Because China is subsidizing them. In addition North Korea almost 100% ethnically Korean while Iraq was divided among Sunni and Shia Arabs along with Kurds (not to mention the smaller groups like the Iraqi Christians, Assyrians, etc.).
[QUOTE=Sam Stone;15895911
The other reason for the war was that the U.S. started with a bipartisan strategy of threats and intimidation against Saddam, including massing tens of thousands of soldiers on his border. I’ve never heard a good strategy for unwinding all of that in the face of Saddam’s complete intransigence. The U.S. made the threat, and when Saddam thumbed his nose, they had to carry it out or risk making Saddam a hero and making the U.S. look like it had been beaten.[/QUOTE]
It wasn’t until later that i realized i may have been in a tiny minority who were fooled by a lie when pres bush responded to some worried mothers of troops on the border to say “we’re doing everything necessary to avoid war”. I believed that and thought it was going to be a very expensive show of force to gain compliance, but was confident they’d know a war and occupation would be hundreds times more expensive. The facts we learned later was the admin was obsessed with taking over iraq from the first days. A brief glimpse into pres cheney’s secret energy policy (before he closed the door again) produced a map of the known iraq oil fields being awarded to friendly oil companies. The brits learned the admin had already committed to war, no matter if iraq complied with everything and was just looking ffor a reason. They didn’t even ask the CIA to produce an NIE report to deliberate on the facts because it could only serve to neuter their plan for war.
Before invasion, the threats and intimidation became one directional, when the admin started pressuring anyone who might oppose war, including the UN and military brass, who all knew there was more data necessary for justification. Dems were castrated by the admin (through their official media channel at foxnews) due to a campaign designed to destroy anyone who opposed them. The public was manipulated through a campaign to keep them in a continuous state of fear regarding impending mushroom clouds and more terrorists living next door. Any honest politician who dared even suggest a reasoned discussion, was viciously attacked and labeled “unpatriotic”. This was blatently evident when they named a most egregious of unconstitutional law (that would gall the forefathers) “the patriot act”, to force it’s passage. The UN became the biggest “threat” to them when they were in a position to prove the claims of the admin, regarding where they believed WMDs were stored. The UN inspection teams had an unprecidented ,unrestricted freedom of movement to look at anything they wanted. The admin knew the public might not support an invasion once these teams proved war wasn’t necessary, so they had fox demonize the UN as much as possible, before telling them to leave iraq for their safety. Pres bush said “you’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists”, leaving even our traditional allies intimidated, when abstaining was the most reasonable position to take. Countries were intimidated and cajoled into joining bush’s war coalition (the “coalition of the bribed”) which was far different from the more honest one his father formed in the gulf war.
I too would see the wmd reasoning neutral because it was the official reason explained by wolfowitz, one of the chief planners. He felt that was the most acceptable for public support. The other reasons cite the UN, when in reality the admin clearly demonstrated how they didn’t respect that organization’s opinion, and even associated it with their enemy (“conspiring to be pro-saddam!”). Its no surprise the righties fall back on citing the UN, even after they’ve totally demonized them through foxnews, because they have no ammo in the facts category.
Also, its getting so tired to see the right lazily using old, old talking points without ever having to explain them better or answering challenges to them. All they say is something is “liberal”, and their heavily programmed followers “get it”. I didn’t see that show, but would bet bolling didn’t bother to correct that “liberal” school book with facts he believed were more appropriate.
This. It’s despicable that Bush et al lied so perniciously to the American people.
And this. There are several articles in which Wolfowitz and his ilk have admitted in so many words that the WMD pretext was a ruse unrelated to their real motives. Seeing the right-wingers in this thread continue to parrot the WMD pretext reminds us how rampant ignorance is.
Thanks, good post that. And it got all of 9 replies…
Keep in mind that crew had decided to invade Iraq long before GWB even took office:
I can never figure out why they don’t take stuff like that, or this (PDF), which acknowledges the difficulty of selling their agenda to the American people unless they are able to exploit the emotional reaction to “a new Pearl Harbor,” off of their website.
PNAC was shut down in 2006. I wonder why its website is even up any more; it does not appear to have been updated since 2006, anyway.
Justified contempt for the American public. After all, PNAC got what they wanted. Americans are so determined to ignore how bad the American Right has gotten that the Right doesn’t need to hide what they are doing or pushing for; most people will demonstrably ignore it even if the Right puts it right in front of them. I recall as far back as the Gingrich era Congress, focus groups would outright refuse to believe actual Republican policy proposals when presented with them.