Kant and Mill in Baghdad

The American Prospect ^ | Issue Date: 6.1.03 | John B. Judis

[activationproducts]

I really don't fell comfotable trusting the UN to protect me. Remember sovereignty? What makes you think the UN will prtotect ours. They have every incentive not to. Wake up!

[Jolly Rodgers]

Well, that may be. But that doesn't help you if you end up dead now, does it?

Your threat is rather impotent, but entirely predictable.

[Jolly Rodgers]

Protect you from what? Exactly what imminent threat did Iraq pose to the United States? Considering that the Bush administration has been unable to come up with a legitimate answer to this question, I'm doubting you'll have one either. But, what the heck. I'll give you a chance to embarrass yourself.

[activationproducts]

You are very naive. Do the words Abu Nidal mean anything to you? If you don't understand that Iraq had been facilitating the operation of international terrorists for years you are misinformed. International terrorism (not just AL Qaeda) is what the threat is. The importance of recognizing that threat was made known on 09/11/01.

Do you realize that Saddam was paying money to the families of suicide bomber terrorists in Israel? This is a well known fact. A clear example of Saddam supporting international terrorism.

If you don't see the threat now, you won't until it is too late.

You shouldn't let your hatred of George Bush imperil you .

[section9]

Your threat is rather impotent, but entirely predictable.

Get down off your crucifix and come drink coffee with the rest of us, you self-dramatic little cretin.

I wasn't threatening you. I wouldn't waste my time threatening you, you prat.

If you had the intellect that you pretend to have, which you don't, you would have realized that I wasn't threatening you at all. Rather, I was pointing out that proclaiming one's devotion to the concepts of right and wrong, no matter how praiseworthy that aspiration might be, will do you no bit of good if the terrorist kills you first. He doesn't care about right and wrong. He just cares that you die.

Since you failed to even comprehend that, you are awarded the Order of the Hanging Ronald for Errant Stupidity....

....as well as the Knights Cross to the Clueless Penguin, with Oak leaves and swords.

But just to make sure you fully understand the errors of your ways, you silly git, allow me to reward your existence with The Ultimate Flame....

You swine. You vulgar little maggot. Don't you know that you are pathetic? You worthless bag of filth. As we say in Texas, I'll bet you couldn't pour piss out of a boot with instructions on the heel. You are a canker. A sore that won't go away. I would rather kiss a lawyer than be seen with you.

You are a fiend and a coward, and you have bad breath. You are degenerate, noxious and depraved. I feel debased just for knowing you exist. I despise everything about you. You are a bloody nardless newbie twit protohominid chromosomally aberrant caricature of a coprophagic cloacal parasitic pond scum and I wish you would go away.

You're a putrescence mass, a walking vomit. You are a spineless little worm deserving nothing but the profoundest contempt. You are a jerk, a cad, a weasel. Your life is a monument to stupidity. You are a stench, a revulsion, a big suck on a sour lemon.

You are a bleating fool, a curdled staggering mutant dwarf smeared richly with the effluvia and offal accompanying your alleged birth into this world. An insensate, blinking calf, meaningful to nobody, abandoned by the puke-drooling, giggling beasts who sired you and then killed themselves in recognition of what they had done.

I will never get over the embarrassment of belonging to the same species as you. You are a monster, an ogre, a malformity. I barf at the very thought of you. You have all the appeal of a paper cut. Lepers avoid you. You are vile, worthless, less than nothing. You are a weed, a fungus, the dregs of this earth. And did I mention you smell?

If you aren't an idiot, you made a world-class effort at simulating one. Try to edit your writing of unnecessary material before attempting to impress us with your insight. The evidence that you are a nincompoop will still be available to readers, but they will be able to access it more rapidly.

You snail-skulled little rabbit. Would that a hawk pick you up, drive its beak into your brain, and upon finding it rancid set you loose to fly briefly before spattering the ocean rocks with the frothy pink shame of your ignoble blood. May you choke on the queasy, convulsing nausea of your own trite, foolish beliefs.

You are weary, stale, flat and unprofitable. You are grimy, squalid, nasty and profane. You are foul and disgusting. You're a fool, an ignoramus. Monkeys look down on you. Even sheep won't have sex with you. You are unreservedly pathetic, starved for attention, and lost in a land that reality forgot.

And what meaning do you expect your delusionally self-important statements of unknowing, inexperienced opinion to have with us? What fantasy do you hold that you would believe that your tiny-fisted tantrums would have more weight than that of a leprous desert rat, spinning rabidly in a circle, waiting for the bite of the snake?

You are a waste of flesh. You have no rhythm. You are ridiculous and obnoxious. You are the moral equivalent of a leech. You are a living emptiness, a meaningless void. You are sour and senile. You are a disease, you puerile one-handed slack-jawed drooling meatslapper.

On a good day you're a half-wit. You remind me of drool. You are deficient in all that lends character. You have the personality of wallpaper. You are dank and filthy. You are asinine and benighted. You are the source of all unpleasantness. You spread misery and sorrow wherever you go.

I cannot believe how incredibly stupid you are. I mean rock-hard stupid. Dehydrated-rock-hard stupid. Stupid so stupid that it goes way beyond the stupid we know into a whole different dimension of stupid. You are trans-stupid stupid. Meta-stupid. Stupid collapsed on itself so far that even the neutrons have collapsed. Stupid gotten so dense that no intellect can escape. Singularity stupid. Blazing hot mid-day sun on Mercury stupid. You emit more stupid in one second than our entire galaxy emits in a year. Quasar stupid. Your writing has to be a troll. Nothing in our universe can really be this stupid. Perhaps this is some primordial fragment from the original big bang of stupid. Some pure essence of a stupid so uncontaminated by anything else as to be beyond the laws of physics that we know. I'm sorry. I can't go on. This is an epiphany of stupid for me. After this, you may not hear from me again for a while. I don't have enough strength left to deride your ignorant questions and half baked comments about unimportant trivia, or any of the rest of this drivel. Duh.

The only thing worse than your logic is your manners. I have snipped away most of what you wrote, because, well... it didn't really say anything. Your attempt at constructing a creative flame was pitiful. I mean, really, stringing together a bunch of insults among a load of babbling was hardly effective... Maybe later in life, after you have learned to read, write, spell, and count, you will have more success. True, these are rudimentary skills that many of us "normal" people take for granted that everyone has an easy time of mastering. But we sometimes forget that there are "challenged" persons in this world who find these things more difficult. If I had known, that this was your case then I would have never read your post. It just wouldn't have been "right". Sort of like parking in a handicap space. I wish you the best of luck in the emotional, and social struggles that seem to be placing such a demand on you.

P.S.: You are hypocritical, greedy, violent, malevolent, vengeful, cowardly, deadly, mendacious, meretricious, loathsome, despicable, belligerent, opportunistic, barratrous, contemptible, criminal, fascistic, bigoted, racist, sexist, avaricious, tasteless, idiotic, brain-damaged, imbecilic, insane, arrogant, deceitful, demented, lame, self-righteous, byzantine, conspiratorial, satanic, fraudulent, libelous, bilious, splenetic, spastic, ignorant, clueless, illegitimate, harmful, destructive, dumb, evasive, double-talking, devious, revisionist, narrow, manipulative, paternalistic, fundamentalist, dogmatic, idolatrous, unethical, cultic, diseased, suppressive, controlling, restrictive, malignant, deceptive, dim, crazy, weird, dystopic, stifling, uncaring, plantigrade, grim, unsympathetic, jargon-spouting, censorious, secretive, aggressive, mind-numbing, arassive, poisonous, flagrant, self-destructive, abusive, socially-retarded, puerile, clueless, and generally Not Good.

Other than that, have a nice day.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[Jolly Rodgers]

You are very naive. Do the words Abu Nidal mean anything to you?

Of course I know who he is. I also know that it is hilariously ridiculous in the extreme to try and point to him as the threat necessitating an invasion and occupation. For crying out loud, I bet you were still in diapers when Abu hijacked the cruise liner.

If you don't understand that Iraq had been facilitating the operation of international terrorists for years you are misinformed. International terrorism (not just AL Qaeda) is what the threat is. The importance of recognizing that threat was made known on 09/11/01.

I'll bet your assertion would carry a lot more weight and a lot less bluster if you actually had even a shred of evidence to back it up.

Do you realize that Saddam was paying money to the families of suicide bomber terrorists in Israel? This is a well known fact. A clear example of Saddam supporting international terrorism.

Of course I'm aware of it. Did you know that Israel is a foreign nation, not an American state? So, here's the question: Did we invade Iraq because it represented a potential threat to Israel? Is that what you are saying?

If you don't see the threat now, you won't until it is too late.

The problem isn't my vision, it's yours. You pretend there is a threat in order to justify an act of naked aggression. Or, maybe you really are duped. It's possible that you really are ignorant enough of the world to have believed the warmonger neo-con propaganda.

You shouldn't let your hatred of George Bush imperil you.

But, I don't hate Bush. As a matter of fact, he doesn't even rise to the level of contempt. His administration's policies on the other hand, they are substantially disheartening. But, for those of you who like big government and centralized federal fascism, I'm sure it's a real boon.

[Jolly Rodgers]

What's the matter? Don't have the guts to stand behind your original bluster? Heck, you don't even have the creativity to write your own flame. Perhaps you'll mature a bit after college. ;-)

[section9]

What's the matter? Don't have the guts to stand behind your original bluster? Heck, you don't even have the creativity to write your own flame. Perhaps you'll mature a bit after college. ;-)

What bluster? I made a reasonable, rational proposition to you: would you rather live in an intellectual fantasyland where right and wrong are central to the pursuit of American foreign policy, and wait for the terrorist to kill you, or would you rather get up and kill the terrorist first? You didn't want to answer that question, so you ducked. That's all.

Look, you're the one who came on here looking for a fight. You want to come on this board and insist that we're all blind to a creeping fascism being installed by George W. Bush? I suppose we're all supposed to accept that intellectual rotgut as fact? Get lost, prat. You want to bitch and moan when someone like me exposes your first principles for the house of cards that they are? You're one of those people who don't want to have their first principles held to account.

See, I knew what you were doing. You used the old debater's trick of trying to frame the argument on your terms. But if your terms are wrongheaded from the getgo, why should I buy into them? Consequently, I exposed the cheap trick of an intellectual charlatan, and you accused me of threatening physical assault. Don't bitch at me because your entire intellectual construct is a house of cards. I have to live in the real world. You don't.

I made a reasonable proposition to you that you could not answer, and that you know you could not answer, so you bobbed and weaved out of it. Pretty goddamn pathetic of you, don't you think?

I never threatened you, and both of us know it. As to the flame? Why of course it wasn't mine. That's why I put it in blockquote italics. But it sure as hell was appropriate now, wasn't it?

Oh, and I graduated from the College of the University of Chicago approximately twenty years ago. Go stick your condescension up your ass.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[jackbob]

JR - very good article, and excellent replies. But two of your replies (#62 and #67) to "section9" really failed. His reply #65 was right on the mark. It took nothing away from you or the position you have advocated here.

You really shouldn't let the interchanging of Iraq and terrorism, as though they were synonymous, which they are not, rattle you. Most of the readers recognize this, but see the timing as all wrong to address it. That level of argumentation is seen through for what it is.

My answer is simple. Anti-American terrorists and mostly their advocates, pose an unacceptable threat. Killing them takes priority over my political principles. On the otherhand, the now dead state of Iraq, was never threatening. Killing it as our government did, was wrong, especially since the cause has now turned out to be a lie.

[section9]

My answer is simple. Anti-American terrorists and mostly their advocates, pose an unacceptable threat. Killing them takes priority over my political principles. On the otherhand, the now dead state of Iraq, was never threatening. Killing it as our government did, was wrong, especially since the cause has now turned out to be a lie.

I disagree. We've already found three mobile chem labs. We will find more. It's just a question of time. In all likelihood, we will find that a lot of stuff was buried in unmarked desert locations, and some of the more nasty stuff made it to Syria.

Bear in mind, however, that Saddam systematically violated one United Nations resolution after another. In so doing, he violated the ceasefire agreement that ended the First Gulf War. That's all we needed to take him down. But we had a far larger interest than that at stake, one that merely surpasses puerile considerations of "right and wrong".

If left to his own devices, Saddam would have rebuilt his old WMD program in secret. A tiger does not change his stripes. Saddam's objective was regional domination, as it was in the early nineties. However, contrary to what you have stated, there was ongoing contact between Hussein's Mukhabarat and Al Qaeda. According to documents uncovered by the Daily Telegraph, Hussein's intelligence arm was actively pursuing AQ. Qaeda was meeting with Hussein's people at the "ministerial" level throughout the 1990's.

That connection alone, that alone, legitimizes this war in my mind. No American government could tolerate an opponent such as Saddam making his resources available to Al Qaeda. An American government that did would have been guilty of nothing less than criminal negligence. To put paid to the possibility that Qaeda and Hussein could build an ongoing relationship, we had to invade Iraq and take a piece off the board.

It has been a standard argument of liberals that there was no connection between Al Qaeda and Hussein. That has been proven to be not only a lie, but a towering intellecual error. Consider, why doubt a connection? Hussein and Bin Laden might have been intellectual opponents, but they had a common enemy: the Americans and the Jews.

An alliance of convenience made sense for both parties. Why is that so hard for people to understand?

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[activationproducts]

The only thing you have left is to impune the quality of information that has fueled my opinion. The same can be done with what you consider facts.

The point that you are missing is that there are numerous Islamic international terrorists from the middle east who have a distinct enemy (Israel). It is no secret that the most powerful nation in the world (US) is seen to have a very unique position in that we have historically helped Israel mantain significant military and economic leverage in the region. Israel and the US are both the chief enemies of these terrorists. This enemy is not ideologically homogenous. They are both nationalist and islamist.

The very important thing you are not noticing is that these international terrorist are increasingly able to extend their reach. Abu Nidal is not the threat the to US nor are suicide bombers in Gaza directly. They are a sympton of the same phenomena that we experienced on 09/11/01. What is being done is that we are waging a war on terror. Iraq has supported intrenational terrorists for decades. The Baathist regime considered both Israel and the US to be the chief threat to their region. You really believe that Saddam Hussein with all of his resources would not be able to do as much as 19 Saudi hijackers?

[Jolly Rodgers]

My answer is simple. Anti-American terrorists and mostly their advocates, pose an unacceptable threat. Killing them takes priority over my political principles. On the otherhand, the now dead state of Iraq, was never threatening. Killing it as our government did, was wrong, especially since the cause has now turned out to be a lie.

Good points, and thanks for the constructive criticism. I do agree that international terrorists that are an active real and present danger to the citizens of the United States should be dealt with, and I don't find that inconsistent with my political principles. Here's another interesting article:

Weapons failure

By Melvin A. Goodman
Originally published May 22, 2003

WASHINGTON - It now appears that the so-called "clear and present danger" of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD) did not exist and that French and German critics were correctly skeptical of the U.S. argument for the use of force.

The U.S. task force directing the search for Iraq's WMD will likely return home next month without discovering chemical, biological or nuclear materials. This failure could do great harm to the credibility of the Bush administration and the integrity of the U.S. intelligence community.

Many reasons have been offered for the failure of U.S. weapons experts and scientists to find a trace of nonconventional weapons in Iraq. Israeli intelligence sources claimed these weapons had been moved to Syria before the war began, but U.S. intelligence agencies never believed it.

U.S. sources claimed that the Iraqis destroyed vast stocks of WMD before the war, but sophisticated collection technology would have discovered traces of such activity and U.S. inspectors would have located the detritus of a massive destruction effort. It's possible that the Iraqis could have hidden or deeply buried sensitive materials, but even the leaders of WMD hunters from Task Force 75 and a special operations group from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency don't believe such a theory.

As a result, these teams are now searching for evidence of Saddam Hussein's crimes against humanity, Iraqi covert actions abroad and even the theft of Jewish antiquities from Iraqi museums - a far cry from the artifacts of WMD.

If the claims of President Bush, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and CIA Director George J. Tenet to justify the war were vastly exaggerated or simply false, there will be significant consequences.

For one, the distortion of evidence of Iraqi WMD will make it harder to gain international cooperation in the war against terrorism and the campaign to prevent the spread of WMD.

These efforts require international assistance. Information from foreign intelligence services has been required in the arrest or capture of all suspected al-Qaida terrorists thus far. Any success in stopping the strategic weapons programs of Iran and North Korea, both more advanced than those of prewar Iraq, will require international help.

Any misuse of intelligence by the White House or politicization of intelligence by the CIA weakens the key instrument in preventing further acts of terrorism and thus undermines U.S. national security interests.

The misuse of intelligence during the Vietnam War prolonged a brutal and costly conflict. The manipulation of intelligence during Iran-contra in the 1980s led to political embarrassment for the Reagan administration. The use of intelligence for the political ends of any administration is simply unacceptable.

Finally, the worst possible scenario for the security interests of the United States and the international community would be ending the inspections too early and then learning about the possible looting or smuggling of any strategic materials from Iraqi weapons sites.

As White House spokesman Ari Fleischer noted two months ago: "[WMD] is what this war was about and is about. And we have high confidence it will be found." We must now make sure that the hundreds of weapons sites were not looted of detritus, which can only be done with an intensified international inspection effort.

The United States must take immediate steps to regain credibility at home and abroad. Since chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix does not officially retire from his position until next month, it is not too late to invite experienced U.N. weapons inspectors to scour Iraq and thus gain international acceptance of any findings.

In addition to improving U.S. credibility, international inspectors would make it easier to interview Iraqi experts and find needed documents and evidence. This step would also ease U.N. certification of Iraqi disarmament, which is required to lift the 13-year-old embargo against Iraq.

The Senate Intelligence Committee or the inspector general of the CIA must scrutinize the findings of the intelligence community on Iraqi WMD, especially those estimates prepared after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, to determine whether intelligence was politicized to support the political agenda of the Bush administration.

The administration has dragged its heels over an independent inspection of 9/11 and prevented the release of the 9/11 joint congressional inquiry, but it must not block the efforts of the Senate panel or the CIA to determine whether the intelligence community actually accommodated political interests. There is too much at stake to delay these two essential steps.

[cornelis]

They argue that the United States is an inherently moral nation that will not commit the injustices perpetrated by past imperial aspirants

This is why I have always kept a reserve on "you should think for yourself." We can reason for ourselves, and we are the agents of our choices, but our first principles are often are a matter of respect--as they are in this argument.

[miloklancy]

Heard about this thread a few days late, but nonetheless, I wanted to hopefully put this WMD obsession to rest. It is not debatable whether Saddam Hussein had WMD, unless you want to argue with several dead Kurds who were gassed by Saddam in the late 80's in Northern Iraq. And furthermore WMD alone was NOT and I repeat NOT the reason we went into Iraq. The fact was we knew Saddam had used WMD before and that he was harboring and supporting terrorists. Detractors of the Bush administration seized on the WMD issue as the central issue. The administration never said this was the central issue, but that the potential of WMD in the hands of terrorists was justification for a pre-emptive strike. Hussein was clearly funding terrorists in Israel and harboring them in his country. The reason the U.S. had to act was because there was a threat of terrorist organizations such Al Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and others, could obtain these weapons and use them. There is no political underhandedness here. Yes liberals will claim there is, but liberals also think that being dishonest is simply part of the political process.

[secretagent]

Current Iraqi possession of WMD seemed the issue to many, supported by the quote from Ari Fleischer:

[WMD] is what this war was about and is about. And we have high confidence it will be found."

The White House may have mistakenly believed they would find the WMD, and now it appears they may not find them. That doesn't remove other justifications for the invasion, but the Administration didn't strictly narrow its argument to those. Embarassing, but not necessarily fatal to public support of Bush.

[miloklancy]

WMD was not the issue alone. WMD in the context of being the hands of a regime hostile to the U.S. and one that supported terrorism was. The U.S. has openly admitted that Iran, Syria, and North Korea have WMD. However the U.S. has not ruled out nor indicated that military action is necessary against these nations. The whole thing with Iraq dates back to the nineties, when the regime in Baghdad was told to get rid of it's WMD and prove to the world that they no longer had WMD. The regime failed to comply and increased their support for terrorism. Regardless of whether we ever find these weapons is really irrelevant and many in the administration including Secy. Rumsfeld have said as much all along.

[Jolly Rodgers]

Heard about this thread a few days late, but nonetheless, I wanted to hopefully put this WMD obsession to rest. It is not debatable whether Saddam Hussein had WMD, unless you want to argue with several dead Kurds who were gassed by Saddam in the late 80's in Northern Iraq. And furthermore WMD alone was NOT and I repeat NOT the reason we went into Iraq. The fact was we knew Saddam had used WMD before and that he was harboring and supporting terrorists. Detractors of the Bush administration seized on the WMD issue as the central issue. The administration never said this was the central issue, but that the potential of WMD in the hands of terrorists was justification for a pre-emptive strike. Hussein was clearly funding terrorists in Israel and harboring them in his country. The reason the U.S. had to act was because there was a threat of terrorist organizations such Al Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and others, could obtain these weapons and use them. There is no political underhandedness here. Yes liberals will claim there is, but liberals also think that being dishonest is simply part of the political process.

I fail to see how possession of chemical and bio weapons, (which are NOT properly WMD's,) two decades ago when they were actually our ally, justifies invasion now. Especially when every indication is that those weapons no longer exist. As for them being used as the justification by the administration, prior to launching the war, the administration floated various trial balloons, and this is the one that they seemed to chant most regularly. You might want to refer back to the many blusters by Perle, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz on the matter. Certainly they would like nothing more than to distract and spin it away now that their lies have been made known, but facts are facts.

[KantianBurke]

"the world's countries embraced a Kantian approach to international relations based upon the recognition of nations as equal sovereign persons (regardless of their size or stage of economic development) with inalienable rights."

NO NO NO!!! For the 120th time I'm sick of idiot reporters misreading what Kant wrote. ONCE AGAIN, in Kant's essay "Perpetual Peace" yes Kant advocated a type of League of Naitons. HOWEVER it was dependant upon ALL the nations have the same moral value system; namely Republican govt as espoused by the then fledging US. NOT the Stalinistic moral equivalent UN farce. Sheesh. This reporter needs to stop sniffing glue.

[miloklancy]

There was not spin on the part of the administration. The objective was clear. However you are certainly right that bio and chemical weapons are not really WMD, yet in terms of media coverage, they have been included as WMD. And I don't think anyone in the administration said Saddam Hussein had a functional nuclear weapon. Yet to imply that the Administration's objections to Iraq were arbitrary and constantly shifting is completely inaccurate. In 1991 the U.N embarked on a plan of Weapons Inspections in Iraq, in order to give Saddam Hussein the opportunity to show he had made good on his promise to get rid of Chemical, Biological, and any Nuclear program he may have had. This process was constantly met with lies and evasions, which finally ended with inspectors being kicked out of Iraq in 1998. Unfortunately at that time, we had a chief executive who's interests lie more in getting fellated by interns and not making some rather bold moves to get Iraq to comply with it's obligations. This clearly put the U.S. in a bad position. When Bush took office this certainly was of concern to him and after the Sept. 11th attacks, the prospect of a nation openly hostile to the U.S. and that had a history of WMD programs and supporting terrorism posed a real threat to the U.S. That was and remains the justification for a pre-emptive strike on Iraq. This is not spin and to say it was not focused is spin. It's clear that many who don't care for Bush will jump on the WMD issue. The detractors of the administration did this before the war in order to damage the President and not to confront a regime that had been a problem for some time. Clearly detractors in this situation did not have the best interests of our country at heart, but merely their own. As for whether they will ever find WMD in Iraq, it is still too early to conclude that they haven't or not. Like it or not the jury is still out on that one.

[secretagent]

However you are certainly right that bio and chemical weapons are not really WMD...

I agree with you two about chemical weapons not belonging to the "mass destruction" category, but not all bio weapons.

Smallpox unleashed could kill millions.