Victor Davis Hanson speaking at UC Berkeley on April 29

This is a video of Victor Davis Hanson speaking on "The Threat of Totalitarian Islam," at UC Berkeley on April 29, where he appeared with Daniel Pipes and Yaron Brook. The audio quality is not the best, because the microphones weren't working properly -- and the video is grainy because I had to zoom in from a long distance away. This video is part of a larger report about the event at http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=16

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Victor
• Davis
• Hanson
• Berkeley
• zombie
• zombietime
• Daniel
• Pipes
• Islam

[clonach1]

Don't divert! There is no threat of Totalitarian Islam. There is A real THREAT of ZIONIST TOTALITARIANISM.

911 is an inside job engeneered by the ZIONISTS AMERICAN JEWS.

[MrJs1G]

@davepx

Damn, even though I disagree with most of what you said, I can't help but applaud you for such civility, research, and analytical ability.

If only all YouTube discourse were like yours and thegland's...

[davepx]

It' wasn't the media, it's the US & UK governments that used the WMD tag to conflate nuclear and garden-shed materials. Saddam not only pretended to have chemical weapons in the 1980s, he used them against Iran and they did likewise. But those were destroyed in the summer of 1991. So we end up with 100,000 (and possibly several times as many) dead and 4 million refugees, for nothing. And Bush & Blair knew it.

Another two years? Why invade when there were no legitimate grounds anyway?

[krm6886]

@davepx

As you know, WMD teminology has been, like everything else, butchered by the media. Chemical weapons AND nuclear weapons are often included, often divided. Saddam intentionally pretended to have chemical stockpiles (both Saddam and Aziz admitted this numerous times) as a bluff against Iran. This is why he disallowed some sites for inspection.

Note: you denied a nuclear program and then qualified by saying "not after 1991"??

Re: invasion, I wouldve waited another 2 years...

[davepx]

@krm6886

You're the one shouting things out & hoping nobody'll challenge them. Saddam had no WMD program after 1991. We knew enough long before the invasion. Millions were affected by Saddam's rule? And the millions displaced by the invasion's murderous aftermath? "Mistakes were made" is something of an understatement: the whole enterprise was a moronic catastrophe. Don't congratulate me, congratulate the invasion lobby for making Saddam's rule seem not so bad after all.

[krm6886]

@davepx

Oh, Christ. Okay, you'll need to do some actual reading to facilitate a legitimate debate, you cant just yell things out and hope you're right. Saddam DID have a defunct nuclear program that we didnt fully know about until after the invasion. Yes inspectors were in Iraq, but they werent allowed everywhere (plus, as I said, it was HALTED prior).

I'm glad you could stomach Saddam's reign, since you were unaffected. Millions of Iraqis were. But yes, mistakes were made. Congrats.

[davepx]

@krm6886

"Saddam had just recently halted his secret nuclear program and was refusing access to inspectors."

Huh? What "secret nuclear program"? There was none. And the inspectors were back in Iraq. It was Washington that told them to get out in March 2003, not Saddam.

Saddam still "owning" Iraq? So what? It'd mean far fewer Iraqi dead, and it'd mean a powerful counter to Iranian aspirations. The US got rid of one minor Sunni irritant and created a Shia regional superpower. Nice going.

[krm6886]

@davepx The UN resolution authorizing the first Gulf War was never fulfilled, and thus was still in-effect. Further, the UN did pass a resolution that threatened (not directly quoted) "further means" if Saddam continued in violation of both sanctions and law. You seem to forget that Saddam had just recently halted his secret nuclear program and was refusing access to inspectors. Still further, your defense of Saddam (had it been successful) would have resulted in him STILL owning Iraq.

[davepx]

Well that's very nice of you - as you say, nice to enjoy a civilized exchange of differing views on such a touchy matter.

[davepx]

None of them grounds for war without UN authorization (which wouldn't have been forthcoming because Saddam wasn't attacking anyone in 2003): that's why we created the UN in the first place. It's no good condemning others (selectively) for breaching UN resolutions while ripping up the whole Charter, as the invasion did.