Moral Arguments About Iraq
Dean
Our friend Elizabeth Reid is for reasons of pragmatism uncomfortable with some of the moral arguments about the war in Iraq.
The problem here is that for a lot of us, we made the strong moral case for action against Saddam over three years ago, and we never stopped making it. As in, ever.
On February 15, 2003, Dean's World launched the campaign for democracy and human rights in Iraq. Make note of that date, and notice that it was about four months after war against Saddam was declared by huge bipartisan majorites in Congress.
In other words, at that point, the die was cast. In my particular definition of patriotism--your mileage may vary--you can argue your head off against a war for reasons of pragmatism or anything else, but once the die is cast and the decision is made, as a patriot your job is to do your best to support the mission. You disagree? Well that's okay; your right to dissent is no different than my right to label some dissent as unpatriotic. So it goes.
It's just interesting to me, years later, to look back and remember when the primary attacks on the Bush administration were that they took way too long, deliberated too much, worked too hard to bring along allies, and worked up excessively detailed plans for action in Iraq when they should have just gotten moving. It took them about six months after getting approval before they took any real military action--and that was after an entire year of debate that ran throughout the country. Debate which included, despite the historical revisionism of the Bush-obsessed crowd, over a dozen reasons for action and not just one.
From my perspective, it is far, far too late to start bringing up questions about funding priorities now, except maybe in the sense of bringing them up if another war is proposed. For this war, the die is cast. Furthermore, there is no denying the truth: if we pull up stakes and abandon those people in Iraq, we will have done something more immoral and more terrible than we ever did by going there in the first place. The power vacuum we would leave behind would result in a crushing blow against human rights. It wouldn't just be a great shame to the United States, it would be a great shame to the entire human race.
Thus those who oppose the continuing effort to democratize and bring human rights to Iraq are going to have to face an unending reality: if they propose abandoning those people, they are going to be hit with moral questions--and angry moral condemnation from those of us who argued from moral grounds all along that this was the right thing to do.
With some moral arguments, there really is no middle ground. I'd like to think there is but there isn't. So my suggestion--as "black and white" as it may sound--is simple: take a stand. Do you want to abandon those people in Iraq or do you not? Do we turn them over to the "freedom fighters" who bomb women and children and mosques and cops and elected politicians as well as our soldiers? Or do we protect the victims of those "freedom fighters," recognizing the "freedom fighters" as vicious fascist thugs and theocratic nutjobs, and try to help the real people, the overwhelming majority of the Iraqi people, establish a democratic, human rights respecting, and free nation?
Sitting on the fence simply will not do. The time to sit on the fence was over in October, 2002 when the United States, in Congress Assembled and by overwhelming bipartisan majorities in both houses, declared war on Saddam Hussein's fascist dictatorship with the explicit goal of ousting the regime and fostering democracy.
If you don't believe that was a stated part of the mission all along, here is the resolution that they voted on, which contained all our reasons for going.
Fence-straddling should have ended the day they ratified that. Constant second-guessing and backseat driving won't do. Do we abandon those people to their fate and shirk the responsibility we took upon ourselves? Or do we do whatever we can to see the mission through?
People who attack the war effort don't like being questioned on moral grounds, but too bad! This is a fundamentally moral question. I never stopped phrasing my support for this mission in moral terms, and I won't stop now. Because I meant it then and I mean it now: opposition to liberation of Iraq is and always has been morally vacuous. One could argue against it for purely pragmatic reasons--we can't afford it, we have other priorities--but we cannot pretend those are moral arguments. They're also irrelevant--we committed to this almost three years ago and can't go back in time and undo it.
Michael Yon, who like my father is over there right now, wrote the following:
He wrote that, and more, right here.I was in the Army some years ago and maintained close contact with many friends who made a career of military service. Naturally, I had an interest in what was happening in Iraq--I had friends in harm's way.
But what spurred me to drop what I was doing, get on a plane and fly halfway around the world, to a war zone, was a growing sense that what I was seeing reported on television, as well as in newspapers and magazines, was inconsistent with the reality my friends were describing. I wanted to see the truth, first hand, for myself.
I saw American and Coalition soldiers putting everything on the line to accomplish their mission.
So that Iraqi children can have the chance to grow up in freedom and fulfill their potential.
I saw resolve steel the jaw of a military leader.
I saw hope light the eyes of young girl.
I saw a parent’s anguish
I saw a village elder’s wisdom
I saw a soldier’s compassion.
And what I saw changed how I thought about this war. The "truth" of this experience is too complex to capture in a body count or a thirty-second sound byte. It's chaotic, dynamic and evolving. It's unwieldy, wasteful and we have made mistakes. It's a struggle of epic proportions that ultimately relies on the strength of a people about whom most Americans seem to know very little.
The longer I stayed, the better I understood things. And I began to realize that Americans need to see these things in order to understand what is happening here and come to a more informed judgment of whether this struggle is "worth" the cost, in money and lives. No one can make that determination without a balanced set of facts.
To me, one look in the face of any of the children tips the scales one way.
But I don't do this work to espouse a point of view, or rally people to the right or left. Some people might find that statement disingenuous. I've been criticized for using terms like terrorist and enemy in my dispatches. Most critics are a safe distance from the battleground. Up close, its more than a matter of taking sides. There's no value in using imprecise language in a futile attempt to appear objective. There is a difference between Coalition soldiers and Iraqi police officers and the terrorists and criminals they confront. Whether you call them insurgents or resistance fighters or terrorists, the people who wake up in the morning plotting how to drive explosives-laden cars into crowds of children have to be confronted.
I really couldn't put it any better.
Do you want to abandon those people in Iraq or do you not?
No. I don't.
My continued feeling that the war was a mistake doesn't mean that I feel it would be correct to leave. I can't think of a better real-world instantiation of the principle that two wrongs do not make a right. If what I wrote implied that I believe we should abandon the Iraquis, I apologize for the misimplication.
I don't at all mind being questioned on moral grounds, and in fact my earlier text was not intended to frame the argument so that morality and pragmatism were in opposition. My argument was that if one is devoting resources to things, there isn't a good way to remove pragmatism from those decisions. There are many morally good things that we could choose to accomplish with any given umpteen billion dollars, and so simply saying, "This cause is morally just," is not, for me sufficient to pursue a given goal. It's a necessary *start*, but once we've decided we're ready to spend this umpteen billion dollars in support of moral justice, I want us to have an intelligent discussion about whether we're using that money in the most effective way to achieve that goal.
I support the mission. I continue to question whether the mission was a good idea in the first place, and I continue to say so because I am sure we will be faced with similar decisions in the future. I believe that extracting as many lessons from our past and current actions to inform our future actions is necessary for our collective good as the American people, and since I'm American blood and bone, that's what I'm going to do.
I'm not sure how that set of beliefs and feelings translates to being unpatriotic, but as you say, it's your right to think and say so.
I simply hate to be told to keep quiet because questioning any aspect of my side's total rightness gives strength to the other team. So questioning affirmative action gives power to racists, and questioning any aspect of evolutionary theory gives power to creationists, and questioning any aspect of American foreign policy means the terrorists have won. Bleah.
It sort of seems to me that for people who aren't arguing honestly, either approach (denial vs. rigorous self-analysis) can be seized upon in the sort of meta-argument horseshit which dominates so much of American politics. Refusal to consider one's own side's mistakes shows that you're a rigid hypocrite; willingness to consider those mistakes means that the other side was right all along. Well, when someone's at that intellectual level, there's no pleasing them so why try?
I think that before one can argue about whether or not the war was a moral endeavor, one must state what constitutes moral and immoral action. Otherwise the argument can quickly degenerate into “Is too!” “Is not!”
How can you tell if something is crooked if you don't have something straight to compare it to.
It's not "questioning any aspect of American foreign policy" that is drawing criticism here, and claiming it is so is just sloppy.
While we may see similar decisions to be made in the future, they will have different parameters, and preparing a case against them before the situation has arisen is even less constructive. If we go into Syria and/or Iran, it will be because of similar reasons as Iraq, and with different reasons as well. We will make our decisions based on the lessons learned from taking action in Iraq.
I agree that the argument is lost; I disagree that it serves no constructive purpose to examine it retrospectively. If you think that our decision to do what we did is still, in retrospect, the best decision we could have made, then we don't need to examine how we reasoned about it - we did just fine. If you think our decision to do what we did is, in retrospect, flawed, then it makes sense to look at what led us to make that flawed decision so that when we make decisions about Iran, Syria, etc. we're using the best tools at our disposal. If we're supposed to make future decisions based on 'lessons learned', doesn't that pretty much imply that coming to conclusions on decisions in the past serves a constructive purpose?
I liken events to walking down a road in which you can only see about 100 feet ahead. You come to a fork in the road and, as Robert Frost said, “Take the one less traveled by.” Ten minutes later you say to yourself, “This was a bad decision. I should have taken the other fork.”
Since our view into the future is extremely limited, we cannot know with much certainty the war was a bad decision. All we can do is fantasize about possible alternatives. If one was against the war from the start, I would expect all the imaginary alternatives look better than the current reality.
But we will never know what the other courses of action would have done. The ripples we have made on this time-line cannot be reversed.
Twenty years from now history will decide if OIF was good for the US or not. I recognize that a generation raised don 30-second commercial wants to make a quick determination. But I would counsel to wait until all the votes are counted before a winner is declared.
If anything, the Bush Doctrine has been expanded, to include the ideals of universal freedom and democracy. We're now jabbing the Saudis and Egyptians to embrace democracy. And we're funding the coming Iranian democratic revolution.
I tend to agree with you. I don't even characterize myself as having been completely anti-war, and I agree that it's impossible to know for certain whether something was a good or bad decision because you can only play it one way. There are still people arguing about the US Civil War, so I hardly expect the jury to be in on the current engagement in Iraq already, and even a hundred years from now there will still be arguments about whether or not it was a good idea.
However, it's the best we've got. Our understanding is imperfect and is always going to be based on extrapolations which may or may not have played out the way we think, but aside from a crystal ball we've just got to do the best we can.
My main point in the rant Dean linked was that when you're selecting the different hypothetical scenarious to examine in the what-if-we'd-done-this-instead-of-that game, you should remember to include the other morally good things we did *not* do because we chose to put our effort into Iraq. I do insist that that is a moral argument, not a pragmatic one, although obviously Dean doesn't agree.
Don't count on that.
What offends are the large number of people who say simply horrendous and hateful things about our side, then lie and claim they are merely "questioning."
What offends me more are the people who call all negative news "reality" and all positive news "cheerleading." The latter group appears to describe the majority of our press corps, and most of the people in the so-called "reality-based community."
(Speaking of which, I increasingly think of "reality-based community" as being much akin to a "cheese-based product," i.e. something that looks somewhat like reality in the same way that Cheetos look something like cheese.)
When we look at the current situation, the real question for those of us who want to succeed is not "what's going wrong?" Because in any war, in all wars--there are no exceptions--there will be upsetting news and setbacks and mistakes. The question is what will help us succeed.
What's also important is to ask if we've got good information or not.
Or I suppose you could take the even more radical position that it would have been morally preferable to end the sanctions, end the no-fly zones, and simply end the whole affair by leaving Saddam and his sons alone.
Honestly, I have a hard time thinking of the first position as anything but morally vacuous--pragmatic, maybe, but moral?--and the latter position just strikes me as horrendously evil.
As for the question of whether this war will be seen in retrospect as the right thing: I honestly believe that if 20 years from now you and I can seriously consider taking a vacation in Baghdad because it's a prosperous, free, and safe place, the question will have been answered firmly in the definitive, and those who deny it will be as tiny as the number of people who still say we fought the wrong people in World War II.
Mark: I hope and pray that Iraq leads to revolt within Iran, but like you I'm far from confident about it. :-(
I'm really offended.
Thats precisely it. Now if you just keep on those lines. . .
The 'revolution in Iran' idea was always a question of how much english to put on that particular ball. When the elections returned with a terrorist in charge, everybody should've known that we bolloxed it.
We're hurtling towards another '13 days' scenario, Dean. The only questions are which administration will have to deal with it, this or the next; how will it play out; and will it be strictly regional.
I don't like many of the answers as I currently see them.
Mark: My suspicion is that the current administration will continue to kick the can down the road. :-( On the other hand, I don't discount the possibility that we're doing all sorts of covert stuff in Iran that isn't public knowledge and won't be public knowledge until later. The covert assistance we gave Lech Walesa's Solidarity movement in the 1980s, for example, was not revealed until over a decade later.
You didn't answer the question. You're not talking to Michael Moore or Cindy Sheehan, and it wasn't either of their posts you linked. Am I one of those people or not?
I'd like to consider the conversation, but I'm not sure it's worth it.
Nevertheless those people are there, and are no small force, and need to be answered.
When I take a position I generally don't hesitate to repudiate people on "my side" who I disagree with. As I'm sure you know, on a regular basis I repudiate the people on "my side" who just want to turn the Arab world into a glass parking lot, who slam Arabs as "ragheads," and who insist that we are at war with the entire faith of Islam.
Speaking of which, am I the only one who notices something completely incoherent about many of the "Islam is the true enemy" people? They insist that Islam itself is the enemy. By doing so, they legitimize the viewpoint of Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, and they also render rather insane the project to help the Iraqis construct a system of self-government. Iraq is about 90% Islamic, after all. If they really honestly believed Islam is in and of itself our eternal and undying enemy, they should stop supporting what we're doing in Iraq and start advocating mass slaughter of Iraqis. Not that everyone can be expected to make sense all the time, but sheesh.
So. If Islam is the enemy, then honestly, I have no idea what some of these righties are doing piddling around with supporting the Iraq operation. If they are correct, we should leave Iraq immediately and allow whatever muslim bullyboy who can take power by blood and tyranny to have his way. Why not? The only good muslim is one that's dead so...
Indeed, maybe we should lob a few nukes at Iraq on our way out the door as a message to the rest of the Islamic world: fuck with us and you die. While we're at it, chucking a couple at the Saudis and the Iranians would do well too. And we should cut off all diplomatic relations with the Turks, the Indonesians, and all those other evil muslim states. And throw all the muslims out of America. And....
Funny thing is, I know perfectly well there are people on "my side" who think all those things. One of the reasons I am so strong in my support of finishing the job in Iraq is my fear that if we fail there, then those people on "my side" will have their way, and the result will be far more terrible than anything we're seeing in our politics now.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh, Dean, I want that shortened up and on a T-shirt. Something like "Reality-based is to reality as Cheetos is to cheese."
Somebody do the artwork and send it off to Cafe Press, quick!
Not today, not tomorrow, not this year. But keep in mind: there will be more elections in Iraq every year. And hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to Najaf will return with stories of elections that actually mean something, gov't that is held accountable, free speech, freedom to protest...
In April 1989, the world's leading Sovietologist said the Soviet Union was as strong as ever.
Agree with the war or not (and I did not, for the soundly cynical post-colonial reasons that all but our wide-eyed PM forgot) I agree that once you are committed, you must stay committed. However, it seems in his rush to get the troops out before the next election, the human rights aspect of the President's crusade seems to have fallen victim to realpolitic - the worst of both worlds.
Women have more rights and more protections under Iraq's proposed Constitution than they ever did under Saddam. And the concern over sharia is exactly that--a long-term concern. Women are guaranteed free speech, free press, freedom to assemble and petition, to run for office, and are guaranteed a minimum of 25% of the seats in parliament. They also make up the majority of Iraq's voters--all of which are far more than they ever had under the tyrant Saddam and his fascist ruling party. So they're going to be "made second class citizens" only if you believe they will vote to make that happen.
Gays? You're talking about gay rights? The fact that you can even think that's a subject worth discussing in Iraq today shows just how many light years forward Iraq has moved. Do you know what Saddam's regime did to convicted homosexuals, Nick?
As for the President's "rush to get troops out before the next election": No such plans have been announced. Lefty reactionary critics have been predicting just such a pullout--but they've been doing it for two solid years now, and it has yet to happen, and the President has repeatedly insisted that we are not leaving until the Iraqi government is stable. What more do you want?
Yes, Canada.
”We express our deepest concern and worry about the drafts lately released by the (Iraqi) Constitutional Committee, specifically relating to the chapter on duties and rights, in which the (Islamic) sharia law was clearly stated as the main source of legislation in the new Iraqi constitution,” the Iraqi Women's Movement said in an appeal to the United Nations.
According to this draft, the new Iraqi transitional government acknowledges the equal rights of men and women in all fields -- ”as long as it doesn't contradict with sharia law.”
If implemented, the proposed new laws will restrict women's rights, specifically in matters relating to marriage, divorce and family inheritance. A marriage enjoined by a woman's free will is likely to be made more difficult, and divorces by men relatively easier.
And no, I'm no expert in gay rights in Iraq, but here is the first item that came up when I Googled gay and Saddam...
I was not pro-Iraq, but I was all for Afghanistan and accompanied UK forces into Kosovo and Sierra Leone, so I'm no peacenik Dean. Nor am I for withdrawl.
I was against the war because I thought it would hinder the war against terror and do little for the reforms you speak of. You want to spread democracy and human rights, then why not start with Saudi Arabia or Iran? Now there's a couple of conflicts I would have had difficulty opposing. But sadly, it's way too late for that, or to eliminate the nuclear threat the Iranians are busy racking up.
I don't expect people who supported the war to admit they were wrong, but I do find it frustrating that instead of fessing up to even the slightest smidgeon of doubt, they tend to become ever louder in their righteousness, like one of those religious cults which become the more convinced the greater the ridicule. To be blunt.
but I was all for Afghanistan
Their constitution is much more Islamic than Iraq's.
If implemented, the proposed new laws will restrict women's rights, specifically in matters relating to marriage, divorce and family inheritance. A marriage enjoined by a woman's free will is likely to be made more difficult, and divorces by men relatively easier.
So, no buhrkas or honor killings, and they're allowed to vote, which means if they don't like something they can vote it down.
Sorry, I can't get excited about a few civil disputes.
Who says we're not promoting democracy in those places?
Dean has cited the source material for why women's lives are much improved under Iraq multiple times in the past, and I guess he'll just have to keep citing it again and again and again. When you say that Dean hasn't ever admitted to doubts and concerns, it makes me wonder whether you and I are reading the same blog here.
You're also reduced to admitting that you favored Afghanistan, but don't seem aware that Afghanistan's new Constitution actually enshrines Islam and Sharia to a greater extent than Iraq's proposed Constitution. So you're hoist with your own petard--Afghanistan was good, and Iraq is measurably better, but you think it's worse because... because... well just because!
You're reduced to pointing to an empty page on gays in Iraq? Try Sodomylaws.org as your starting point--and then tell me why gays were better under Saddam. Or women for that matter.
Got any sisters, Nick? What do you think would happen to your sister if she said she thought Tony Blair were a giant cunt or a wanker? Eh? Under Saddam, a woman could have her tongue cut out or her children murdered before her eyes for saying such a thing about Saddam (although I suppose she'd have been given a medal for saying that about Blair).
Under Saddam, a woman who offended the regime might even have her head cut off--and her family required to display her severed head on their front porch for several weeks after her execution.
On women's rights, if the new Iraqi Constitution is ratified, women will have the following rights that they never had under Saddam:
Free speech
Free press
The right to peaceably assemble and petition the government to alleviate their grievances.
Guaranteed right to vote equal to men
The right to run for and hold office--any office.
All the rights guaranteed under the U.N. charter of human rights
All other fundamental rights guaranteed to men.
A guaranteed minimum of 25% representation in parliament (which neither the US nor the UK grant, by the way)
All this under a Constitution that is less deferential to Islam than Afghanistan's.
But you haven't the slightest sliver of a shadow of a doubt that you were wrong to oppose Iraq's liberation, do you Nick? Oh no. Instead you trot out empty predictions that we're about to bug out of Iraq--a prediction which was made before the LAST elections, and which turned out to be false. The elections were almost a year ago, Nick, and we're still there, with staunch promises from Bush that we aren't leaving any time soon. But you'll predict again that we're leaving because... because... because what?
All you've got left now is arguing over whether gay rights will be there, and "well, if we took out Saddam, why didn't we do the same in Iran and Saudi Arabia?" Is that it? Is that all you've got?
Face it old man: you backed the fascist, and the fascist lost. Don't you have the least bit of shame about that? Have you never once thought to yourself, "well gosh I didn't think this is a good idea, but look at how far we've come! I wish I could help!"
No, I imagine you haven't thought the latter at all. It might require you to do something other than shit on the accomplishments of better men than yourself.
Yet it is terribly ironic, is it not, that now just taking this position makes me a "right wing extremist?" My goodness how the world has changed!
Please address the following argument:
"Arguments of "freeing the oppressed" in Iraq fail miserably because there are far too many oppressive regimes in the world that we could easily topple and free the same number or even more of people being abused.
Arguments of "spreading democracy" in Iraq fail miserably because there are far too many oppressive regimes in the world that we could easily topple and replace with democratic governments."
I'm quoting from another blogger. I've heard this argument hundreds of times before (usually from people that wouldn't support war against any country at any time), but I'm too tired to rip it apart. Do you care to?
Honestly, Dean (and a lot of other people) have answered all of these before.
Here are the two starting answers. More if you need them.
1. Yes, there are lots of other nasty regimes. But Saddam Hussein's war on Kuwait -- never ended, remember, just a cease fire agreement -- plus his violations of sanctions, his firing upon patrol planes, all number of other crimes, and his violations of UN resolutions gave us the grounds under international law (including 14 UN resolutions) on which to act. These very same people you quote treat international law as holy writ. Now they're arguing: "Hey, why did you only overthrow the regime where you were justified under international law? Why didn't you ignore international law and overthrow any of these other regimes?"
2. Their argument is also just plain idiotic (and you can quote me). It's the equivalent of saying: "Why did you fix the roof, but not the door or the window? If you can't fix it all, you're a hypocrite for fixing any of it." You fix the things you can, one thing at a time; and you gotta start somewhere.
Those "arguments" (if I can dignify them with such a term) were asked three years ago, and answered. If the people making those arguments haven't heard the answers, it's because they're adamantly refusing to listen. But I'll bet that a lot of them have heard the answers, and are simply intellectually dishonest enough to pretend they don't know the answers. Those are exactly the moral degenerates Dean's pointing out.
There's also something I have often thought: "I am blessed by the enemies who have chosen me." That may sound very martial and aggressive, but I say it's a great compliment.
Women are being murdered on a daily basis in Iraq no, not for dissing Saddam, but for not wearing the veil. And that's progress?
And as for doubt, actually I've always acknowledged the worthy intentions of the invasion, I was actually agreeing that it was important now for the troops to stay, rather than withdraw. Unfortunately though the cult seems to have you well and truly in its grasp, so no debate there then.
"Elizabeth: There's an old adage which says, "never apologize, never explain." It's harsh, but there is much truth there.
There's also something I have often thought: "I am blessed by the enemies who have chosen me." That may sound very martial and aggressive, but I say it's a great compliment."
Excellent.
Where is Arnold Harris, by the way?
I must mention that, during that months-long debate before finally we took the War to Saddam, peace "protestors" led by A.N.S.W.E.R. were deliberately blocking, not only major traffic, but also were deliberately blocking entrances to emergency rooms in hospitals.
Women in Iraq reduced to being murdered for not wearing a veil? Pull the other one mate! Hahahahaahah! Is your sister's head sitting in your front yard for offending Blair then? Bwaahahahahaha!
Poor little man! Backed the fascist and lost, and now desperate to make a sow's ear out of silk. How sad it must be to be you!
It's hard to be wrong when you're on the side of freedom and democracy. Twenty, thirty, or forty years ago you'd have been called a pie-in-the-sky idealist.
Steve,
I see that argument too, and it always makes me laugh. The "house repair" metaphor above is quite good, but tyranny is so heinous I feel a crime metaphor is more apt. That argument is the equivalent of saying "Well, we can't stop every murder, rape, or robbery, so we shouldn't try to stop any of them." It's just not logical to say that since we can't right every wrong, we shouldn't right any.
Dale
Scale. You might think the death penalty administed under due process is wrong, but hundreds of thousands of people in mass graves is certainly far worse.
Under your scale-less reasoning, we'd be just as wrong to oppose Stalin or Mao. After all, even though they murdered perhaps 100 million between them, we do things people think are bad too.
Welcome to the ranks of the functionally illiterate. Contrast:
with Dean's post:
The moral case was made and made and made before we liberated Iraq. It was made by pundits, it was made by the President, and it was made and voted on and endorsed by Congress. Your continued insistence to the contrary proves that, though you may be able to read English words and sentences, you can only comprehend them when they fit your prejudices.
A final link to an item that underscores the point I was trying to make. But there's really not much point as you've no interest in anything that doesn't chime with your world view. Enjoy your universe Dean!
I can't believe that people think that's effective. All it does is let them feel smug and self satisfied when they leave, so they can hide from themselves just how badly they lost the debate.
Oh, and it usually raises the intelligence level in the discussion that comes after.
My point was that declaring war on the basis of moral arguments is a slippery slope. It pretty much justifies anyone declaring war on anyone.
Martin,
No actually Martin I read the resolution. I also read the 9/11 report. Did you? Moral arguments if they were made at all were a minor point. I've made the point before on this blog; the number of mentions of WMD greatly outnumbered any mentions of moral arguments.
Yes, you've made the same disingenuous point before. You start with "no one made those arguments until after the fact"; and then when called on it, you fall back on "number of mentions". You keep hoping that your disinformation will slide through and deceive somebody. Maybe on DU; but around here, you're gonna get called on it, every single time.
The moral argument was made, and made, and made. You don't want to admit it, because it undermines your point. That's sad.