Good point.
I'm a newbie here and will conduct myself as a newbie should according to my only other message board experience- The Motley Fool.
I can't believe what I'm reading here. So, pretty much everyone has convinced themselves that Cindy Sheehan is not sincere in her suicidal path of "making an issue".
There are two things that I need to say here.
1. If one believes that the invasion of Iraq was the predetermined "step one" of the PNAC (or the neocon) philosophy of American domination, which is a very real and documented possibility, then, upon the loss of a child in that engagement, one might be sufficiently motivated to kick some butt and take some names. I don't find it offensive that one take on a potentially dangerous stance which could easily lead to public ridicule and the end to "comfort" as it has been known. This woman, while you all could be correct, has decided to go against the majority and the political Republican "machine" (no worries here, I realize the Dems have a machine of their own :o)) that places her out there for public ridicule by experts. What has she done that differs from what her son did, except in duration of suffering? When you volunteer to place a target on yourself in the interests of what you believe can only be seen as grandstanding if what you're standing for is ridiculous>.
She believes that the reasons for the invasion were ridiculous. You all seem to believe that they are not. I believe that they are ridiculous. Her son didn't seem to think so.
It might be fun to negatively point to a person that is placing themselves in an uncomfortable position in order to make a point, thus adding to that discomfort, and to decide that they are without substance of evidence for their belief just because they laugh and live their lives in joy. But that is like saying that soldiers should never be happy, or cut up either.
"They don't have it so bad. Lookit em laughing!"
2. In my universe, George Bush and his cabinet told actual lies. The invasion of Iraq was a given once these people took power. On the TMF board, one has to show evidence to back their claim and it can't the opinions expressed on some sloppy website. Falsification, testability, and prediction (Karl Popper's gift to science) come into play there. You can't just say something- you have to back it up with absolute documentation from the most reliable source- the people who are paid to know because they are the proven experts. Even so, there is no such thing as absolutism. But there is certainly a twenty point lead in the last two minutes of a fourth quarter. :o)
When the experts that we pay to know about such things can't understand which aluminum tubes to which Condoleeza Rice is referring, because the only ones they know about were discredited for uranium enrichment a full year before her mention of a mushroom cloud in Chicago, you gotta wonder what she was thinking.
When both Bush and Blaire say that the IAEA have recently reported that Saddam is within six months of developing a viable nuclear weapon and the IAEA says "what? We never said that." and there are no reports that ever said that, you have to ask yourself why these two leaders said what they said.
When Powell comes up with a map that shows nuclear production facilities that we absolutely> (remember Popper?) know about, and the people in the worst danger from such a potential just shrug, you have to look more closely at the map. It shows activity in places that had been inspected by the time of invasion. It shows places that were not controlled by Saddam. It shows places that were controlled by Iraq's enemy- Iran.
Also, we suddenly heard about how horrible Saddam was. This was VERY strange to me. The administration couldn't seem to come up with a single thing that Saddam hadn't done as our ally. We were supposed to hate this man for his horrible actions, and those of his sons? Each and every one of them had been done with our nod. When he gassed Iraq, we supplied not only the weapons, but weather maps in order to make them more effective. As a Republican, I applauded this measure in order to maintain the secular government of Iraq- the most westernized government in the middle east. Saddam had a woman on his high council, fer cryin' out loud. They regularly produced female doctors, lawyers, and other female professional positions from their universities. Christians were welcomed in Iraq.
Of course the downside was pretty hardcore, but Reagan, Bush Sr, and Clinton had all agreed that Saddam was a necessary evil in the fight against Muslim fundamentalism in the Middle East, though they all thought that a more humanitarian dictator would be more palatable.
EXPERTS on the Middle East said that we would not be seen as liberators. EXPERTS said that we needed to secure the borders. EXPERTS said that it would be suicidal for Saddam to share weapons with Islamic Fundamentalists. EXPERTS said that there was no connection between Ossama and Hussein.
Know why Ossama is so mad at Saudi?
This post is way too long already, but Ossama had been bombing Saudi Arabia so much after the invasion not because of the fact that Saddam was invaded, but because it wasn't the Afghanistani Wahabbi freedom fighters (which had beaten back a superpower, the USSR) that fought against Saddam in his invasion of Kuwait. The Mudjaheed offered to protect the kingdom against the westernized army of Iraq. The house of Saud decided to allow an infidel army to amass on it's own borders and fight the battle. That, according to the Wahabbi fantasy, is the worst thing you could do. Remember when we wanted to invade Iraq and everyone was wondering if we could do so from our bases in Saudi Arabia?
Of course you don't! No more than you remember the debate before the invasion about pre-emtive strikes and historical precedence. Had America ever done such a thing before? Some provided examples of pre-emptive strikes when invasion from the other side was eminent.
At the time, the administration provided evidence of eminent attack. All were lies. The IAEA never said that. The aluminum tubes had been discredited a full year before the prediction of mushroom clouds in Chicago. The African yellowcake is a personal favorite of mine. A document, with the signature of someone who hasn't held office in a decade, and wasn't even the actual signature of the individual, tells me that any idiot could have seen through it in hours. Interestingly enough, our own intelligence agencies, upon finally being given access to the document, found it to be a forgery within hours. Surprise, surprise. So why did the whole fantasy continue for so long? Is British intelligence so lame?
I believe as I do and wouldn't do what Cindy Sheehan has done. Of course, she's right. Not only did the experts counter what the administration was saying at the time, but history has revealed it also. Anyone that still believes that we didn't abandon our war on terrorism by invading Iraq must step up to a higher definition of "evidence" and admit that there is precious little that supports invasion.
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