For All You Doubters...
on Democrats & Iraq, Bryan Preston has a suggestion for you. Go to Google, and type in Clinton Iraq 1998 (or click here):
Google will take you back in time to 1998, the last time prior to the invasion that the US and Saddam Hussein had a major confrontation. The Google search string Clinton Iraq 1998 will bring up 3.5 million hits about that conflict, during which pretty much every prominent Democrat expressed his or her belief that Saddam had or was developing WMD and was a threat because of it.
No one believed then or since that any US action including Operation Desert Fox in December 1998 completely destroyed Saddam's WMD programs. So if the Democrats believed in those weapons back then, why are they claiming to have been fooled by Bush into believing in them in 2002 and 2003? Well, it's obviously politics at work--the leftwing base of the Democrat party has pulled even its national security hawks to the left, where conspiracy theories rule. And the biggest conspiracy theory that the left loves concerns the war, and how Bush LIED us into it.
So Google it. Prove for yourself that he didn't, and indeed couldn't have. Tell your wavering friends to Google Clinton Iraq 1998. If you have Bush-hating friends, make them do that search and then watch their world crumble around them.
posted by Ryan S. @ 11:47 AM
7 Comments:
At 12:35 PM,
M. McKain said…
The huge difference being, of course, is that Clinton did not use the spotty intelligence to lead us into a war that has been quite costly both finacially and in regards to the human toll. People continue to forget that the suspicion that Saddam had WMD's did not HAVE to lead to war - it was the spectacular claims of the administration that led us down that path, as witnessed in the Downing Street memos:
"It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. "
"Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route."
Let's not forget Cheney's constant talk of a "mushroom cloud over one of our cities" (a parapharse) being the ultimate proof of WMDs in Iraq, in spite of the fact that even IF Saddam had them, he did not have the capability to get them here. The terrorist connections were also hyped, particularly those with Al-Qaeda, wrapped in the residual fear from 9-11.
"Lied" may be too harsh of a word, but this administration misled us down a path to war that was, in the end, both unnecssary and quite costly. We can only hope that something positive will ultimatly come from these misguided and deceptive actions.
At 2:30 PM,
Ryan S. said…
Do you think that the free Iraqis, those who suffered for years under the regime of a cruel dictator while to world stood idle, view this war as unnessecary?
At 5:27 PM,
M. McKain said…
Not at all - in fact, I'd guess most of them viewed it necessary in the 1980's when we were still supporting Saddam, when Rumsfeld was shaking hands with him - I'm sure they also viewed it as necessary in 1991 after the Gulf War when they tried to rise up but were repressed in spite of our promised aid.
I'd also suspect that those being oppresed in North Korea, those being slaughtered in Darfur, people oppressed elsewhere would love for us to come help them.
While overthrowing a regime that was oppressive and brutal was a positve externality of the war, it was not our primary motive or justification, and thus doesn't really have a role as part of the current debte/dialoge.
At 5:28 PM,
Ryan S. said…
Really? Because that was mine main focus on the War. The WMDs were just one aspect of why we should have (and did) remove Saddam.
At 5:56 PM,
M. McKain said…
If you read all of the public statements by administration officials (along with Republican spinmeisters) in the lead up to the war, there is a clear theme: WMDs (along with terrorist connections). Not much about human rights; even if there were, they would be delegitimized by our previous support of Saddam and failure to act, as I previously mentioned.
At 2:32 AM,
Ryan said…
If you are using that line of reasoning then wasn't the first Bush to blame for not finishing the job in Iraq? This all could of been avoided back then.
At 12:44 PM,
Ryan S. said…
Yes. The UN did not want us to finish of Saddam, and 41 complied.
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