Before the Iraq war began I knew many boosters on the right who didn’t care that much about the obviously weak WMD evidence and at least appeared to genuinely care about the suffering under Saddam Hussein. While that hardly constitutes a case for war (why not invade Sudan?) at least it appeared genuine. You could hardly escape agonized references to rape rooms, torture and mass graves.
Well, now we have rape rooms, torture and mass graves. A conservative estimate of the surplus dead suggests that our war has taken three years to at least reach the body count that Saddam accomplished in twenty-four, and unlike Saddam there is no line under our tally. When I turn back to those same people the concern seems gone or subsumed under layers of denial. Some dismiss the postwar dead as the “birth pangs of democracy,” as if a dead man cares whether he was killed by Saddam, an insurgent or a 500-pound bomb. Others have shielded their intense concern passively, by tuning out the news, or actively by viciously attacking those who make an effort to tally the dead. Hair-shirt humanitarianism seems much more appealing when it is the other donkey being gored.
Maybe I am guilty of the same thing. It seems rational to me to weigh a death caused by our own action much more gravely than a death that occurs outside of our control. You could argue that we “caused” Saddam’s body count by failing to act, but how does that attitude not repudiate every conservative foreign policy principle since World War II? The Republicans bitterly opposed US efforts to intervene in purely humanitarian crises, to become the “world police,” or at least they used to. When Kim Jong Il or Saddam or the military dictators in Burma execute a prisoner in the end it seems like nobody’s fault but theirs. But when somebody dies from an American bomb or from a sectarian death squad that the American war allowed to flourish then the reputation that it marks is ours. Maybe the elephant being gored contributes, but I fail to see how that is not a rational position.
In that vein, read Billmon’s comments on the latest post from Riverbend on the casualty count in the Lancet.
Riverbend’s topic is the Lancet study on war deaths in Iraq, and she curtly eviscerates the conservative Holocaust deniers:
We literally do not know a single Iraqi family that has not seen the violent death of a first or second-degree relative these last three years. Abductions, militias, sectarian violence, revenge killings, assassinations, car-bombs, suicide bombers, American military strikes, Iraqi military raids, death squads, extremists, armed robberies, executions, detentions, secret prisons, torture, mysterious weapons — with so many different ways to die, is the number so far fetched?
Nor does she have any kind words for any of the rest of us here in God Bless America, whether on the left or the right, who posture and bloviate while her country dies a slow, agonizing death:
They write about and discuss Iraq as I might write about the Ivory Coast or Cambodia — with a detachment and lack of sentiment that, I suppose, is meant to be impartial. Hearing American politicians is even worse: They fall between idiots like Bush — constantly and totally in denial, and opportunists who want to use the war and ensuing chaos to promote themselves.
That last one hits too close to home. A bulls eye, in fact. I’ve probably been as guilty as anyone of thinking of the war as some sort of strategy game, or a domestic political issue or a fascinating, if bloody, story — a news junkie’s next fix. When you’re 8,000 miles and an existential light year away from the war, it’s easy to distance yourself, intellectually and emotionally, from the stench of blood and the bloated corpses.
There’s also a natural tendency, which I touched on yesterday, to make it all about us — to consciously or unconsciously treat the Iraqis like extras (or worse, bloody mannequins) in a Mad Max remake produced and directed by Americans.
Read the whole thing, particularly his vignette about Emerson and Thoreau. Billmon largely focuses on the past – did we do enough? Most of us who opposed the war gave money, argued, marched, voted and then more or less threw up our hands and accepted the inevitable. In a democratic state there is only so much more that you can do without trading our comfortable lives for prison. In retrospect, given what we know now, maybe we should have. But as much as history will sneer at milquetoast opponents of the Iraq war the real judgment will be reserved for the hateful, usually dishonest way that the was was sold, the way that the very concept of dialogue was rendered unacceptable, practically the same as loving Saddam and supporting the terrrorists.
…
Rehashing the past has its uses. For one thing, I wouldn’t want to repeat it. For another it helps to calibrate which pundits have real credibility and which spend their time speaking through a practically impenetrable veil of ignorance. But useful as that may be rehashing who ran the car into a tree should take a backdseat to figuring out how to stop the bleeding.
My feeling about Iraq has always been clear. We lack the manpower to do any further good in that country and “stay the course” is just a synonym for a delayed pullout; personnel and manpower limitations will push us out soon enough anyway. “Stay the course” just means cut & run with a higher body count. A dozen Democrats have two dozen good proposals (they are Democrats…) and any one of them would make a fine plan. Apparently this idea has the support of practically every retired General officer as well as the sitting chief of the British Army and a good fraction of our enlisted personnel.
Maybe there are better ideas out there. Conrad Burns has a secret plan that undoubtedly involves divisions of all-terrain ponies and armor-piercing leprechauns. Maybe Burns can mock up a tabletop miniature of his “plan” after he loses his seat. Back in the real world Gregory Djerejian has some thoughts about using aggressive diplomacy (diplomacy? somebody check his voter card…) to mediate the Sunni-Shiite rift.
So what is needed now, amidst this veritable maelstrom of competing historical interests vying for supremacy in Iraq? I’d argue that the time may have come for something akin to the diplomatic effort that Richard Holbrooke undertook with the Dayton Accords that ended the fighting in Bosnia-Herzegovina in November 1995—only this effort, necessarily, would have to be more massive and ambitious. Historical analogies are always imperfect, and this one most certainly is, but let me perhaps sketch out why I believe it may serve as helpful precedent.
[…] [W]e need a new approach, and it has to be a dramatic one. First, let us begin by admitting our strategy has been a failure (getting rid of Rumsfeld would at least constitute the beginnings of acknowledgement of same). Second, we must convene a major Iraq Contact Group consisting of the U.S., British, Germans, French, Russians and Chinese—with full participation too by each of Iraq’s neighbors (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Jordan, Turkey, Kuwait), as well as other critical Arab and/or Islamic countries as observers to the Contact Group (Egypt and Morocco, for instance). To represent the U.S. at the Six-Plus-Six Contact Group we should appoint two seasoned envoys with proven track-records, who will work well together in lockstep. In a bid for bipartisan consensus, there should be one from each party (George Mitchell and James Baker III, say, only by way of example).
One critical priority must be addressing directly the wider regional tensions Iraq has exacerbated so that the conflict does not spill over and spread to other countries. There might well be surprising areas of common interest among many of the regional Contact Group members on this score.
[…] Within Iraq itself, we must most likely bow to reality—which is to say we must entertain how to more smoothly manage a separation of the Sunni, Shi’a and Kurdish zones into three relatively autonomous zones (this is happening whether we like it or not, recent developments increasingly suggest).
[…] In the capital itself, the international community will need to make a stand that will likely last many years, first militarily, later in terms of governmental and military capacity-building. After first establishing rough order in that city (and the entire will and might of the international community might be more effective than General Casey free-lancing without any qualified civilian back-up), attention must then turn to a variety of long-term challenges[.]
Read the whole thing and no bitching because it’s long. Then go over there and weigh in.
Paul L.
And Tim F. shows just how disingenious he can be.
“Slam Dunk” anyone?
If The Bush Administration Lied About WMD, So Did These People — Version 3.0
Pb
I suppose I should mention again that the world’s largest protests, period, weren’t about Vietnam, they were about Iraq, and before the war, even. It’s not that people all over the world weren’t protesting, it’s that the people in charge didn’t listen, and didn’t want to listen.
Pb
And Paul L. shows just how disingenious he can be.
If only Clinton hadn’t invaded Iraq based on false intelligence. Oh wait, he didn’t.
Ugh
And Tim F. shows just how disingenious he can be.
“Slam Dunk” anyone?
Was that before or after Hans Blix wasn’t finding any WMD despite being told where to look by the very same people who insisted Saddam had WMD?
The way people forget this puzzles me the way people forget the anthrax attacks when blathering on about how we haven’t been “hit again” since 9/11.
Paul L.
How about the protests about Reagan’s putting Nuclear weapons in Europe? How do they compare?
BarneyG2000
Saddam is responsible for the deaths of 400,000 Iraqis, and is on trial for war crimes. Bush is responsible for the deaths of 600,000+ Iraqis, and he is still our sitting President?
Andrew
I see no evidence that Paul L. is not an agent of Saddam Hussein.
Darrell
On the other hand, Dems had for decades told us how much they care about the poor and oppressed across the globe, and how much suffering the Iraqi people had endured under sanctions. Bush subsequently toppled Saddam, who at the time was arguably the bloodiest living dictator on earth, and the left demonizes him for doing so. We can all see how sincere the left is with regards to their “compassion” for the suffering of others. Irregardless of the lack of WMDs found, the left, if they weren’t such dishonest hypocrites, would have supported the toppling of Saddam based on HUMAN RIGHTS ALONE. But they didn’t.. because they hate Bush more than they care about their principles.
Darrell
Here is another point to consider – the left opposed toppling Saddam even though virtually all of them believed Saddam had WMDs at the time.
The left’s arguments in 2002/early 2003 weren’t that Saddam didn’t have WMDs, as they tried to argue at that time that we could keep Saddam in a box. Think about it, the left opposed toppling Saddam, even if he had stockpiles of WMDs.
srv
Y’all keep rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. We aren’t in control in Iraq, and will never be. That battle was lost over two years ago.
The only way to pacify the Sunni is to give them what they want. Until Plan A is stabbing the Kurds and Shia in the back, you don’t have a viable strategery.
Davebo
I guess Paul is gonna pass on the Blix question.
Look folks, regardless of the initial reason to surround Iraq and threaten invasion, in the end we invaded Iraq because we knew Saddam probably didn’t have WMD’s.
And had Blix been given the time to certify that what could we do? Sit back and allow the sanctions to be loosened or eliminated all together?
neil
_…the obviously weak WMD evidence…_
It’s funny, when I read this I got a moment of doubt about whether this is an example of 20/20 hindsight. Then I remembered my edifying 2002 arguments with warbloggers and their ilk, where I was repeatedly called an idiot who would be proven wrong when they invade and find those weapons. Funny, because even the anti-war commentators I was reading at that time tended to hedge their bets in a Kevin Drum-like style.
Ned Raggett
Personally I’m all for the toppling of dictators everywhere. But not when the government consists a bunch of chumps that lack even the slightest clue as how to best help its military and the folks within it, which is the case with this current administration.
In the meantime, people continue to die while you, Darrell, whine that the left is not being condemned enough. Pobrecito. I feel about one one-millionth of the amount of sympathy for you as I do for the people described here, to name one — just one — example.
Ned Raggett
BTW, real laughs today from one J. Goldberg — did you realize that, in fact, Iraq is a ‘worthy mistake’?
neil
(Not that Kevin Drum was anti-war at the time)
zzyzx
The reason why people didn’t want Hussein to be overthrown was not because we thought he was a great guy, but rather that the dangers of anarchy being worse scared us. Who didn’t see this as a possible result?
(Well besides the administration of course)
Bombadil
Everytime I read one of Darrell’s postings (and, recently, Paul L.’s as well), I think of the story that when someone challenged Dorothy Parker to use the word ‘horticulture’ in a sentence, she said, “You may lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think.”
It doesn’t matter what the right has done, the left is/was worse. It doesn’t matter what reality is, the left is just a bunch of moonbats. It doesn’t matter what the truth is, the left is, was and always will be, wrong. It doesn’t matter what the point is, Darrell will take a swing at something else.
Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. The country is seeing the Limbaughs, the Hannitys, the Savages, the Coulters, the Darrells and the Paul L.s for what they are. Continue to rant, boys. You’re useless, clueless and irrelevant.
Krista
No such word, sweetpea. If you’re going to be wrong, at least be literate while doing so.
Wow! Virtually ALL of the left believed Saddam had WMDs! Funny…I didn’t. Show of hands, fellow lefties? How many of you believed at ANY point in the run-up to this war that Saddam had WMDs?
Care to back up your assertion, Darrell? Perhaps a poll from those days where virtually all of the self-identified left-wingers indicate that they believe that Saddam has WMDs? You seem to feel that it’s pretty common knowledge that virtually all of the left believed Saddam had WMDs at the time — it should be a veritable piece of cake for you to find something backing that up.
Shall I wait?
srv
Spoken like a man with principal. Funny, I don’t remember all those principled republicans dying under sanctions in the 90’s. Alot of us on the ‘left’ opposed sanctions AND the war. I realize you think Clinton was a ‘leftist’, but you’re only showing that you don’t have any clue what you’re talking about.
But it’s great now that you must obviously agree with Riverbend now and want to send more troops… Or wait, no, you don’t. There’s that principled compassion again, or revisionist compassion?
Darrell, can you even spell flip-flop?
srv
I don’t remember all those principled republicans [complaining about the] dying under sanctions in the 90’s.
The Other Steve
Where does that leave Kim Jong Il?
Iraq is and was a utopia compared to North Korea. And that’s saying a lot, not about how great Iraq is, but how fucking bad North Korea is.
I’m no bleeding heart, but I mean come on. If you aren’t going to be serious about this discussion, why bother to engage in it?
The Other Steve
If Darrell’s going to queer the thread, I’m outta here.
srv
Yes, we all believed he had WMDs, but would not use them if we invaded to depose him. After all, he was a reasonable guy who could be expected to do the right thing…
The invasion itself was proof he didn’t have any capacity. Were Americans prepared pre-war for 10000 casualties from chemicals and gas? Nope.
Darrell
I wan’t aware there was any disagreement on that point, that at the time of invasion and in the debate preceding it, very very few on the left were questioning whether or not WMDs were there, as all of the evidence indicated he had them. Hell, he kicked out inspectors in 1998 with literally hundreds of tons of KNOWN WMDs in his possession at the time.
If you Krista, didn’t believe Saddam had WMDs at the time, on what basis did you come to that conclusion back in early 2003? If you’re honest, tell us what you knew, that the intelligence agencies of the US, France, and Britain didn’t..
Darrell
In hindsight, do you finally acknowledge that it was Saddam himself, with his palaces stacked to the roof with cash and guns, who was hurting the Iraqi people, not the sanctions, which were funded to AID the Iraqi people with food and medicine. I’ll await your answer to see how “principled” you truly are.
Matt
Darrell sort of has a point.
Lefty politicians did mostly support the war. Granted, you can argue that they were mislead–but I’d wager that, by and large, they weren’t. They knew the evidence was lacking, they knew that Bush wasn’t up to the challenge, they knew there was no link between Saddam and 9/11, they knew of the looming Iran/NK threat, and they knew of our ongoing commitment to Afghanistan. Unfortunately, they got cornered politically and hopped on the Bush bandwagon.
Of course…
Is complete horseshit.
Pb
Quoting myself, from January 2003:
Darrell
What I object to is the left’s dishonesty, trying to re-write history telling us they “knew” all along Saddam didn’t have WMDs back in 2002/early 2003.
Tim F.
I would never say that I “knew,” but after seeing the quality of the evidence I sure as hell doubted. My feeling was specifically that threats would work great to get inspectors back to work (they did) and if inspectors didn’t find anything (they didn’t) then great. We could spend out time and treasure chasing real terrorist threats.
capelza
Darrell….I was taking Hans Blix at his word in 2002/early 2003, as were a whole lot of “the Left”. It was your bunch of yahoos that chose to ignore or belittle the information. Whose rewriting history here again?
Though as was just said above, the Dems got conered politcally and went along, much to their shame.
Speaking of Hans Blix, a little gossipy tidbit I remember from back then. Blix is Swedish, Rove Norwegian…if you know that history (or have ever been to Ballard.. :p)…apparantly Rove HATES the Swedes, including Hans Blix.
Darrell
Could you elaborate on the “quality of evidence”? As the situation stood at the time, Saddam had kicked out inspectors in 1998 with hundreds of tons of KNOWN chem weapons and Iraq at the time had also admitted to having 4 tons of Vx, although inspectors suspected more. Given that reality, combined with the fact that inspectors hadn’t had time to search Iraq very thoroughly, as they were only re-admitted at the point of a gun.. Given that, copmbined with intelligence assessments from the US (slam dunk), France and Britain.. tell us then what quality of evidence caused you such doubt at the time
srv
You “compassionate” conservatives and the rest of the UN knew exactly what Saddam would do under sanctions. He did, and you supported them anyway. You must be proud of your principles, and how common they are with the UN.
We gave up the right to judge Saddam when we left him in power in 91. I realize you want to find alot of gray area in there to justify your confused conservative and compassionate values. Good luck with that.
Pb
Still false.
He’s here, it’s queered, get used to it.
capelza
Darrell…slam dunk?
Again the UN weapons inspectors WERE in there just prior to the war and weren’t finding anything (well, because there were none), they asked for more time and were not given it…that was the most current REAL information, not speculation, wishful thinking or “slam dunk”.
Darrell
Ok, he blocked all inspections, seized material from inspectors, and told them to leave. I can see what an honest “substantive” point you have there Pb.
Queered thread indeed
srv
Merriam-Darrell, 2006:
interfere = kicked out
Still waiting on what your compassioniate response is to Riverbend. What are you going to do to help her? Oh, you’re going to bash liberals.
Darrell, are you Christian? Because, if you are, you aren’t a very good one.
Steve
I assumed he did, really, just like I assumed Russia never honored any of those disarmament treaties. Of course, I didn’t strongly oppose the war either, I just didn’t understand why it was our #1 priority out of all the things we could do to fight terrorism (and I still don’t).
Since conservatives have never shown the slightest inclination for toppling the rest of the world’s brutal dictators, aside from the ones that just happened to be left-wing, I always felt like the citations of Saddam’s brutality were just cynical ploys designed to be used as a rhetorical club against liberals who didn’t support the war. (If you oppose the war, then you’re pro-rape rooms!) Darrell’s 10:32 post provides excellent confirmation that I was right.
But yeah, onward to Sudan and Burma, brave conservative humanitarians.
Darrell
That is rich on so many levels.
Pb
Of course, Darrell is not the only one to propagate this falsehood, but he’s done so repeatedly here, despite having been corrected in the past. Mac Buckets has done the same thing, too. At least they have their talking points in order, even if they still can’t manage to tell the truth…
What a Difference Four Years Makes
Why U.N. inspectors left Iraq–then and now
etc.
Steve
Do you really think that was the wrong call, though? I mean, as we sit here today, we’re “leaving” lots of really bad people in power, because we’re not willing to bear the cost of getting rid of them. But we left Saddam in power after the Gulf War for reasons that had nothing to do with “he’s not such a bad guy.”
Krista
And, I’m back from lunch, and see that Darrell still hasn’t offered one iota of proof to back up his assertion that “virtually all of the left” believed Saddam had WMDs.
He’ll probably try to weasel out of it by saying that he was talking about Democrat politicians, or will scare up a quote by a left-wing blogger, as though that somehow represents virtually all of the left. He can’t help being dishonest like that. It’s who he is.
Pb
No, that was totally the right call. I agree with George H. W. Bush for once:
Steve
It’s amazing that Bush Sr. is a liberal on foreign policy by today’s standards. Just amazing.
ThymeZone
Okay, guys, grab your armrests, I am going to be rude here for a minute.
Please explain to me how running a blog where commenters are routinely permitted to talk as you describe here, as though dialogue itself were unacceptable and supporting terrorists …. is any different from making the assertions yourself?
People have been banned here for using a body part word, or for failing to win a popularity contest (ahem). I am not suggesting, however, that commenters be banned for calling somebody who questions a war, a traitor. But I am suggesting that proper moderation either prevents or minimizes that.
I also suggest to you, John and Tim, that pretending that all speech is okay even when it falls into the category of the kind of shit — yes, shit — that you describe in my cited blurb, is one of the things that leads to (a) flame wars and (b) Darrell. Both of which are entirely unneccessary unless the rules of the game are so dysfuctional that no other mode of commentary can overcome the effect of the aforementioned shit.
Thoughts?
ThymeZone
Let me be more blunt than I was in my previous post. I forgot where I was for a minute.
How can you decry the crap described in the blurb, and then allow Darrell to post here? Isn’t that totally disingenuous? Darrell is the embodiment of that kind of smear-demagoguery thing, constantly, every day. He is the poster boy. So, I don’t get it.
Darrell
And you likely assumed that because Russia, like Saddam, had a long history of deception and non-compliance. Which means that those claiming to believe at the time (2002/early 2003) that Saddam didn’t have WMDs, would be taking the position that Saddam had turned over a new leaf and suddenly complied with the UNSCRs, after a 12 year history of non-compliance.
p.lukasiak
The wingnuts who claimed to support the war for “humanitarian” reasons were always full of shit. I was accused of being “objectively pro-Saddam” whenever I pointed out the fact is that in the years prior to the war, the number of “egregious” violations of human rights (ie. political murder, torture) in Iraq had fallen to “dozens” or “scores” (and the number of Iraqis who would die or suffer torturous injuries in any war would be in the thousands if not the tens of thousands), and that the primary cause of suffering of the Iraqi people was the economic sanctions that the US insisted upon.
For both Bush I and Clinton, Saddam was a convenient pawn used to advance US strategic interests — without the “threat” that Saddam represented, the US would have no justification for its military presence in Saudi Arabia. (Clinton “believed” that Iraq had WMDs because it was convenient for him to do so…to challenge that belief meant challenging the rational for our military presence in the region.)
The same holds true for North Korea — neither side was living up to the precise terms of the “Agreed Framework” (NK bought nuke info from Pakistan, the US wasn’t building the light-water reactor that was promised), but those talks were showing progress. But Bushco wanted to build Star Wars, and it needed a rationale to do so — and it didn’t have one. Star Wars couldn’t protect us against a full scale attack by China or Russia, and such an attack was unlikely in the extreme considering our retaliatory power. What it might be able to protect us from would be a madman with very limited nuclear capability. Unfortunately, there were no such “madmen” around, but NK offered the opportunity to “create” a threat, so Bush insulted Kim and abandoned the talks within months of taking office, provoking the expected “belligerant” response from NK, and providing the justification for Star Wars.
capelza
Darrell, do I need to point out the painfully obvious?
Saddam DIDN’T have WMD’s in 2002/early 2003. Whatever position we took, for whatever reason, it was the correct one.
Steve
What was Clinton’s interest in having a military presence in Saudi Arabia?
p.lukasiak
And you likely assumed that because Russia, like Saddam, had a long history of deception and non-compliance. Which means that those claiming to believe at the time (2002/early 2003) that Saddam didn’t have WMDs, would be taking the position that Saddam had turned over a new leaf and suddenly complied with the UNSCRs, after a 12 year history of non-compliance.
no, I assumed that Saddam has something despite all the evidence to the contrary, because I assumed that Bushco knew something that I didn’t — that the administration had intelligence that was bulletproof and so sensitive that it could not be disclosed. I still opposed the war despite that belief, because it was obvious that Saddam represented no threat, that the inspections process was working, and that a war represented an enormous and unnecessary risk.
p.lukasiak
What was Clinton’s interest in having a military presence in Saudi Arabia?
1) protecting our access to mid-East oil.
2) assuring Israel that the US was committed to its defense, and that Israel could make concessions to the Palestinians without fearing that those concessions would create an existential threat to that nation.
The Other Steve
In 2002/2003. I would have admitted that it’s possible that Hussein had WMDs. But was it probable? There was no evidence to support that claim.
Would it have been honest for me at the time to claim Hussein most certainly did not have WMDs? Most likely not.
But then the real question is, would it have been honest at the time to claim Hussein most certainly did have WMDs? That it was a Slam Dunk? Definatley not.
So how is it that we are the dishonest ones here? You’re the one who spouted something that was not true and continue to defend that untruth in the face of overwhelming evidence showing you were wrong.
And that’s the problem with conservatives. They can’t think in shades of grey. Either Hussein had WMDs, or he did not. Since we cannot prove he did not(because it’s near impossible to prove a negative), he therefore has them.
The rest of us. I don’t know what we think. I mean, it sucks from the standpoint that the Iraq war has weakened America. That it’s caused us to become the laughing stock of the world. Those things can be corrected though, given time.
What can’t be corrected are the 2,785 dead soldiers, or the 30-40,000 soldiers who have come home with serious wounds, many of whom will never have a normal life as a result.
Those deaths, those wounded are on your shoulders, not mine. I hope you can live with the responsibility.
The Other Steve
More likely it has to do with Saudi not having to spend it’s money building a military. For any time a nation spends money building a large military, at some point they feel they have to use it.
It’s the same reason we still have bases in Japan and Germany. To not just protect them, but to prevent them from arming themselves and making everybody else nervous.
BlogReeder
Why didn’t Bush just talk to you?
ThymeZone
All correct. And …
1) Even if he had the WMDs, he had no delivery system that would have permitted their use outside his borders.
2) Even if he had the WMDs, his ability to sell them to terrorists or even give them to terrorists was a red herring. The US was tracking individual truckloads of oil that he was selling under the embargo radar … and we were to believe that he was also running a weapons business and we couldn’t find any of the weapons? Nonsensical.
3) He had no motive to either use or get others to use WMDs agains the US. Even Kim Jong Il could have figured out that doing so would be completely suicidal … that we’d bomb him and his country to rubble for doing it. Saddam was a thief, and sociopathic, but not stupid.
4) He was being watched and was hemmed in and represented no particular immediate threat to this country or our allies.
5) Continued inspections would have revealed, more and more, that my first four points were correct then, as we know them to be today, and eliminated the need for war.
The question was never whether he “had” the weapons. It was whether he had the means, the opportunity, or the motive to use them against us or our allies. Only in the fear driven overreaction to 911 could that be turned into a believable threat, and then, only by somebody determined to turn it into a believable threat. Only by somebody willing and able to cherry pick the facts, twist their meaning, play an intel shell game with the people and with Congress and with the rest of the world … a game that has now been exposed for what it was.
capelza
Would he have listened? He wanted this war for years..why let a little thing like facts get in the way?
That is the bottomline folks…Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc. WANTED this war, long BEFORE Bush was elected.
BlogReeder
Wasn’t that Reagan?
Been drinking the Kool-aid again? I know, Bush must have gone back in time so that Clinton would have to deal with Kim Jong.
BlogReeder
That’s probably correct. What’s wrong with that?
zzyzx
I just reread my old posts on my LJ during that period out of curiousity. For the record my thoughts were that the removal of Hussein would not be a bad thing (as long as it didn’t lead to anarchy), but he’s not a threat, is contained, and Bush seems to be driving way too hard for the war.
I feel like John Cole in that I bash the policies a lot and then turn around and mock the protestors for being idiots.
Pb
They took it one or two steps further, even. Since the weapons inspectors couldn’t find anything on the ground, that was *proof* that Hussein was *hiding* them! And to this day, you’ll still find rabid wingnuts sputtering that he really did have dangerous WMDs, but the King of Unfalsifiability spirited them away just before we could find them.
Pb
He should have. We talked to him, but he wouldn’t listen, and now we’re all paying for his mistake, literally.
jg
I’m not a lefty but I was all for the war back in early 03. The evidence they showed, especially at the UN, was very weak but I assumed the real evidence was something we couldn’t be shown for fear of outing undecover agents. When mid summer came around and we hadn’t found anything and Bush started saying the war was about freeing the iraqis I turned. It was then I realized the evidence they showed was all they had and they knew all long that he didn’t have anything but they told us what we wanted to hear so we would go along with the invasion.
jg
Well some Iraqi general did say they shipped them to Syria right? Apparently they also buried the factories.
Bombadil
Bullshit. What you object to is anything to the right of your foolish thinking. You’ll twist what the “left” was saying into something unrecognizable, set up your pathetic little straw man and proceed to knock it down with one mighty blow. You’re full of shit, Darrell, and nothing you say will change that.
scarshapedstar
Fair enough, but can we please break the driver’s thumbs first? For everyone’s safety. He’s just too fucking stupid.
Bombadil
Excuse me — that shoud read “What you object to is anything to the right of your foolish thinking.”
BlogReeder
Too bad you didn’t listen very closely on 3/19/2003. He did say it then.
RSA
I’ll just observe that war supporters on the right have shifted the emphasis in the rationale for the invasion of Iraq several times now: from WMDs to supporting democracy to preventing a humanitarian crisis–I can’t remember the ordering now. It’s ridiculous to bludgeon war protesters now strictly on the WMD issue. Based on what I wrote on the Internet a few years ago, I had several reasons to oppose an invasion of Iraq, including the risk of a destabilized Middle East. If someone gives Bush the benefit of the doubt on his rationale for the current disaster in Iraq, he has to give the same to people who were actually right about it in some ways.
Bombadil
Dammit! One more try: that should read “What you object to is anything to the left of your foolish thinking.”
capelza
Sigh…because it was a dumb idea and an even dumber execution? Because above all else beyond the untold numbers of innocent Iraqis killed it had essentially nada to do with our war on terror. THAT was put on the back burner so Bushco could pursue their previous agenda/vendetta with unseemly haste.
ThymeZone
Yeah, more believable if not an idea being pimped by the people who ran the car into the tree.
One difference between a republic and a monarchy is that in a monarchy, nobody really has to take responsibility for anything. And even if they do, if you don’t like what they did, they can say “Fuck you, get over it.”
We don’t like monarchies in this country. Accountability is a wonderful thing. I’m not quite willing to throw it out in order to save somebody else embarassment.
ThymeZone
Because it has caused real damage to this country which will take a long time to repair.
capelza
TZ..not to mention the real damage to the country we were “liberating”.
srv
Either do, or don’t. If you don’t, don’t strangle the country with sanctions. Sanctions almost always just hurt people, not leaders. See Cuba. See DJ Kim.
I didn’t support either war or sanctions, so I don’t have to flip flop around like Darrell claiming I was compassionate before I wasn’t.
BlogReeder
That’s true of any war really. Bush is different I think because of the apoplexy he causes some people.
jg
No I didn’t. If I had I would have blown it off as rhetoric. Honestly, a conservative trying to justify an invasion based on humanitarion reasons? Bullshit. He was only saying that to appeal to segments of the population it had nothing to do with why we went there. Conservatives don’t bleieve in world policeman ideals or in rescuing oppressed people.
ThymeZone
Your spoofy bullshit has now fallen to the level of farce.
Try some new material.
RSA
Look at Katrina.
ThymeZone
Via Kevin Drum and WaMo.
zzyzx
Actually the rationale has shifted again. We’re no longer in Iraq to help out the Iraqis at all.
Ignore the quality of the analogy, and focus on the plan. Santorum is using the entire Iraqi population as a sacrifice. “Attack them and leave us alone,” is the current idea behind the invasion.
Gee I can’t imagine why the Iraqis don’t like that.
Source
BlogReeder
Don’t know what apoplexy means?
Perry Como
BDS is spreading:
Tsulagi
There were plenty within the military, government, and out that knew Iraq under Saddam was no security threat to the U.S. or anyone else in that region.
In Suskind’s “The One Percent Doctrine” he tells of an attack planned on NY’s subways that had the potential to cause far more deaths than 9/11 being called off by Zawahiri in 2003.
Let’s see, did the admin learn of this attack via use of the Patriot Act? Through detainees gitmoized? How about a little torture or suspension of habeas corpus? Must have been secret NSA wiretaps.
Nope, they learned of it well after the fact through none of those means. They had no clue of the attack in advance. Why was it called off? My guess is Zawahiri turned to Osama and said “Shit, man, no way we want to distract the retards from Stay the Course in Iraq.”
The Asshole Formerly Known as GOP4Me
This one’s for Darrell.
No word yet on whether or not the Scoutmaster was gay, but given that he was also a pedophile (and, probably, a pederast), he must have been.
The Asshole Formerly Known as GOP4Me
So the Shire’s joined the Coalition of the Willing? I don’t know what New Zealand will think of that, but no one could be more pleased than the oft-forgotten Poland.
Perry Como
Poland hasn’t been the same since North Korea invaded them in WW2. Thank God President Bush bombed North Korea’s nuclear weapons facilities and scuttled their WMD programs.
ThymeZone
The complete lack of any physical evidence was a clue.
And no, the conclusion that “he must have buried them” or “he must have transported them to Syria” was not reasonable. There was no evidence of those things, either.
Slam dunk? Yeah. It was a slam dunk that the threat was overblown and unsupported by evidence. That’s what I said in 2002, and I was right.
What’s your fucking excuse?
Tsulagi
Read Billmon. He’s right, we all share the responsibility. Iraq was done in our name. Read the Belgravia piece. Here’s a few things I picked out…
Definitely correct. However, our forces are watching a lesser-blown civil war armed with the Conrad Burns secret plan. Regardless whether it happens at a fast or slow pace, the same result will occur.
The snowball that started at the top of the Bush Mountain of Incompetence has become an avalanche. The only way to stop it now would be to come in with forces sufficient to lock down the entire country. We don’t have them.
Yep, we’re past the point of rounding up militia leaders making a difference. It’s gone well beyond them. Plus a little irony that militia leaders and others running death squads are part of the democracy government we created.
Okay, and in which millennium will they reach consensus? Sorry, guy, that one and with this admin, it doesn’t even get to step up to the plate for the laugh test.
It’s admirable he’s trying to think of solutions, but Iraq is done. Trying to apply western “think tank” solutions isn’t going to work. The people in Iraq now are voting with their actions and inactions. At this point, we’re just spectators.
BlogReeder
Iraq the modelRiverbend is funded by theCIA.Al-Qaeda.searp
I work with soldiers. This morning I talked to a retired general (yup, another one) who served in Iraq. His comments suggest to me that the pros hated this war from the start. All the crap about Bush doing what the military wanted him to do is utter crap. The military washed their hands of it right from the start.
This matters, because no matter how much spin is put out, it will be very clear to history that W wanted this war, sold this war, and fought this war. Bush will go down in history as responsible for a serious strategic disaster.
History won’t care about the spin, it will be results that matter. This is the usual view of the military professionals, and the rumbling I heard today made it clear that they aren’t going to accept getting tagged with this one.
Every time I see pictures of the dead I get sick to my stomach, because it is all waste, and we’ve known that it is a waste for years. The dead and the maimed of the last few years are a grim monument to the ego and career of one feckless, shallow man, and it isn’t Donald Rumsfeld.
Pb
Well, the Iraq the model guys have actually met with President Bush, for one. They’re also tied in with the Pajamas Media crowd, and have gotten some mass-media attention. If you told me they got GOP funding, I wouldn’t be surprised. I don’t know about the CIA theories, but I’d be lying if I told you that the CIA hadn’t done exactly that sort of thing in the past.
Steve
Well, I’m sort of an anti-conspiracy guy in general, but it seems to me the fact that they’ve met with the President is good evidence that they’re NOT some kind of covert op.
ThymeZone
Word.
BlogReeder
What does that have to do with anything?
I don’t know about you but some people seem to think that anyone with a different opinion is somehow part of the conspiracy. They can’t at all fathom how someone can possible think differently. I read Riverbend years ago and she hasn’t change her “bend” so to speak. She hated the invasion then and apparently still does. That’s her opinion. I got a kick out of the end of her piece:
Yes, somehow the president is able to keep 30,000 or so families in the dark.
Pb
My opinion is that reasonable people can disagree, but some people just aren’t reasonable, period. The Bush administration–and therefore anyone who manages to consistently and slavishly agree with them–is a great example of this, because over six years, they’ve been inconsistent over a whole range of issues, and you’ll often see career bureaucrats or true believers who eventually got pushed out due to political or ideological differences.
For example, Richard Clarke could work fine with Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton, but the Bush administration pushed him out. And I’m sure that David Kuo didn’t change his convictions, but rather, he was selected under false pretenses–that Bush was really going to do what he promised in his campaign to help the poor, for one.
So, anyone who can consistently carry water for the Bush administration is probably either brainwashed, or a paid shill–and if they aren’t, they really should be getting paid, because there’s simply no intellectually consistent position you can take that would justify supporting them over the past six years or so, or often even a small fraction of that.
Well, maybe she was right all along. I was against the Iraq war from the beginning, and I still am. It was a bad idea then, and it’s a disaster now. This administration has done essentially nothing to convince me that they’re at all competent since 2002. In fact, at this point, they’re doing a great job of convincing me that they’re actually a danger to America and to our fundamental American values, that we all should be defending. That is, unless you think that Jose Padilla is holed up in a spa right now eating lemon chicken and two types of fruit, which would put you squarely in the delusional camp.