate for a smoking gun to justify war, they were far too unwilling to share their intelligence. My conclusion at the time (this was mid-January) was that there was no WMD. Guess what...
> > Face it, we were lied to.
>
>I disagree. I think we assumed he worst case. Whn
>dealing with WMD, that's not unreasonable.
We were lied to. I'm not going to get into whether America was lied to - I'll just say that the link in American minds between Hussein and 9-11 is not an accident. But in Britain, we were. Repeatedly. About the strength of the intelligence, about what it said. Specifically, repeatedly lied to. Go read the September dossier and compare it to the Kay report. You'll see what I mean.
> > I can never support a war, but I would have
> > understood a war waged for clear reasons.
>
>The reasons were clear, just based on incorrect
>assumptions. By the way, it is good to know your
>perspective. Is war never justified? What if you are
>attacked? What if the other side commits genocide?
My perspective is different. War can be justified. The war in Afghanistan was almost justified - we went in for the wrong reasons, but with the right goals, and our follow through has been shockingly poor. But removing the Taliban was a necessary step.
War needs four things to be justified :
The Iraq invasion fails on point 1. Totally. Even the pro-war lobby seems unable to claim this was in any way a move of "last resort". It fails point 2 on the reasons given for the war - WMD. A case could have been made for preventing human rights abuses, but wasn't. Point 3 is still up in the air. At present the cost of war is pretty horrendous - ten thousand dead, number without clean water tripled, infant mortality doubled, unknown numbers being murdered in ethnic violence. How an effective Iraqi government is put in place will answer whether we make it better in the long run. Point 4 fails - depleted uranium and cluster bombs are not acceptable. Period.
> > Saddam was the 9/11 scapegoat, let's face it.
>
>Not really. 9/11 just vastly lowered our tolerance to
>threats to our security and vastly raised our
>willingness to take military casualties.
Except that the Bush administration has deliberately blurred the line between Al Qaeda and Hussein in the majority of American minds.
>I realized another problem on this last night: Our
>military reflects our political culture. Our
>political culture says that the US does not engage in
>wars of conquest. This means we've not developed any
>of the capabilities needed to hold and administer
>territory. Our military is built to win a war
>decisively, with low casualties. We don't how to
>handle the next stage when we take over the whole
>country. If we are seriously going to address the
>issue of failed states, we need to develop this
>capability.
America has a long history of putting governments in power. The problem with Iraq (and the sole unique quality) is that the current political climate is not conducive to putting a *dictator* in power. If the US could put a new Hussein in (albeit one more cooperative to American suggestions) the soldiers would largely be home by now. The ability the Americans lack is establishing a democratic government. And there's a good reason for that in Iraq - it isn't possible. The ethnic mix is too complex to allow a single state solution, and dividing the country isn't acceptable because the wrong people get the oil.
Cheers,
Graham
(whose rather enjoying arguing with a right winger that is capable of a reasoned argument)
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