Posted on 06/09/2003 5:23:46 AM PDT by SJackson
America's new mission was and remains: Extirpating the flaming nutballs and the societies that nurture them
It would be nice to find the weapons of mass destruction.
As many have pointed out, we haven't found Saddam Hussein either, but that doesn't mean he didn't exist. We haven't found his doubles -- although it's possible they're all concealed with masks, passing themselves off as understudies for the Baghdad production of "Phantom of the Opera."
Nor have we found the sons. Supposedly one of them is in the Baghdad suburbs, negotiating for his surrender, but that could be one of the son's doubles. We may open a sewer grate some day and a hundred Udays will pour forth like the myriad Agent Smiths in the recent "Matrix" movie.
Does the failure to find WMD mean we were handed a sack of lies?
Nope. The administration was clear from the get-go: Iraq was part of the Axis, and the Axis had to go down. Each part would be sundered as circumstances permitted. The destruction of the fascist regime in Baghdad would be the object lesson for the region, the proof that America had a new mission: Extirpating the flaming nutballs and the societies that nurture them.
Of course, that was not how the war was sold. Because the administration sought U.N. approval, the issue became enforcement of U.N. resolutions -- and those had to do with disarmament. Because the Bush team sought a greater moral legitimacy, it also phrased the war in terms of liberation, and removing a government with ties to terrorism.
Good reasons, all. But the invasion wouldn't have happened without Sept. 11. George W. Bush's Iraq policy would have been another round of sanctions, scowlings and pinprick reprisals. You want to blame the war on someone, blame Osama bin Laden.
Oh how nice, you say. Look, we were told that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, Saddam was a threat, Paul Wolfowitz rescued Jessica Lynch using a Jedi-Knight lightsaber. Lies! All lies! Storm the White House with pitchfork and torches, friends -- it's impeachment time!
Calm down. Would the Republicans be harping on the WMD issue if Clinton had invaded Iraq -- and found nothing after six weeks? Probably.
In the '90s they had the same political tin ears as the Democrats have today. There was a time when Bill Clinton could have been photographed sacrificing goats in an Oval Office Black Mass, and he would have gotten a pass. The Republicans would have worked themselves into a goggle-eyed fury -- People! Don't you see? Goats! Upside-down cross! Brimstone all over the carpets!
Same thing here.
There is little political capital to be gained with the vast middle-of-the-road electorate. The Bush-haters would be convinced that secret Halliburton operatives planted any WMD the allies find. The pro-Bush side claims they really aren't bothered by the absence of large caches stamped SMALLPOX -- FOR EXPORT ONLY, but they are quietly rooting for the inspectors to find something besides the two Winnebagos of Death so far uncovered.
The middle of America, those who could vote either way, have moved on. Job well done; mission accomplished. The relatively low death toll, the subsequent discovery of mass graves, the horror stories now pouring forth, and the overhyping of all the postwar travails have left them in no mood to carp.
Press them on the issue, and they believe the WMD will turn up somewhere. Under the sofa, perhaps. Maybe they rolled under the fridge. Weapons of mass destruction, car keys -- they're always in the last place you look.
In the long run, it's not what we don't find in Iraq. It's what doesn't happen.
No more mass executions. No new prisons for children. No bonus checks for the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. No Terrorism 101 classes at Salman Pak. No electrodes applied to the daughter of a man who talked to CNN. No daily potshots at allied aircraft. No sudden sluice of fear in the hearts of the Kurds when the government trucks appear on the horizon. No miserable thuggish satrapy in the middle of the Middle East, thumbing its nose at the United Nations and the United States.
Come election time 2004, the Iraqi oil proceeds will not be going to secret Swiss accounts named Chick Daney and Ronald Dumsfeld. They'll be going to the people of Iraq. We won't be arguing about losing the peace in Iraq.
We'll be arguing about losing the peace in Iran. But that's another story. For another presidential term.
This silly question is as cogent as the earlier ones, which were utterly destroyed as the mindless thoughts they were: How long will the war last?
How much will the war cost?
I'll start it off...
I have yet to meet a "progressive" who acted from an informed position.
Does that mean that none exist?
I have never seen nor heard of a "pacifist" who was normal.
Does that mean that none exist?
Meanwhile, another American soldier is dead and others have died recently in Afghanistan. If this isn't a slow-bleed quagmire with no light at the end of the tunnel, I don't know what is. Unfortunately, the predictions of the anti-war freepers (and more) are coming to pass.
You and your ilk are head-in-a-hole utterly blind and hopeless.
How many promises would you accept from Saddam that he would not continue to develop weapons of mass destruction? You're a fool if you say even one. But you may be an isolationist libertarian, so to call you a fool would be redundant.
Saddam worked very hard to hide and destroy his weapons of mass destruction. Why? Not because a sudden burst of human warmth had thawed his sensisbilities, but ONLY because coalition forces were camped on his borders. He said, "No mas," but we went in and took him out anyway and ensured he and his insane sons wouldn't undo the task after we withdrew.
Thank Almighty God for George W. Bush--second only to Ronald Reagan in identifying evil and pummeling it straight up.
Let me also note that if the freeper born again humanitarian interventionsts were reasonably consistent, they would be on their hind legs loudly demanding that American soldiers be sent to the Congo and Liberia where people's limbs are being hacked off as we speak.
Finally, you are wrong in your snap judgement that I am an "isolationist." I fully supported the Afghanistan war because it was based on the traditional American concept of national defense rather than Wilsonianism social engineering.
Or better yet, "Would it make any difference to you?"
Seriously, as the article suggests, if they found them today, they'd have been "planted" by the dissembling Bushies. But if they haven't ffound them yet, then nobody planted them, and the administration is not lying about them now. Wouldn't a nefarious admin that KNEW there were no WMDs beforehand have a planting scheme ready to go and justify their incursion?
What then, do you want next? Impeachment? Pullout and drop everything? Reparations to the Hussein family? Invade Israel?
It is always foolish to do this when the President is adept with a chainsaw.
Another American soldier just died. This is a quagmire (yes, Virginia it is a "quagmire yet"). Let's stop when wer're still ahead.
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