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.
Gee, Ivan...we're back to where we started...you making idle threats you can't back up, and me telling you that you're full of crap.
In case you missed it the first time, let me restate it: I could care less about you or anything you have to say, but keep right on posting. I'll answer you post-for-post, regardless. Keyboard bullies ALWAYS need to be responded too, even long after it becomes tiresome. Once again, for the record, I feel it important to point out that it was not I who flamed "MadIvan"--quite the contrary. But as long as the piper plays, I'm willing to dance. Go ahead and have some more fun--I know I am. And it doesn't hurt a bit. I can type and hit "reply" for HOURS. Plain and simple. EOM.
"The banner was deliberately planned to show up in the background as the television cameras recorded Bush's speech on the deck of the carrier."
Sorry I must vent here in all this popcorn popping about the "banner".
As I recall this "carrier event" all those who served on it had been extended in service. Much had been written about that very fact.
Now it was to those who served upon that "carrier" that President Bush went to speak to and it was a personal visit to acknowledge that their part of this war was victorious and they had done a honorable job.
The media and the sniveling leftists, crapped their pants, and made the event a political campaign "FIRST".
I merely threatened you with a sharp reply. You have been receiving them by the score. An idle threat? Hardly.
Now for an interesting contradiction:
I could care less about you or anything you have to say, but keep right on posting. I'll answer you post-for-post, regardless.
I see. You don't care, but you're willing to expend limitless energy on this. How very odd. ;)
Keyboard bullies ALWAYS need to be responded too, even long after it becomes tiresome. Once again, for the record, I feel it important to point out that it was not I who flamed "MadIvan"--quite the contrary.
On the contary, you flamed nopardons, who is a friend of mine. And you refer to me as a keyboard bully? I do beg your pardon - but it seems to me that a bully is the type of person who whinges, rather like this, when one is confronted forcefully, as I have done. It is not I who is the keyboard bully, it is you. I would not have felt compelled to post to you at all, had you not insulted a friend of mine.
Go ahead and have some more fun--I know I am.
Based on the evidence provided by the whingeing tone of your post, this is another lie. And an altogether unconvincing one as well.
By the way, your threat that this can go on for hours didn't work, hours ago. Do pray continue. Though I must say it's not like you're going to tell me anything I haven't heard before from you...you appear to be going around in circles.
Ivan
Wrong and wrong. I hate it when people set up straw-man arguments based on falsehoods. To the best of our knowledge, Hussein DID have WMD stocks on the eve of the war. The extent of those weapons was not known with precision. What happened to them between January (the eve of war) and April of 2003 (the end of the invasion) is what we do not know with any degree of certainty. The Serin-laden shells we have discovered recently prove that there were WMDs in Iraq. Are the rest in Syria? Lebanon? Well hidden in Iraq? In Al Quida procession in Sudan or Iran? That we do not know with precision. But they are somewhere.
And it is irrefutable that he also maintained ongoing programs to create additional WMDs. We have the equipment, the technical data and the people who worked on these programs as proof.
These people insist that unless Saddam was dumb enough to keep all of his weapons in some massive arsenal where we, or UN inspectors could walk in and do a nice accurate inventory, that there was no threat from him and war was not justified. And they also insist that unless Saddam had massive quantities of WMDs, war was not justified regardless of all the other reasons for a civilized world to remove this vile despot. Unlike conventional weapons where the threat is measured by the hundreds of tons, WMDs are by definition low volume, high-density weapons -- i.e., easily hidden from view but with enormous killing power per unit of volume. Saddam had years of practice hidding these weapons from UN inspectors. He was far better at the game than these people give him credit for.
A "personal visit" is when the President visits with the families of soldiers killed in Iraq, and no media coverage is permitted.
A visit to an aircraft carrier with a full media brigade is not a "personal visit" in any sense of the phrase. These events are carefully planned and scripted, and everything is canned and prepped to present a specific message to the viewing public. If you don't understand that, then you don't know politics.
I have to confess that I did have a good laugh as I stepped away from the computer for the moment, imagining you shrieking like a French whoopsie in indignation that someone would dare to defy you for such extended lengths of time.
By the way, do feel free to call in your mates. I don't mind taking them on single handed either. We may as well contain all the people like you in one thread.
Ivan
The reason we went to war is to liberate Iraq, get rid of a dangerous dictator who had ties to terrorists, and fight the war on terrorism by having a democracy right smack in the middle of a dangerous area which will hopefully spread democracy and dissipate the terrorists over the decades to come.
"Do pray continue"...LOL
No problem...I can go on for HOURS & DAYS, should you wish. The bottom line is, once again, that "MadIvan" seems to believe that mere typing is a subsitute for thinking--he posts reams and reams and reams of cute snarkiness in service of, well, no one has YET figured out, to this point, exactly WHAT. He types a lot, but doesn't say much. Have I missed anything? Please let us know...(snicker)...
Well, if I knew we were going to pursue a "politically correct" war instead of shooting "insurgents" where ever we found them, destroying the mosques that give them sancturary, and leveling any city that dared to support them - "collateral damage" be d@mned - I might have opposed the war, too.
As it is I think we need to see it through and get ready for the next round.
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised and disappointed, but while I'm not surprised, I am nonetheless disappointed. This apparently is the best you can do. This apparently shows the limits of your reading comprehension, and as far as you dare delve into wit. How sad for you, to be so badly educated, to have thoughts so ill-formed, that this is the best you can muster, along with the same, tired old tactics, and the same tired old threat of endless tedium.
You are pathetic. If you hadn't posted to nopardons, I would have been content to ignore you. But perhaps being rude and insulting was the only way you could get noticed in the first place. And because of that, I've no problems continuing in this vein.
Ivan
Buckley has a lot of dumb ideas - like tattooing AIDS victims and his brilliant support of a murderer (whose name I forget) back in the 60s. After helping to obtain his release, the guy admitted he was a murderer. Anybody remember the details?
Actually, many supported it because they trusted the President's administration that Iraq was a major threat. They opposed nation building while supporting self defense, and even pre-emption.
Now the facts are still being gathered, and so far, it doesn't look good.
I think Bush acted in good faith. But he is open to being held accountable.
Correction, the only thing I really mind is you bothering friends of mine. Apart from that, you're that rare mix of boring and peculiar.
You've tried LITERALLY everything, from sneers to threats to appeals to admin to convenient appearances of "supporters" to post further threats--BUT NONE OF IT SEEMS TO BE WORKING! At least so far. What, oh what, can now be done? ...(snicker)...
I think you really missed the point - I was hoping you'd make a greater arse of yourself than you did already, and secondly, having realised it, you'd know when to quit. Well, one out of two isn't bad. :)
Go on then. :)
Ivan
Ramesh Ponnuro's take: Why They Hate Him: A world turned upside down
You might want to change your name to "Chamberlainbuff".
*I've no problems continuing in this vein*
Me either--finally something we can agree on! Actually, I'd wager, if either of us was willing to back off just a wee bit from this endless tit-for-tat, I'm pretty sure we could find a great deal of common ground to jointly tromp on...but that's just me.
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