Lib Dem Leadership Contest

I think this proves that it was a conspiracy. If it wasn't, then all countries would have gone to war, and not only the ones who are aliied to the U.S.A..
I remember that there was this 'McDonalds' toy, where you had to build a yellow pyramid with pieces, and I was playing with that. I remember that an article on the television said that weapons inspectors declared that he had no weapons, and that Bush thinks it was a trick. He said that if he doesn't really destroy them, he will go to war. I remember thinking that he won't do it. They are only empty threats. he has been saying this since the summer, and he hasn't done it. I was quite annoyed that this story kept finding its way into my house / dad's car etc.. I also thought that nothing will be good enough for him, and that we will be hearing these threats for a long time.
In his attempt to build up, and make the case seem bigger, the exuses diminished. This is when, I.M.O., the lies started to be told.

The whole thing in Iraq reminded me of a sketch Rory Bremner did as the first president George Bush.

He said, 'When going into a country we have to ask serious questions. Are there any diamonds there? Is there any oil there?'

No - because each country made a judgment call about the threat Saddam posed. Those that believed he posed an imminent threat supported the war. Those that believed he was dangerous, but not dangerous enough to launch a pre-emptive war on, ultimately opposed the war - despite their support for resolution 1441. It doesn't mean those countries didn't believe Saddam had WMD or that he didn't pose any threat whatsoever, they just didn't think the magnitude of the threat warranted military intervention. In hindsight, that's fair enough - but I can tell you, had anyone at the time said to me, "Iraq doesn't have WMD", I would have called them totally insane and out of touch with reality... such was the power of conventional wisdom at that time. In the end, I was wrong - but then so was everyone else, because I never heard anyone say that. Not a single person. Opponents of the war criticised the war because they didn't see it as necessary - now though, opponents of the war like to argue they never believed Saddam had WMD, and that it was all a lie, and that's why they didn't support the war. And if you want to talk about misleading conduct - it's the anti-war crowd that has it down to a fine art, because even countries opposed to the war still believed Saddam had WMD. That was never the debate.


The problem with empty threats is that they don't actually achieve anything. If I constantly threaten you, and tell you every time I see you that the next time we meet, I'm going to beat you up unless you give me a million dollars, but never actually do, then you're not going to feel the least bit threatened by me. It's all puff - no substance. It's not a credible threat. Now, that might be the French attitude towards international relations, but it's not a terribly effective one.

If you tell somebody you're going to do something - whether it's one nation's leader to another or a parent to a child - and then you never actually do it, then you won't be taken seriously. In the case of Saddam, the UN's talk had gone on long enough - for over a decade since the end of the Gulf War - and given his non-compliance, 1441 promised "serious consequences" (political speak for military action in most languages - but not French). Saddam it appeared, did not comply, and therefore those serious consequences had to be imposed. You simply can't go around issuing threats unless you're prepared to back them up. This action, even if it was based on faulty intelligence, definitively proved to countries in breach of UN and other international obligations that they couldn't count on UN rhetoric continuining ad infinitum - that at some point, at least some nations would be prepared to take action if they saw there was a serious threat.

No. I wasn't questioning that they new that there were weapons in Iraq, or whether or not they believed that there were then weapons in Iraq. i was questioning the integrity of the actions that the U.S. made, and the decisions other countries made.
I was pointing out that how come that other countries who had the same intelligence (true or false) took one decision, and Bush another decision?

I don't think it was as clear cut as that. If you take the major members of the UN Security Council for example;

Russia: Had close ties to the Saddam regime and would not have attacked it. Russia was doing business with Iraq.

France: Tend to behave like the Swiss these days and back away from any type of confrontation that may include military force.

They are the two 'biggies' that come to mind at the UN, there are a lot of smaller countries and countries that simply wouldn't have the manpower to launch such a millitary campaign.

The Spanish, Australians, Canadians, and a few other counties did send small troop parties to the war effort, so it wasn't just 'Bush'.

Many countries agreed that Saddam was a tyrent and that he had WMD. Quietly, many backed his removal.

That's my two pennies worth anyway...

By 'Bush' I mean 'Bush' representing all of these countries, often against their will.

Fair points made.

You could argue that Russia didn't join the conspiracy, because they didn't need to. Although, I can see your point.

I like these debates, it really broadens your thinking.
They could have traded with the new Iraq too. Citizens might have refused though, agrevated that they tradded with Saddam?

I still believe the conspiracy.

These debates are superb, until some in the minority start slinging insults when someone doesn't agree with them......

If everyone tradeed opinions and acknowledged others, it would be a superb place to debate the current news agenda, and slip in some presentation stuff too!!

Totally agree.
When the world are sleep-walking (under Bush) to their doom, the last thing you should do is sling insults at them :-p

I don't know whether to start a new thread, or slip it in here. I'm not sure because this is a natural progression of this thread, despite not being about Charles Kennedy anymore :s.

If you think I should put this in a new thread, then please tell me.

There was a brilliant documentary on 'More4' called 'Why the Arabs Hate the West'. It explained that despite they acknoledged that we thought that we are doing the right thing, some of the East think that we are not. They are against the war. Next is about Guatamina Bay i know that is not the spelling :s. I wanted to watch 'Invasion' on 'E4', so i'll swich to 'More4+1' when it is on. I know Guatam... is bad. There are allegations of torture. Go to the 'Amnesty International' website. Blair and Bush discussed whether to bomb the 'Al Jazera' buildings. That is an Arab news channel. They put it like them bombing the 'BBC' headq'. They felt it was like our governments didn't want them to have the things we have.
Our governments think that they are anti-war. They say that they were just reporting what happened. They were reporting the atrociates that were happening, and all they were doing is exposing the truth. Also, they say that they reported coverage of Iraqis giving soldiers flowers. They say they are unbias.
It was a very fascinating doc'.

Quote: Mr Q:
"I simply can't accept the view that governments around the world conspired to lie to their people to go to war in Iraq."

Then - and I mean this in the best possible way - you're a misguided fool. If four men (Churchill, Truman, deGaulle and Stalin) can carve up a country (Germany) and start a 40-year period of mistrust and poverty and nuclear standoff, then I'm sure four or five countries (USA, UK, Australia, Spain etc) can conspire to invade a country so rich in oil it will supplement the world's petrol supplies for decades.

Open your eyes and live in the real world with the rest of us. That goes for you too Dunedin. Don't ever call me an imbecile again.

Except the conspiracy could not have simply involved the countries that went to war, because France, Germany, Russia, and others all believed Saddam had WMD as well. Up until Hans Blix, UN weapons inspectors believed he had WMD. The question was never did Saddam have WMD or not, but rather, should we go to war over it?

I am also sceptical about claims that the Iraq war is/was all about oil. Blind Freddy could have seen that starting a war in the Middle East was going to cause oil prices to sky-rocket. That's what instability in an area rich in oil does. It's the same with Nigeria and Venezuela and other oil-producing nations too. Furthermore, this line was trotted out back during the first Gulf War (or the second depending on how you describe the Iran-Iraq war) when a coalition of nations helped repel Iraq out of Kuwait - people argued that the only reason the US and other countries went to war was so they could gain access to Kuwaiti oil fields. Yet even after helping rebuild those oil fields, they remain very much in Kuwaiti control. Why anyone should think that anything different would happen in Iraq now absolutely astounds me. Oil revenue is the only way the new Iraq is ever going to be able to survive - gifting control of them to the US or whoever else would be like signing their own death warrant. Democratic Iraq needs oil and other natural resources to try and increase prosperity throughout the country. Without it, the country has no serious prospects for the immediate future - and as such, would inevitably lead to its collapse.

People should quite rightly be critical in their assessments of governments and their actions. I don't believe in blind faith. But I don't believe in conspiracy theories either.



And, by the way, as for your analogy to the aftermath of World War II... I'm sure you were trying to make a point there, I just don't know what.

Well Mr.Q has pretty much summed up the main points here already. Presumably the unanimous decision to endorse resolution 1441 didn't actually happen in your make-believe world?

The difference between the UK/US/Australia etc. etc. and France is that when a UN resolution has been broken for so long they actually tried to do something about it. France talked the talk (about the importance of the UN) but didn't walk the walk- just like they failed to support action in Kosovo (effectively backing ethnic clensing by another dictator). And now we know that the French were dealing in oil with Saddam behind the UN's (corrupt) back.

Your analogy with the break up of Berlin is staggeringly confused and poorly chosen- the form of DEMOCRACY and elections put in place by our forces ensures a parliamentary system and some degree of unity in Iraq. Without it, it is highly likely that the country would have split in three along religious lines upon the downfall of Saddam Hussein (not necessarily by Western forces- his natural death would probably have triggered uprisings). Years of civil war would have been likely to follow.

The only relevance of your Berlin analogy is that the world has learnt its lesson- we're installing democracy into a country after years of brutal dictatorship, and ensuring it still exists as one country.