| What G.W. should have said about why we attacked Iraq |
I would have been much happier if G.W. had the intellectual clarity and moral courage to have told the American people after 9-11:
"I will ask Congress for either an overt declaration of war, or at least a tacit one through the approval of its funding, not only on the stateless terrorists who perpetrated this heinous act, but on all nations who harbor and/or help them, the worst among these including Syria, Iran, Libya, and Saudi Arabia. No country should be allowed to get away with any such thing ever again. We should not attack those countries right now for various strategic, tactical and economic reasons. But what we can do is scare the living crap out of them by showing we're not just going to lob a few cruise missiles somewhere and go home. What we can and must do is to pick an illegitmate government -- any rigidly totalitarian government other than Afghanistan's -- somewhere in their neighborhood and effect a complete and total demonstration of what will happen to THEM if they don't cooperate fully in tracking down and stopping these terrorists once and for all. Iraq not only fills that bill, but it just so happens to be one whose leader has attempted to assassinate an American ex-president, and one for which the Congress has already passed a law, The Iraq Libertation Act of 1998.
"Finally, if any government anywhere STILL sponsors, nurtures or harbors terrorists which endanger the United States, or combines weapons of mass destruction with any barbaric or insane ideology, we will stop at nothing to bring that government and that threat to a complete and permanent end." |
As the Wall Street Journal editorialized, "The more we show we're serious about challenging states that harbor terrorists the more Pakistan and other nations are likely to cooperate with Washington in tracking down and turning over the terrorists." And indeed they have. As bad as the U.S. has gotten over the years, becoming more and more twisted by a government of the politicians, by the politicians, and for the politicians, it is still blindingly obvious that it's a lot more humane and civilized than anything those Muslim fundamentalists or Baathist control freaks can even think about, let alone have to offer. If anyone's pacifism has its roots in, or amounts to, beliefs that "all cultures are equal," they hold their views as blind idealogues, not far-sighted defenders of liberty. If anyone still doubts that I believe any legitimate country has the right to do any damn thing to any illegitimate country any damn time it needs to, I would refer him to this: "Just as an individual must act unapologetically to preserve his life, so must America. America must proudly proclaim its right and intention to protect its citizens, their liberty and their property. It must meet any threat with retaliation that pre-empts loss of American lives." HERE -- and to this: "Any doctrine of group activities that does not recognize individual rights is a doctrine of mob rule or legalized lynching... A nation that violates the rights of its own citizens cannot claim any rights whatsoever. In the issue of rights, as in all moral issues, there can be no double standard." -- Ayn Rand, here
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THE BUSH DOCTRINE
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"I never regarded WMD as the main reason to go to war. The real reason to go to war was (1) to establish a military and democratic presence in the Arab world (which we've done); (2) to make an example of Saddam to intimidate other Arab leaders (which we've done); and (3) to cut off Saddam as a source of support -- both existing and potential -- for terrorists, which we've also done. The WMD was a nontrivial issue, and required for playing the UN game (which I always regarded as a mistake) but not, to me, the most important issue."
-- Glenn Reynolds, HERE "The objective is to scare the hell out of the world, generally, and Islam in particular. By means of a minimal effort at wreaking maximum havoc upon Iraq in a very short span of time, the United States will demonstrate to her enemies and allies alike that she is not only the pre-eminent world power, she is in fact an inconquerable power. The anticipated benefits in the Islamic world will be either an immediate rounding-up of terrorists, or swift regime-changes followed by an immediate rounding-up of terrorists." -- Greg Swann, HERE In October of 1998, during the Clinton administration, the U.S. Senate passed The Iraq Liberation Act, making it the official policy of the U.S. government to seek regime change in Iraq. The vote was unanimous, including every Democrat in the Senate (even Ted Kennedy!). "For states that support terror, it is not enough that the consequences be be costly; they must devastating" -- George W. Bush, Dec. 11, 2001
Despite the insistence of various Democrats, butt-covering diplomats and other vacillators that it had to be due to years of international cooperation in (fruitless) sanctions and diplomacy, Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi made it clear that he decided to disarm due to our terminating the regime in Iraq, NOT Afghanistan: "I will do whatever the Americans want because I saw what happened in Iraq, and I was afraid," Gaddafi told Italy's Prime Minister Berlusconi here & HERE. Gaddafi urges rogue states: 'Follow my lead!' HERE. |
