You must mean as much of an excuse. Because all of the “primary reasons” used to justify/sell this invasion to the American public have fallen by the wayside.
They were either flat out lies, or, as others have mentioned, delusional wishful thinking. Personally, I am not inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt – least we forget, most of this was already mapped out years ago by the same people curently in power. Guess the devil is in the details.
As for unwashed brain’s** comment, that’s one hell of a slippery slope. Might makes right, ends justify the means…
If we all subscribed to that line of reasoning, how long would it be till WW-III broke out? Heck, you 'muricans keep Georgy Boy in power and we might still get to find out.
It depends on how you feel about the idea of informed consent. I don’t think that a president who ran on a platform that included misleading the public would get elected. However, if he did I do think that he public would’ve gotten what it asked for. If a pres doesn’t run on the deception is good for you platform then I would say, “No, the electorate wanted to return character and dignity to the White house.”
What seperates an acceptable instance of providing untruths to the electorate to btain permission and an unacceptable instance of fraud?
To be clear, I do not believe the ends always justify the means. The ends sometimes justify the means. Unfortunately, in the US, prevarication comes as naturally to most politicians as their photo-op smiles. Sometimes, however, good comes from it. I believe that to be the case in this matter.
Your judgment and opinions, of course. As a non-Aristotlian thinker, I am willing to accept that our President’s White Cowboy Hat has been smeared and stained mucking around in the American Political Process(pool) over the years. I realize that is less than ideal, but it is the reality we’re faced with. The bottom line for me is that I’m glad Saddam Hussein was deposed. Hopefully, the Iraqi people will be better off because we intervened.
How about this scenario? Before the war, Bush says that Saddam is a bad man, that he used to have WMDs, he had invaded Kuwait, etc., etc., and we are going to take him out on that basis. In other words, tell the truth. Now, public opinion might be against the war, but nowhere in the Constitution does it say a poll is required to go to war. He already had Congressional approval.
Nah, that would be an honest and brave thing to do. No way.
As for the quote, I am beginning to think Bush has lost touch with reality, and really deep down in his hear believes that there was evidence for WMDs, and Saddam did all the things that Cheney and Rummy told Bush he did. He’s going to be praying with Kissinger next. I’m scared too.
The problem with conspiracy theories, is ultimately someone has to have a motive. And what would that moive be for C & R? Pls don’t tell me it’s to get their oil buddies rich…
Very well then, John Mace, let’s have another go at this.
Your statement:
Are you saying that it will take knee-deep (so to speak) partisanship to accuse the president/his cabinet/any other culpable US official of any wrongdoing? I do not see the error in that assessment of your position, but hey, I ain’t perfect:)
A fair number of our fellow Dopers, both here and in the parallel Pit thread, have been engaged in an exercise in telling us what the President should have said, could have said and what they would have said had they occupied a high office of public honor and trust. It has been suggested (almost) that the President had a positive duty to deceive, dissemble, mislead and conceal in order to achieve the end of taking over Iraq.
For good or bad, however, we are stuck with the events as they have been publicly reported. We are stuck with what it has been publicly reported that the President, his authorized spokesmen, and cabinet and undercabinet officers have said and written. We are stuck with the arguments and representations made to Congress when it was asked to authorize the President to use the armed forces to disarm Iraq. We are stuck with what the President did say to Congress and the nation in the State of the Union Address about the reasons Iraq was a threat to the nation’s vital national interests. We are stuck with what the Secretary of State said in his address to the UN Security Counsel about the reasons the UN should authorize cohersive military action against Iraq and abandon efforts to bring Iraq into compliance with UN resolutions short of war. We are stuck with the things the President and his authorized people said about the justifications for war in the President’s address to the nation on the eve of the invasion and in frequent interviews and what his people said on numerous Sunday morning type news programs and press briefings. We can play could-a, should-a, would-a until the cows come home but it will not change what the President and his people did in fact say and publish.
Sooner or later the President will have to be taken at his word–not at the word some think or wish he had used.
The fact is inescapable that the reasons publicly stated as the reasons the United States had to invade Iraq have been debunked by events. We were told that Iraq was on the verge of having A-bombs, and maybe already had some. We have found nothing in the three months the United States has occupied Iraq that confirms that claim. We were told that Iraq had tactical qualities of deployed chemical and biological agents. In the three months the United States have occupied Iraq nothing has been uncovered that substantiates that claim, not even forensic traces of chemical or biological agents. We were told that Iraq had connections to terrorists, especially BenLaden’s outfit and was about to give that band of thugs nuclear, chemical and biological weapons if Iraq had not done so already. In the three months the US has occupied Iraq nothing has turned up to substantiate or confirm those claims.
What then has happened to our vaunted moral superiority if the pretext for the war was false?
Now we have the spectacle of the President, the chief magistrate of the nation, the commander in chief of the armed forces of the United States, standing up on his hind legs and just flat making stuff up. What sort of Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass world have we fallen into? Better that our President forget the “darned good intelligence,” the “bring it on,” the “he’ll never threaten anyone again,” and the “Sadam would not let the inspectors in.” Better for him just for once tell the nation and the world the real reasons, the high reasons of state, the goals and aims of this thing that is looking more and more like a war of aggression to secure Iraqi oil.
What criteria do you use for your judgements?
What opinions are relevant?
The overthrow of Hussein would, IYHO, outweigh, (what would hypothetically be), the overthrow of the sovereignty of the American electorate over their government in a matter of grave national import?
I’ve read quite a few well-written arguments on this board both for and against the war. Does anybody here actually wish Saddam Hussein was still in power? Regardless of the (political/economical) (reasons/conspiracies/motives) actually behind the invasion of Iraq, isn’t it a good thing that this unstable, murderous tyrant has been forcefully removed from power?
Actually, though all that is true, the more immediate reason was that we wanted to do some bombing for a bit, and it wasn’t considered safe for them to be there during that. After we bombed a bit, Saddam refused to let the inspectors back in. In fact, who knows, but maybe THAT is what Bush was talking about: at least that’s an event that did happen in the past, and fits what he said happened, even though it would make no sense in the sentance.
Funny, I thought it has been stated outright since the first hintling from Diogenes’ Pit thread about the credibility issues with the WMD evidence.
Given the issue of Freedom of the Press, this strikes me as being incorrect. And do most of us, if we are unsatisfied with what one news report has to say, go on to another (whether because of lack of information or any other reason)? Again, your point seems to be improperly stated.
If you mean that we should reply only upon what we know them to have said, this is a noble thought but given any substantially large group of people, conjecture is going to make its way into fact (say, I’ve run into that being done before coughWMDcough).
How fortunate, then, that the president has made it so utterly obvious that when it comes to appearing as a man of intelligence, of learned stature and of both common decency and desire for the truth, he choses instead … well, whatever it is he’s going for now. I don’t think intelligence or truth have much to do with it.
The President has lost, to many, all benefit of doubt he may have had. I do believe this is rather thoroughly documented not only on this MB but also in the newsmedia.
To many, it is gone. To some, it matters not that the reasons given for the invasion (or rather, the reasons repeated *ad infinitum et nauseam) have been uncovered as shaky in extremis at best. The rest of the citizenry of the world, I think, is somewhere in between.
See my previous comments and Apos’ regarding the last time a president told the truth when he had initially lied/spoken inaccurately/imcompletely/etc on anything remotely serious. It is a damn shame, but there are few who can realistically believe that this is going to happen barring some sort of trial.
A well thought-out post on your part, IMO. In any sufficiently long post one is bound to draw comments, and mine are not necessarily meant to say that you are completely wrong, only that there is ample room for discussion (thus the forum:D).
Well, I expect you’ll look high and low on this board before anyone will say that they are pining for the good ol’ days under Hussein. However, the way you’ve asked the question sets up a false dilemma - either support Hussein or endorse the manner in which he was removed. Many anti-war folks are likely to have preferred option C - remove Hussein in a different fashion. Some others might have argued for D - Hussein was the lesser of the evils compared to removing him. In that case, it’s still good that he’s gone, but that’s small comfort with the prospect of no end to the mess.
Hehe…I didn’t mean it to sound like I was implying that if you were against the war or how it went down that you supported Hussein’s regime. That’s just as lame as suggesting you don’t support our troops if you’re against the war. :rolleyes:
I’d have preferred option C, but I guess I’m one of the few Dopers posting to this thread who can live with option B (or whichever letter indicates what actually happened.)
Motives for a US invasion/occupation of Iraq have already been hashed out over the last few months, John. I’m sure you can read up on them with the board’s search feature.
That said … why can’t we attribute “get their oil buddies rich” as (one of) the motives for this war? I mean, geez, Haliburton is now sitting on a $9 billion-a-year Iraqi reconstruction contract that has no caps on spending, no limits on duration, and no competitive bidding. Cheney is currently getting up to $1 million a year from Haliburton, and is still holding on to $8 million in stock options. And assuming Dick Cheney doesn’t die in office, he’s going to leave the White House eventually – and there’s nothing preventing him from returning to Haliburton and getting even more stocks/payments/bonuses as a “signing fee”. And, of course, making your buddies rich is not exactly an act of charity, is it?
So why shouldn’t we count “making rich Texan energy moguls richer” as a motive for this war? Aside from it being a difficult position for the Bush apologists, I mean.
Well you may include, but I don’t think it is true.
My personal analysis is the War was done because the core group of thinkers, Wolfie, Perle, Cheney, Rummy really believed it was necessary and had utterly convinced themselves of the story they actually sold to the public.
In that respect, I believe the real story is not lying per se, it is, as I said, an almost criminal level of self-delusion. That’s far more dangerous.
A bit of lying in the public service is forgivable, at least to a cynic like myself. The public often doesn’t grasp what is necessary. However, self-delusion to the point that one is caught in outright lies that one believed to be true is incompetence of a very dangerous sort.
I might add that Wolfowitz really believes transformation can come through military action. I noted in the past I personally argued with him about Algeria once, years ago. He reallyt thought the French could have done something. Now I am afraid the particulars escape me now, I had a lot to drink, but his actions to date are of no surprise in the context of what I recall from this.
Well y’know… The students are rising up in Iran, Syria is pulling 10,000 troops out of Lebanon and otherwise behaving themselves, the Palestinian peace process has moved farther than it has in years, the Saudis are beginning to crack down on their extremist elements, and there seems to be some honest introspection starting to occur in the general Arab press.
And the first act of the new Iraqi governing council was to turn the day the U.S. invasion culminated in the fall of Saddam into a national holiday. And we’re only 10 weeks into the post-war phase.
Now granted, there are some serious problems in Iraq. It looks like the U.S. is facing quite a large guerrilla army and all that. But really, don’t you think that at least Wolfowitz and company are thinking that they were proven correct? From where I’m sitting, it looks like the fall of Saddam was indeed a catalyst for change in the region. And that was Wolfowitz’s whole theory.
