I Bore You. You're Welcome.
On a few other blog sites I've been trying to briefly state my position on Iraq. And by "briefly state", I mean that I have been rambling, both endlessly and incoherently. So I'm going to try again, not with the goal of brevity, but of clarity. Er, we'll see.
The real problem is that many of these issues are, quite frankly, boring. People who supported the invasion want to view Bush as this noble man engaged in some grand experiment, while those who hate him want to find villainous plots and conspiracies behind everything. The reality is that people in power necessarily spend time dabbling in theory and ideology, and when these folks take office the world becomes their chess board, a place to put their ideas into practice. It's the way all politicians operate, so it all gets back to Bush, his ideas and their theoretical basis. Since I've stated all of this before, there's really no reason to read it.But, having said that...let's go.
The reason we invaded Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11. Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz issued the following statement (in a letter to president Clinton) in 1998:
"....removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power...now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy."
Rumsfeld, President Bush, Dick Cheny and other members of the current administration were part of a political think tank in the 1990's. You can view it's website (and the aforementioned letter) at www.newamericancentury.org It's members described themselves as Neo-conservatives. One of their primary arguments was that: for America to be safe in upcoming decades, it was vital that we remove the possibility of another country gaining super-power status. In the post-cold war era we emerged as the worlds most powerful country and this think tank wanted to eliminate the possiblity of China or some other nation becoming equally as powerful. Which, by the way, is a completely valid viewpoint. I'm not sure if I agree with it, but if you look at how devastating the cold war was for much of the world, the idea of competing super-powers really is sort of frightening.
So, what did Bush and others feel should be done to secure our position as the worlds only super-power? They argued that since Middle East supplied most of the worlds oil and it would be the region that provided key support to any nation seeking power. China in the 90's, for example, had illegal business deals with Hussein and was growing militarily at a rate that disturned most US analysts. This think tank argued that there was one way to limit the growth of other countries: set up pro-western democracies throughout the Middle East. This way, the US and like-minded countries (Britain, for instance) would have an influence in the region that we do not currently possess. Bush, Wolfowitz, and others viewed the Middle East as the largest region over which we exerted very little power, and therefore it should be the focus of US foreign policy.
Specifically, they stated that Iraq should be the focal point of this process. Invade Iraq, overthrown Hussein, install a democracy and then we would be able to more effectively influence other countries in the Middle East (primarily Iran and Syria). Of course, they didn't state it as crassly as I am, but this was their argument.
Think back to the quote above. Before the Bush people were even in power, they felt that invading Iraq should be...not important; not merely a goal, but the "aim of american foreign policy". So, when 9-11 occurred they viewed it as the perfect chance to implement a plan they had been discussing for almost a decade. There we numerous reports to the president warning that the Iraq WMD evidence was false. The nuclear threat, in particular, had been dismissed by CIA experts as early as 2001. Yet, because it helped sell his plan, Bush used the bad info. The correct info existed, was presented to the president, but he ignored it. And think about how Bush responded to 9-11: Afghanistan, where the terrorists were based, had been trained, and which supported Al-Qaeda...Bush invaded this country with fewer than 20,000 troops, and this after nearly 3,000 Americans had been killed. And the president still removed resources from Afghanistan in order to invade Iraq. How many troops were involved with that invasion? 250,000 roughly. To this day we continue to let other less trained and more poorly armed nations (e.g. Pakistan) chase Bin Laden. This tells you something about the president's priorties.
The obvious question is: why would Bush invade a country with bad info, knowing that it would be proven false after the invasion? If you look at the President's 2003 State of the Union address (at whitehouse.gov) he uses WMD estimates that actually pre-date the first Gulf War. This is because much of the weaponry we had given him had never been fully accounted for, and I think that a lot of analysts still believed that it was there. Let's be honest: if we had uncovered one single container of anthrax, no matter how old it was, people would have felt the war was justified and Bush would have claimed it was enough. Bush played up the bad intelligence because he knew anything at all would be enough to satisfy most people. So, it was(for myself included) surprising to find out that Hussein had nothing, had probably eliminated the old weapons years ago, and he certainly had begun no new WMD programs.
Anyway, my point is : 1. Bush is not Hitler. He's just another rich, white elitist (like Clinton, like Reagan, like every president before him), who views war as his special little pet, something he feels he has the right to carelessly force onto the world. 2. The Iraq war in particular was an unecessary war. If you want to fight a war on terror...fight terrorists, specifically the ones who actually attacked us. Just imagine if, instead of 20,000 troops, we had invaded Afghanistan with the same number we used to invade Iraq. Hussein was the petty dictator of a poverty-stricken nation and to pretend he posed a greater threat than Al Qaeda or North Korea (or China or Russia or Saudi Arabia, etc...) shows this president's incompetence.
Yikes, this is really boring now. I'd say I pretty much failed in my goal of making more sense.
But, if there's something I can clarify please let me know. All questions are welcome, although I can't imagine anyone would actually read all of this. Those who do should perhaps be sent lots of money for their pain and suffering. Thanks.
The real problem is that many of these issues are, quite frankly, boring. People who supported the invasion want to view Bush as this noble man engaged in some grand experiment, while those who hate him want to find villainous plots and conspiracies behind everything. The reality is that people in power necessarily spend time dabbling in theory and ideology, and when these folks take office the world becomes their chess board, a place to put their ideas into practice. It's the way all politicians operate, so it all gets back to Bush, his ideas and their theoretical basis. Since I've stated all of this before, there's really no reason to read it.But, having said that...let's go.
The reason we invaded Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11. Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz issued the following statement (in a letter to president Clinton) in 1998:
"....removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power...now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy."
Rumsfeld, President Bush, Dick Cheny and other members of the current administration were part of a political think tank in the 1990's. You can view it's website (and the aforementioned letter) at www.newamericancentury.org It's members described themselves as Neo-conservatives. One of their primary arguments was that: for America to be safe in upcoming decades, it was vital that we remove the possibility of another country gaining super-power status. In the post-cold war era we emerged as the worlds most powerful country and this think tank wanted to eliminate the possiblity of China or some other nation becoming equally as powerful. Which, by the way, is a completely valid viewpoint. I'm not sure if I agree with it, but if you look at how devastating the cold war was for much of the world, the idea of competing super-powers really is sort of frightening.
So, what did Bush and others feel should be done to secure our position as the worlds only super-power? They argued that since Middle East supplied most of the worlds oil and it would be the region that provided key support to any nation seeking power. China in the 90's, for example, had illegal business deals with Hussein and was growing militarily at a rate that disturned most US analysts. This think tank argued that there was one way to limit the growth of other countries: set up pro-western democracies throughout the Middle East. This way, the US and like-minded countries (Britain, for instance) would have an influence in the region that we do not currently possess. Bush, Wolfowitz, and others viewed the Middle East as the largest region over which we exerted very little power, and therefore it should be the focus of US foreign policy.
Specifically, they stated that Iraq should be the focal point of this process. Invade Iraq, overthrown Hussein, install a democracy and then we would be able to more effectively influence other countries in the Middle East (primarily Iran and Syria). Of course, they didn't state it as crassly as I am, but this was their argument.
Think back to the quote above. Before the Bush people were even in power, they felt that invading Iraq should be...not important; not merely a goal, but the "aim of american foreign policy". So, when 9-11 occurred they viewed it as the perfect chance to implement a plan they had been discussing for almost a decade. There we numerous reports to the president warning that the Iraq WMD evidence was false. The nuclear threat, in particular, had been dismissed by CIA experts as early as 2001. Yet, because it helped sell his plan, Bush used the bad info. The correct info existed, was presented to the president, but he ignored it. And think about how Bush responded to 9-11: Afghanistan, where the terrorists were based, had been trained, and which supported Al-Qaeda...Bush invaded this country with fewer than 20,000 troops, and this after nearly 3,000 Americans had been killed. And the president still removed resources from Afghanistan in order to invade Iraq. How many troops were involved with that invasion? 250,000 roughly. To this day we continue to let other less trained and more poorly armed nations (e.g. Pakistan) chase Bin Laden. This tells you something about the president's priorties.
The obvious question is: why would Bush invade a country with bad info, knowing that it would be proven false after the invasion? If you look at the President's 2003 State of the Union address (at whitehouse.gov) he uses WMD estimates that actually pre-date the first Gulf War. This is because much of the weaponry we had given him had never been fully accounted for, and I think that a lot of analysts still believed that it was there. Let's be honest: if we had uncovered one single container of anthrax, no matter how old it was, people would have felt the war was justified and Bush would have claimed it was enough. Bush played up the bad intelligence because he knew anything at all would be enough to satisfy most people. So, it was(for myself included) surprising to find out that Hussein had nothing, had probably eliminated the old weapons years ago, and he certainly had begun no new WMD programs.
Anyway, my point is : 1. Bush is not Hitler. He's just another rich, white elitist (like Clinton, like Reagan, like every president before him), who views war as his special little pet, something he feels he has the right to carelessly force onto the world. 2. The Iraq war in particular was an unecessary war. If you want to fight a war on terror...fight terrorists, specifically the ones who actually attacked us. Just imagine if, instead of 20,000 troops, we had invaded Afghanistan with the same number we used to invade Iraq. Hussein was the petty dictator of a poverty-stricken nation and to pretend he posed a greater threat than Al Qaeda or North Korea (or China or Russia or Saudi Arabia, etc...) shows this president's incompetence.
Yikes, this is really boring now. I'd say I pretty much failed in my goal of making more sense.
But, if there's something I can clarify please let me know. All questions are welcome, although I can't imagine anyone would actually read all of this. Those who do should perhaps be sent lots of money for their pain and suffering. Thanks.
posted by Samwick @ 1:18 AM
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