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Monday
December 27, 2004

A Retroactive Analysis of National Security Casus Belli for the Iraq War: Part 1 by Jonathan Rick

Linz has graciously allowed me to post my senior thesis here piecemeal. Since it is a draft, not due until April, I’m hoping for your most rigorous feedback.

Please note that
1. I am still working on Iraqi Collaboration with Al Qaeda outside 9/11.
2. I address Saddam’s collaboration with Al Qaeda and his deterrability, not the advisability of the war itself.
3. All my information comes from material publicly available before the war began.

See http://students.hamilton.edu/2005/jrick/thesis.htm for updates.

Thanks, Jon
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Discuss this Article (6 messages)

Post 0

Monday, December 27, 2004 - 4:37pm

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Jonathan,

With the proviso that you and I don’t have access to everything that the intelligence communities know, I would say that you are probably correct that the Al Qaeda connection was trumped-up.

The real reason to occupy Iraq was to surround and deter the master terrorist: Iran. Right now the Iranian regime knows that we don’t care if they regularly have lunch with Bin Laden or not, they had better start to, because if there is another 9/11—it’s the end for them.

Bush should have stated the reason for Iraq. His failure to do so in no way detracts from the right of any free country to attack and destroy a regime that recognizes no one’s rights, Iraq and Iran included. Stated or not, I believe Iran understands him perfectly clear.

Jon

Post 1

Tuesday, December 28, 2004 - 1:46am

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Jon wrote:

"Bush should have stated the reason for Iraq. His failure to do so in no way detracts from the right of any free country to attack and destroy a regime that recognizes no one’s rights, Iraq and Iran included."

I want to say that my agreement to let Jonathan post his thesis here in no way implies my endorsement of any Saddamite agenda. My own position on the liberation of Iraq should be clear to anyone who's been here for any length of time. I support it. I regard anyone who publicly opposes it as a treacherous Saddamite, undeserving of the freedom of which he takes advantage to state his opposition.

Linz

Post 2

Tuesday, December 28, 2004 - 6:29am

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For some reason the URLs in my footnotes didn't come through. If you're interested (which I doubt most are, but at least I'll put it out there), you can view the links at http://students.hamilton.edu/2005/jrick/thesis.htm

Post 3

Thursday, December 30, 2004 - 3:01am

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> The real reason to occupy Iraq was to surround and deter the master terrorist: Iran.

Why not then occupy Iran?! (Not that I agree with that goal.)

Post 4

Thursday, December 30, 2004 - 8:41am

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Why not indeed. Hopefully we will not have to, but will force change without invasion. We can only take on so much at once. Iran is the tougher nut to crack, so we did Iraq first. Occupation is not the goal, forcing change, like we did in Japan, for example, is the goal.

Jon

Post 5

Thursday, February 3 - 3:52pm

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Jonathan,

You should have let us know you were going to be on O’Reilly’s Fox News show! I had it on hard disk and watched it today. Unfortunately, I lost almost every word you spoke to weather-related satellite snafus.

Can you post anything about the Ward Churchill situation?

Jon