Posted on 12/27/2003 8:20:35 AM PST by Chi-townChief
Was the capture of Saddam Hussein a major victory for the United States? It was certainly a victory in the extended Iraq war. It was a victory for President Bush over the man who plotted to kill his father. It was a victory for the U.S. military and its intelligence service -- especially for the lieutenant and the corporal who figured out how to find him. It was a victory for the Republican Party's plan to keep a stranglehold on American politics. But was it, as the president told us, a victory in the ''war on terrorism''?
Despite the media hoopla and the White House spin doctors, it was not. The administration legitimized the invasion of Iraq as part of the ''war on terrorism'' and deceived the American people into believing that Saddam was involved in the Sept. 11 attack and that he had ''weapons of mass destruction.'' No one, except possibly Vice President Dick Cheney and the Wall Street Journal, believed that Saddam was involved in the attack on the World Trade Center. The weapons of mass destruction have disappeared. The president asks a TV interviewer what difference the mass destruction question makes, now that we have eliminated Saddam from power.
Note how slippery the administration line has been. The purpose of the war now is to get rid of an evil man who had done horrible things to his own people, even if he wasn't a real threat to us. Would those Americans who are willing to settle for that rationale have bought it at the beginning of the war? Such is the slipperiness of the administration's dishonesty that it can get away with a change in motives for the war. Do those who buy this shifting of the deck of cards want to send American troops into North Korea or Iran or a half-dozen African countries to rid the world of similar evil men?
The truth is that Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and their ''neo-conservative'' intellectuals wanted a quick little war with Iraq to display America's strength as the world's only superpower even before the 2000 election. The attack on the World Trade Center provided an excellent excuse to unveil America's unilateral, preemptive foreign policy. Has the war made the United States any more secure from al-Qaida?
It would seem that it has not. Quite the contrary, it has stirred up a whole new phalanx of terrorists in Iraq with which we did not formerly have to contend.
It is reasonably well known that Osama bin Laden instructed his forces to have nothing to do with Saddam because he was a secularist and a socialist and not a good Muslim. A man who imagined himself as the holy Caliph of a new Islamic empire could hardly tolerate Saddam as one of his subjects.
The Iraq war, prolonged by unspeakably bad planning for the post-war period, has distracted the United States from the battle with terrorists. If the military force sent to Iraq and the immense efforts to capture Saddam had been diverted to pursuing bin Laden, Americans would be much safer today.
The ultimate failure of the Bush administration is that it permitted itself to be so consumed by its need to take on Iraq that it lost interest in hunting down bin Laden. Its ultimate dishonesty is the (effective) deception of the American people about Iraq.
So, brave and good American men and women continue to die in Iraq, as do good Iraqi men and women. The military tells us that the Army will have to remain for two more years. The war was not only unnecessary, it was unjust by any and all of the traditional canons of an unjust war.
Gen. Curtis LeMay, who led the firebomb raids on Japan (far more destructive than the atom bombs), once remarked that if the United States should lose the war, he would be tried as a war criminal. The United States won the war and no Americans were tried as war criminals. The victors are never tried.
The Bush administration is planning a trial for Saddam. The Europeans are insisting that it must be a ''fair'' trial, whatever that might be for such a man. No one in the Bush administration will be tried for the unjust and unnecessary Iraq war -- at least not by a court on Earth.
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Because there is no connection. To the contrary, we knew that Osama hated Hussein. He was not sufficiently devoted to Islam. He ran a secular nation with only minor accomodations to Islamic leaders. To presume a partnership was stupid. In fact, none was claimed. There was just skillful speech to imply while leaving the out-"I never said that".
When did it become a legitmate question IF Hussein had WMDs?
It is extremely appropriate to ask that question, since there is where the potential admistration lies exist. Frankly, I do not think that the war would have been legitimate even if he did openly have WMDs. Unless there was a realistic reason to believe that he was preparing to use them (or do you think that he was going to hand them over to his enemy to use?)If mere possession of WMDs justifies war, then when are we invading Pakistan, India and North Korea?
One more point-In 1945, we signed a treaty, the UN charter, where every member nation undertook NOT to attack any other member nation with only two exceptions-self defense or the direction of the security council. This war violated that treaty obligation. (The UN security council did NOT authorize the use of force. All the resolutions were orders to Hussein. When the force question was put to the Security Council, it FAILED, and it did not take a veto. The USA withdrew the request when they realized that it was going to get only 4 of 15 votes.
Greeley says No. Apparently Tom Ridge agrees with him, because he's put the nation on high terror alert . Hmmm. Maybe Saddam's capture DIDN'T make us all that more secure?
Right, but what does that have to do with Iraq? We haven't found any WMDs there. Nobody had found any before we invaded, either. And Hussein's son had told us they'd destroyed them. Looks like he wasn't lying. == but a lot of American young men and women are lying dead because we decided to go in anyway.
Why don't you and Pat Buchanan proclaim your above screed in the Kurdish town where saddam gassed 5,000 Kurds to death.
So what? All intelligence sources pointed towards it. That's good enough. That's the main reason we went in and there's no reason to back away from it.
Hussein should of opened his doors to the world and proved it.....we have nothing to be sorry for.
As terrible as that was, it was years ago. It's since then that Hussein's son said they destroyed the WMDs. Instead of ranting at me, tell me where the WMDs are -- the WMDs that were the excuse for our going in?
That is irrelevant to the discussion.
You initially said that Bush did "a crappy job" justifying the invasion of Iraq.
I then pointed out that almost 70% of the population agreed with the Iraq war. By any measure, that is a very significant amount. So whether or not you think Bush did a good job, the numbers say he did.
I was thinking some of the posters to this thread sounded like Michael Moore. Questions that have absolutely no purpose, but to undermine the administration are obvious, tiresome, and easily ignored. That those questions keep getting asked over and over again reflects on the questioner to this American.
Face it Lefties...we trust this President, and with his accomplishments so far, any "scandal" that can be manufactured will have as much impact as Rush Limbaugh's drug problems. You guys will hoot and blow, but we'll keep tuning in.
And of course the word of those two sadistic murders is plenty good enough for you.
Saddam had plenty of time and diplomatic cover by his allies in France, Germany and Russia to either remove, hide or destroy his WMD's.
Big deal. The majority of Americans believe that Hussein was the triggerman in 9/11. As of now, their opinions are based upon false info (hopefully we will learn otherwise).
Bush has opened himself up for attack by constantly rewriting the rational for war. It was not necessary to do so.
And hussein's son is the epitomie of truth. Sheesh you Buchananites sure have an amour for the french based words, naive and moron, IMO.
Nobody can find them, bub. Mighta, coulda, woulda is all we had in the way of "evidence" of WMDs-- we've sent hundred of American young people to their graves (and consigned thousands of others to lives without limbs - and other massive injuries) without any evidence that Iraq has WMDS. And it looks like the reason we had no evidence is that there WEREN'T WMDs.
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