You both assume a position that takes sides rather than taking an objective look at the situation. Personally I am on the side of the U.S.A., but for me that doesn't include coming up with every rationalization that supports our foreign policy while ignoring anything that doesn't.
That's how the Bush administration handled the WMD issue, and at best it can be characterized as tunnel-vision and self-delusion. At worst it is deliberate lying and manipulation of the public in order to implement an agenda without subjecting it to honest debate.
Your post was too long for me to thoroughly address in its entirety, so I'll respond to one paragraph in particular:
EVERYONE was convinced that Saddam Hussein had (or was working towards having weapons of mass destruction. He'd had them before the first Gulf War, even used them, and after that war he'd pledged to destroy them all. He showed that he got rid of most of them, but for many of those stockpiles he said "I got rid of them. I can't prove it, but trust me."
If you look at Saddam's public statements, he was saying that he didn't have any more WMDs, but hinting strongly in other statements that he DID have them. He was playing a very fine bluff; he didn't want to provoke an invasion, but he also had to project strength to keep himself in power. He chose to strongly hint that he had these weapons. Hell, he might even have thought he did. But in the world of WMD, when you have a power that 1) has had WMDs in the past; 2) USED weapons of WMD in the past; 3) SIGNED TREATIES promising to destroy said WMDs in a verifiable manner; 4) then VIOLATES those agreements; 5) has a history of invading his neighbors; 6) has a history of brutally oppressing and slaughtering his own people, 7) supports acts of terrorism in other nations (by rewarding the families of suicide bombers with large amounts of cash, for one example); and 8) is now tossing around threats of "great destruction," one does NOT take chances. As one person once said, in this age of WMDs, "a smoking gun could be a mushroom cloud over one of our cities."Before we invaded Iraq, I assumed Saddam would continue his attempts to acquire WMD, but I opposed the invasion for several reasons, one of which was that I did not believe it posed a serious threat. We know for a fact he had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons at the time of the first gulf war, but the scuds he launched at Israel were conventional explosives and he didn't use biochem against our forces despite the whup-ass we were putting on his army.
I don't trust Saddam Hussein for one second, but I do take into account his actions rather than his words, and it has been demonstrated that deterrence works. His own survival and hold on power has always been paramount -- he is not an Islamic fundamentalist eager to be a martyr for Allah. He didn't use biochem against us or Israel because he knew it would mean his destruction.
The Bush administration continually asserted Saddam would attack us through terrorist proxies, but the fundamentalists were his natural enemies. In fact, this is why we supported Saddam in the 80's. Our own CIA concluded Saddam was unlikely to give biochem weapons to terrorists,
unless he was facing destruction and had nothing left to lose. The CATO Institute stated the case very well two weeks before the invasion:
http://www.cato.org/dailys/03-05-03.htmlI keep referring to biochem because these are the weapons he had, and because they are far less effective a WMD than nukes. And when it comes to nukes, any objective analysis of the available information indicated that Saddan wasn't anywhere close to acquiring them. Aside from the testimony (proven to be lies or misinformation) by unreliable defectors, the only two pieces of evidence were the yellowcake from Niger claim (based on crude forgeries) and the aluminum tubes which our best experts in the field of uranium enrichment proclaimed were unsuited for the purpose. The facilities required to produce nuclear weapons are not easily hidden, and the UN inspectors were given access to any site they chose. At the same time the UN team concluded Saddam had no nuke program worth mentioning, Cheney proclaimed Iraq had "reconstituted nuclear weapons". If Cheney actually believed this, he is not the hard-headed realist he pretends to be.
As for the biological and chemical weapons, they have a limited shelf life and the unaccounted for stockpiles (90%-95% were documented as destroyed) would have been long degraded by the time we invaded. To have actual weapons there would have had to be ongoing production, but the CIA admitted they had no proof of this. And it turned out there was no new production.
To put it simply, you don't go to war over WMD with the information that was available. You don't say: "Prove that you
don't have it or we'll attack". Although the Bush administration has gone to great lengths to create the public perception that Iraq and 9/11 are inextricably linked, the fact is that none of the hijackers were Iraqi and there is no evidence that Saddam sponsored the attack.
Let's examine your 8) points:
1) has had WMDs in the past;Yes. We sold him the precursors & dual-use technology.
2) USED weapons of WMD in the past;Mostly he used them in his war against Iran, which we aided and encouraged. When he used them against his own people in 1988, we did nothing. He
didn't use them against us in the first gulf war or since. It is beyond lucicrous to suggest an invasion in 2003 is justified for acts committed in the 80's.
3) SIGNED TREATIES promising to destroy said WMDs in a verifiable manner;Yes.
4) then VIOLATES those agreements;The only substantial violation would be the continued possession and production of the proscribed weapons; at best he retained the capacity for resuming production. Furthermore, violation of UN treaties does not translate into military intervention -- Israel is in numermous violations regarding the occupied territories. Security Council resolutions are enforceable only by the Security Council, which
did not authorize armed intervention in Iraq.
5) has a history of invading his neighbors;We aided Saddam in his war against Iran, and we gave him the impression we would not interfere with his plans in Kuwait:
Before attacking Kuwait, however, Saddam consulted George H.W. Bushs administration. First, the U.S. State Department informed Saddam that Washington had no special defense or security commitments to Kuwait. Then, U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie told Saddam, we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.6) has a history of brutally oppressing and slaughtering his own people,As do many oppressive regimes. The largest mass graves in Iraq were filled by those we encouraged to rise up against Saddam after the first gulf war -- who were under the impression we would provide assistance -- which never came.
7) supports acts of terrorism in other nations (by rewarding the families of suicide bombers with large amounts of cash, for one example);Please provide another example, because this one is weak. Palestinian suicide bombers operated quite independently of Saddam, and are supported by Arabs throughout the Middle East. This "collusion with terrorists" argument gives the lie to the WMD terrorist proxy argument, because not one attack in Israel was carried out with biological or chemical weapons provided by Iraq.
8) is now tossing around threats of "great destruction," one does NOT take chances. As one person once said, in this age of WMDs, "a smoking gun could be a mushroom cloud over one of our cities."The "mushroom cloud" rhetoric is a blatant scare tactic without factual basis. Just prior to the invasion, the UN inspectors had been all over Iraq and concluded with confidence that Iraq's nuclear program was essentially nonexistent. They have been proven to be correct in this conclusion. I'm not aware of the "great destruction" threats made by Saddam, but you don't go to war over empty rhetoric when the experts on the scene have concluded there is nothing to back up that rhetoric.
BunnyThief, you seem to be well-versed in neoconservative argument, so I assume you are familiar with PNAC and their notion that the Middle east can be transformed into free-market democracies by U.S. military force. It's an interesting theory, and one that should have been debated. Instead, the Bush administration hyped the WMD threat beyond all reason.
The 9/11 attacks affected
ALL Americans, both left and right. One of the biggest reasons people in this forum are so appalled at the Bush administration is that they exploited that atrocity -- that national tragedy -- to implement a pre-existing political/ideological agenda. This is perhaps the most egregious betrayal of public trust in the history of the presidency.
Although some on the left also opposed the invasion of Afghanistan, most will admit it was justified -- the Taliban harbored the al Qaeda terrorist organization that attacked us. The world was with us then -- including France. There may have actually been an opportunity to make some headway in the war of competing worldviews -- militant Islam vs. liberal democracy (
liberal as in
liberty).
Instead America is despised as never before, and we are helping the Osama bin Ladens of this world recruit the next generation of terrorists faster than we can kill them.
The task of nation building in Afghanistan was a very difficult proposition, even with allied help and our full attention focused on it. But vital resources were shifted to Iraq, and most of Afghanistan outside Kabul is not secure. Now we find our military stretched precariously thin, our treasury drained, and we are entangled in two extremely difficult nation building operations, with no guarantee that any government we install could long survive our departure.
Iraq was a war of choice, not necessity.
It was a bad choice because there was no imminent threat, and Iraq was
NOT a mecca for terrorists, until we made it so.
It was a bad choice because building a viable democracy among rival Shia Sunni and Kurds is a nearly impossible task, which has been compounded by the Bush administration's horrible postwar planning (or lack thereof). Experts offered detailed postwar plans, but the Bushies were never much for taking advice from anyone who were not their ideological cohorts.
It was a bad choice because it diminished the chances for success in Afghanistan.
It was a bad choice because it is
LOSING the "war on terror", which is at least as much a battle for hearts and minds as it is one of bullets and bombs.
It was a bad choice because it has been divisive -- dividing us from many of our allies and much of the world -- and dividing Americans from each other.
It was a bad choice because the deception employed to promote it goes against the foundation of our own democracy -- the consent of an informed electorate.
It was a bad choice because of all the innocent lives it has taken, including over 700 (so far) fine young Americans who put their lives on the line whether or not the politicans are justified in demanding their sacrifice.
And ultimately it was a bad choice because it is just as likely, and probably more so, to make America
LESS secure,
LESS prosperous, and
MUCH LESS the "perfect union" that our forefathers worked so hard to create.
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