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.
mailto:agreel@aol.com
And the basic point remains, is the world better off with saddam gone or not. You seem to think that saddam gone is a bad thing for the world. Hey that's your opinion, praise uday and quesay all you want.
The vast majority of people on FR, IMO, are laughing or shaking their heads at your one track mind.
The question was whether or not Bush did a good job explaining the war on Iraq.
Sixty-seven percent said the Bush administration made the right decision in going to war with Iraq.
And you are wrong. WMDs was only one of a number of reasons Bush gave for going into Iraq. The media focused on that one because of the "scare factor".
Let's start with the major presentations by Powell in the UN "proving WMD" in Iraq. Then the sudden de-emphasis on WMD and shifting the emphasis to bringing democracy to the Middle East (in the end probably the most important reason for the invasion).
On top of that-we start to hear emphasis on the cruelty of Hussein towards his people and the mass graves as a part of the rational for the invasion.
Look, in the historical context, I'm splitting hairs, but Bush never had to stop emphasisng the WMD rational as the MAIN reason for war. The responsibility lies with Hussein (and the UN for that matter), but the administration has left the impression of being "guilty" by not "finding" the WMD and then seeming to change the subject.
Most of the press and the Leftists forget that Pres. Bush issued an ultimatum to Saddam, to open his country unconditionaly and surrender his WMD or face the consequences. SH was given ample time to decide as well as comply.......
Guess what, Saddam made the choice on his own, thinking W was as spineless as Bubba and the American public would influence W's decision not to attack. (Wrong again!)
The results are his sole responsibility because he was dealing with a man like Mr. Bush who does what he says he will. And, America kind of respects a man like that as a true leader.
Zarf and I were discussing JUSTIFICATIONS on going to war, not predictions on the war.
No the question -- anyone? is what are the polls like on approval for the war
I don't know how to make this more clear.
The administration has bungled the explanation. People like me who agreed with his decision don't have be convinced.
It's the idiots like Greeley who don't get what's going on that need a clear explanation.....the administration made a muddle of it and left the door open for the lefties to bitch.
For pete's sake they had month's and months to prepare for the post war and the possibilities of not finding WMD....
Unbelievable!
From the SAME ARTICLE:
Sixty-three percent of respondents said they approved of the president's handling of foreign policy and the war on terrorism.
Are you playing a game here, or can't you read?
When Europe was LIBERATED fom the clutches of Fascism, it took more than 5 years to restore a functioning government that would handle the transition to democracy, which still stands today. (although threatened)
Your expectations, that just 1 year after the initial liberation, Iraq should be completely functional, is nothing more than defeatism.
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