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.
Ah -- thanks for giving us a litmus test on your rationality and powers of observation.
I never knew about his support of a murderer back in the 1960s. Are you sure you aren't confusing him with Norman Mailer?
If you apologised to nopardons, I might consider it. Otherwise, to use an Alabama phrase, "I ain't comin' down".
Ivan
See my reply above...thank-you...
Do you believe that President Bush got out of bed on Thanksiving Day in 2003 and decided that it would be a great thing to go visit (a "personal visit") the troops in Baghdad?
Buckley, Clancy and the rest have underesteemed the power of the enemy, misinterpreted the real lesson of 9-11 (or else, WMD, even in hindsight, would not enter the equation) and worst of all, they are asking us to assume that Saddam was oblivious to the same message, that being that WITHOUT WMD, without missiles to deliver warheads, he not only COULD have murdered our citizens with impunity, but had exhibited a pattern of behavior which indicates he WOULD have.
We were attacked in our homeland not from an overabundance of anger, but from a profound lack of respect. To declare war on al-Qaida while fearfully leaving Saddam in place would have been tantamount to piddling with terror, and would have sent yet another message of weakness to our adversaries, yet another reason to disrespect us, and yet another invitation to strike.
Updated: The Great Prevaricator. (Updated 03/29/04)
Edgar Smith, with William F. Buckley Jr. blithely playing his stooge, wrote his way to freedom from the Death House in Trenton State Prison in 1971, becoming the most famous death-row prisoner of his time. Fourteen and-a-half years earlier, Smith -- at age 23 -- had bludgeoned to death 15-year-old Vickie Zielinski in Mahwah, N.J. Less than five years after his release from prison, Smith kidnapped a petite but scrappy young mother who miraculously managed to escape from Smith's car with a knife stuck in her side,
Its not that I disagree with the enforcement of the UN resolution, the threat of WMD, Saddam's tyranny or any of the other stated reasons. Going to the UN was just necessary protocol and a matter of red tape. We were setting an example with Iraq and making a point. We tried to do the right thing with international backing, but countries like France took every opportunity to block us out of their own political greed. The UN is as corrupt as any organization I can think of and we couldn't rely on the UN to keep tabs on this rougue government.
There is something everyone needs to understand:
We saved lives in the long run by taking Iraq.
I don't wish to see any innocent people die. But making a point to the muslim extremists that we are not scared to finish the job may have possibly saved tens of thousands of American lives or more down the road.
What did he add?
Copy and paste:
To: churchillbuffI'm posting this because those freepers who call me some kind of traitor for opposing the invasion of Iraq are now going to have to add Buckley (along with Tom Clancy and a number of military brass) to the list.
3 posted on 06/29/2004 9:04:21 PM CDT by churchillbuff
Sorry, no. There is a peculiarly unique American phrase: "never complain, never explain." I'M APOLOGIZING TO NO ONE, PERIOD. Let alone the nasty poster you refer to. I would rather have my tounge dragged across a parking lot full of broken glass.
So let's get back to it then...I'm up for it. FOR HOURS & DAYS. Please, by all means--GO RIGHT AHEAD.
Agree or disagree, at least this author provided a calm analysis of the situation, acknowledged there were still issues open to debate and offered his view as opinion, not fact.
Contrast this with the emotional schoolyard taunts used by so many liberals. Claiming Bush 'lied' and that Cheney 'profited' is only intended to divide and antagonize.
"Let me ask you this:
Do you believe that President Bush got out of bed on Thanksiving Day in 2003 and decided that it would be a great thing to go visit (a "personal visit") the troops in Baghdad?"
According to what I recall he had been considering it for a time prior to Thanksgiving Day in 2003. So no I do not believe that he got out of bed that day and hopped aboard a plane without prior thought.
Interesting though as I recall the trip was planned with the major focus not about himself, rather about the security of those he was coming to visit, and could and would be cancelled at a moments notice.
He made the trip anyway, knowing full well what kind of accusations would be coming his way that once again he was making the military a campaign tool. That I find admirable considering his experience with the "carrier event".
I saw the looks on those faces of those who got a face to face with the commandar-in-chief, and not one of them had the look of being used.
So who is it using the military for political gain, ignoring what it is that gives them honor and support, a surprise visit on Thanksgiving Day.
Is any criticism of GWB considered backstabbing?Or is legitimate criticism allowed?
I disagreed with Bush on CFR, and campaigned AGAINST the bill. When they pitched on his desk, I campaigned for Bush to either VETO it or pocket veto it. But he signed it, anyway. He didn't heed my multiple emails to him and to Cheney.
I still disagree with CFR, but I don't make that the center of my time here on FR posts. Win a few, lose a few.
And when you're already in a war and have made life better for 25 MILLION Iraqis, what't the point of posting an article and then saying [see post #609 I copied/pasted]. I think most Iraqis would be glad to have Saddam's boot off their arses now.
Just my 2 cents.
It's all part of growing up to realise that one should apologise when one is wrong - it's a pity that you haven't reached a level of maturity yet that you understand that being gracious is far better than indulging some juvenile idea of machismo.
You should apologise to her even if you don't like her, because what you said is out of bounds in how a lady should be treated.
And the threat of hours and days doesn't phase me in the slightest.
Ivan
What did he say?
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