Iraqi Defector Admits To Lying, Iraq Liberated By Mistake

[mr friendly guy]

Ah dude, she is talking about the second Gulf war, not the first one.

I know but Sea Skimmer is correct, the Second Gulf War was largely a conclusion of the first one. The hostilities never ended, they just took on a low intensity form.

Ok. It seems some people are linking the First and Second Gulf together as an argument for the purpose of justifying the latter (or at least some type of action against Iraq if not a full blown invasion), so naturally I want to know what criteria you do so. For example if North Korea ups the ante and finally bets bitchslapped into non existence as a state, will you consider this a conclusion of the Korea war (as opposed to a new war), since hostilities never ended (and still happen as recently as last year), and no peace treaty was ever signed.

Just to be clear, as far as I am concern, any one arguing for some sort of action on Iraq at the time of just before the second Gulf War has a weak position if they have to resort to Saddam invading Kuwait and comparing it to Germany invading Poland, because Saddam's invasion of Kuwait had already been defeated, and while hostilities certainly can be traced back to that time, his ability to invade Kuwait a second time is like... non existent.

[The Kernel]

How is that a strawman?
You can't just dismiss an entire argument as a "strawman". The legal issue is arguably somewhat seperate from the moral issue, but that doesn't make the legal issue moot.

It's both a strawman and a red herring for the following reasons:

1) I'm not arguing that the US invasion of Iraq was legal therefore it is a strawman of my position to argue that I am. To be clear: I don't give two shits about whether it was legal or not, only whether it was the best decision.

2) It's a red herring because the legality of the issue has nothing to do with anything I've said in this thread.

As an aside, arguing about the legality of conflicts between nations is fucking stupid. It's stupid because it's purely an intellectual exercise and has no bearing on the reality of why countries do things.

Let's do another little thought experiment: say that I want to invade the peaceful nation of "Utopia". Further say that there is a small village in Utopia that has decided they don't like the Utopian government and they would prefer my country to run things. They secede from Utopia and sign an alliance with my nation.

Utopia of course crushes the rebels. In response, I declare war and annex the entire country. See, I've just legally justified my territorial expansion! Yippie!

[The Kernel]

Ok. It seems some people are linking the First and Second Gulf together as an argument for the purpose of justifying the latter (or at least some type of action against Iraq if not a full blown invasion), so naturally I want to know what criteria you do so. For example if North Korea ups the ante and finally bets bitchslapped into non existence as a state, will you consider this a conclusion of the Korea war (as opposed to a new war), since hostilities never ended (and still happen as recently as last year), and no peace treaty was ever signed.

Of course, and the Korean situation is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. The two countries have been locked in a low intensity conflict for decades.

Just to be clear, as far as I am concern, any one arguing for some sort of action on Iraq at the time of just before the second Gulf War has a weak position if they have to resort to Saddam invading Kuwait and comparing it to Germany invading Poland, because Saddam's invasion of Kuwait had already been defeated, and while hostilities certainly can be traced back to that time, his ability to invade Kuwait a second time is like... non existent.

I actually agree with you because I think that the Second Gulf War failed to take into account any sort of escalation. The US pretty much decided they wanted Saddam gone and then decided to rally support using bullshit arguments about WMDs.

Fact is that Saddam was still a threat to our interests and that something had to be done. That doesn't logically mean you go from low intensity status quo to full blown invasion, it means you take steps to resolve the conflict that might lead to an invasion, but that should have never been a forgone conclusion so early on.

So maybe the Second Gulf War was morally justifiable but it certainly wasn't the SMART thing to do.

[Simon_Jester]

Furthermore, it is highly questionable whether you can just stay in a perpetual state of war if you just don't sign a peace treaty.

Says who? You? Korea has been in the same constant state of war for decades, are you saying it isn't real?

Given that we treat North Korean acts of violence as provocations, not as "meh, it's OK we're at war..." Yes.

There's a real difference between armed standoff with occasional border raids and all out 'invade, occupy, crush all resistance and take the country for ourselves.'

So I think Serafina has a point in that you do need some reasonable justification for fighting an all-out war (which will kill many people and hurt many more) other than "officially, the war we were fighting ten years ago never really ended." Because there is, I repeat, a difference between sporadically lobbing a few bombs at someone and outright invading and conquering them with an army hundreds of thousands strong. As a purely practical matter, that's a huge escalation. The difference between "low-intensity" war and full-up conventional war followed by occupation is one of orders of magnitude.

So the decision to escalate there is in many ways functionally identical to the decision to declare war in the first place. Just as you are under some obligation to have a damned good reason to go nuclear during a conventional war, you are under some obligation to have a damned good reason to escalate a low-intensity war.

The large number of people you're predictably going to kill deserve a better explanation for why they're dead than "well, we decided to crank things up a notch because why the hell not? Technically, we were at war all along even if it's been years since we really cared what happened over in your country."

You can't pull that kind of lawyering and expect it to clear you of everything.

1) I'm not arguing that the US invasion of Iraq was legal therefore it is a strawman of my position to argue that I am. To be clear: I don't give two shits about whether it was legal or not, only whether it was the best decision.

2) It's a red herring because the legality of the issue has nothing to do with anything I've said in this thread.

In this case, the argument is that you should care about legality.

The reason you should care about legality is that nations that care about legality act less like sociopathic monsters. They experience less hostile blowback from the countries they deal with, because they don't make victims out of so many people. They waste less time, money, and blood on wars fought for ill-considered reasons, because following some kind of 'just war theory' means you actually have to sit down and think about whether or not it is really important enough to fight a war. You cannot make the decision to fight for muddle-headed reasons.

Deciding to fight wars for muddle-headed reasons is bad for practical purposes. Therefore, it is worth enforcing and adhering to some kind of code that forces people to think shit through before they start picking fights with people who don't urgently need killing.

You seem to be opposed to, and uncomfortable with, the discussion of such a code. I'm not sure why. Do you like the idea of people picking fights for muddle-headed reasons and killing people who don't urgently need killing? Is it that important to you that the ability to flex military muscles be unimpeded by the demands of good statesmanship?

[Lonestar]

Lonestar, why the hell did the Saudi pilot take so long to shoot? What the hell was his problem? Heck, what the hell is the problem of the Saudi military inferred from that poor showing?

The best way it was explained to me was that the Saudi pilot didn't have "The Right Stuff". Once he was in a situation where there was the remote chance of getting shot down(despite American pilots putting themselves in much more danger to corral the Mirages) he freaked out. The Saudi Pilots(there was more than one in the operation) in question were specifically picked because they had the most of "The Right Stuff" compared to the rest of the Saudi Air force.

The Coalition went to great lengths to show that the Saudis were tangibly contributing, to the point of the gringos literally herding Iraqi warplanes so they couldn't escape and placing American pilots in more danger, and the Saudi Air Forces "best and brightest" still fuck it up.

Personally, from a smoke deck RUMINT, the only Arabic military that we interacted with on my deployment that wasn't a regular group of fuck ups were the Omanis. On more than once we nearly had a repeat of the Vincennes shoot down because Saudi/Qatari/Emirati warplanes running fast and straight in our direction just would not fucking respond to hails, until the SPY-1 was lit off and then they went into "panic mode"(seriously, it just did not occur to them that they were the contact at the bearing that was being hailed. One OS1 who had been on multiple deployments told me, seriously, that Arabs cannot navigate on their own and rely solely on GPS. They don't even know enough to figure out what their bearing is!)

Not to say that the Iraqis were shit hot, but well, at least they had experience on their side, and as Skimmer has pointed out in the past they managed to finagle ways to keep very technical equipment up and running with no contractors or parts from outside helping. I'd say the Iraqis were probably modestly more competent than the other Arabic states.

[The Kernel]

Given that we treat North Korean acts of violence as provocations, not as "meh, it's OK we're at war..." Yes.

There's a real difference between armed standoff with occasional border raids and all out 'invade, occupy, crush all resistance and take the country for ourselves.'

So I think Serafina has a point in that you do need some reasonable justification for fighting an all-out war (which will kill many people and hurt many more) other than "officially, the war we were fighting ten years ago never really ended." Because there is, I repeat, a difference between sporadically lobbing a few bombs at someone and outright invading and conquering them with an army hundreds of thousands strong. As a purely practical matter, that's a huge escalation. The difference between "low-intensity" war and full-up conventional war followed by occupation is one of orders of magnitude.

So the decision to escalate there is in many ways functionally identical to the decision to declare war in the first place. Just as you are under some obligation to have a damned good reason to go nuclear during a conventional war, you are under some obligation to have a damned good reason to escalate a low-intensity war.

The large number of people you're predictably going to kill deserve a better explanation for why they're dead than "well, we decided to crank things up a notch because why the hell not? Technically, we were at war all along even if it's been years since we really cared what happened over in your country."

You can't pull that kind of lawyering and expect it to clear you of everything.

See my response above. I think you'll find that I actually agree with you.

In this case, the argument is that you should care about legality.

The reason you should care about legality is that nations that care about legality act less like sociopathic monsters. They experience less hostile blowback from the countries they deal with, because they don't make victims out of so many people. They waste less time, money, and blood on wars fought for ill-considered reasons, because following some kind of 'just war theory' means you actually have to sit down and think about whether or not it is really important enough to fight a war. You cannot make the decision to fight for muddle-headed reasons.

Deciding to fight wars for muddle-headed reasons is bad for practical purposes. Therefore, it is worth enforcing and adhering to some kind of code that forces people to think shit through before they start picking fights with people who don't urgently need killing.

You seem to be opposed to, and uncomfortable with, the discussion of such a code. I'm not sure why. Do you like the idea of people picking fights for muddle-headed reasons and killing people who don't urgently need killing? Is it that important to you that the ability to flex military muscles be unimpeded by the demands of good statesmanship?

The problem with using legalism to define the act of declaring war is that it is simply way too easy to use legalism to fight a morally unjustifiable war or to use it to avoid fighting a completely morally justified one. I have no interest in arguing the legalism of such things, nor do I find them particularly useful.

Morally something had to be done about Iraq. They were clearly a regime hell-bent on aggression against their neighbors, treated their own population like dirt and were a general threat to stability in the region. You only really have three ways to deal with such a threat: Ignore it, Contain it or Invade and start over.

[Thanas]

Morally something had to be done about Iraq.

Why?

They were clearly a regime hell-bent on aggression against their neighbors,

So was the USA under Bush.

treated their own population like dirt

Actually, Saddam treated his population comparatively better in many aspects than the other Arab countries. Women rights in Iraq for example were much more advanced than in Saudi Arabia.

and were a general threat to stability in the region.

So is the USA, which has supported not only one but several militaristic dictatorships. So is Saudi Arabia, whose princes openly support terrorism.

You only really have three ways to deal with such a threat: Ignore it, Contain it or Invade and start over.

So Saudi Arabia should be Ignored, contained or started over? Or alternatively, the USA?

[The Kernel]

Why?

Because they presented a destabilizing threat to the region and US as well as the interests of the global community. Did you not notice that the UN Security Council approved all of the sanctions against Iraq?

So was the USA under Bush.

Your point being? I thought we were talking about Iraq?

Actually, Saddam treated his population comparatively better in many aspects than the other Arab countries.

I'm not aware of any other Arab countries during the 20th century that have seen 100,000 people killed in a single action such as during Al-Anfal. Perhaps you can enlighten me.

Women rights in Iraq for example were much more advanced than in Saudi Arabia.

Your point being? I thought we were talking about Iraq?

So is the USA, which has supported not only one but several militaristic dictatorships. So is Saudi Arabia, whose princes openly support terrorism.

Your point being? I thought we were talking about Iraq?

So Saudi Arabia should be Ignored, contained or started over? Or alternatively, the USA?

Do you have any purpose to these red herrings? The subject is about handling of Iraq, not the US or Saudi Arabia.

[Metahive]

Red Herring? You were the one making proud proclamations about how nations that commit X or Y deserve to get invaded no questions asked. Showing the absurd consequences that following your poorly thought out criteria would bring with it is entirely appropriate.

EDIT:
O yeah, and kudos for pulling that old hoary Hitler card. Hey, do you know that according to your criteria Hitler had a legit casus belli on Poland? They were oppressing the german minority after all.

[Samuel]

Your point being? I thought we were talking about Iraq?

Because if we follow your logic we have to apply your standards against those countries as well.

[Thanas]

Indeed. Kernel freely admits that there was no legal right to invade Iraq, which is why he tries to argue a moral right. But his standards could also be used to justify invading a host of other countries, which is why usually people think of a valid casus belli instead of "Waaah. The other country is a meanie".

[thejester]

Your point being? I thought we were talking about Iraq?

Because if we follow your logic we have to apply your standards against those countries as well.

How do you follow that? Skimmer and Kernel have been pretty clear in establishing that Iraq posed a significant threat because:

- the regime had not merely acted aggressively but had invaded two of its neighbours within the space of a decade;
- Saddam had the economic means and intent, if left uninhibited, to get nuclear weapons;
- he had a significant domestic arms industry;
- and in a world swimming with cheap ex-Soviet hardware he had the economic ability, again if uninhibited, to significantly build up his military to present a much stronger threat than had existed in 1990-91.

I'm not sure I agree with the argument but Saudi Arabia, for all it's connections into the world of terrorism, clearly does not come anywhere near fulfilling those criteria.

[Thanas]

So, essentially you are arguing that the USA has a moral right to invade any country which in the past behaved aggressively and might be a somewhat potent threat to its interests?

[Shroom Man 777]

It is also pretty clear in establishing that America posed a significant threat because:

- the regime had not merely acted aggressively but had invaded two far away countries within the space of a decade, and so many other nations over the last century;
- America had the economic means and intent, if left uninhibited, to get nuclear weapons, and did;
- America had a significant domestic arms industry;
- and in a world swimming with cheap american hardware he had the economic ability, again if uninhibited, to significantly build up his military to present a much stronger threat than had existed in 1945-50.



It is unfair to hold Iraq's invasion on Iran, and its use of chemical weapons on Iranians, against Saddam. After all, he did that because he loved America and America loved him. America loved him so much that it vetoed the UN vote to condemn Iraq for gassing Iranians. The UK was shipping USxIraq and also abstained.

Saddam also invaded Kuwait because America broke his heart. If it was a crime, then it was a crime of passion. Love Can Bloom On The Battlefield.

US x Iraq = Uncle Samdaam?

[thejester]

FFS.

I'm not sure I agree with the argument but Saudi Arabia, for all it's connections into the world of terrorism, clearly does not come anywhere near fulfilling those criteria.

I don't know where I stand in this argument; I generally saw Iraq as a blunder that bordered on neo-imperialism. But Skimmer's arguments have merit and at least give pause for thought.

If you want to continue to argue with The Kernel about the morality of OIF be my guest, but he and Skimmer's point about the limit of legality are well made. As an aside though, love the manipulation of the language there. Initiated two regional conflicts with an upward estimated death toll of 2,000,000 = 'behaved aggressively in the past'.

[Block]

Ah dude, she is talking about the second Gulf war, not the first one.

I know but Sea Skimmer is correct, the Second Gulf War was largely a conclusion of the first one. The hostilities never ended, they just took on a low intensity form.

The USA signed a cease fire. At the very least they broke that one unilaterally.
Furthermore, it is highly questionable whether you can just stay in a perpetual state of war if you just don't sign a peace treaty.

Oh please. Iraq broke the cease fire. Many many many times. They attacked planes enforcing the no fly zones CONSTANTLY. Second, if you don't sign a peace treaty and there's continuous conflict, however low intensity it might be, and don't fool yourself this wasn't THAT low intensity, there's still a state of war.

[mr friendly guy]

Your point being? I thought we were talking about Iraq?

Because if we follow your logic we have to apply your standards against those countries as well.

How do you follow that? Skimmer and Kernel have been pretty clear in establishing that Iraq posed a significant threat because:

- the regime had not merely acted aggressively but had invaded two of its neighbours within the space of a decade;
- Saddam had the economic means and intent, if left uninhibited, to get nuclear weapons;
- he had a significant domestic arms industry;
- and in a world swimming with cheap ex-Soviet hardware he had the economic ability, again if uninhibited, to significantly build up his military to present a much stronger threat than had existed in 1990-91.

I'm not sure I agree with the argument but Saudi Arabia, for all it's connections into the world of terrorism, clearly does not come anywhere near fulfilling those criteria.

The question becomes, are they willing to apply the same criteria to other countries, including US allies and ultimately to the US itself. So if the US is acting against the interest of some power, would said power be morally or legally correct to interfere in the US up to and including an invasion for regime change. If you try to cop out and say that no power can curbstomp the US like what the Coalition did to Iraq, just make up some high tech aliens of the week for the scenario.

[thejester]

The question becomes, are they willing to apply the same criteria to other countries, including US allies and ultimately to the US itself. So if the US is acting against the interest of some power, would said power be morally or legally correct to interfere in the US up to and including an invasion for regime change. If you try to cop out and say that no power can curbstomp the US like what the Coalition did to Iraq, just make up some high tech aliens of the week for the scenario.

Why does it 'become the question' though? If you're assessing the morality of the action shouldn't it be soley down to that action in isolation? I'm not going to disagree for a second with the idea that the US foreign policy is realist, often brutally (unnecessarily?) so. But that doesn't really effect the equation Skimmer and The Kernel put forward.

And no personal offence intended but this is why I hate these kind of debates - they rapidly move away from actual facts and events and ideas to 'random hypothetical 1'.

[K. A. Pital]

Because they presented a destabilizing threat to the region and US as well as the interests of the global community. Did you not notice that the UN Security Council approved all of the sanctions against Iraq?

"Interests of the global community" of First World nations? What is "the global community"? And if some nation poses a threat to US interests, that is a moral ground to attack it? I love you. Are you American?

I'm not aware of any other Arab countries during the 20th century that have seen 100,000 people killed in a single action such as during Al-Anfal. Perhaps you can enlighten me.

Turkey's handling of the Kurdish issue, while not exactly as violent as Saddam's (100 000) was still brutal enough to produce 40 k casualties by Turkey's own claims. Considering the enormous number of displaced people (millions) and Turkey's poverty and inability to supply the refugees, I find Turkey's claims that only 5 k "civilians" perished during their actions not very believable.

Turkey is a member of NATO chock-full of American weapons and is trying to apply to the EU. Shouldn't we invade them and end their opression of the Kurds once and for all? Or will you now back down and pull out "Realpolitik" because it is convenient to ignore the moral side when it comes to "U.S. allies" who are not "destabilizing" the situation?

The subject is about handling of Iraq, not the US or Saudi Arabia.

The point is well made, however - if morally evil actions of a nation make it justified to invade it and wage war on it, we can justify many actions that are thought of as "evil" today. For example, killing Westerners in terrorist acts would be a justified act, because America commited evil and confronting America's military power head-on is not an option for poor nations. See? It is easy to hide in legalism, but it is also easy to hide in moralism. And once you do, there's no way to determine justified actions. Moral justification matter, if the action has produced a net benefit. Net moral benefit. Has it? The killed, the maimed, the deterioriation of female rights, and the collapse of industry have not produced a moral net benefit in Iraq, in my view.

[mr friendly guy]

Why does it 'become the question' though? If you're assessing the morality of the action shouldn't it be soley down to that action in isolation?

Say what? Are you for real? How is one rule for the US and one rule for others moral? (I note one rule when all other things being compared are equal, and in this case we are comparing threat to others and doing something because "its in the nation's interest.") Because unless they apply the same standards on their own country and allies, that is what is happening. And all I see is an attempt to avoid answering that point when its raised.

Whats good for the geese is good for the gander and all that jazz. It therefore follows if people want to apply selective standards that...

a. There is a moral issue in which standards to apply, and its unfair and immoral that one side has different standards where all the other things we are comparing are equal. In this we are comparing similar things, ie ones threat to other countries etc. I am sure you would NOT be more lenient to a murderer who killed some innocent just because the murderer belongs to group X, so why should countries x, y, z be exempt if they are the ones doing the wrong thing.

b.
i) lets say you have an action A which is not desirable from the point of view of greater good/ maximising human happiness and all that if it becomes widespread.
ii) if you allow action A for a country because its in your interest, then it follows that other countries may also like to perform this action if its in their interest.
iii) by selectively allowing a country to set the precedent as it were, you run the risk of ii) happening.

To give a more grounded example, by recognising Kosovo as independent because of x, y and z, it predictably lead to Russia to recognise South Ossetia and Abzakhia to be independent because of x, y and z. If you think having the latter 2 independence recognised its good, then good for you. However if you find that undesirable, cough US cough, then you run the risk of opening the flood gates. Note I am not judging the morality of recognising x, y or z independent, I am using it as an example to show how if one country sets the precedent, others will follow.

Also note this isn't a slippery slope, it isn't like action A leading to completely different action B, its action A leading to more of action A. Moreover the events I described actually happened.

If you apply the logic fairly, then its acceptable for someone to do the same to the US. The thoughts of equivalent percentage of US citizens suffering the same fate as Iraqi citizens in the first few years due to a botched up invasion doesn't sit well with me.

* I am using the term allowed in the context that groups will now no longer have any compunctions against performing action A, and am not implying and legal barrier to it as such.

I'm not going to disagree for a second with the idea that the US foreign policy is realist, often brutally (unnecessarily?) so. But that doesn't really effect the equation Skimmer and The Kernel put forward.

Except if it leads to other countries considering such behaviour acceptable when its "in their interests" to do so.

And no personal offence intended but this is why I hate these kind of debates - they rapidly move away from actual facts and events and ideas to 'random hypothetical 1'.

Hypotheticals and moral dilemnas are simply a way to test your moral system, or at least the rules and criteria you use to judge a situation. Given how well our Emperor has used them in previous debates, any one who dodges these things automatically raises a red flag with me - that is what they say isn't their true reason for believing action A is moral. If it was, they would have no moral compunction about applying the same standards to themselves. Hence we can either a) get them to state outright what is the "real" justification and then we don't have to waste time with their pseudo justification ** or b) get them to modify their stance if they are at least internally consistent.

** a tactic which I believed has worked well against Axis Kast, Ryan Thunder and a whole host of others in the past

[Winston Blake]

I hate entering complicated threads, but I have a very simple point to make. This is my interpretation of the Sea Skimmer View:

American problems with Iraq:
- Potential conventional military threat some time in the future.
- Saddam's track record makes this potentiality a high risk.
- Iraqis starving, Saddam's dictatorship is cruel.

American options against Iraq - consequences:
1. Nothing - Immoral but legal (morality system: some suffering-based utilitarianism). Iraqis continue to starve and suffer in the long term. ~50 000 deaths per year.
2. New sanctions - Immoral but legal. No substantial effect, past alterations totally disastrous due to corruption.
3. Invasion - Moral but illegal. Iraqis die and suffer a lot in the short-term, but better in long term. American reputation down the drain (America now considered an aggressive threat to anyone not currently allied with it, who sees itself as above the law, fueling terrorist self-justification, etc).

Legality: There was a de jure end to First Gulf War, after successful UNSC-approved expulsion of Iraq from Kuwait. However, there was a de facto ongoing low-level war which means 'war never really ended', thus invasion has a chance of being legal, from a certain POV.

Conclusion: Option 3 is best.

----

Applying that to North Korea:

American problems with North Korea:
- Potential nuclear military threat RIGHT NOW. Has nukes, tends to fire missiles over Japan every now and then.
- Korean reunification (and a war against the U.S. expelling its presence from South Korea) is actually a matter of openly stated public policy, and has been for many years. This makes this potentiality an extremely high risk.
- Norks starving, Kim Jong-Il's dictatorship is cruel.

American options against North Korea - consequences:
1. Nothing - Immoral but legal. Norks continue to starve and suffer in the long term. ~300,000-800,000 deaths per year. [1]
2. New sanctions - Immoral but legal. No substantial effect, been going on for years with miscellaneous tinkering.
3. Invasion - Moral and legal. Norks die and suffer a lot in the short-term, but better in long term. American reputation FURTHER down the drain - etc etc.

Legality: since no peace treaty, actual de jure war still ongoing + de facto war with border incidents is also still ongoing. Invasion both moral AND legal.

Conclusion: Option 3 is not only morally justified, it is much more justified than Iraq. Further, America is not only morally obligated to invade, but its failure to do so since the 'end' of the Korean War is actually a grave moral wrong. It would be a grave moral wrong for the U.S. NOT to invade North Korea as soon as possible, and this guilt should weigh on Americans' minds.

----

Is this an accurate interpretation? I'm not really interested in arguing about relative costs/gains/harm/etc, I am interested in whether the proponents of the Sea Skimmer View are consistent, and thus consider the second conclusion to be true. (Or whether I have miscompared the above points somehow).

[1] Ongoing Nork famine. In 1998 US Congressional staffers who visited the country reported that: "Reliable sources estimate that of North Korea's 23 million people, between 300,000-800,000 people have died each year (peaking in 1997) as a result of the food shortages." They went on to say: "Other estimates of the death toll by exile groups are much higher."

[K. A. Pital]

Invasion - Moral but illegal. Iraqis die and suffer a lot in the short-term, but better in long term.

If the last statement here was true or even anywhere close to that, I bet people would have a different view of the Iraq war. However, what is "long term"? What is "short term"? The war is almost ten years old. Americans have reached the Saddam-level power generation capacity in Iraq, but in many other areas the situation has massively deteriorated. Women's rights and civil safety, for one. And those are unlikely to change back quickly, because the regime America created in Iraq is riddled with systemic corruption from the beginning. It is a corrupt regime much like Afghanistan, utterly inept at dealing with the disaster the invasion has created.

Moral and legal. Norks die and suffer a lot in the short-term, but better in long term. American reputation FURTHER down the drain - etc etc.

Once again, if nuclear weapons detonate over Korea, there'll be a very radioactive "long term" for both North and South Koreans and the Chinese. As for DPRK having an ongoing famine (with people dying from malnourishment), I believe that is no longer the case since 2002. Even the Wikipedia tells us as much. There is a constant risk of recurrent famine due to floods, etc., but so far it seems these risks have not materialized into an actual new famine.

[Metahive]

The problem with the war proponents I have here is mainly that they view "war" as some sort of abstract, consequence-free remedy, as if marching in and hanging the evil despot and his cronies can magically only lead to an improved situation. As a consequence of the US invasion hundreds of thousands of Iraqis lost their lives, had their livelihood destroyed or were forced to leave their country. Stas Bush already alluded to the erosion of civil rights that the US invasion has brought with it, with a constitution that acknowledges medieval sharia law as the superior law of the land, so if the goals of the coalition were humanitarian the whole project can only be seen as a spectacular failure.
The "Iraq had to be dealt with" plea rings also awfully hollow. Which middle eastern nation is it again that participated in a good number of middle eastern wars of the last 50 years, not all of them defensively and which also nakedly oppresses a minority within its borders? Yeah, good ol' Israel. Shouldn't then they be the next target of american "nation building"?

[K. A. Pital]

Yeah, good ol' Israel. Shouldn't then they be the next target of american "nation building"?

I brought up Turkey, but you found a better example. Yes, why not invade Israel? After all, both Israel and DPRK have nuclear arms. If Winston thinks invading nuclear armed nations is a morally sound idea, then Israel definetely should be right there on the list (invading nuclear armed nations is not a morally sound idea, because the horrific fallout from such a conflict would render any and all improvements either impossible or quite insignificant compared to the disastrous consequences of the war). Or, perhaps, we might invade Pakistan? They're a corrupt and poor dictatorship, they have nuclear weapons, they are unstable and pose a threat to the world community. No?

This whole construct largely falls apart when faced with other examples, because people would be quick to find half-assed excuses not to invade American Ally X.

[mr friendly guy]

This whole construct largely falls apart when faced with other examples, because people would be quick to find half-assed excuses not to invade American Ally X.

Excuses? Reading the thread they don't even bother to do that. They just outright by fiat state we don't need to compare to those other US allies and apply the criteria fairly, because... because... because they said so.