Bush hasn't justified war (GREELEY ALERT)

Chicago Sun-Times ^ | December 26, 2003 | ANDREW GREELEY

[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.

mailto:agreel@aol.com

[CWOJackson]

But who would you rather believe? Saddam's sadistic murdering sons and pat buchanan, or President Bush?

[inPhase]

Where are the polls on Bush's approv rate on war? only thing I can find (time...) was
" Respondents were nearly split on the president's handling of the war and rebuilding Iraq,

with 49 percent giving him a positive rating and 48 percent giving him a negative rating.

He fared better on his handling of the war on terror, with 58 percent giving him positive marks and 41 percent giving him negative marks." from Michigan.
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=10719605&BRD=982&PAG=461&dept_id=467992&rfi=6

[MinuteGal]

King Henry II concerning Archbishop Thomas Becket......"Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?"

Leni

[churchillbuff]

And hussein's son is the epitomie of truth

Sneer at me, but you have no credibility - - because we haven't found any WMDs.

[Lando Lincoln]

I posted this on another thread but it kinda fits here too. The left just doesn't care or understand. Then, they get pi$$ed when they are called unpatriotic.

....(Islamic Findamentalist[s] statements) reinforces the notion that these extremists will use or utilize any weapon they get their filthy mitts on. Meanwhile, we have the handwringing and lamenting of the Deans, Hillarys, Kerrys and their leftist brethren. These leftists would like nothing better than hunkering down in their root cellars with their French wine and brie while discussing such pseudo-intellectual topics as the spirituality of orgasm. All while hoping that the world understands that "war never settled anything". Pathetic lot, the left.

Lando

[CWOJackson]

Like I said there sparky...your paragon of truth, Saddam and his two sadistic twit sons, had many months in which to relocate, hide or destroy those weapons. It might come as a real shock to you but he has been known to move his weapons out of his own country before.

Of course considering those relatively minor points might distract you from your whine.

[inPhase]

Famous last words are yours!

[TomB]

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".

That is a ridiculous argument considering the oft-repeated muslim/arab saying "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". To say Bin Laden and Hussein would let their own anumis get in the way of attacking the US is fantasy.

It is extremely appropriate to ask that question,

Then I'd appreciate an answer, not a treatise on the justifiablity of war and WMDs.

This war violated that treaty obligation. (The UN security council did NOT authorize the use of force.

At the end of the first Gulf War, the Iraqis signed a cease-fire agreement in order to prevent the complete obliteration of their armed forces. Among the terms in that agreement were sitpulations allowing the monitoring of the distruction of Iraq's WMDs, no fly zones, etc. Almost immediatley the Iraqis began to defy those terms, thus nullifying the cease-fire agreement. We needed no other justification.

[churchillbuff]

you Buchananites

Name-calling. The last resort of somebody who's losing an argument. You can't answer the fact there are no WMDs -- so the reason we were given for going to war, doesn't exist --- so you resort to name-calling. Sorry, I'll leave our colloquy now, because I don't play in sandboxes.

[Dane]

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.

IOW, you are saying the world would be a better place with saddam still in power. Hey that's your opinion, kinda of like Jane Fonda's opinion that the Viet Cong and Khmer Rouge were benign entities. The Khmer Rouge murdered 2 million of its own people.

JMO, you all who were against the war effort back then and now have blood on your hands. The blood of our soldiers who died bravely in battle to crush tyranny and the innocent civilians who came under the tyrannical regimes, that you seem want to give succor to.

[churchillbuff]

move his weapons out of his own country

We don't have any more evidence of that, than we had of WMDs in the first place. And if the result of the invasion was that WMDs were dispersed - -then that's a lousy, dangerous, scary result.

[inPhase]

Thanks for your posts here. It is hard to get open discussion sometimes. People have told me that they believe "dissent" or controversy for the Repub party will give fuel to lefty journalists or hurt the Repubs in the election -- which I doubt.

But the journalism idea gains ground when you consider that Dan Rather!! owns New Mexico property/houses on the same compound with Sec Rumsfeld. Read it here, it is true, and need to keep the eyes open.

[TomB]

Bush has opened himself up for attack by constantly rewriting the rational for war. It was not necessary to do so.

Why don't you give us some evidence of Bush "constantly rewriting the rational for war"?

[zarf]

What's your point? All evidence pointed towards him having it.

His behavior was of a man who had something to hide and stiff armed repeated attempts to inspect his country.

Hussein has only his stupidity to blame.

The US and the UK have nothing to regret.

I think Bush has made it harder on himself in that he has shifted his rational for the invasion away from WMD. He should stick by his guns because it is the threat of WMD in the hands of these rag head monsters that is the greatest threat after 9/11.

[CWOJackson]

Pssssst. How long did the U.N. nations, France, Germany and Russia give Saddam to remove, hide or destroy his WMD's?

Oh, that's right. You and those two grease spot sons of his said they didn't have any. Imagine that.

[Dane]

Sneer at me,

No problem, it easy to sneer at people who think that uday and quesay were in any way truthful.

JMO, why don't you go hang out at DU, you and Pat Buchanan would feel much more welcome there.

You both spout the same hate America rhetoric.

[churchillbuff]

you are saying the world would be a better place with saddam still in power.

No, I'm saying that the reason we were given for invading Iraq was WMDs. Now you're changing the argument for going in -- after the fact (in other words, doing exactly what Greeley talks about). If we're under an obligation to invade a country merely because it's ruled by a dictator who hurts his people - - and if somebody has "blood on his hands" if he doesn't favor an invasion merely for that reason --- then you have blood on your hands for not calling for us to invade North Korea, or Zimbabwe or Sudan or Cuba. What, you dicatator-lover - you aren't calling for invasions of every country with a murdering dictator! You have blood on your hands!

[Chi-townChief]

......"Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?"

Personally, I think that it's, in many ways, good that these bozos like Greeley have such a high profile; they offer some insight into how the other half thinks.

[churchillbuff]

More name-calling. Very intelligent. I'm very impressed with your arguments (not)

[M Kehoe]

Greeley- 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.

Guess what a$$hole (greeley), Iraq was involved in both attacks on the WTC. Ever heard of Ramsey Usef (sp) richardhead? And the current circumstancial evidence is piling up against Atta...prick.

Oh, and the WMD evidence is overwhelming. Plus, so the liberal definition of WMD is clear, the Coalition will find operational (deployable) weapons systems for chemical warfare

$hithead.

5.56mm