Posted on 06/29/2004 7:00:20 PM PDT by churchillbuff
“With the benefit of minute hindsight, Saddam Hussein wasn’t the kind of extra-territorial menace that was assumed by the administration one year ago. If I knew then what I know now about what kind of situation we would be in, I would have opposed the war.”
Those words are William F. Buckley’s, from an article in yesterday’s New York Times marking Buckley’s decision to relinquish control of the National Review, the flagship journal of the conservative movement he founded 50 years ago.
Also out on the newsstands now, in The Atlantic Monthly, is an essay Buckley wrote describing his decision to give up sailing after a lifetime covering the world’s oceans and writing about it.
Mortality is the backdrop of both decisions, as the 78-year-old Buckley explains. In the Atlantic essay he describes his decision to abandon the sea as one of assessing whether “the ratio of pleasure to effort [is] holding its own [in sailing]? Or is effort creeping up, pleasure down? … deciding that the time has come to [give up sailing] and forfeit all that is not lightly done … brings to mind the step yet ahead, which is giving up life itself.”
There is certainly no shortage today of people saying the Iraq venture was wrongheaded. But Bill Buckley is Bill Buckley. And perhaps it is uniquely possible for a man at the summit or the sunset of life — choose your metaphor — to state so crisply and precisely what a clear majority of the American public has already decided (54 percent according to the latest Gallup poll): that the president’s Iraq venture was a mistake.
So with the formal end of the occupation now behind us, let’s take stock of the arguments for war and see whether any of them any longer hold up.
• The threat of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
To the best of our knowledge, the Hussein regime had no stockpiles of WMD on the eve of the war nor any ongoing programs to create them. An article this week in the Financial Times claims that Iraq really was trying to buy uranium from Niger despite all the evidence to the contrary. But new “evidence” appears merely to be unsubstantiated raw intelligence that was wisely discounted by our intelligence agencies at the time.
Advocates of the war still claim that Saddam had “WMD programs.” But they can do so only by using a comically elastic definition of “program” that never would have passed the laugh test if attempted prior to the war.
• The Iraq-al Qaeda link.
To the best of our knowledge, the Hussein regime had no meaningful — or as the recent Sept. 11 Commission staff report put it, “collaborative” — relationship with al Qaeda. In this case too, there’s still a “debate.” Every couple of months we hear of a new finding that someone who may have had a tie to Saddam may have met with someone connected to al Qaeda.
But as in the case of WMD, it’s really mock debate, more of a word game than a serious, open question, and a rather baroque one at that. Mostly, it’s not an evidentiary search but an exercise in finding out whether a few random meetings can be rhetorically leveraged into a “relationship.” If it can, supposedly, a rationale for war is thus salvaged.
The humanitarian argument for the war remains potent — in as much as Saddam’s regime was ruthlessly repressive. But in itself this never would have been an adequate argument to drive the American people to war — and, not surprisingly, the administration never made much of it before its other rationales fell apart.
The broader aim of stimulating a liberalizing and democratizing trend in the Middle East remains an open question — but largely because it rests on unknowables about the future rather than facts that can be proved or disproved about the past. From the vantage point of today, there seems little doubt that the war was destabilizing in the short run or that it has strengthened the hands of radicals in countries like Iran and, arguably though less clearly, Saudi Arabia. The best one can say about the prospects for democracy in Iraq itself is that there are some hopeful signs, but the overall outlook seems extremely iffy.
Surveying the whole political landscape, it is clear that a large factor in keeping support for the war as high as it is is the deep partisan political divide in the country, which makes opposing the war tantamount to opposing its author, President Bush, a step most Republicans simply aren’t willing to take.
At a certain point, for many, conflicts become self-justifying. We fight our enemies because our enemies are fighting us, quite apart from whether we should have gotten ourselves into the quarrel in the first place.
But picking apart the reasons why we got into Iraq in the first place and comparing what the administration said in 2002 with what we know in 2004, it is increasingly difficult not to conclude, as a majority of the American public and that founding father of modern conservatism have now concluded, that the whole enterprise was a mistake.
Bush and the neocons had to lie to enter Iraq but the motivation was noble and history will prove them visionaries.
BUMP
"And Joe,following me to another thread is considered to be STALKING.
Don't flatter yourself. That wasn't even posted to you on the other thread. LOL!
Wishful thinking eh?"
LOL...yep. It's par for the course: the first to complain are always the last to explain. At least rationally.
Is there something wrong with me? I only ask because I love President Bush, I have never known this kind of hatred before. Why do people hate him? He's done everything I had hoped a President would do. Saddam Killed gazillions of people and we have the libs hating Bush more then Saddam. What am I missing? I want 4 more years of Bush. God help us if Kerry wins.
Come now, you're lying again.
The tension beneath the veneer of your posts ("arrogant, twisted, pathetic little fool, whose sole recourse is pretended jovality to prevent his head getting caved in") is a case study in anger, impotence, and deep-seated feelings of inferiority.
Hardly. I'm calling a spade a spade, not a hand held earth moving implement. That is precisely what you are.
Fear not: I see this often in those whom compensate for their larger failures to impress the world with their "genius" by riding their keyboards like a hobby horse till the sun comes up. Believe me, I understand. I don't condemn it--It's a "there but for the grace-of-God-go-I" type thing. But it's still hilarious beyond belief--sorry... ...can't help it...(snicker)...
Again, you're under the impression that "laughing" is an adequate reply. I can only presume that you got angry, got up, walked around a bit, came back to the computer and decided to stick with your original strategy. It's still an inadequate strategy, and it is a poor mask for what you really think - your posts, if read carefully, saw that veneer of joviality crack, and the negative qualities I have ascribed to you, seep through.
Ivan
I guess you haven't read the Washington Post and other newspapers which have quoted the UN nuclear watchdog. They have found Iraqi nuclear equipment all over Europe and believe it was smuggled out of Iraq before, during and after the war.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A13416-2004Apr14¬Found=true
Damn! I forgot how good and tenacious you are in a flame war.
Good show! :-)
From the very beginning of the Soviet Union, Churchill knew and labeled them as evil. He was rebuffed for years, just as he was when he labeled the Nazis as evil. He was proven right in both. We are fighting evil and we will succeed. History will prove GW correct!
In any event, you jest at scars that never felt a wound - I honestly don't care what you think of me. Why would I want the high opinion and regard of someone that I so obviously disregard? I would have been content to let you run off down the byways and highways of your arrogance and stupidity had that not crossed the path of a friend of mine.
But please do continue...the more you speak, the more you tie the knot in the noose, which strangles what remnants you have of a reputation.
Ivan
In my opinion they disguise themselves as conservatives with the intention of undermining the President. They show up on almost every long thread, oozing negativity and mocking those who disagree with them.
For one in particular, it doesn't matter what the subject is. He waits long enough to see what the general trend of the thread is and then injects his own particular brand of pessimism.
Sooner or later Jim is going to catch on.
Regards, Ivan
Occasionally one enjoys the grace of being thought profound for uttering a tautology. I suppose Buckley deserves a little grace from the Left after all.
We should have allowed the genocide, and murder to continue?
Allow terrorists to gain a stronger foothold in the Mideast?
Continue to allow Saddam's actions to go unfettered?
Gee.... was WW2 a mistake as well?
Bill Buckley: effete snob and eagar to give the Panama Canal away so that the PRC could manage it to their own end.
Please, please, please, go ahead and post some more. I'm willing to match you word for word, sneer for sneer, post for post - FOREVER. Trust me, Ivan "old boy" you've never encountered someone so willing, ready, & able to hit "reply" and then type for a bit, over and over and over and over and over again than your old friend (..snicker..) Jovial here. Have yourself some more fun--by all means PLEASE, PLEASE YES! I know *I* am. Having fun that is. A twit who has bitten off more than he can chew is always a cause for celebration with me...especially when I'm the one who gets to respond. -AJC
Yes. We mustn't disagree with anything the Republicans do. Let's just make this a Bush lovefest forum. We can write about how woonderful he is all of the time and how the government only has our best interests in mind no matter what they do. What a great idea! How could I have been so suspicious? I love the GOP,...I love the GOP,...I must never question them,...
" What happened to Buckley's idealism about liberating the oppressed, and eliminating the butchers he spent his life opposing?"
It's an old age thing.
I wonder what the Iraqis think?
I see. If you can't "laugh" your way into "winning", you'll attempt to "persist" to it. Did you just think up this new tactic, old boy? If so, it's about as clever as your last one.
Trust me, Ivan "old boy" you've never encountered someone so willing, ready, & able to hit "reply" and then type for a bit, over and over and over and over and over again than your old friend (..snicker..) Jovial here.
Yawn. Well at least some good is being accomplished - the more your energies are diverted here, the less time you have for being a prat elsewhere. While I prefer the policy of the destruction of stupidity, as I am a peaceful man, containment will do.
I know *I* am. Having fun that is. A twit who has bitten off more than he can chew is always a cause for celebration with me...especially when I'm the one who gets to respond. -AJC
I'm afraid a change in tactics does not make your tactics any more adequate, nor make you appear any more intelligent to the rest of us. Secondly, anyone going over the posts will see how you are really not having fun, despite your protestations to the contrary. Those who politically disagree with you can actually read, contrary to what you think - and furthermore, their understanding of the subtleties of a situation is better than yours.
Ivan
I keep wondering how this is all Bush's fault since all Saddam had to do was show the world he didn't have the weapons to avert an invasion.
Instead he stonewalled and did everything he could to act like he had the weapons. And you meatheads still claim it is all George Bush's fault?
Time to up your meds.
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