Sen. Ted Kennedy has taken political debate in this country to a new low with his utterly shameful comments on the Senate floor today.
The facts surrounding this war are not and have never been in doubt. Nearly 40 countries are supporting the coalition to rebuild Iraq. The UN has officially passed a plan to aid in the reconstruction. When a respectable foreign journal like The Economist examines the evidence against Hussein and confirms that the war was justified, it is not the Bush Administration that needs to justify its actions.
Would Sen. Kennedy like to argue that the world would be better off with Saddam Hussein still in power? Can he say conclusively that there was no connection between Hussein and al-Qaeda? Can he say conclusively that Saddam Hussein had absolutely no capability to develop weapons of mass destruction? Can he say conclusively that Saddam Hussein was not and never would be a threat to the United States.
The answer to each of these questions is no, he could not. Anything else, based on the evidence at hand would be a lie.
In other words, based on the evidence, Sen. Kennedy is either being nakedly partisan or exceptionally naive. I would guess it is the latter.
Kennedy’s reckless and baseless charges are not only a disgusting reflection of his own partisan hatred, but they endanger our soldiers in Iraq. The enemy thinks that by inflicting a few casualties on our troops they can get us to leave Iraq. People like Kennedy reinforce that belief, encouraging our enemies to continue to attack our soldiers. They send a message of weakness, that if the enemy can create enough partisan rancor the United States will leave with its tail between its legs.
Would Sen. Kennedy argue that leaving the people of Iraq to be slaughted at the hands of Islamic fanatics is a sound policy? Would he argue leaving Iraq a battered and broken shell in which 20 million people would be consigned to unacceptable conditions is a sound policy? Those are the consequences of his actions.
Sen. Kennedy is proposing an unacceptable solution. As a Senator and as a representative of the United State he has both been caught in a naked lie (the comment that the war was planned in Texas to benefit the GOP) and now is proposing a policy that would be a miserable failure for both the US and for the people in Iraq.
There is no excuse for this kind of irresponsible and irrational rhetoric. Sen. Kennedy should be ashamed of himself – not that the Senator has any shame left.
Can he say conclusively that there was no connection between Hussein and al-Qaeda? Can he say conclusively that Saddam Hussein had absolutely no capability to develop weapons of mass destruction? Can he say conclusively that Saddam Hussein was not and never would be a threat to the United States.
He doesn’t have to. As the aggressor it is our responsibility to prove conclusively that he does. The burden of proof is not on us but you.
(the comment that the war was planned in Texas to benefit the GOP)
For one who is so facetious so often I find it rather amusing you took that as a completely literal statement.
Casting shame on someone is a much weaker and more arrogant method of debate than anything Kennedy said. The first person to utter the words “Shame on you!” in a debate should be taken to the woodshed and beaten severely for an annoyingly unimaginative and holier-than-thou approach.
Besides Alex B’s dead-on assessment of how the burden of proof being on those with the bloody swords rather than the dissenters, the oft-repeated question of whether the world is better off with Saddam Hussein as you just regurgitated again has a pretty simple answer at this point….no. Iraq was not a threat to the United States. Iraq was not a threat to its neighbors. And while Hussein was a tremendous threat to his own people, there’s little to indicate that a nation such as Iraq can be effectively ruled in any other way than Hussein did….which most likely means that America wiped out Saddam the man in Iraq, but is unlikely to have taken out his spirit, which can inevitably be expected to resurface once the dust of US occupation settles. I hope I am wrong and the beast that hasn’t been able to be tamed for centuries suddenly settles down, but common sense certainly suggests otherwise.
Remember, the UNSC unanimously passed Resolution 1441 which declared that Saddam Hussein had to prove that he had disarmed. Even Hans Blix admitted he had not done this.
Kennedy wasn’t being facetious. He literally said that Karl Rove was at some GOP meeting in Texas in January (which never happened) and that he said that the US would go to war to help out the the GOP.
Obviously you’ve never watched Prime Minister’s Questions or listened to any other debate in the British Parliament. Shouting “for shame!” is the traditional method in parliament for dealing with a statement that crosses the line of good taste. It is exceptionally appropriate here.
Did Afghanistan pose a threat to the United States in 2000? Could it have threatened its neighbors? The answer to both those questions would clearly be no – until we realized that the Taliban was harboring al-Qaeda. Furthermore, we do not have the luxury of seeing armies moving or knowing what the next strike we be. Prudence dictates that the only sane and sound way of dealing with the threat of terrorism is through a strategy of preemption. The only signs we would get of an iminent attack may well be when the first dirty bomb goes off in Grand Central Station or the first canister of anthrax is opened in the Mall of America.
That is a profoundly racist statement. Your argument boils down to “those brown people just can’t handle democracy”. The fact is that the Iraqi people want democracy, are building democracy, and will be democratic. The Iraqis have a level of education far greater than the American colonists did in the 1770’s, and there is no reason why there cannot be democracy in the Arab world if they are given a chance to create it. The only problems come from a small majority of terrorists, many of whom aren’t Iraqis.
Remember, the UNSC unanimously passed Resolution 1441 which declared that Saddam Hussein had to prove that he had disarmed.
Since when do you care what the UN says? Nice reversal.
Anyway, from 1441:
4. Decides that false statements or omissions in the declarations submitted by Iraq pursuant to this resolution and failure by Iraq at any time to comply with, and cooperate fully in the implementation of, this resolution shall constitute a further material breach of Iraq’s obligations and will be reported to the Council for assessment in accordance with paragraphs 11 and 12 below;
13. Recalls, in that context, that the Council has repeatedly warned Iraq that it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its obligations;
I see nothing calling for invasion. Serious consequences is rather subjective.
“those brown people just can’t handle democracy”
No what he was saying is that they can’t handle eachother. However instead of killing eachother they now have a mutual target. I’m not saying democracy can’t work in Iraq. What I’m saying is that imposing it upon a people who for pretty good reason don’t exactly like us and who would if given their way elect a theocracy, doesn’t seem like the best way to be spreading our democratic ideals.
Wow, someone actually did some research before commenting! Well done!
In diplomatic speak (which bears little resemblance to real English), “serious consequences” usually means military action, and that was the intent of the resolution when it was written.
Every serious poll of the Iraqi people since the fall of Saddam have shown that the Iraqi people want democracy and are willing to work to get it. (Plus, they have a very favorable opinion of us, contrary to what the media would have us believe.) Only a small minority want theocracy, and they are opposed by most of the Iraqi people.
Democracy won’t be easy for Iraq, but it is necessary and doable.
Jay, the fact that the left sometimes casts “shame” upon those who disagree with them doesn’t make them look anymore intelligent than when you do it to Ted Kennedy.
Does Russia pose a threat to us in 2003? One could argue they do. Should we wage “preventative war” against them on the grounds that they may pose a threat in 2008? Certainly we should keep tabs on governments we distrust, as we apparently were not doing well enough with Afghanistan, and take the appropriate actions if a reasonable threat is perceived imminent. Decades of invisible WMD’s in Iraq wouldn’t seem to qualify. Even though I disagreed with the war from the beginning, I was at least under the assumption (or desperate hope) that the Bush administration must have known something the public didn’t about Iraq either being aligned with al-Qaida or having a clear intent to harm the US. Obviously, I set the bar too high for this President.
I had hoped you were above playing the “racism” card against those who disagree with you. I always thought that card was only played by the radical left. Guess it’s catching on. I could just easily call you racist for holding the “yellow people” of North Korea up to a different standard than the “brown people” of Iraq, but I choose not to inject the red herring of skin color into debates about more complex global issues. I’d like to think that peace and democracy are possible in the Middle East, and Iraq in particular, but I also think the best way not to find it is a unilateral occupation by a nation whose worldview conflicts in so many ways with their strongly-defined culture. At this point, I’ll just have to proven wrong…..and open my pocketbook generously for decades to come to be proven wrong.
“In diplomatic speak (which bears little resemblance to real English), “serious consequences” usually means military action, and that was the intent of the resolution when it was written.”
INCORRECT! If you’ll remember the debate over 1441, you’ll recall that France objected to the original, US-proposed wording of the resolution, because it implied military actions and not economic reprisals. The phrase “serious consequences” is exactly the opposite of what you say it is–the phrase used in Security Council parlance to mean military force is “all necessary means,” the phrase used for the last Gulf War.
In either event, 1441 can not authorize US military action without a finding of a “material breach” by the Iraqis. That finding must be determined not by a member state but by the Security Council, which NEVER DECLARED there was one. Therefore, EVEN IF you want to call the war in Iraq legitimate under 1441, it was executed illegally under the same. If you acknowledge the provisions of 1441 to be operative in one regard, you MUST accept it in toto. There is no line-item veto for the US concerning the UN, and there never has been.
So, either the war was legitimate but illegal (if you believe that the US was enforcing 1441) or the war was illegitimate (if you believe, as most international legal scholars do, that 1441 is inoperative until a “material breach” is declared). You can’t have it both ways.
You make a good argument, to your credit, but I stand by my case on these grounds:
If we accept that (and that isn’t necessarily the case), then the Resolution still threatened Hussein with war:
This clause was added as UN Resolution 1441 is designed to follow up to the terms and condition set in Resolution 600 (the Resolution passed after the invasion of Kuwait) and Resolution 687 (the cease-fire for the First Gulf War).
Furthermore, despite France’s objections, the resolution did not call for a second resolution to declare material breach and authorize military action. The terms of material breach are defined in the resolution:
Paragraphs 11 and 12 read:
The language of the resolution says that the Council will consider the situation, and warns that if Iraq did not meet the terms of the Resolution that “serious consequences” will occur – those serious consequences being found in violation of Resolution 687 and therefore liable to being disarmed by “all necessary means”.
In other words, the resolution does not say that further authorization is required for anything – Iraq did not report honestly under the terms of 1441, as Dr. Blix himself reported. Under those terms, it is clear that there is nothing illegal or illegitimate about the war in Iraq. Hussein did not meet the unanimous demands of the UN Security Council, and was removed. The fact that the UN has now recognized the Coalitional Provisional Authority as the legitimate transitional government of Iraq also cements this claim.
And yet, you continue to cite 1441 as if it didn’t include the phrase “will be reported to the Council for assessment.” That phrase is a much clearer indicator of procedure than the “serious consequences” argument. It states plainly that the Security Council is taking the authority to declare material breach, which, by virtue of the organization’s structure, would have to be declared in the form of a Resolution.
So, actually, it STILL says there needs to be a second resolution, but in subtext–the true language of diplomacy.
Paragraph 4 makes it clear that Iraq not being honest in its declaration would constitute a material breach under the terms of the resolution. It only requires the UNSC to “consider” the resolution, however, if Iraq is found in material breach that means that terms of Rsolutions 600 and 687 are also in breach, which ends the Gulf War ceasefire and opens the door to military action.
This is not exactly an obvious interpretation of the Resolution, which is intentional. The framer’s intent of the resolution (which was written by the US and the UK) was that this would be Iraq’s last chance to comply. Iraq didn’t, causing a material breach of Paragraph 4 and opening the door to military action.