Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

No Left Turns

A Letter from Saddam

I thought I’d share the following, which is making the rounds of the internet:

"I’ve divided Europe, I’ve put NATO into disarray, I’ve got American and British forces on my doorstep wasting billions of dollars to do nothing. The stock market has fallen to its lowest in ages; the American economy is faltering, and the UK is not doing too well either. I’ve got the leading artists and intellectuals in Europe to march and sign petitions, helping me to perpetuate the tyrannical oppression of my people. I’ve got lovely people from all over coming to Baghdad to act as human shields against military attack, so I don’t need to waste Iraqi lives doing it. And best of all, I’ve got both Osama Bin Laden calling for suicide attacks against my enemies, and Harold Pinter writing verses against my enemies. Oppressors could never have had it so good."

Discussions - 12 Comments

Are you sure that’s a letter from Saddam? Sounds like it could just as easily be a letter from President Bush.

Behind the glib response, what Mr. Little is saying is that there is no moral distinction between an American president and a Middle Eastern tyrant. What more response is necessary?

Mr. Moser is absolutely correct. When an American president behaves like a Middle Eastern tyrant (as is the case these days), there is no moral distinction between the two.

Sorry, I guess I must’ve missed reading in the newspapers how Bush used chemical weapons against Americans, launched invasions of Canada and Mexico, and had his son-in-law executed. At the same time, those reports of the president consulting Congress and asking the UN for resolutions were no doubt merely fabrications by a right-wing media. I thank Mr. Little for enlightening me.

Instead of addressing the issue of Bush’s behavior, Mr. Moser evades it by drawing a handful of ridiculous parallels. Bill O’Reilly would be proud. Nobody has suggested that Hussein is a saint (nobody has even suggested that he’s not a rotten human being) and nobody has suggested that changes are not needed, so please don’t demean this blog by trying to put words in my mouth

Let’s get real for a second. We can start by taking a look at the statement you originally posted to this blog. Do you REALLY believe that Saddam is responsible for the problems that the U.S. economy is experiencing? Do you REALLY think that hundreds of thousands of people would be taking to the streets in protest if we WEREN’T on the brink of entering a meaningless war, courtesy of George Bush and Tony Blair? I suppose it’s also Saddam’s fault that President Bush’s approval rating has dropped to 54 percent (NY Times, 2/14/02) or that 53% of all Americans disapprove of Bush’s foreign policy management (same poll). For that matter, I realized this morning that I’m missing a sock --- damn those Iraqis!

The fact of the matter is that the majority of the UN Security Council remains opposed to the forcible disarmament of Iraq. In spite of this fact, Bush continues to throw the weight of the United States around like a schoolyard bully, hiding behind our "moral obligation" to depose Saddam. Bush has gone on record as saying that we will not wait long for the U.N. to agree on waging war with Iraq, and there is little doubt that the U.S. will defy the UN Security Council if it comes down to it.

To suggest that toppling Saddam will transform Iraq into a viable, Western-style democracy (as a first step to stabilizing and pacifying the entire Arab world, no less) demands a special kind of naivete, and I suspect that few of those in favor of war actually believe it.

You talk about enlightenment in your last post. If Americans really wanted to be enlightened about the state of the world, we could start by exposing ourselves to something outside of the narrow U.S. geopolitical view. Try picking up a copy of the Guardian UK. Try visiting a mosque sometime. Try talking to a 9 year-old Afghanistan girl who had her arm blown off by a U.S. bomb while she slept. Do that and then come back to me and tell me how enlightened you are.

Please pardon the run-on paragraph. I failed to use paragraph tagss. Here are my thoughts again in what may be a more digestable format:

Instead of addressing the issue of Bush’s behavior, Mr. Moser evades it by drawing a handful of ridiculous parallels. Bill O’Reilly would be proud. Nobody has suggested that Hussein is a saint (nobody has even suggested that he’s not a rotten human being) and nobody has suggested that changes are not needed, so please don’t demean this blog by trying to put words in my mouth.

Let’s get real for a second. We can start by taking a look at the statement you originally posted to this blog. Do you REALLY believe that Saddam is responsible for the problems that the U.S. economy is experiencing? Do you REALLY think that hundreds of thousands of people would be taking to the streets in protest if we WEREN’T on the brink of entering a meaningless war, courtesy of George Bush and Tony Blair? I suppose it’s also Saddam’s fault that President Bush’s approval rating has dropped to 54 percent (NY Times, 2/14/02) or that 53% of all Americans disapprove of Bush’s foreign policy management (same poll). For that matter, I realized this morning that I’m missing a sock --- damn those Iraqis!

The fact of the matter is that the majority of the UN Security Council remains opposed to the forcible disarmament of Iraq. In spite of this fact, Bush continues to throw the weight of the United States around like a schoolyard bully, hiding behind our "moral obligation" to depose Saddam. Bush has gone on record as saying that we will not wait long for the U.N. to agree on waging war with Iraq, and there is little doubt that the U.S. will defy the UN Security Council if it comes down to it.

To suggest that toppling Saddam will transform Iraq into a viable, Western-style democracy (as a first step to stabilizing and pacifying the entire Arab world, no less) demands a special kind of naivete, and I suspect that few of those in favor of war actually believe it.

You talk about enlightenment in your last post. If Americans really wanted to be enlightened about the state of the world, we could start by exposing ourselves to something outside of the narrow U.S. geopolitical view. Try picking up a copy of the Guardian UK. Try visiting a mosque sometime. Try talking to a 9 year-old Afghanistan girl who had her arm blown off by a U.S. bomb while she slept. Do that and then come back to me and tell me how enlightened you are.

Dr. Moser: I wrote a long treatise attacking Matthew Little views. I pointed out various informal fallacies and at some point resorted to Ad Hominems of my own. At this point I decided the whole thing was too long, and reading it over I decided it wasn’t worth posting. Response to some arguments involve a leveling down process, in which the parts of us which we have least reason to be proud surface. I suggest that the portion of Bush’s popularity that is falling fastest would have to be among people such as myself who despise the innaction and bondage of our President to the UN security council, and world opinion. I give him bennefit of doubt because I am unsure how much of this is beyond his power. But there is even a problem with giving bennefit of the doubt. Bush gave the security council the bennefit of the doubt, Colin Powell then came on board and presented his view to the UN. The resolution was breached, beyond a shadow of doubt. That this would be true was clear to us, before hand, that this would be true to others was also clear. Each nation thus positioned itself, like a salesperson seeking to gain the winning bid. It should be clear that if the security council is not a farce the american/english position is the correct one. But the security council has always been a farce, the french knew all along that the continuation of the farce could make it such that in the end it is the U.S. that will have to defy the UN Security Council. Who disarmed us? Who is to blame for the current situation: Saddam? Or is it the moral authority we wrongly granted to other nations? Who started the leveling down, which would make possible such moral equivalence? Are half the nations in the UN sovereign by any right? Every day that goes by, another lawyer graduates from a leftist school with a concentration in International Law. What havoc has forever been wrecked upon us by farce, and caprice? If the security council speaks out against war, we should use it as a pretext for doing what we should do anyways: withdraw completely from the United Nations.

Okay, so now Mr. Little has claimed that the president is behaving like a Middle Eastern tyrant, and he accuses ME of making "ridiculous parallels." This thread has obviously reached the level of farce, and requires no further comment.

Quoth Mr. Little


"The fact of the matter is that the majority of the UN Security
Council remains opposed to the forcible disarmament of Iraq. In
spite of this fact, Bush continues to throw the weight of the
United States around like a schoolyard bully, hiding behind our
"moral obligation" to depose Saddam. Bush has gone on record as
saying that we will not wait long for the U.N. to agree on
waging war with Iraq, and there is little doubt that the U.S.
will defy the UN Security Council if it comes down to it."


So somehow, the U.N. security council with its dictatorships
(Syria, China) human rights violators (Angola, Pakistan) false
democracies (Cameroon, Guinea) bring "moral authority" to the
equation in case of the U.N Security Council?


Bah. Sir, I suggest the basis of your argument is so
fundamentally flawed, even your logic (such as it is) cannot
rescue it.


Quoth Mr. Little:


"Try picking up a copy of the Guardian UK."


You cite The Guardian as having other than a "narrow
geopolitical view"?


This must be your idea of humor

Ah, more Bill O’Reilly fans to Mr. Moser’s rescue. I have neither the time nor the inclination to respond to each ridiculous claim, but I’ll tackle of couple of my favorites:

Mr. Logan’s claim that we should defy the UN Security Council because other members are "human rights violators" or "false democracries" had me laughing out loud. This stance reminds me of a child who is losing a game, so he changes the rules time and again until he wins. Tell me, Mr. Logan, if the UN Security Council is such a joke, why did Powell and company waste their time making the presentation before the Security Council last month? Methinks that had the Security Council voted differently, you would not object.

The fact that Mr. Logan perceives the UK Guardian as having a narrow geopolitical view speaks volumes about Mr. Logan’s own world view. No further comment necessary.

With regard to Mr. Lewis’ "abbreviated" treatise, I don’t have much of a response, for - as Mr. Lewis begins to acknowledge - his response is rooted largely in opinion as opposed to fact (e.g. Mr. Lewis’ rationale to his opposition to President Bush). The issue of the U.S. involvement in the UN is probably subject for a blog of its own.

As for Mr. Moser, I wish you would have addressed even one of my arguments, or answered even one of the questions I posed to you. But the fact that you at least acknowledge that you are unable to formulate a response lends some dignity to your exit from this conversation. I continue to look forward to reading your blogs, and am certain that I will comment again in the future.

Quoth Mr. Little:


"Joke" is your word, not mine. But to answer your question:


#1. To try to save Tony Blair’s hide.


#2. To get some cover for other governments who support the U.S. position despite its unpopularity with their constituents.

By the way, sir, when you get through laughing at the point I made about the "moral authority" you have tried to impute to the Security Council, how about rebutting my argument instead of clumsily trying to avoid it?

SOOOOOOO... Let me get this straight. According to Mr. Logan, the United States has spent time, money and resources developing a presentation for the UN Security Council all because of some desire to "try to save Tony Blair’s hide."

Read that one on the Drudge Report, did ya?

Incidentally, speaking of moral authority, you may want to acquaint yourself with Just War Theory at some point.

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