Topic: Iraq
I think the political right in this country needs to come to grips with reality as it pertains to Iraq.
First off, the case for a pre-emptive war was completely a sham, and simply cannot be logically defended successfully. There were no weapons of mass destruction produced past 1991. The Kay Report predicted we will probably not find significant stockpiles of these weapons, and likely production was ceased a long time ago. There are a few stray weapons, but they are largely impotent, outdated and extremely small in number.
The media, particularly FOX "News" trumpeted the discovery of "warheads containing cyclosarin".
http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_ … icle=40187
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&a … 0702184424
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040702181116.ctvlrxgf.html
Despite the overwhelming evidence that these are not chemical warheads, let alone WMD, let alone again evidence of any modern weapons production or massive stockpiles of before-mentioned bio-chemical weapons... FOX News continues at this hour to run the same story and simply refuses to come to terms with reality.
We invaded Iraq over a year ago, and no so-called weapons of mass destruction have been found. With most of the sites searched already and David Kay calling it quits and saying we likely will not find anything, there is absolutely no good reason to believe we ever will find them. Iraqi scientists, it seems, would have came forward by now. None were used during the war, and it makes little sense that Saddam magically moved them all out of the country the eve of the war to Syria without the CIA getting wind of it (it's a little hard to move 500 tons of chemical weapons without someone figuring out about it), the Syrians objecting or coming to the realization that with an impending war, it might be better to stand our ground.
There was no working relationship between Al-qaeda and Saddam Hussein's Iraq. They had completely different agendas and personality types. Saddam was the head of a secular regime that wanted brutal oppression at any cost, and complete control of the region. Osama bin Laden is/was the equivalent of a force of disorder, of terrorism and of religious extremism. Bin Laden hated Saddam as a "bad Muslim" and Saddam refused to work with him.
Were there meetings? Yes, there were meetings. But Democrats meet all the time with Republicans on the hill. Enemies meet to discuss treaties. Businesses meet with rivals to discuss possible mergers, and sometimes those discussions either go sour or lead nowhere.
The point being that contacts does not mean a friendship, let alone a working relationship or any link to 9/11.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ar … rss_nation
Saddam had ties with terrorists, but they were usually no more than bribes or contacts. There was no overwhelming working operation between them, as Bush would have led us to believe with comments such as:
"Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda"
There is of course no evidence for this, and much to suggest otherwise. The 9/11 commission is still out on this point, overall, but they did rebuke Dick Cheney over directly implying that there was a full connection between Saddam 9/11:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/06/ … index.html
Given the thorough debunking of these points, it is of no surprise at all that the Bush administration has fallen to what it considers moral highground. That is, Saddam Hussein is evil and that alone justified the war.
Let me be exceptionally clear on my response here. Saddam Hussein was evil. That doesn't make us good, it only makes us a much lighter shade of evil. We killed innocent people in Iraq as well, our soldiers tortured Iraqi prisoners and we had ran a rather incompetent and messy occupation until the 28th of June.
Even so, the ends do not justify the means. It is illogical to suggest that they do, as an effect cannot validate a cause. Morally, it seems rather dubious because it depends on ignoring the morality of the action itself. Sending people to their deaths on false pretenses is immoral. There is no defending it. I don't care if Saddam is captured, dead or still in power and frankly I think most Americans really do agree.
The war was not sold on liberation, we don't apply our foreign policy as such and we probably cannot realistically do so anyways.
At exactly what point did Saddam being evil start to bother us? It seemingly wasn't in the 1960s when our government helped him stage a revolution. Again, in the 1980s, when we provided him chemicals and funding for his war with Iran. He didn't seem evil then. Before he invaded Kuwait, well he didn't seem too evil then either. Or when Rumsfeld was shaking his hand.
Saddam became evil after we needed a reason. So let's stop the dancing around and praising ourselves. The Iraqi people distrust us immensely, and more hate us than love us.
Someday, the Iraqi people might be free. Maybe when they have an elected government, something positive will come out of this worthless, immoral war. But I'd trade it all for the lives, the credibility, alliances, global security and our international credibility back.
Screw the liberation argument, and screw some abstract self-righteous notion of freedom that we shoved down their throats on the barrel of a gun.
Besides the fact that the war was a sham, I think we need to admit things went badly in the occupation. It was plagued overall by a basic lack of security in the country. It took us a long time to get electricity, water, food etc. restored to acceptable levels.
Our international relations are nearly gone, our credibility is virtually non-existent and the terrorists have more propaganda than they will ever need for a nearly endless war.
The Iraqi people right now aren't better off. They live in a country without the right to vote, secure their homes from search and seizure or even secure their own persons. The country's security is a mess, and it, like Afghanistan, is a democracy held together only by martial law.
The handover changed puppets, but little else. The security situation remains, our troops remain and the Iraqi people remain in what might as well be a military dictatorship.
It puts a nice positive spin on things until a real election can take place, I guess, but that is just a change of perception that may or may not last.
If you agreed with this war, you are either stupid or intellectually dishonest.
well...cya around..if that fuckins server comes up. 8) 8) :twisted: :evil: