Seven Simple Questions For Those Who Supported The War.

I just wanted to take a moment to point out what is probably obvious to anyone reading this thread with a shred of objectivity...


As anticipated in my opening post, the questions, uncomfortable as they are to digest for those who don't want to deal with the issue of the administration misleading the government into war, have largely been ducked. Despite the fact that this thread has been at or near the top of this forum for a few days now, most of the posters who popped in regularly to inform us about each and every 'discovery' of WMD's on a daily basis, complete with mocking asides, have not been heard from. Of those posters who were here with minute by minute updates on our winning the war with...Iraq...and somehow crowing over this as justification for the war, nary a peep. Of those pro war folks who have bothered to even answer ( 9), only 2 ( giddy and robbie) had the courage to even try and respond to the questions.

Unless you think that the questions themselves are dishonest ( have you stopped beating your wife, yes or no?) which I intentionally avoided, and have yet to gear anyone accuse, what is the problem with addressing them face on? We have had several threads where pro-war folks have and can address why they feel that the war is ok whether Bush mislead us or not...we have had several threads where they could and did voice their opinion that the US needs to start kicking ass and taking names. If you want to do that subsequent to dealing with the issue of this thread, namely was the war justified as advertised, and were we mislead, fine. But to duck that issue in a thread specifically about it, and preach Pax Americana is gutless, IMO.

 

1) How shall I put this....Hmmm...Oh, wait, I know...Because it's not ours. Taking it merely because we can is thieving, stealing, imperialism, whatever you want to call it.

2) On this issue, it's the appeasers – not the hard-liners – who are "all about oil."

Clearly you don't understand what appeasement was, if you are attempting to make an historical reference to WWII. That aside, please explain how the bulk of the world's population was influenced by the commercial aspirations of a couple of Russian and French corporations. Both of their populations stood firmly against the war in and of themselves, and the governments reflected their population, as they are supposed to. In fact, the only nations whose leaders went against the expressed desires of their population were those among the 'willing.' And, if you want ulterior motives, many of those nations recieved monetary compensation for their support. Standing up for freedom and democracy indeed.

 

"There is no connection between Islamic terrorists and the Saddam Hussein regime. This statement represents one of the few examples of anti-war activists disagreeing with the official line of the Iraqi government."

Pssst...the anti-war = pro-Saddam routine is passe, even for pro-war types, hadn't you heard? Save this kind of crap for the playground.


"That line emphasizes the proud support of the heroic and revolutionary Iraqi people for Islamic fighters everywhere, including the holy warriors of al-Qaida. Meanwhile, the al-Qaida crew similarly expresses its solidarity with Saddam – as they did in their Internet statement (widely validated by intelligence agencies in the West) claiming credit for the recent Kenya attacks, and linking future assaults to potential war against their friends, the Iraqis. If Iraq expresses solidarity with al-Qaida, and al-Qaida expresses solidarity with Iraq, peaceniks face a difficult challenge in arguing that they represent utterly disconnected phenomena."


Oh come now, this is silly, Intelligence sources have confirmed...as in fact the NIE predicted, that our invasion of Iraq would make bedfellows out of previously incompatible partners, and this is what has happened. To try and revise history to the point that the war is justified because it fights against what it created is an interesting bit of mental gymnastics.


"All the talk of war against Iraq has caused us to lose focus on the war against terrorism. Umm, even if the president of the United States happens to focus on Iraq in his speeches, that doesn't mean that the several hundred thousand Americans who have been dedicated since Sept. 11 to rooting out Islamic terror suddenly gave up or pulled back on their efforts."

This is not supposition, this is acknowledged fact. We have, quite simply, pulled several intelligence assests and redirected funding out of the war on terrorism and into the war on Iraq. I don't know how else to explain this.


" If our military and counter-terrorist capabilities don't allow us to simultaneously combat a gang of murderous thugs like al-Qaida and a fourth-rate military power like Iraq, then we have been even more tragically weakened by eight years of Clinton defense cuts than even the gloomiest conservatives assumed. "

Now this I like...Make the fact that we are fighting an unecessary and unjustified war not the fault of the blokes who decided to do so, and used whatever means was necessary to do so, but on the fellow who came before them. Cute. If you're trying to rile up an assumed CLinton support from the opposition, you're out of luck here, as I thought he should have been booted out of office, but on it's own this is about as weak an argument as I've heard in a while.

 

T_J is your beacon of hope on wit and wisdom? Seriously? But I agree with the underlying question: where is he? Or treeman? Or johnheath? Or DD? Or...well, you get the idea...

 

He said that there would be added benefits...not the same as cause. Just like there would be benefits were we to invade Canada, or Israel, or France, or Syria, or Egypt, or Columbia, or Mexico, or Liberia, or Spain, or Japan, or any number of nations...different nations, different benefits...but the reason for war was WMD. Try answering Question number one. Or Wolfowitz's quote in number Two. Unless you suppose Wolfowitz to be an anti-war liberal.

 

"Seriously, I would still argue that with the successful invasion of Iraq, we eliminated one of the world's major terror-sponsoring regimes. Need I reiterate that we also liberated 26 million people from a brutal tyranny that shredded human beings alive, systematically raped and tortured and killed its own people in numbers greater than any external enemy could. "

First of all, and for the umpteenth time, I don't think any anti-war people are saying that there is nothing at all positive about removing Sadaam from pwer. Pro-war people keep trying to make that connection, but it's entirely of their own fabrication. What anti-war folks are saying is some or all of the following: It wasn't our decision to make, it wasn't worth the cost if that cost included circumventing our own system, the govt. manipulating the people, alienating our allies, abandoning our position on legitimate warfare, lessening our effort to combat terrorism, and destroying the unprecedented swel of international support for the US following 9-11, putting us in a position of having to commit troops from now on in every instance of humanitarian need or look like we need ulterior motives to do so, and making it highly unlikely that the world at large will trust us at all in the foreseeable future.



" We ought to be collectively celebrating those achievements. Instead, there are some Americans, for political reasons, who would prefer to run down our victory and what it means to the security of the world and the freedom of the Iraqi people. "

I am getting tired and insulted at having to repeatedly dismiss this argument. I supported Bush pre-war...what is my ulterior political motivation for objecting it supposed to be?


" Nevertheless, have confidence that these people will be proven wrong. We will find the weapons of mass destruction. Significant evidence of weapons programs has already been discovered. More will come. Let not your heart be troubled."

Why should I? What significant evidence? And the point is that our pre-war statements have pretty much already been disproved; if there were any WMDs, they certainly weren't significant, and weren't in a position to pose an imminent threat.

 

"For the record, of course, I don't believe President Bush lied, but if I did – unlike Clinton's diehard enablers – I would not be defending him. "

No, you, like many of Clinton's apologists, merely ignore the facts and concentrate on other aspects...Clinton supporters concentrated on whether or not his sex life was really our concern,as opposed to the crime of perjury by the highest official in the land, and Bush supporters concentrate on whether Saddam was a bad man rather than whether our government mislead us and tried (with less success) to mislead the world into war.


"It boils down to this: Whom do you trust, and who truly has the nation's best interests at heart? "

I don't know if you have been paying attention to another thread in here...on Marx's quote about religion, but I have said that I am not among those who dismiss the validity of faith. That said, I am not ready to extend that ideal to the realm of worldy actions by secular leaders, and that is what you are asking for here. It's an interesting though, we could extend it to the courts...

" Your honor, ladies and gentleman of the jury...we could sit here and waste all of our time arguing about facts, going over evidence, reviewing conlficting statements, and generally being stubbornly logical about the whole affair, or we could just ask ourselves one simple question: Who would you rather beleive, the accused criminal over there, or your own government? CASE CLOSED."