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OP-ED: The right war for the wrong reasons
by David Fried
Forum | 2/3/04
Posted online at 3:44 AM EST on 2/3/04
With the advent of recent reports from our former weapons inspector David Kay, the question of our motives for going to war with Iraq is once again in the news. I feel this is a good time to do a thorough analysis of those issues, something that I, regrettably, have not heard on this campus.
The first argument against the war is that it was preemptive. This is silly. Pre-emptive war is merely a form of self-defense. Had it been as false intelligence indicated, that Saddam Hussein had the capabilities to launch a chemical or biological attack on the East Coast of the United States with only 45 minutes notice, it would have been our right and duty to attack him first. However, Saddam was never that imminent a danger to us. He was a threat to his people and his region, and was no doubt trying to become a threat to the United States. Nevertheless, his threat was not an immediate one. The problem is not with pre-emptive war, but with the fact that this could never be a pre-emptive war.
The second argument I have heard against the war is that because we have not yet found the weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), it is evident that Hussein never really had them. This argument, too, is ridiculous. Saddam used WMDs on his own people in 1989. We know he had them as late as 1998, when he kicked out our inspectors, who were in the process of finding and destroying them. Yet we cannot prove he had them when we went to war in 2003.
As Donald Rumsfeld would keenly point out, "absence of proof is not proof of absence." However, absence of proof still provides a valid argument against the war. If we have not found his weapons, then where are they? If they are no longer in Iraq, the most likely places for them to be would be with the Shiite extremists in Iran or with Hezbollah in Syria. These groups may well be a far bigger threat to the United States than Saddam ever was. If this is the case, disarming Saddam was not a successful military venture.
Yet another argument against the war is Bush's unilateralism. When something is the right thing to do, you have to do it, even when no one else is with you. However, having the right to go it alone does not mean that it is a virtue. When we went to war in Afghanistan after September 11, NATO offered its support, and Bush refused. When we finally did go to the U.N. about Iraq, and our threat of war got the inspectors back in, we were not truly open to the input of other nations. We did not give them any real incentives to join us, nor did we give the inspectors sufficient time to come back with a report that would have convinced other nations. When we snub our allies so many times, it is no wonder that they would not come to our aid when we needed them most.
The first argument against the war is that it was preemptive. This is silly. Pre-emptive war is merely a form of self-defense. Had it been as false intelligence indicated, that Saddam Hussein had the capabilities to launch a chemical or biological attack on the East Coast of the United States with only 45 minutes notice, it would have been our right and duty to attack him first. However, Saddam was never that imminent a danger to us. He was a threat to his people and his region, and was no doubt trying to become a threat to the United States. Nevertheless, his threat was not an immediate one. The problem is not with pre-emptive war, but with the fact that this could never be a pre-emptive war.
The second argument I have heard against the war is that because we have not yet found the weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), it is evident that Hussein never really had them. This argument, too, is ridiculous. Saddam used WMDs on his own people in 1989. We know he had them as late as 1998, when he kicked out our inspectors, who were in the process of finding and destroying them. Yet we cannot prove he had them when we went to war in 2003.
As Donald Rumsfeld would keenly point out, "absence of proof is not proof of absence." However, absence of proof still provides a valid argument against the war. If we have not found his weapons, then where are they? If they are no longer in Iraq, the most likely places for them to be would be with the Shiite extremists in Iran or with Hezbollah in Syria. These groups may well be a far bigger threat to the United States than Saddam ever was. If this is the case, disarming Saddam was not a successful military venture.
Yet another argument against the war is Bush's unilateralism. When something is the right thing to do, you have to do it, even when no one else is with you. However, having the right to go it alone does not mean that it is a virtue. When we went to war in Afghanistan after September 11, NATO offered its support, and Bush refused. When we finally did go to the U.N. about Iraq, and our threat of war got the inspectors back in, we were not truly open to the input of other nations. We did not give them any real incentives to join us, nor did we give the inspectors sufficient time to come back with a report that would have convinced other nations. When we snub our allies so many times, it is no wonder that they would not come to our aid when we needed them most.
