Bush is now moving into a cornered dog's counter-attack mode:
"They spoke the truth then and they're speaking politics now," Bush charged. Bush went on the attack after Democrats accused the president of manipulating and withholding some pre-war intelligence and misleading Americans about the rationale for war. "Some Democrats who voted to authorize the use of force are now rewriting the past," Bush said. "They're playing politics with this issue and they are sending mixed signals to our troops and the enemy. That is irresponsible."
The problem with this, is it's true. When Shrub was calling for war using intel that we all knew was bogus, and when we on the left were protesting in the streets against this war--full knowing that it was an idiotic idea, the Dems were following behind the "war" president like a bunch of well-trained puppies. So we're now left with a choice between the Republicons (the party of bad schemes) and the Dems (the party that has decided to tag along for the ride and see how things turn out before making a decision.) But ultimately the power rests with We the People. And the people who created this mess through deception should have to face us and tell us the truth. (The calls for Blair's impeachment--essentially for the high crime of following Shrub--should inspire us to put our house in order.) To Shrub's recent ranting, all I can say is "Yes, we realize the Dems are idiots. But the reason we think they're idiots is because they sided with you."
11 comments:
Karlo, even though I am in complete disagreement with you philosophically, I like the hell out of you. At least you believe in something. I respect that.
yes we realise the Dems are idiots. but they're a slightimprovement on the Rep war-mongering idiots.
There was hardly a dissenting voice in the US during the discussions about Iraq. Although the British dissenters were quickly gagged or dropped from the government, there were some dissenters!
Right On, Karlo! The Dems were craven and should be deeply ashamed. we deserve better, must demand better...
There is no evidence the Bush administration was aware at the time that the intelligence was false. The protestors had no additional information, they just had some type of faith that there was no WMD threat. Since they were relying on faith, and not evidence, they could not convince very many people and as a result they lost the vote in Congress and we went to war. The anti-war people have provided no evidence for why their beliefs were correct, they just lucked out that Saddam had a moronic strategy.
So now the anti-war left wants us to believe there was deception on the part of Bush, while ignoring the documented fact that the deception was, in fact, on the part of Saddam. Had Saddam let the UN inspectors go where they needed to go, without fear of attack, the US would have been forced to conclude that the WMD that was known to have been there before had been destroyed. Alternatively, Iraq could have stopped shooting at our planes enforcing the no fly zones so that we could inspect from the air.
Yet another way would have been to not use the oil-for-palace money on massive construction underground projects that looked like weapons facilities.
In the end all that matters is that innocent people are no longer being tortured by the Iraqi regime. It would be nice if our Congress would show strong support so as not to encourage current Al Queda efforts, but ultimately it is up to the Iraqis themselves now. God will grant them the government they deserve.
I've personally listened to inspectors who said unequivocally around the beginning of the war that they had found no WMD in Iraq. According to two experts I heard discuss Powell's speech (one on TV and one in person), both said that it was full of OBVIOUS falsehoods that anyone who worked in Iraq knew to be false. As for torture, did you see the recent article about Shiite torture of Sunnis (some with skin peeled off their bodies). Do you really naively believe that the people the U.S. will install in Iraq this time will have different moral standards than the person they previously installed and supported (Saddam)?
But if you don't want to take my word on this, check out the 36-page report created by the House as a chronicle of Bush's deception.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/248055_firstperson14.html
Karlo,
You mentioned the 36-page report, but the link you gave was to an editorial in a newspaper in one of the more liberal cities in this country. A quick google turned up the following, which appears to contain some unclassified parts of the document you referred to.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/congress/2004_rpt/iraq-wmd-intell_chapter2-k.htm
That page is for the Niger conclusions. I haven't read the whole report simply because WMD has never been in my mind as important as the human rights issues in Iraq. Iraq's conventional weapons alone justified the war without the WMD bogeyman.
However, the sections I have read describe disagreements among several groups over interpreting the data. Saddam could have cleared that up easily if he actually wanted to avoid a war. Everyone was quite aware that the inspectors had limited results (apart from the SCUD missiles that Sadam destroyed publicly). The problem as you will recall is that the inspection results had little credibility because the inspectors were not allowed to quickly follow US intelligence leads. There were repeated reports of delays, threats, and military convoys leaving ahead of the inspectors.
And no, I don't think that Shiites are morally superior to Sunnis. What is superior is the democratic form of the government that we are giving them the opportunity to create, if they can get themselves organized. And if it turns out the a decent government is not possible in a Muslim country, well that is a very important piece of information for the world of mankind to have.
The idea that "WMD" justifies war is probably one of the best examples of how the media hypnotizes the public. WMD exists everywhere in the world. The U.S. is its major producer and exporter. If the U.S. wanted to eliminated WMD, it could simply cease the U.S. factories that create most of them.
As for "bringing democracy" to Iraq, I have my doubts. Any government that emerges on the coat-tails of Uncle Sam will have to deal with the stygma of being perceived as a puppet regime. If the U.S. were really so idealistic and motivated by a desire to "bring democracy" to the Middle East, they had a great opportunity in Kuwait. After the U.S. invaded, the country had no government. The U.S. reinstalled a monarchy instead of calling for elections. Doesn't this make you stop and doubt American intentions in the area?
Do Germany, Italy, Japan, S. Korea, and the Phillipines carry this stigma? As for Kuwait, that may have been the result of having gotten more support from Arab countries that it tied our hands. Also, that war was to restore the status quo. The Iraq war was part of the war on terror, and its purpose was to change the status quo. Our military technology had advanced so much in the interim (gps, much better smart bombs, battlefield info) that we could be much more ambitious in what we set out to do. There was no monarchy to restore in Afghanistan, and that set a precendent for Iraq that was not present at the time of Kuwait.
Of course it does take time for a people to let go of a monarchy. There were 2 occasions I believe in the 1600s where Britain reverted back to a monarchy. The difference now is that everyone knows that democracy works, and the communication and education needed to maintain it is already available.
Germany and Japan are clear success stories. South Korea and the Phillipines, on the other hand, had to take to the streets for decades to get rid of their American installed dictators. Their democracies developed in spite of the U.S., not because of it. If we look at the U.S. record throughout the world (without an ideological axe to grind), I think we'll find that U.S. policy reflects an indifference to democracy at best or perhaps even an aversion for it in many cases.
As for Kuwait and a lack of a precedent, this sort of discussion implies that democracy is simply one option among many. I would hold that non-democratic governments don't have any real legitimacy, and for that reason, the U.S. itself, even after conquering the country, didn't have the right to give sovereignty to any one else except the people. This idea isn't new. It's stated in Locke's Two Treatises of Government.
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