Posted on 03/03/2003 9:46:26 AM PST by X-Servative
Within the next few weeks, it is quite likely that the United States will be at war with Iraq, forcibly disarming Saddam Hussein and his regime. And unlike Gulf War I, our men and women of the armed forces will be marching straight into the belly of the beast…Baghdad.
President Bush and his administration, including Secretary of State Colin Powell, have laid out a credible case about why we must go to war; yet many, including Hollywood celebrities and the French, say war is not necessary and that Iraq must be given more time to comply (as if 12 years is not enough).
If the arguments that President Bush and his administration have painstakingly made to the world are true, then war is quite necessary to defend our liberties. Post-September 11th America is a vastly different place then it was a mere 24-hours before that fateful day in 2001. What we learned at a cost of thousands of lives is that the United States is no longer protected by the Atlantic and Pacific. We have witnessed first-hand the devastation a few committed individuals can inflict upon us if they so choose. And if Saddam Hussein has these weapons of mass destruction, as President Bush has told us, then Hussein will most certainly find a way to deliver them in devastating fashion on American soil, killing thousands, if not millions of people in their homes, at work or while playing with their children.
When looking at the situation objectively, President Bush and the United States have far more to lose by waging war against Iraq then just about any other nation or person on the planet. Imagine the following scenario.
We invade Iraq and successfully remove Saddam Hussein and his regime. As the United States, Great Britain, the United Nations and other countries search for weapons of mass destruction, what would happen if we learn after the war that there really are no "major" caches of illegal weapons? President Bush would quickly come under a massive assault on many different fronts.
On the home front, any chance for re-election would go the way of the desolate Iraqi desert. In all likely-hood, a movement to impeach President Bush would ensue from the anti-war crowd for abuse of power, and he would ultimately be forced to resign and/or face criminal prosecution.
Overseas, American influence would be completely destroyed. The mantra would be, "If America can’t tell the truth about Iraq, then we can no longer take them at their word." The precursor to this argument was recently made by French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin when he warned that waging war now against Iraq without exhausting avenues for peace would split the international community and ``be perceived as precipitous and illegitimate.''
Additionally, President Bush would have a cell reserved with his name on it at the Hague, right next to Slobodan Milosevich. He would be considered by the rest of the world as a war criminal, targeted for trial for crimes against humanity.
If we march into Baghdad and do not find the "smoking gun" that President Bush and his cabinet have stated is there, then these scenarios will most certainly come to pass and the days of America as the preeminent world power are over.
If there is anything we have learned about President Bush it is that he is strategic and patient. He devises a plan and stays the course until his objective is achieved. Unlike his predecessor, he does not make policy based on polls, but rather, by what he believes is right.
When Gulf War II is over, Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction unearthed and the Iraqi people liberated, President Bush will be sitting comfortably atop the "shining city on the hill."
I think it's safe to say that will not happen, one way or another.
EXACTLY!
Lyndon Johnson was attempting to insure his re-election to a second term in the '68 election by sending US combat troops into Vietnam in 1965.
Bush, on the other hand, is risking his re-election in '04, if the Iraq invasion goes wrong (which it won't).
I think it's safe to say that will not happen, one way or another.
When they are found, the hate America crowd will say we planted them anyway.
I agree with your assessment of risks, and ... Bush's patience.
"Patience is a virtue" -- Aristotle's Nichomachean ethics.
Other virtues identified in Aristotle's ethics are ...
... courage, self control, generosity, magnificence, magnanimity, proper ambition, truthfulness, wittiness, friendliness, modesty and ... righteous indignation.
Conservative Americans are not known for raising their children as fools.
Well, gee whiz disruptor-that-registered-today......maybe you should have read the very first line of the home page. If you want to come here and play, you do so at your own leftist risk. Deal with it.
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