In depth post on American politics from me

[sabotabby]

The combination of this headline: "Obama may peg Clinton for top post" and this photo:



have put images in my mind. Bad images. Because I am 10.

P.S. If you don't know what that hand gesture is and/or what "pegging" is, please ask a grown-up.

Comments

Re: As an unapologetic remaining fan of the Clinton years

[sabotabby]

flow which was entirely within Hussein's power to restore

Theoretically, it is within Hamas' power to restore the flow of medicine, water-purification equipment, and food into Gaza. However, this sets up a situation where a stronger political power can demand whatever it likes of a weaker political power. I'm fairly certain that the country doing the embargo-ing is the one directly culpable for any deaths that result, rather than the country being embargoed. One doesn't need to be a fan of Saddam Hussein to see why caving to American pressure might not have been in anyone's best interest.

(Of course, if he were a decent leader, he would have redirected his own vast wealth and resources to stop his people from dying. But I'm not arguing that he was a decent leader, just that the Clinton administration was perfectly capable of seeing the fatal consequences of their policies and went ahead with them anyway.)

Anarcho-Jesuit? I hardly think it's an extremist position that economics can be as violent as bombs. Otherwise no one would bother with a thing like sanctions.

And I haven't even brought up NAFTA yet.

Re: As an unapologetic remaining fan of the Clinton years

[caprinus.livejournal.com]

Well, unfortunately I've got to leave work now, and won't be back at a computer for a while, so I'll just focus on the one point I cannot see us agreeing on: no, of course economic pressure is not as violent as bombs. WTF kind of a crazy idea is that? What's your definition of violence? Anything that makes anyone feel bad? *throws up hands*

Seriously, I do not understand. It's like I am back at church and the priest is trying to tell me the little wafer is literally the body of Christ. You're doing violence to my brain! My synapses are frying! Won't someone think of my synapses?! ;_;

Re: As an unapologetic remaining fan of the Clinton years

[sabotabby]

Is it still Godwinning if I bring up the fact that if we don't count economics as a form of violence, Stalin's off the hook for practically everything but the purges and gulags?

Re: As an unapologetic remaining fan of the Clinton years

[dubaiwalla.livejournal.com]

But I'm not arguing that he was a decent leader, just that the Clinton administration was perfectly capable of seeing the fatal consequences of their policies and went ahead with them anyway.
Yes. But I am inclined to believe the alternatives were not especially appealing either. We now know that Saddam spent several years trying to maintain WMD programs after the Gulf War, and only really shut them down after his sons-in-law defected with information on them. Had Iraq been allowed unrestricted trade, he might've continued to build up these programs, and he would certainly have continued to brutally and violently oppress his own people. Which again amounts to large-scale suffering, although it is hard to quantify and compare this counterfactual case. Plus other countries may have been tempted to develop WMD programs as well, and the slippery slope there could easily involve well over a half million deaths should nuclear war have been the outcome. The West tried (belatedly, it must be said) to ease the suffering of Iraqis through oil for food, and Saddam stole from those funds too, conniving with the governments and/or officials of a number of countries (although not the US or UK, for obvious reasons) using the vouchers scheme.

Did Saddam have to give in to demands from other powers to get rid of sanctions? Sure, but opening Iraq up to inspections was reasonable, given the circumstances, and would have been in the interests of the world as whole. So yeah, the large-scale deaths were obviously a terrible, terrible thing, but I'm not sure Clinton had any good options there, and I certainly don't think he can be held culpable at a level even remotely resembling Saddam.

Re: As an unapologetic remaining fan of the Clinton years

[sabotabby]

I disagree, but then, I think that the threat Saddam posed, even locally, has been vastly overrated and besides, hypotheticals are not enough to justify such a thing.

But then, I have the unpopular opinion that the U.S. is on extremely shaky ground demanding inspections from anyone, even bloodthirsty tin-pot dictators.

Re: As an unapologetic remaining fan of the Clinton years

[dubaiwalla.livejournal.com]

the threat Saddam posed, even locally, has been vastly overrated
The conventional threat he posed to his neighbors? Sure. But this was a man who attacked four different countries and used chemical weapons in war and against his own people. Keeping WMDs out of his hands was worth paying a high price for, because there was every chance he would want to use them.

I believe the real question is whether the price was too high, given that it involved so many deaths. The answer depends on your view of various hypothetical situations. I don't have a firm view myself, but I can at least make a convincing case it was the least-bad alternative. As a consequence, I can't use the term 'war criminal' to describe Clinton when speaking about his actions here.

Also, for the record, the inspections were conducted by the IAEA which had every right to be there under international law owing to Iraq's treaty obligations, including the peace deal it signed after Kuwait was liberated.

[one-serious-cat.livejournal.com]

I don't have a firm view myself, but I can at least make a convincing case it was the least-bad alternative.

By all means, do so. Because I haven't read one yet.

[dubaiwalla.livejournal.com]

There were two major alternatives to sanctions by the time Clinton took office.

One was to march to Baghdad and replace the government. Clinton may or may not have had worse results than Bush II, but the experience of 2003 until present suggests we would still have had large-scale death and destruction, in large part directly attributable to American forces. I'm going to guess this was not what you had in mind.

The other would be to drop the sanctions. Now, while I believe Iraq was too weak to threaten its neighbors using conventional weapons in 2003, the major reason for this was the sanctions. Saddam Hussein hadn't mellowed out, but he didn't have the air force or missiles to do serious damage. Had he been allowed to import anything he wanted, you can be damn sure he would have tried to sneak in weaponry. He spent the 80s importing dual-use equipment and using it in weapons programs. A more threatening Iraq could have almost halted the recovery of places like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia from the Gulf War, and greatly slowed economic development elsewhere in the region.

As mentioned above, I think dropping the sanctions would have tempted other countries to cheat on WMD proliferation regimes. The worst-case scenario here would be eventual nuclear armageddon (not necessarily triggered by Iraq). Saddam might not have had any real links to Al Qaeda, but let us not lose sight of the fact that he did support terrorists (e.g. Abu Nidal), and may conceivably have tried to give them biological or chemical weapons if he thought he could do so without having an attack traced back to him.

Iraq would probably have tried to assert sovereignty in the Kurdish north of the country, leading to a loss of (relative) liberty for millions of people there who had carved out what was, in practice, a nearly independent state. (It became clear even before Clinton took office that Iraqis were in no position to spontaneously rise up against Saddam, and so the sanctions very clearly failed to cause a revolution, as policymakers hoped. But Baathist Iraq was extremely oppressive before and after 1990-1, and so for people living outside the Kurdish areas, levels of political freedom were probably not all that much different, even though economic conditions deteriorated sharply. Keep in mind also that some of their suffering was artificially induced by Saddam not distributing food and medicine equitably, or refusing to cooperate with inspectors.)

So instead the United States and the rest of the West chose sanctions, arguing that if Saddam really cared about his people, he would fulfill his treaty obligations in order to help them. He cared more about personal power, and a great many Iraqis paid the price. Was the United States complicit in this? Sure. But was there a silver bullet policy that could have prevented suffering without risking major long-term problems in the region and elsewhere? I don't see it.