The Iraq War was justified

Assertive Strawmans / Silly StatementsMy opponent argues that my argument, which I didn't even make in this debate, that the premise of America being good is unjustified, must be a strawman as he did not make that claim. What I said to that last round was that it is a necessary premise of his argument. Just because one does not directly state a claim does not mean that claim is not made. Rather than merely repeat his own claim, my opponent actually needed to engage with this counter-argument if he wanted to win this point. Adding to the list of things which were not assertive, nor were they strawmans, my opponent brings up my claim that Saddam did not trust Al Qaeda, and claims he did not make the claim of any connection. Allow me to simply quote directly from my opponent's case in round two, where he argues that "The Institute for Defense Analysis uncovers many different points of connection between Saddam and al Qaeda", and goes on to show what these are. Now we come to the sole argument my opponent could identify as silly. My opponent notes that an interest in weapons is not the standard for invasion, but rather argues one must also be. ..1- Arab2- A dictator3- Have used weapons of mass destruction to kill at least 200,000 people4- More than 50% of those people must be the subject's own citizensIt is interesting to me why the only non silly interpretation of my opponent's argument 3.1 is to also include all of these premises. None of the above would appear to follow logically. But let us assume they do. First, Saddam does not fulfil criteria number 3. While he killed a lot of people, he did not kill all or even most (and many would say, any) people using weapons of mass destruction. My opponent had no source to back up this claim. But even if he did, these criteria are themselves unjustified. It appears my opponent is simply using adjectives which he thinks describe Saddam and using them to justify the Iraq war. This is a tautology - he is merely defining wars on Iraq as being justified wars, and using that to prove wars on Iraq are justified. What my opponent needed to do was to actually back up all these claims. My opponent then immediately contradicts his own standard by saying a passing interest is not sufficient - the standard should be an active interest. This comes back to my point about defense justifying attack. Almost every nation on earth has an interest in weapons technology. Not only that, but the aggressor nation had a development interest, as well as availability. If the goal of the invasion was to end interest in WMDs, a particularly poor way to do that is to invade, thereby protecting the USA and their WMD arsenal. ContextMy opponent says the Lancet revised their earlier estimate. The Lancet is in fact a medical journal, rather analogous to a book publisher, but for medical academics. Later estimates are therefore not revisions or even challenges of previous data. In this instance, my opponent cited a sensational news story, of what was essentially a peer reviewed version of the Iraq body count project. This uses a different method - asking governments, hospitals etc. However, these agencies miss many of the casulties of war (. http://en.wikipedia.org...). The earlier 2006 survey, which was based on asking the Iraqi people, can thus be said to be more reliable. I do not accept that saving lives is a legitimate reason for war, which ends lives, but regardless lives have not been saved by invading Iraq. My opponent adds Iraqis do not feel there is a civil war. They can feel what they like. The fact is that ordinary Iraqis are being blown up in planned, ruthless attacks, killing each other. I did not say there was a "civil war", but nevertheless the current conditions in Iraq are not exactly ideal to live in. Charges against SaddamMy opponent conceeds the trial was not fair. Therefore, the need for the trial does not justify that attack. He also disputes some of my sources, but keeps it a secret which ones, so I can't answer him there. That political decisions were made which were contrary to the interests of the United States did show that Saddam did not like the United States; I do not contest that. I am saying that opposition to a nation is niether a moral nor a legal justification for war. It is completely analogous to, say, Iran attacking Israel for being hostile to Iran. It also presumes that defense justifies attack, yet again. My opponent conceeds this when he says political decisions are not a sufficient standard for invasion - rather, it is political decisions with the potential for a WMD. But of course, potential for a WMD is again based on political decisions, making this quite silly. The two cannot be seperated in this discussion. Stopping terroristsMy opponent re-asserts this argument, but again he does not engage with my rebuttal. He merely asserts there have been deaths, but does not provide his source, unlike me. Furthermore, he cites two shootings, which are generally not counted as terrorist attacks. In any event the threat was not justified. My CaseMy opponent has given no substantive counter-arguments to my substantive, that war is never justified. Therefore, my entire case is conceeded by my opponent (again).