NZ Bear is soliciting input for an upcoming blog-vs-blog debate over intervention in Iraq; in the opposing corner, we have the folks at the anti-war blog Stand Down. each side will present five questions to the other side to the other side, and the Ursine One wants suggestions for the list.

My suggestions:

• In the general case, do you believe that extreme human rights violation alone -- e.g., genocide -- is sufficient cause for armed intervention? If so, what standard should apply, and how far is Saddam Hussein's regime from that threshold?

• If Saddam Hussein obtained a nuclear weapon -- either by building it or buying it -- what do you believe he would do with it?

• Do you believe Saddam Hussein's regime is becoming more dangerous to the West, less dangerous, or neither, with the passing of time? Would a reversal of the US/UK buildup for invasion alter this trend, and if so, in what way?

• What do you believe is the proper and appropriate US response to an attempt by a foreign power to assassinate a former US President?

• Do you believe it is appropriate for the US and/or the UN to pressure (by non-military means) Saddam Hussein's regime to forsake WMDs? If so, what means should be used, and what evidence is there that such means may be more successful in the future than they have been in the past?

• If the US and UK were to agree to forsake military intervention in Iraq, and pursue other means of pressuring Iraq to disarm, do you believe that it would be possible to maintain solidarity among our allies in maintaining such pressure, or would some -- let's be frank, we're talking about France here -- push for complete normalization of relations? If so, would they be right to do so?

• To what degree do you believe that French, German, and Russian opposition to war with Iraq are influenced by those countries existing oil business relations with Iraq?

• Should the United States pursue a peace treaty with Iraq (in place of the cease-fire that has been in effect the last eleven years); if so, with what terms, and with what means of assurance that Saddam Hussein's regime honors its commitments under such a treaty?

• Inasmuch as opposition to armed intervention in Iraq is based on the need to respect national sovreignty, or opposition to colonialism, or the need for UN approval of armed intervention, to what degree do those same objections apply to France's ongoing, non-UN-approved, armed intervention in the sovereign nation of Ivory Coast?
  

If you have any suggestions of your own, please add them to the comments on this post at The Truth Laid Bear.

Friedrich wins on points, though it might go the other way if they added a swimsuit competition.

Remember a year ago, when the War on Iraq couldn't possibly go forward until a lasting peace had been established between Israel and the Palestinians? Personally, I thought that meme had been stomped flat a long time ago. But this excuse for inaction idea has been floated again, in a Wall Street Journal editorial by former National Security Advisers Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski (no free link, sorry).

David Frum gives this tired idea the trashing it deserves in his NRO column:

So: Brzezinski and Scowcroft are advocating that the U.S. embark on another probably doomed attempt to midwife a Palestinian state in order to win European, Arab, and Muslim support for an Iraq policy that Brzezinski and Scowcroft oppose. That's illogical enough. But what elevates the illogic to almost postmodern levels is that the U.S. is in fact already winning the Arab and European support that Brzezinski and Scowcroft say it cannot win. Meanwhile, the countries that continue to oppose U.S. policy in Iraq – like France and Russia – do not even bother to cite the Palestinian issue as an excuse.

I just don't get why all the old Foggy Bottom apparatchiks cling to the idea that the Peace Process is not only still a going concern, but should not be predicated upon any actual, y'know, peace. Israel apparently must simply make every concession asked of it (and if necessary, the US must compel them to concede), in exchange for nothing more than a promise from a man who has never kept a promise in his life. Liberal democracy must be punished, and barbarians who celebrate the mass murder of Americans must be rewarded, because ... well, just because. Just take their word for it; they're the experts.

Feh. Brent and Zbig are exactly where they belong: far, far away from any position of power or consequence.

(P.S.: Sorry for going over a week without blogging. More to follow soon; specifically, I will have a set of responses to the anti-war questions in the Great Cross-Blog Debate shortly.)

Having wrung out as much cash as possible from the Austin Powers franchise, Mike Myers has a new set of projects in mind, and an unusual (if not entirely unprecendented) intent.

HOLLYWOOD (Variety) - Mike Myers has inked an unusual production deal with DreamWorks in which the actor will insert himself, other actors and new plots into existing films to create new properties.

The studio is calling the process "film sampling," similar to the music business practice in which an artist takes part of an existing song and works it into his own tune, sometimes with new lyrics and music.

The article cites Woody Allen's What's up, Tiger Lily? as a precedent; but I am reminded more of Steve Martin's Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, which intercut scenes of Martin and his costars (including Rachel Ward, as I live and breathe heavily) with scenes from various noir classics. Imagine the same thing done using the same technology applied in Forrest Gump to show Tom Hanks hobnobbing with Lyndon Johnson, John Lennon, etc.

It's one of those things that could easily be done badly; it would be nice if it had some appeal beyond the novelty of the technique. The good people at Pixar know that, and their productions are good movies first, and technological marvels second. That's why people still love to watch Toy Story, but only Babylon 5 fans still care about Tron.

Speaking of Pixar, they have a new one coming out soon, Finding Nemo (trailer here). First toys, then bugs, and now fish. They're slowly creeping up on more flexible, more organic characters as their technology improves, and they have the good sense not to try to do people before the technology is good enough.

As promised, here are my responses to the five anti-war questions in The Truth Laid Bear's Cross-Blog Iraq Debate

1. Attacking Iraq has been publicly called a "pre-emption" of a threat from Saddam Hussein's regime, whose sins include launching regional wars of aggression. Do you think there is a clear and reliable difference between pre-emptive and aggressive warfare, and if so, what is it?

The difference is one of intent: is the goal conquest and possession of territories, or the imposition of benign political change, followed by withdrawal? Intent is in general difficult to prove; it may be impossible to prove altogether, other than in hindsight.

All that can be done is to look to past precedents for guidance. Based on this, Iraqi actions against Iran and Kuwait were unquestionably cts of aggression, since the goal was to seize and permanently hold enemy territory for material gain.

By contrast, it has been over a century since the United States waged a war of conquest. The last significant permanent acquisition of territory through warfare was the Spanish-American War; and of all the possessions gained then, only Puerto Rico and Guam remain under US control (and Puerto Rico has been offered both statehood and independence, and has turned down both). Territory captured in World War I, World War II, the Cold War, Panama, Grenada, Kuwait, and the former Yugoslavia is now all under the control of the local populations. In the case of Kuwait, there was not even an effort to establish a new regime; the old government was restored, more or less intact (for better or worse).

If the United States were to try to turn Iraq into a colonial possession, it would be a reversal of a century of precedent; and given the notorious isolationism of the American people, and the perpetual popularity of calls to "bring our boys home", such a move would not be popular with the American public. It is far more likely that we will withdraw too soon, rather than linger too long.

2. What do you feel are the prospects that an invasion of Iraq will succeed in a) maintaining it as a stable entity and b) in turning it into a democracy? Are there any precedents in the past 50 years that influence your answer?

Precedents within the time window specified are few, largely because that period was taken up by the Cold War. During that conflict, American foreign policy was focused (rightly or wrongly) on containing the Soviet Union and maintaining the stability of our strategic allies, rather than on human rights and democratic reforms. Nonetheless, there has been promising liberalization and democratization the former Eastern Bloc countries, and the European nations that were once Soviet "republics" (with the exception of Belarus). Also, South Korea and Taiwan, both within the American sphere of influence, have become more open and democratic during this period. Finally, South America, which was dominated by military dictatorships and totalitarian socialist regimes through the 1970s, is now almost wholly democratic; Mark Steyn has argued that this process began when the Galtieri regime in Argentina was discredited and overthrown in the aftermath of the Falkland Islands War. The fact that these changes took place without American occupation (and in some cases with no American military presence at all) should bode well for the potential for reform in any country liberated from an oppressive regime.

Further, I object to the 50-year time limit imposed in this question; it seems calculated to exclude the most obvious and successful precedents, post-war Germany and Japan. The intent may be to limit comparisons to more comparable eras, implicitly assuming that the more recent the date, the more similar the circumstances. However, most of the fifty-year period in question was taken up by a world-encircling conflict which is now (mostly) resolved. It is indeed the period just prior to this fifty year window -- the immediate post-war era from 1945-53 -- that is most closely analogous to our present situation: we have emerged from a world-wide conflict (WWII then, the Cold War now) as the most potent military force in the world (then due to our sole possession of the atom bomb and our intact indutrial base, now because of our general prosperity, and our edge in military technology, strategy, and doctrine). The indisputably successful post-war occupation, reconstruction, and democratic reform of Japan and Germany is therefore an especially apt precedent.

3. How successful do you think the military operations and "regime change" in Afghanistan have been in achieving their stated objectives? Does this example affect your feelings about war in Iraq in any way?

How does this the Afghan experience affect our "feelings" on Iraq? Why, it makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside. How nice of you to ask. But it might be more pertinent to ask how it affects our thoughts about the war ...

Since the main stated objective in Afghanistan was to deprive al-Qaeda of its base of operations, and the protection provided by Afghanistan's sovreignty, this operation was a roaring success: what elements of al-Qaeda remain in Afghanistan are in hiding or on the run, their bases and training grounds are destroyed; a wealth of intelligence data was captured; and they have only been able to carry out two significant operations since the fall of Afghanistan (the bombings in Kenya and Bali).

That Afghanistan has not been transformed into a Jeffersonian ideal of pluralistic democracy in the year-plus-change since the collapse of the Taliban is not a sign of failure; Athens was not built in a day. There are signs of progress (women going back to school, returning to practice medicine, and appointed to judgeships), and the potential for further improvement where before there was none. And with the now-reliable delivery of food and medical aid, free from pilfering, graft, and obstruction by the Taliban, many more lives have been saved by the war than were lost in it. Compared to the other options available to Afghanistan -- continued rule by the Taliban, or elimination of the Taliban without allied presence afterward -- this is unquestionably the most constructive path to choose, and even if it should eventually fail, we have no reason to regret choosing it.

4. As a basis for war, the Bush Administration accuses Iraq of trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction (chemical, biological, nuclear), supporting terrorism, and brutalizing their own people. Since Iraq is not the only country engaged in these actions, under what circumstances should the US go to war with other such nations, in addition to going to war with Iraq?

I reject the implicit argument that we should not consider liberating Iraq unless we are willing to do the same with every brutal regime within reach. Should charities withhold food because they don't have enough to feed everyone in need? Should police refrain from fighting crime because they lack the resources to eliminate all crime?

There is one strategic factor not mentioned in the question that gives the Iraq situation special urgency: possessed of nuclear weapons, Saddam would use them in pursuit of the same goals he had before the 1991 war: domination of a significant portion of the world's oil reserves. This would give Saddam an intolerable amount of power over the west, as well as more revenue with which to fund whatever ambitions he might harbor beyond this. (We faced a similar situation with the Noriega regime in Panama, which aspired to control the Panama Canal.) It seems inevitable that he would come into conflict with Israel, a conflict which could easily escalate into a nuclear exchange, with millions of lives lost on both sides.

His attempt to assassinate former President Bush made no sense from a strategic standpoint; it seemed to be motivated by either hatred of the United States, or a desire to enhance his image with anti-American elements in the Muslim world. Either motiviation suggests he would consider a terrorist strike against the US using WMDs, even if it made no strategic sense to do so.

Each of the traits of the Iraqi Ba'ath regime is duplicated elsewhere, but the unique combination of the near-term prospect of the aquisition of nuclear weapons, past belligerence and desire for regional domination, past underestimation of the consequences of belligerence, and a location of profound strategic importance to the west, makes Saddam Hussein's regime uniquely important and dangerous.

5. The Bush Administration has issued numerous allegations about the threat represented by Iraq, many of which have been criticized in some quarters as hearsay, speculation or misstatements. Which of the Administration's allegations do you feel stand up best to those criticisms?

It is hard to deny that Iraq possesses, and is actively concealing, chemical weapons. They have not only possessed, but have actually used, such weapons in the past; they have verifiably purchased the means to make more; they have been unable to substantiate their claim to have destroyed such weapons; they have been found to possess missile warheads designed to deploy chemical weapons; and suspect activities observed by US intelligence (and presented to the UNSC by Colin Powell) around facilites designated for imminent inspection have included a chem-warfare decontamination vehicle.

I find all of the evidence presented by Colin Powell to the UNSC credible, chiefly because the French, Germans, and Russians have not challenged its authenticity or accuracy, nor the US's interpretation of that evidence. If those governments believed that they could plausibly challenge the evidence, they doubtless would do so, as it would strengthen their own position. The fact that they have not done so indicates that, however vague the evidence may seem to a lay audience, even the most skeptical of knowledgeable observers consider the evidence unassailable.

That there is cooperation between the Ba'ath regime and al-Qaeda is plausible; but on the other hand unproven; but on the third hand, probably unproveable even if true. The regime's linkage to other terrorist organizations is a matter of record: its sponsorship of Hamas, its payments to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, and the fact that terrorsts Abu Abbas and Abu Nidal both chose Iraq as a safe haven. It is plausible that the "iceberg theory" applies: that what is visible and known is only a fraction of what actually exists. Finally, Saddam's decision to send his Air Force to Iran before the allied attack in the first Gulf War indicate that he is willing to make alliances with former enemies if threatened by a greater non-Islamic adversary; the same logic could apply to al-Qaeda.

Apparently it's not just Americans who are ignorant of history; the image shown here was taken in at the Hyde Park anti-war protests in London. Britons, of all people, should remember the folly of Neville Chamberlain's errand to Munich. I'm sure Vaclav Havel would be more than happy to explain matters to the airhead holding this sign.

"Peace in our time" is a sufficiently offbeat phrase that I doubt that some protestor just happened to hit upon it by chance. More likely, he asked someone -- e.g., a college roomie -- to suggest a slogan for his sign; that someone was less anti-war -- and less ignorant -- than our peacenik friend, and used the request as an opportunity to monkeywrench the protest.

Still, as Charles Johnson points out, the fact that the protestors are ignorant is to be expected; what's shocking is that the Reuters copy editor who wrote the caption didn't have a clue either.

(Link via InstaPundit and LGF.)

Bill Whittle has a new essay; that's all you need to know. Read it.

Bloggers' two favorite companies are Google and Pyra Labs; the latter operates the Blogger service and free (though flaky) hosting at BlogSpot.

Now, where there were two, there is now one.

I would love to see Google do for blogs what it has done for Usenet and news services, though I hope they don't limit their aggregation ambitions to just Blogger and Blogspot weblogs.

Something for the anti-war protestors to keep in mind: you may say that you don't approve of Saddam Hussein, but he approves of you, and that ought to give you pause:

Iraq was gloating Sunday over the global outpouring of opposition to a possible U.S.-led war against the country, saying the rallies by millions of people signaled an Iraqi victory and "the defeat and isolation of America."

The CNN report fails to make a critical distinction, between Iraq the people, and Iraq the government. The Iraqi people said nothing; they are not allowed to speak other than to say what Saddam wants them to say. Mark Steyn had a tart reminder that the marchers are purporting to defend people who don't want their "help":

Why not ask an Iraqi what the disadvantages of stalemate are? As far as Saddam's subjects are concerned, the "peace" movement means peace for you and Tony Benn and Sheryl Crow and Susan Sarandon, and a prison for them. I was in Montreal last week, which has the largest Iraqi population in North America. I've yet to meet one who isn't waiting eagerly for the day the liberation of their homeland begins. Then they can go back to the surviving members of their families and not have to live in a country where it's winter 10 months of the year...

Today's demo is good for Saddam, but bad for the Iraqi people, and the Palestinian people, and the British people. One day, not long from now, when Iraq is free, they will despise those who marched to keep them in hell.

The betting window is closed; the fat lady has sung; the Cross-Blog Iraq Debate is finished, and NZ Bear has the roundup of the Pro-War arguments, including my own humble offering. I think this is the longest blog posting I've ever seen; take comfort, Bill Whittle, you no longer hold the record.

Well, right away I see a problem with my own stuff, in comparison to the others: too wordy, too pretentious in phrasing, too many modifers... *

I'll be digging into this post more when I have some time for it. And if Stand Down publishes a similar roundup, I'll update this post to include a link.

UPDATE 19-Feb-2003: And here it is.

* ...and a tendency to bury the lede. Gotta work on that.