At 09:14 PM 1/11/2004 EST [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>Um...well...considering that he never mentioned any of this at any point,
and
>that the reasons he's given for invading Iraq have turned out not to be the
>case (no WMD, no real Al Qaeda connection, no responsibility for 9-11) -
>doesn't it bother you at ALL that this man appears to have come into
office planning
>an aggressive war against a country that we now know (and he must have known
>then) did not really pose any threat to us?
If you go back and look at almost any major speech on the subject by the
Bush Administration, you will not find the case presented as you did above.
Instead, the case included:
1) Iraq was blatantly not complying with 12 years worth of United Nations
resolutions. (Thus, there were many aspects of Iraq's WMD programs we
could not be certain of. However, we did know that Iraq was clearly acting
as if they were hiding something.)
2) Iraq was oppressing the freedoms and rights of 38 million people.
3) Invading Iraq would save the lives of the millions of Iraqis who were
starving, dying from lack of treatment, and being murdered - all by Saddam.
In addition, there were two very strong reasons for invading Iraq that the
Bush Administration clearly recognized yet could not, and indeed, could
NEVER publicly state to the American people.
4) Invading Iraq would allow us to remove our troops from the Muslim Holy
Land of Saudi Arabia, thus removing a key recruiting tool of Al Qaeda
5) So long as Saddam was in Iraq, we had an obligation to defend Saudi
Arabia - which was very clearly viewed as extreme hypocrisy by much of the
world, and indeed, particularly the Arab world. Indeed, US support for
Saudi oppression was a key feature of Al Qaeda's recruitment efforts. A
liberated Iraq, however, would allow the US to less visibly support Saudi
oppression, and indeed, allow us to begin to subtly work to end Saudi
oppression.
These last two reasons are all the reason we needed to invade Iraq.... and
I hope you can see that it is self-evident that we can't exactly go
trumpeting the fact that we are basically going along with at least part of
two key Al Qaeda demands - removing our troops from the Muslim Holy Land
and ending overt and visible support for the Saudi oppressors.
>I repeat: this is not the Pentagon having contingency plans. After all, I
>doubt seriously that the Bush White House was calling up the plans for war
>against Argentina or Belgium.
That's because the Bush Administration lives in the land of reality. And
given our so-called "intelligence" on the nuclear programs of Pakistan,
India, Iran, and the DPRK over the past decade, the Bush Administration
would have been very wise to keep such contingency plans on tap, in case
our "intelligence' failed us as badly in Iraq as in those countries.
JDG
_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
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