Gautam wrote:
--- Doug Pensinger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:Gautam Mukunda wrote:
> But, look, why is it so hard to believe that people > can do things for more than one reason?
Not hard at all, if that was what happened, but this war was prosecuted by scaring the American People with images of mushroom clouds, not by telling them it was imperative we take over the Iraqi oil fields.
Somehow, Doug, I'm thinking that those aren't the only two possibilities you can imagine. I recall a speech by a fairly prominent member of the Administration about Saddam Hussein using rape, torture, and mass murder as routine instruments of his rule. I think it was the _President_, in front of Congress.
I'd guess that nine of ten words in support of invasion were related to the threat Hussein posed to the U.S. and the tenth was about how nasty he was to his own people. Clearly the American people would not have supported a war to liberate Iraq from Hussein. Just as clearly the administration used propaganda and fear to sway opinion.
CLearly
this wasn't about taking over oil fields. That's just the empty cant of ideologically and morally bereft leftist extremists.
You're the one that implied that it was in your exchange with Debbie. But I'll add some substantiation from the necon think tank Project for the New American Century white paper: "the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein."
Equally clearly, humanitarian concerns were _very important_ to several people in the Administration - most strikingly, Paul Wolfowitz. But any argument conducted from your premises - that the Bush Administration is EEVVIILL, EEVVVVILLL I say,
You always want to put those words in my mouth, and I'll continue to deny them. The Bush administration is supremely misguided and is willing to compromise principle to achieve its goals, but they are not evil. Or even EEVVIILL.
is one that can't be resolved, because any discussion of politics is, by its nature, uncertain. If you default with certainty to one particular set of beliefs about their motivations and actions (the one that somehow makes the people who disagree with you look as malign as possible), you're welcome to that belief, but don't expect me to take it seriously.
Iâve gotta call it the way I see it Gautam and whether or not you take me seriously, more and more people are beginning to understand that this administration has been leading us in the wrong direction.
-- Doug _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
