Take out the people listed there who got their information from the same source (the Bush White House and “Office of Special Projects”), and those who didn’t start a war without bothering to make sure of the facts (and denouncing the patriotism of those who did, btw), and who have you got left? Just Bush.
<snicker>
Your position is certainly clear. Wrong in pretty much every phase and aspect, demonstrably so, but clear.
rpavlick3 has done my work for me (thanks!) in demonstrating that your second sentence above is arrant nonsense. I have already dealt with the first. It does not seem to have sunk in that the truth of a proposition is independent both of the number of times it is made, and with what vehemence.
As I said, I would have been surprised if anything could get thru the invincible armor of “Bush is the anti-Christ” in which you and others have wrapped yourself. The Democratic party seems to be taking the same tack. And it does not seem to be doing well for you or your candidate.
But if that doesn’t worry you, it doesn’t worry me.
Regards,
Shodan
I agree in principle that that would have been a better time to do so, and it’s likely there would have been far less outcry, but what made March 2003 more appropriate and urgent than any other time since '91?
One last comment, and I’ll let all the big brains here continue to battle it out. It appears that some are arguing that the administration gets a free pass on the invasion based on the notion that the assumption of operational Iraqi nuclear or chemical weapons was an honest mistake. I don’t personally see how that totally mitigates our responsibility for what followed.
The argument is often made in these threads, and probably will be here soon enough, that the Iraqi civilians killed by the United States are less than would have been killed by Saddam’s regime, as if it is purely a numbers game. The problem here, IMO, is that this ignores the fact that WE (that is, instruments mainly of the US and UK) did the killing in this case, not the Ba’athists. Regardless of the theoretical rightness of deposing Saddam through war, the fact remains that the administrations of the US and UK chose an option that was guaranteed to, and in fact did, result in the wrongful deaths of a large number of powerless Iraqi citizens at the hands of their militaries. If you’re perfectly OK with that, then there’s nothing else I can discuss with you. Me, it bugs me a little.
Er, “you” being an editorial you, and not the person to whom I was responding in the first part of my post.
shodan: Only Bush started a war based on false and/or deliberately-filtered information about it. Only Bush. It’s his responsibility, and his alone. That’s been repeated to you because you still refuse to get it. Even Scylla of all partisans has acknowledged Bush’s having lied us into a war too, and he can out-snicker you in his sleep.
If you can come up with some actual facts and reasoning and principles, one of those “argument” things you may have heard of, let’s have 'em. Saying that other people were fooled too does not exonerate Bush, as has been explained already. They didn’t start a war anyway.
I don’t know if it’s a question of appropriateness as it is about timing and who’s butt is sitting in the Oval Office. Bush the Elder didn’t go in and then lost the election. Clinton didn’t have an opportunity to depose Saddam, although I don’t think he would have even if he had the opportunity. Bush the Younger (BtY) went in to the White House looking for an excuse to finish what his dad didn’t (or perhaps couldn’t). 9/11 was as good an opportunity that he may have gotten, even though Iraq had nothing to do with it. It did however open the door for military action in the name of fighting terrorism in various forms. One of those forms was made out to be Saddam. He’s from that part of the world, he has given support to some terrorists and his country has gone unchecked through UN inspections for years. Once UN inspections began again, there was something strange going on. It may have been simple posturing by Saddam, he was a man full of pride and arrogance. But he mis-judged BtY by thinking that nothing would happen. But instead of squandering possibly the only opportunity to finish the job, BtY took the little things he had and ran with them.
Y’know, I’m sitting here, trying to imagine an alternate reality where Bill Clinton did the same thing George W. Bush did: took a bunch of flimsy Iraqi WMD claims, waged a unilateral war with Iraq, overthrew Saddam with several thousand American lives lost, then pushed for an $87-billion-per-year Iraqi reconstruction budget, all without any actual WMDs having been found in Iraq.
I’m trying to imagine that, and then I try to imagine Shodan, John Mace, et al, staunchly defending Bill with arguments like “Hey, stop ragging on Clinton! He overthrew Saddam, that’s all that matters!”
…and the bubble bursts from implausibility overload.
Ok, in all seriousness, if you take out the “war-starting” stuff, how are Clinton’s actions, any dems quoted, different from the Bush? By yours and OP’s logic, everyone lied. Both Bush and Clinton sent destructive elements to Iraq, and justified it with their “lies” to the American people. Are Bush’s actions that much more reprehensible b/c he asked for a declaration of war? Because he put more American lives in direct conflict?
Maybe, but doesn’t that make your argument, “Hey, we’re only doing to them what they would do to us?”
Isn’t it possible that somebody supports the war because they honestly believe it’s right?
Very possibly true.
I, for one have already said that I wouldn’t have supported attacks against Iraq before 9/11. For me, that event demanded the US reconsider its entire approach to the Middle east, and foreign policy in general.
But WTF is your point? That they are partisans? Well, yes. And if Dubya cured cancer tomorrow, you’d say his failure to cure AIDS was proof of homophobia. Pot, meet Kettle.
Don’t confuse me with “Joe”. With “Joe”, I’m trying to get inside the head of the average voter you outlined in the OP. I may have put a bit of myself into Joe, but I’ve tried not to.
I disagreed with Bush on the invasion of Iraq. I just don’t ascribe some evil alterior motive to him, like you do. And I don’t think most people in this country do, either. In fact, I know most people don’t.
Oops. I thought I was in rjung’s thread. But my comments still hold. All these threads tend to boil down to the same thing anyway…
In all seriousness, you can’t. The lies aren’t the real point; they’re part of politics. The war is what makes the difference. The lies aren’t getting our people killed and maimed; the war is.
[/QUOTE]
John, you know most people don’t ascribe ulterior motives to Bush? How do you know that? And what do you know they will be thinking by November? No, friend, you’re still in the grip of your habit of wishful thinking.
What, if anything, do you think your linked thread proves?
Certainly. A bastard is out of power.
But they still have to explain away, or find a basis to live with the falsity of, the reasons that were given, and that formed the actual basis of public and Congressional consent. They also still have to explain the diversion of resources away from capturing or killing Bin Laden and destroying Al Qaeda, and the proclaiming of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia as allies when they were and are Al Qaeda’s primary sponsors - that only makes sense in the context of a premade decision to invade Iraq, despite the facts of 9/11.
Edited in to reflect what I actually said.
Pretty much the same way I know that most Americans do not support gay marriage. Because the polls continue to show this over and over again. I don’t have poll numbers showing this precisely, but I find it hard to believe that the majority of Americans would support the war (which they do) if they thought we went there for secret, evil reasons. Do you think they would?
I’ll be sure to include a full bibliography next time. What format do you prefer, MLA, APA, Chicago, CBE?
It’s precisely because Iraq isn’t filled with suicidal Islamic fundamentalists that makes it a good target for democratization. ** More importantly, it allowed us to remove our troops from Saudi Arabia, a situation which has always been cited by Al-Qaeda ideologues as a primary reason for their attacks. **
To answer the OP:
I think Shodan and furt have done an admirable job in pointing out the false dilemma in your OP. The argument for war was like a case based on circumstantial evidence: None of the evidence taken alone was enough to justify a war, but it eventually added up. To the list that many have given for why the public is generally for the war I would just add:
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It’s perceived that we were just finishing what we started 12 years ago.
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We kicked Saddam’s ass last time so the public felt we were on familiar ground. Had it been an unknown enemy it would have been a much tougher sell.
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France was against it.
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Like you said, we wanted to kick a little Arab ass.
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We won. Americans love to win.
Although we disagree on the Iraq war (I supported it, and continue to support it, although I have serious issues with how we’ve conducted the reconstruction), this is an important point, and those of us who supported the war ought to be profoundly disturbed about the failure to find WMD.
Why? Because the Iraq war marked the implementation of the pre-emptive war doctrine. In an age in which more and more folks who oughtn’t have WMDs are doing their best to get them, I supported the doctrine (or at least support the option of pre-emptive war). Whatever Saddam’s true capabilities were at the time of the war, I don’t doubt that he actively sought the WMDs. Given his history of stupid aggression (which I would categorize as being “unintentionally suicidal”) and the prospect of the odious Uday or Qusay succeeding him, I think the Middle East faced - in the near future - a Saddam (or son) armed with nasty stuff (IOW, a North Korea in the Middle East). That was an intolerable scenario.
I also didn’t buy the prospect of containment combined with sanctions being a formula for long-term success. Containment based on UN inspections would only work if there was an imminent threat of military force by the Anglo-Americans. Keeping a massive invasion force permanently based in Kuwait in order to enforce UN inspections invited further Arab rage (i.e. “infidel troops on Arab soil”). Certainly, there was no way to keep 150,000 American troops sitting in the desert on permanent hair trigger to invade to enforce the sanctions. And, at least to me, the moral argument against sanctions - considering how they disproportionately hurt the Iraqi people while the UN didn’t seem to mind Saddam making a mockery of the organization by pilfering from the oil for food program - outweighed any benefits (which seemed neglibible anyway).
However, the entire basis of the pre-emptive doctrine rests on possessing reliable intelligence about the enemy’s capabilities and intentions. For whatever reason, the intelligence has been exposed as woefully inadequate, which means our options for presenting a plausible casus belli the next time a crisis comes up are greatly diminished, which means we may have to suffer another mass casualty attack, or live with more than a few NBC-armed nutcases.
Considering the lack of WMD in Iraq, I would have a very hard time supporting another pre-emptive war. In fact, I would be right there with the anti-war Left in denouncing it. Pre-emptive war in the absence of provable, clear cut evidence is naked aggression, and I can’t support that knowing what we now know about the nature of the intelligence about Iraq (at least what has been publically disclosed and vetted). Unless we’re actually attacked, or are in obvious provable danger of being attacked, no way would I support any further aggression.
But that said, I sure don’t mind our enemies worrying about us, for a change.
Now, Stoid asks why I supported the war. Furt mentioned many of the “pro” reasons, and I’m on board with those reasons. I certainly think they outweighed the cons he listed. I suspect if you gave truth serum to most of the hawks, most would identify most with reason # 3: “Possibility of taking out Saddam deterring other rogue regimes.”
In a nutshell, I felt the status quo ante 9/11 in the Middle East was untenable, and would ultimately lead to a dead end - and catastrophe - for both Americans and residents of the MENA region - if we did not take serious action to try to influence the political culture of the region toward reform and liberalization (along the lines of what John Corrado said).
I think those people who would do America harm, or those nations that use/fund those same people in a proxy war against the U.S. and its allies, could always count on America preferring the comfort of the status quo, of prizing the almighty “stability.” Thus, incidents such as the taking of the hostages in 1979, the bombing of the Marine Barracks in 1983, the first World Trade Center bombing, the Khobar Towers, Somalia, USS Cole, and the embassy bombings were met with feckless responses that served to embolden terrorists and give comfort to those nations that fund them that no matter the outrage, they could get away with it. 9/11 changed that, obviously. Our enemies can’t count on our restraint any longer, and I’m OK with that.
I’d post more, but I’m going to Central America tomorrow morning for a week to check out the rainforest and volcanoes, and I gotta get some shut-eye.