Posted on 12/17/2003 8:04:12 PM PST by Commie Basher
Sunday's capture of Saddam Hussein made it a great day — a great day for empty rhetoric and meaningless posturing by politicians and journalists.
Somehow it was assumed by politicians and the press, without explanation, that Hussein's capture has vindicated the Bush administration's attack on Iraq. But from September 2002 to March 2003, George Bush said nothing about capturing Saddam Hussein. Instead, Bush talked incessantly about weapons of mass destruction and Iraq's ability to attack the U.S. with them — as well as Al Qaeda camps in the Iraqi desert. How does finding Saddam Hussein make Bush's claims any more true than they were last week?
We're told that that the Iraqis can see now that Saddam Hussein isn't coming back to power — as though they couldn't figure that out for themselves with 130,000 foreign troops occupying their country.
But in the wonderland occupied by politicians and journalists, the capture of Hussein must mean that all the resisters — also known as "loyalists of the old regime" — would have no more reason to resist.
Some politicians said that if anti-war protesters had their gotten way, Hussein would be in his palace today, instead of in jail. Yes, and if the anti-war protesters had gotten their way, several hundred Americans and thousands of Iraqis would be alive today, instead of dead.
The press played its part in the celebration. Wolf Blitzer of CNN said that Hussein's capture proves to the world that "the President of the United States means business" — whatever that means.
In fact, we've known all along that George Bush means business — the business of getting reelected.
There were plenty of TV pictures of Iraqis firing AK-47s into the air. But no inquiring minds bothered to ask how everyday Iraqis could be carrying AK-47s out in the open, when the American occupiers have imposed strict gun-control edicts and are at war with resisters.
What if Saddam Hussein says that all the dreaded Weapons of Mass Destruction were destroyed years ago? Well, we know that George Bush believes in preemptive strikes, and he's already made one on this front. On Monday, he said of Hussein:
He’s a liar. He’s a torturer. He’s a murderer. . . . He’s a — he’s just — he is what he is: He’s a person that was willing to destroy his country and to kill a lot of his fellow citizens. He’s a person who used weapons of mass destruction against citizens in his own country. And so it’s — he is the kind of person that is untrustworthy and I’d be very cautious about relying upon his word in any way, shape or form.
In other words, "Believe him only if he confirms what I've been telling you for the past year."
Liberation
Donald Rumsfeld said that Hussein's capture means that the Iraqis can now be free in spirit, as well as in fact.
Ah yes, liberated Iraq. It is now a free country. George Bush has liberated it.
How has Iraq been liberated? Let me count the ways . . .
1. The country is occupied by a foreign power.
2. Its officials are appointed by that foreign power.
3. Its citizens must carry ID cards.
4. They must submit to searches of their persons and cars at checkpoints and roadblocks.
5. They must be in their homes by curfew time.
6. Many towns are ringed with barbed wire.
7. The occupiers have imposed strict gun-control laws, preventing ordinary citizens from defending themselves — making robberies, rapes, and assaults quite common.
8. Trade with some countries is banned by the occupying authorities.
9. The occupiers have decreed that certain electoral outcomes won't be permitted.
10. Families are held hostage until they reveal the whereabouts of wanted resisters — much like the Nazis held innocent French people hostage during World War II.
11. Protests are outlawed.
12. Private homes are raided or demolished — with no due process of law.
13. The occupiers have created a fiat currency and imposed it on the populace.
14. Newspapers, radio stations, and TV are all supervised by the occupiers.
This is liberation in the NewSpeak language of politics.
Words like freedom just don't seem to mean what they used to, do they?
Q: You have some interesting views on the war on drugs.A: The war on drugs is a disaster. It has elevated drug use. Drug use is far greater than it was when the drug war began in earnest in the late 1960s. It has turned the drug business away from the pharmaceutical companies and put it in the hands of the illegal drug dealers in the cities. These people have no concern for your children. Pharmaceutical companies would not send representatives to school yards to hook kids on drugs. Criminal gangs have no qualms about it whatsoever. Criminal gangs settle their problems with gang violence and drive-by shootings. Pharmaceutical companies don’t do that. Criminal gangs terrorize our cities.
Q: How would that be reversed by legalizing drugs?
A: Bayer used to sell heroin as a pain reliever and sedative. Nobody thought it was a danger. Before the First World War, a 10-year old child could walk into a drugstore and buy heroin. They didn’t because they didn’t have an interest in it. It wasn’t forbidden fruit. They didn’t want to go behind the barn to see what is was all about and nobody was pushing it on them.
Q: Isn’t there a role for reasonable regulation of the sale of drugs to minors?
A: When you pass laws against consensual activities, whether for adults or children, you never get the result you want. When the drug war ends, which I think will happen in the next five years, I hope the federal government will stay completely out of it and different states will pass different laws. Perhaps all states will ban it for children. I don’t think that’s the best thing to do. It will have some perverse results. And some children will probably die. When you buy a legal drug, you know what it is. You don’t take an overdose by mistake. Heroin, incidentally, is not a particularly addictive drug.
http://www.detnews.com/EDITPAGE/0010/06/oped/oped.htm
I stand corrected - this time.
In 2002 the U.S. spent ~162 billion on oil. We've already spent more in the last year on this war. and we spend three times as much on our military. If Hussein had tried to jack the price for oil even he wouldn't control enough to double, triple, or quadruple the price. It would merely encourage the use of already existing supplies that cost a little more than the current market rate to harvest. The economic argument just doesn't wash, and furthermore, we aren't avoiding the impact, simply putting it into government spending instead of the marketplace, where a solution could be found.
Browne's pronouncements don't amount to a half-empty can of 7 Up, down on main street.
I think Bush has pre-empted the dems on the domestic side. He is dem-lite. With the economy and the war I wouldn't give a dime for anyone's chances against the incumbant next year. Gotta build for 2008. Sorta, Hillary strategy.
I can't help what they do.
The stakes are so high and the politics in the Middle East so wretched that substantial threats have arisen: tinpots, terrorists, and theocrats. These threats include but are not limited to crises in the oil market. They include attacks on our interests with WMDs of various kinds, including hijacked airplanes.
I don't deny that our past interventions have played a part. We agreed to put the bases in Saudi Arabia to protect them from Saddam Hussein in exchange for their agreeing to join the 1991 coalition. Then those bases were an irritant that fueled Al Qaeda. It is admittedly a mess, but I have not yet seen a believable scenario where we stay neutral militarily and all is well. tpaine's suggestion of offing a few individuals is fine as far as it goes.
So? Spending $200 billion plus to keep the price of oil under $200 billion is dumb and worse, it's counterproductive. It keeps the Middle East important. I'd rather the market allocate that $200 billion toward alternatives than engage in perpetual wars in an attempt to maintain the status quo or funneling money into the Middle East.
don't deny that our past interventions have played a part. We agreed to put the bases in Saudi Arabia to protect them from Saddam Hussein in exchange for their agreeing to join the 1991 coalition. Then those bases were an irritant that fueled Al Qaeda. It is admittedly a mess, but I have not yet seen a believable scenario where we stay neutral militarily and all is well.
All is well with respect to what? We weren't fighting Middle Easterners until our politicians started putting our tax dollars and troops into the region. Withdraw those, let them find their own way.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.