Well, hell, let’s look at the positive side. At least you know where the WMD’s aren’t. Fearless Misleader’s just playing a riskier, bully-boy version of Where’s Waldo – with other people’s lives. Unorthodox player that he is, he took a gamble by pointing at Iraq, defying conventional wisdom and not checking places such as North Korea or “friendly” Pakistan first.
Of course, Waldo packs a mighty punch in both of those two places…and he wouldn’t be found swimming in oil either.
Go figure.
Well, for one thing, this will put to rest your snarky comments about the American press and the gullibility of the American people, Rojo, as the storm of outrage and fury breaks out over this. Any second now! Here it comes! Yessiree, Bob, big ol’ storm of outrage. Wait a tick, it’s coming!
…(crickets chirping)…
Don’t despair, compañero. I’m sure you can still rely on your fellow countrymen for the swell of outrage.
Or do you mean to tell us that you’ve lost faith on such solid, upright Seekers Of The Truth®, as Scylla, Bricker and Starving Artist, to name but a few?
Any minute now, they’ll be coming right into this thread to express their outrage. Just you wait and see…though you might want to do so in your favorite chaise-longue.
Didn’t Scylla say that the WMDs would be produced by Thanksgiving 2003?
At any rate, don’t count on any outrage from the Right. They’re too busy swallowing the propaganda fed them by Fox news and talkradio, or, as my bf’s father said, “Those WMDs are in Syria.” :smack: There’s just no getting through to people who aren’t at home to critical thinking.
Aww, come on! Don’t leave out my favorite, Sam “Smile of David Kay” Stone. The surety that he drew from merely observing the smile on the newly appointed inspector was inspiring and unforgettable! Of course, the eventual turning of that smile upside down did not have the opposite effect.
Actually, I do retain a smattering of such hope. There is an honest Right, yes, West Virginia, they do exist! And, as fearful as the prospect is, and it is…they represent our best hope right now. They know this is a load of crap and they face a moral dilemma we don’t face: whether to line up in support of horseshit, or opt to place integrity and honesty above partisan politics.
Admittedly, it doesn’t look rosy. But, here and there, there are signs of hope.
Hmm. The way I remember it is “If there is hope, it lies with the proles”.
That is to say, us.
With help from the Righteous Gentiles like treis.
We found the ultimate WMD in Iraq and we’ve been building upon it.
It’s called hate. Iraqis hate the Americans more than before and Americans hate the Iraqis more.
Sadly, I think your only real hope is the ultimate inability of the majority* of the American people (right and left) to stomach the self-inflicted carnage that comes with the price of empire. As proof I offer the direct correlation between the declining popularity of the Iraq invasion with the number of American deaths.
*I have solid reasons to believe that The Spartans (and we have a few right here) are ultimately greatly outnumbered. Must admit, there’s also quite a bit of hoping involved.
Hector, hate to crush your feelings so bluntly, but quite frankly don’t know how welse to put it: Sam, The Man, is not a compatriot of yours!
I know, I know, it’ll be hard to recover from this one, but The Man’s actually Kanadian. Their gain, your lost. 
Well, this is all pretty anti-climactic, isn’t it? The REAL search for WMDs was given up quite awhile ago, so this might just be considered the “closing ceremony”. Bush can cling to the idea that WMDs weren’t to ONLY reason for invading (techincally true, if you look at the wording of the resolution Congress passed in Oct '02), but clearly it was the MAJOR reason. Major by a long shot.
Now, say you’re the Commander in Chief of the armed forces. Forget about whether you’re a Dem or Pubbie. For the sake of argument, let’s say Kerry had won the election and we were where we are right now. No way is Kerry going to cut and run-- he made that VERY clear during the election. What does Kerry say at this point, knowing that he’s always speaking to the troops on matters like this? Does he say “Man, that was a big waste of effort. Sorry guys, we made a huge mistake, but you’ll have to stick it out over there for 4 or 5 more years. Keep your chins up!”
There is no good way to talk your way out of this. Bush had to say something like he did, as any CiC would. I guess I don’t see the gloating, though. Can someone point out the particular quote that evokes that image?
I’m all for trashing Bush because of getting us into the Iraq war. I think he shouldn’t have been re-elected for that simple reason. And he hasn’t done much, if anything, to fix the errors in decision making process that led to the whole “WMDs are a threat” in the first place. But, trashing him for saying the war was still worth it is just silly. He’s gotta say it. He’s gotta keep the troops over there motivated one or another.
casdave:
Oh, goody. So let me follow your logic:
Ah, for the days when people WISHED they could take what their president says at face value.
CMK: Back when Bush was trying to get the support of the UN, how much time did Powell spend at the UN providing evidence about the non-WMD reasons Bush gave for the war?
Good point… add to that the quality of the information given was sad and resorting to “drama” with the fake anthrax. Powell really was made a clown…
Probably because Bush thinks it was the right thing to do whether or not there were WMD there I guess. Short of getting him to come on this message board and honestly answer we can only guess. Myself, I think the WMD were just an excuse. Oh, I have no doubt that the Administration and Bush THOUGHT they were there. But they weren’t the primary reason we invaded Iraq IMHO. As they weren’t the primary reasons and as, at least in Bush’s mind, the ends justified the means, I think this reasonably answers the OP.
A more interesting question IMO for this OP would have been: In spite of the absense of WMD in Iraq was it worth it for the US to invade? Had there been WMD would it have been worth it?
Myself, whether or not there were WMD in Iraq is irrelevent…it still wouldn’t have been worth it for the US to invade and tie down such a huge portion of our military in a grinding campaign of occupation as Iraq was a contained threat, at least at that time…even with the corruption of the Oil for Food program. Now, a few years down the pike if sanctions had been lifted…that might have been another kettle of fish. But not when we invaded.
Only for the most critical and vital reasons does a nation commit so much of its force to something thats bound to be this ugly and take this long…and cost this much. Iraq, from everything I’ve read and infered, doesn’t meet that criteria IMO. Now, perhaps the Administration knows something I don’t…but if so, they aren’t telling so I have to go on what I know.
-XT
I agree. In fact, I remember back in 2002 cringing everytime I heard someone say “WMD!!” as if it were some magic incantation that was supposed to make me want to go to war. I first joined this message board about that time, and can remember arguing that I was MUCH more worried about terrorists getting “WMDs” from NK, Iran, or one of the former Soviet Republics. Even if I thought Iraq did have WMD, they’d be a bit player in the international weapons trade. Besides, we already had them hunkered down like no other WMD possessing country.
I would’ve supported a full scale invasion of Iraq during the first Gulf War, but WMDs just don’t cut it-- they’re a dime a dozen. Besides, lets not forget that the biggest terror attack on the US in history was accomplished with box cutters.
Who cares? The post being responded to suggested that Bush didn’t really have any other justifications for going to war despite admitting that Bush gave other justifications for going to war. The reason that we know Bush didn’t really mean any of those other reasons is that … er, … Bushilterburton!
No one is disputing that the Bush admin’s main justification in speeches was that Hussein either had or was dangerously close to getting WMD that he would use against American interests. But you can’t suggest that Bush’s only justification for going to war was WMD. Nor can you suggest that the justifications given by Bush were the only reasons I can think invading Iraq was a good decision. I had lots of reasons, and I’ve listed them in (probably) dozens of threads since before the war.
And for me, there wasn’t ever one particular cause that was the reason the war in Iraq was a good idea. It was the fact that everything about Iraq smelled like trouble. Hussein was a brutal totalitarian. He had a track record of torturing and murdering his own people. He had a track record of attacking his neighbors. He had a track record of working against our interests in the region. He had a track record of supporting terrorism in Palestine and elsewhere. He had a track record of encouraging destability in the Middle East. He had a track record of defying the UN. He had a track record of defying the international community. He had shown the sanctions would not change his methods of governing. He had a track record of trying to develop WMD. He had a track record of attacking Americans and American interests. It seemed likely that if Hussein ever got WMD, he’d use them against the US or its allies. It also seemed likely that invading Iraq would give us an opportunity to fight terror in places other than our own backyards; that terrorists in the Middle East would swarm to Iraq to fight our troops, instead of crossing into New York or LA to attack our civilians. It seemed likely that terrorists would be less able to fight a two front war. It seemed possible that by going into Iraq, we could shut down terrorist training camps. It also seemed possible that establishing a Democratic foothold in the Middle East would make it easier for democracies to be established elsewhere in the Middle East. And it seemed plausible that the Iraqi government, which we’d helped free from an oppressive regime, would look fondly enough on the US to allow us to establish a base of operations there, which would lessen our dependence on Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Plus, Iraq was being beaten down by oppressive sanctions that were inextricably tied to a dictator that showed no desire to free his people from the bonds of those sanctions; therefore, it would be helpful to finally get rid of this jackass that was killing thousands of his own people by refusing to comply with the UN. And also, Iraq was sitting on a buttload of oil, which was (supposedly) not making it to the market; and it never hurts to have a friend that’s got a couple million barrels a day of strategic reserves; and it probably wouldn’t hurt the global and US economy to free up that oil. And, of course, we already had a significant presence in Iraq patrolling the No Fly zones, and therefore continuing with the status quo meant leaving American military lives and millions of dollars spent keeping Hussein “in his box” for the indefinite future. So Iraqis would be better off without Hussein, our allies would be better off without Hussein, and the US would be better of without Hussein. And we could probably take him out without suffering horrendous casualties. [There are probably other reasons, but you get the point.]
The mere presence of one of those reasons is probably not enough to justify putting American lives on the line to invade and rebuild a country. But in my opinion, the fact that all those reasons were present is and was enough. And the fact that giant quantities of WMD were not found means that the reasons for war were diminished slightly, but not totally.
John Mace:
What, he needed to allocate time to proving that Saddam Hussein murdered Kurds en masse, refused access to UN inspectors, etc.? These are things that everyone already knew.
It takes time was to make a case for what people are not yet certain about.
In addition, let’s not confuse “primary” with “only.” Just because something appears to be of higher importance, that does not erase the mention of other things, less important though they might have been. Given less prominence != not mentioned.
A lot of us knew with foresight that it was the wrong thing to do. Unfortunately, not enough people listened to us.
No, only that the other reasons were minor. Very minor. Minor enough that there would have been little, if any, suppor to go to war if they were the only issues.
No WMDs, no war resolution in Congress. It’s that simple.
Self-defense or a UN mandate are the only legitimate reasons to go to war. Bush knew that. He couldn’t get a UN mandate, so he made a case for self-defense and the facts didn’t bear it out. But the majority of Americans obviously didn’t care, and voted him back in office. It’s like a bad movie, but that’s what happened.