If the outcome there is like what happened in Vietnam after America abandoned our allies and the region descended into chaos, violence, and danger, history’s judgment will be harsh. History will see President Bush as right, and the opponents of his policy as mistaken — as George McGovern was in his time.

Translation: "We kept American troops dying in Iraq long enough to try to blame the next President for our total incompetence in starting and running the war."

I know, let's give Iran and Syria a Nobel prize and call it quits.

David Sucher,

I think it's helpful to recall that the case for the war hinged heavily on bits and pieces of leaked intelligence information. For many people, the issue was whether Saddam Hussein really did have WMDs that he was ready and willing to use or pass off to Al Qaeda. It was hard to make that assessment on our own, and we were stuck relying on our best sense based on the statements of Bush administration officials and the senses of intelligence officials of other countries around the world. So it's not that we were "not stopping to realize that the very fact of [our] own ambivalence was a presage to disaster." Rather, we were ambivalent because the facts were unclear, and we knew we didn't have the full picture of what those facts were.

Seriously OK this is some kind of baiting isn't it?

Paragraph 6 mentions radical Islamic terrorism, paragraph 7 mentions 9/11 and paragraph 9 mentions "advocating the spread of democracy, especially in the Muslim world".

Let's do other word counts! Freedom: 2. Courage: 1. Laura: 1. Japan: 1. Britain: 0. Katrina: 0. Democrat: 1. Danger(s, ous): 4. Rights: 1. Looming: 1.

What great insights we have found!

Byomtov writes:

Isn't it clear that it should take extremely convincing evidence of WMD, at least, to justify the war? If the jury is ambivalent about whether the prosecution's evidence is convincing, shouldn't it acquit?

I think the comparison is a poor one. The jury must find proof beyond a reasonable doubt because when it comes to crime we are much more worried about an innocent person being punished than a guilty person going free. The cost-benefit analysis tips in favor of a fairly stringent proof requirement. But that calculus hinges on our perceived sense of the nature of the threat of crime. As the threat becomes more severe the cost-benefit analysis changes and our needed degree of certainty is less. Or so it seems to me, at least.

As the threat becomes more severe the cost-benefit analysis changes and our needed degree of certainty is less.

I was responding to this comment by Orin. Sorry.

OrinKerr:

Percentage of the Way Through Karl Rove's
case for the Presidency of George W. Bush before Rove mentions the word "Iraq": 80. Number of times the word "Iraq" appears in the 2,000 word essay: 2.

abw:

Seriously OK this is some kind of baiting isn't it?

Paragraph 6 mentions radical Islamic terrorism, paragraph 7 mentions 9/11 and paragraph 9 mentions "advocating the spread of democracy, especially in the Muslim world".

Let's do other word counts! Freedom: 2. Courage: 1. Laura: 1. Japan: 1. Britain: 0. Katrina: 0. Democrat: 1. Danger(s, ous): 4. Rights: 1. Looming: 1.

What great insights we have found!

OrinKerr:

No, no baiting here. I gather you are frustrated somehow, but I'm struggling to find the argument in your comment. Abw, can you make your argument explicitly, preferably in a calm and respectful way? Thanks.

For one who is so keen to find the argument, you don't make much of one yourself, do you? But then, I'm not the first to say it - abw beat me to it.

I find the interesting thing to be the discussion of Iraq. He makes two points. First, that we can spread democracy there. This is illuminating, I think. No mention of Iraq as a threat to the US or as related to terrorism. Pure nation building. One wonders if that wasn't the rationale from the outset, masked by false reasons.

Second, the post withdrawal potential bloodbath. Of course, this is an absurd argument, because it is a product of the original choice to go into Iraq, without which there would be no anarchy/bloodbath scenario. Although not quite as absurd as blaming McGovern for the result of Nixon policies.

Ultimately, Rove is right. If Iraq and Afghanistan stabilize (and they will), history will judge this President with a great deal more kindness than the conventional wisdom does.

That's pretty much the opposite of what Rove wrote.

I guess in your view that makes it almost a "heads, I win; tails, you lose" scenario: If the region destabilizes after U.S. forces leave, then history will judge that Bush was right; If U.S. forces stay and the region stabilizes, then history will judge that Bush was right. If we ignore the foregone option of not electing to go to war in Iraq, then it looks like Bush can do no wrong ...unless U.S. forces leave and the region stabilizes without them. But I'm sure you can also manage to spin that to the greater glory of the historical Bush presidency.

OK: "I think it's helpful to recall that the case for the war hinged heavily on bits and pieces of leaked intelligence information."

In other words, as any student of US History knows, it is easy for the American government to lie the people into war fever. To fake evidence. To explicitly fabricate data. To grossly exaggerate risk. To search for monsters and always manage to find them. The Spanish-American War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, WWI, even the sainted WWII. Truth is the first casualty of war, they say. And war is the health of the State. So lying to the public has become a high virtue among those who believe that greater government is the greater good...

David,

I'm really confused by your argument. Here was my take at the time, as you (very impressively) remember:

: Listening to the President on the radio last night, I kept thinking, "Man, I sure hope he knows what he's doing." Like many people, I have mixed feelings on the war in Iraq. The way I see it, the war is an enormous gamble; it will shake up the Middle East and the rest of the world with it, and the key question is whether on average this will be for the better or for the worse. I can see both sides. Indeed, it seems to me that the arguments pro and con are in many ways mirror images of each other, with the 'pro' arguments offering the optimistic assessments and the 'con' arguments offering the pessimistic ones. A few examples:

CASUALTIES: Those against the war argue that many lives that will be lost; those for the war argue that in the long run the war will save many more lives than it will cost.

DETERRENCE: Those for the war argue that the war will deter future terrorism; those against the war argue that the war will encourage it.

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: Those against the war argue that the war will damage U.S. relations with the world community for many years; those for the war argue that in the long run the world will see the importance of getting rid of Saddam and will appreciate and admire the U.S. efforts.

DEMOCRACY: Those for the war argue that the war will bring democracy to the Middle East, those against the war argue that this goal will fail and make U.S.-style democracy less likely to spread in the Middle East.

I envy those who seem certain that on balance one side is substantially more likely than the other. I see it as pretty close, or more accurately, far beyond my expertise to make a call one way or the other. All of which leaves me uncertain as to whether the President's strategy is the right one, and leaves me thinking, "Man, I sure hope he knows what he's doing."

So my take was that it was "far beyond my expertise" to know; I just couldn't tell. But there are a ton of things I don't know or can't tell; if the rule is that I should protest against everything unless I'm certain that I'm for it, then I'm essentially against everything except certain jazz records made from 1955-1967.

As for your point that "There was so much countervailing evidence against Iraq's control of WMDs that in hindsight it is obvious that a regime of force-backed inspections should have been the next step prior to all-out war," But the evidence didn't appear strong at the time. I remember being astonished when the WMDs didn't surface, along with everyone else.

I'm not arguing that starting the war was a good idea. I'm just arguing that the degree of proof needed should be context-dependent.

Of course the degree of proof should be context-dependent. But it seems to me that you were arguing that the proof needed for the Iraq war was less than that required for criminal conviction because the threat was more severe.

I simply claim that it is not obvious whether the evidence should be stronger or weaker, since not only the threat but also the cost is much greater. If I misunderstood you we have no disagreement.

I have to join the crowd piling on David Sucher here, for claiming he was smart enough to know in 2003 that Saddam probably didn't have WMD. Within the past year, I have heard Madeline Albright confirm (to her credit) that she and other top policymakers in the Clinton administration all assumed Saddam had WMD. The main evidence, such as it was, was the fact that he definitely had them in the past; no one had been able to demonstrate that he had ever destroyed them or otherwise gotten rid of them; and everyone assumed he wanted them.

So what to do? When I heard her speak, Albright said she favored "smart sanctions" - i.e., sanctions that would somehow hurt Saddam and his henchmen and not just beggar the Iraqi people. Who knows if anything like that was realistic. GWB, obviously, chose war. Plenty to argue about there. But as Jay Reding above says, it's baloney for David Sucher to claim that he or anybody in 2003 "knew" Saddam didn't have WMD.

professor, i think this article illustrates the truth at our warmongering preferences vs. real reasons for war. And he said it best( exactly my thoughts, but his better English). take a look, everybody:

Iraq Wouldn’t Be Worth It Even If We Could Win, Because It Was Never Worth It In The First Place

by Daniel Larison(excerpts)





So, is Iraq worth it? Is this war actually a just one? Is this war in the national interest?

In a word, no. Quite plainly, I have always believed, and have argued since the beginning in whatever forum I could find before I had this blog, that Iraq was not worth one American life. Not one. That remains as true today as it was in 2002. There is no real American interest that required or even hinted at the need for an invasion of Iraq, and I am convinced that the United States should never risk the lives of American soldiers except where some real American interest requires that risk. There can be arguments over what constitutes a “real” American interest, but I would like to think that there ought to be a general consensus, at least among conservatives, that if there is no such interest our government has no business getting involved.

I know what the foreign policy and political establishment types have said and what they continue to say about ”threats” to this country from countries in the Near East, and they are almost always wrong. They were spectacularly wrong about Iraq, but not simply in the obvious “bad intelligence” ways. Almost every assumption they made about how Iraq supposedly threatened the United States was wrong. In no conceivable way did it threaten the mainland U.S., nor was there any real threat to Europe, nor was there an uncontainable threat to Israel or the Gulf states. A weak, fractured despotism that had been economically half-starved into compliance not only didn’t pose a serious threat to anyone, but couldn’t even begin to do so. We might as well regard Zimbabwe as a major threat to the world by the standards used to judge Iraq to be a threat. Whether these establishment folks are very bad at what they do, or whether they are dishonest, I cannot tell for most of them, but wrong they certainly are. I say “almost” in these statements simply because I do not want to rule out entirely the possibility that they may, at some point, get something right. But it has been a while since that happened.

Besides, any invasion of Iraq was inevitably going to be a war of aggression, which cannot be squared with a commitment to international law or justice. As it happens, the war is also unconstitutional and is being run by executive fiat, which ought to trump everything else in conservative circles, but I have long since given up hope of trying to convince war supporters of anything related to the Constitution. People who believe the executive has broad, undefined ”inherent powers” will believe just about anything.

This is, I suppose, about as hard-line antiwar as you are likely to find, but the reasons for this position seem to me to be abundant. There are three elements to my position: strategic, legal and moral.

For there to have been anything in the national interest that actually might compel the government to invade Iraq, at least one of the following three things had to be true: 1) Iraq was an uncontainable threat to vital resources or allies; 2) Iraq was an uncontainable threat to the United States itself; 3) Iraq was working hand-in-glove with Al Qaeda. Some opponents of the war (rightly) never believed government claims about WMDs, and many correctly dismissed claims about Iraq’s links to Al Qaeda as being essentially inherently absurd. (Interestingly, having pushed this falsehood as strongly as he could, watch how Feith now runs from this position as quickly as he can.) This latter claim was entirely untrue as far as any meaningful or active cooperation between the two were concerned. The WMD question was somewhat more vexed, but there were inspectors who correctly claimed prior to the invasion that the weapons had been eliminated and the programs shut down. It is therefore not true if anyone should say that we did not have good reason to think government claims were false. These claims, which were by far the most accurate, were simply ignored or brushed aside.

Success in its most optimistic, pre-invasion terms of a genuinely liberal democratic Iraq that would make peace with Israel and serve as a model for the region was not actually ever possible for many of the reasons antiwar conservatives gave before the war, but suppose for a moment that it was possible. Wouldn’t that great dream have been worth it? No, not at all. Two reasons: 1) America should never, barring an attack or uncontainable threat from that country’s government, attempt to dictate through the use of force the political future of any other country; 2) even the most optimistic scenario of liberal democratic Eden serves no compelling U.S. interests.

Does it actually matter to American security whether people in the Near East vote in their bad governments or not? Well, no, it doesn’t. Latin American countries are going hog-wild with democratic mass movements, most of which seem antithetical to U.S. interests and liberal values, just as would be the inevitable outcome of any kind of democracy in the Near East.


Let’s ask a different, related question: is it the proper business of the United States government to use its military so that people in other nations can be liberated from repressive governments? Quite simply, no, it isn’t. That isn’t what our government exists to do. It should use its military to defend our country, any allies with which we may have defense treaties and vital resources. It cannot be worthwhile to liberate other peoples because it is a kind of war that not only goes far beyond what our government is supposed to be doing and engages in conflicts that it has no right to involve our people in, but also because it quite clearly harms the United States in the process.

More basically, any such intervention is, by definition, an act of aggression by one state against another. An intervention with the stated goal of regime change is even more obviously an act of aggression. This has no justification in international law and clearly violates international law in its infringement on the sovereignty of another state.

Aggressive war cannot be moral and it cannot be just. To choose war, as our government indeed did, is to choose to unleash all the horrors of war on people who have done no lasting, grave or permanent harm to us. They may or may not be wretched, awful people. They may or may not be tyrants. Whether they are or not is actually irrelevant to the question of whether our government has the right to commit aggression against another state. The bottom line is that the attacked state has done nothing to deserve our attack on it. How much less, then, do the civilians killed in the process deserve it? How can a war of aggression ever be “worth” the moral stain and illegality that it entails? How can unleashing hell on earth without cause ever be worthwhile? It cannot be.

Is there a mass grave, killing field, rape room, gulag, torture chamber, oven, sex slave or beheading that anti-war "progressives" could ever use to justify American military action? Have any of them ever once even felt a tinge of desire for victory in Iraq, either for us or for the Iraqis? Something tells me the answer is no.

extraneus, you are Utopian not very bright marxist

According to Rove, history will judge Bush based on the results of Iraq and Afghanistan. Leaving aside Rove's smart editorial decision to join together the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which decision seems obviously to minimize the very different circumstances we faced with respect to those two countries, I think that's he's correct about history's judgment.

He then proposes two possible outcomes. The first is if those countries end up like Europe and Japan after WW2 -- in which case, he posits, Bush's decisions will have "changed the world" for the better.

The second possibility, according to Rove, is if Iraq and Afghanistan descend into chaos, violence and danger (supposedly similar to post-withdrawal Vietnam). In that case, too, Rove claims that history will see Bush as correct.

In other words, according to Rove, Bush was right no matter what happens, and there is no option for concluding that the decision to invade Iraq in the first place was the world-changing catastrophe.

Orin said:

For many people, the issue was whether Saddam Hussein really did have WMDs that he was ready and willing to use or pass off to Al Qaeda. It was hard to make that assessment on our own, and we were stuck relying on our best sense based on the statements of Bush administration officials and the senses of intelligence officials of other countries around the world.

Who believed this? Who, with any knowledge of anything relevant, believed that Saddam was in bed with Al Qaeda? It’s absurd. Part of Bin Laden’s grudge with the United States was that it “invaded” the Middle East during the first Gulf War when it should have been Muslims attacking Saddam. Indeed, Bin Laden told Saudi Arabi that it shouldn’t ask the United States for help in pushing back Saddam because Al Qaeda was capable of doing it. (Of course, Al Qaeda wasn’t which is why Saudi Arabi turned to the United States for help.)

The cost-benefit analysis tips in favor of a fairly stringent proof requirement. But that calculus hinges on our perceived sense of the nature of the threat of crime. As the threat becomes more severe the cost-benefit analysis changes and our needed degree of certainty is less. Or so it seems to me, at least.

So we should have a reduced proof requirement when we’re declaring war on another nation, which will lead to the deaths of at a minimum thousands (some innocent, some not). It must be comfortable for you to say that Orin from your cozy office.

I wonder, what’s your “calculus” say about a war with Iran? A war with Syria? North Korea? Surely each of those nations pose a “severe” threat to us.

I don't really buy OrinKerr's defense of the "mistaken supporters" argument. Even if you credit the leaked intelligent, the only thing there was substantial support for was that Iraq had low-grades weapons of "mass" destruction, the type of stuff that was of no danger to the US and only slight danger to her neighbors.

That against the obvious predictable chaos and civil war that would subsume, I don't think the war was defendable even if there was some minor amounts of WMD. Although I did not believe there were WMDs (under the theroy that we would not invade if there were, given the risk of casualties), I don't think the obviously correct and basic opposition to the war required no WMD.

Which leaves an open question to supporters of the war - if Saddam indeed had anthrax and low grade sarin, would that justify the invasion, given the (entirely predictable) civil war that would ensue?

If not, then I don't buy the "Bush fooled me" argument. Orin is smarter than me, and Bush certainly didn't fool *me*.

I find Orin's observation to be relevant.

For the political swansong of this Administration's political "brain" to so mitigate the importance of its most defining issue seems statistically, if for no other reason, anomalous.

Using Occam's Razor, the simplest interpretation might be that Rove recognizes that the Bush Administration, for all of its political effect, has failed grossly on the most serious issue ever to face it and that focusing on other aspects of the Administration will place it, and him, in a far better light.

And Bush didn't fool everyone. A great many of us were doing our best to draw attention to the thin, inconsistent arguments being promulgated by the Bush Admin leading up to the invasion of Iraq. Some, like Joe Wilson, were attacked because of it (and continue to be pilloried for his whistleblowing).

So when the final chapter on Bush's War is written, please let it note that not everyone went along with the lies and half-truths.

Even if Bill Clinton and Madeline Albright believed Saddam had WMDs, they weren't the ones who started a war over it.

They believed Saddam had WMDs because he had kicked the weapons inspectors out.

The AUMF, originally sold as a threat-incentive for Saddam to let the weapons inspectors back in, did succeed in that purpose: they went back in, and were doing their job, literally until the eve of war.

The weapons inspectors, at last able to do their job, were not finding any WMDs. If WMDs were supposed to be the reason to go to war - not just go to war, but do so in a Damn Big Hurry, then why cut the inspections short? Why not wait until they had finished the job?

There's only one logical answer: the Bush Administration at least strongly suspected no WMDs would be found, and without WMDs, Americans would not support a war.

Also, the WMD case was by no means a slam dunk in the run-up to the war. That Cheney and Rumsfeld were using their own intel operations, and that they were cherry-picking the intel rather than allow experienced analysts go through it, was reported at the time it was happening. Those facts were not only reported, they were pointed out repeatedly by people who opposed the war. Add to that the '16 words' in Bush's SOU speech, and there was, in fact, a lively debate over whether or not Saddam actually posed any kind of serious threat.

It was a lively debate Bush paid no attention to, Cheney paid no attention to, the MSM paid very little attention to, and warbloggers only paid attention to in order to vilify the people engaged in it.

There is a substantial history of right-wing opposition to US military action, including, before Pearl Harbor, opposition to involvement in WWII. You might also take look at Republican attitudes towards US involvement in Kosovo.

Very true, and it leads into a point that's rarely mentioned in disussions about Iraq: American interest. Kosovo could have been opposed on the grounds that there was no American interest involved. Not so Iraq or the Middle East.

The decision to go to war in Iraq surely wasn't entirely based on claims about WMDs, but additionally on long-term strategy. What will the Middle East look like in 20, 30 years if we let Saddam hang in there? The Oil For Food program was corrupt; bribed UNSC members were agitating for a relaxation of the sanctions regime. After 9/11, we were worried about the rise of global terrorism, now aimed squarely at us. What if we take him out, and somehow leave a stable democracy in his wake? It could spread. Utopian thinking, possibly, but it surely wasn't simply about the WMDs.

Was taking Saddam out a good idea or not? That question is unanswerable until we know the outcome, which we won't know for years, and that outcome could very well be positive. My issue with the anti-war crowd is that they seem bent on preventing a positive outcome, and instead have hoped and agitated for our defeat, and by extension the defeat of millions of everyday Iraqis, never giving a thought to the consequences.

And Bush didn't fool everyone. A great many of us were doing our best to draw attention to the thin, inconsistent arguments being promulgated by the Bush Admin leading up to the invasion of Iraq. Some, like Joe Wilson, were attacked because of it (and continue to be pilloried for his whistleblowing).

1. Wilson was never "attacked."
2. Wilson never blew any whistles.
3. Wilson didn't know anything about Iraq, per se. His trip was about one narrow issue.
4. What Wilson found out on that trip supported, not refuted, the administration's arguments.
5. Wilson's so-called "whistleblowing" was months after the invasion, so it's hard to see how that could be relevant to the time "leading up to the invasion."

6. There was nothing "inconsistent" about the administration's arguments.
7. The evidence was thin; the arguments were not.

You interpreted the thinness of the evidence as "the evidence doesn't exist"; others interpreted it as "we can't reveal all the classified information we have."

Professor Kerr , another important note:
The idea that the U.S. should not attack another country unless that country has attacked or directly threatens our national security is not really extraordinary. Quite the contrary, that is how virtually every country in the world conducts itself, and it is a founding principle of our country. Starting wars against countries that have not attacked you, and especially against those who cannot attack you, is abnormal.
It may very well serve our "national interests" to start a war because we want to control someone else's resources, or because we think it would be good if they had a different government, or because we want the world to fear us, or because we want to change the type of political system they have, or because they aren't complying with our dictates, or because we want to use their land as military bases, or because they are going to acquire weapons we tell them they are not allowed to have. But those who believe that war is justifiable and desirable under those circumstances are, by definition, espousing an imperial ideology.

Ruling the world that way through superior military force -- starting wars even when our national security is not directly at risk -- is the definitional behavior of an empire.

That's it. That is how simple it is, really.

OK:
I think a very appropriate question concerning the Iraq war is: Were the American people misled or were they more than willing to follow Bush no matter what? First let me say I opposed this war. Why? Very simple. The UN weapons inspectors had found no evidence of WMDs or programs or capabilities. But they could not say with certain that they were no WMDs. They needed more time. But the US had said with certainty that Iraq did have WMDs. So why not tell the UN weapons inspectors where they were? Because we didn't know. Bush was going to invade Iraq not matter what the inspectors found or did't find.

Prior to the war I waited , waited and waited for some responsible opposition to the war. It didn't come. No NY Times, Washington Post, major networks, congressional opposition. Why? In my opinion the American people wanted this war and Bush just took advantage of the fear that engulfed the people. Bush did nothing to ease the fear of the American people but used it for his and his cronies political advantage.

So who bears the responsiblity for this war? The American people do. Sorry to say. The world is not looking at us and perceiving noble intentions even though we say so because we can't imagine ourselves as being a war mongering nation. Unfortuney we are. We went into this war with an attitude of the local school yard bully. No one is going to call me on this so why not do it?

We are left with a history of only one sure thing: The US invaded a country that posed no threat. The US historians can write the history and attempt to justify the war but how will non-US historians view the history of this war?

Prior to the war I waited , waited and waited for some responsible opposition to the war. It didn't come. No NY Times, Washington Post, major networks, congressional opposition. Why? In my opinion the American people wanted this war and Bush just took advantage of the fear that engulfed the people. Bush did nothing to ease the fear of the American people but used it for his and his cronies political advantage.

I'm not sure your indictment of the whole American people is altogether fair, but it certainly is true of the political classes in general (again, with some noble exceptions). One of the best commentators described the attitude of those classes very accurately:

"To fit in with the change of events, words, too, had to chanage their usual meanings. What used to be described as a thoughtless act of aggression was now regarded as the courage one would expect to find in a party member; to think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying one was a coward; any idea of moderation was just an attempt to disguise one's unmanly character; ability to understand a question from all sides meant that one was totally unfitted for action. Fanatical enthusiasm was the mark of a real man and to plot against an enemy behind his back was perfectly legitimate self-defence. Anyone who held violent opinions could always be trusted, and anyone who objected to them became a suspect."

The fact that Thucydides was writing about the events of 430 BCE shouldn't obscure his prescience.

You're shifting your ground here. You began by criticizing progressives for being unwilling to go to war for humanitarian reasons:

[snip]

Then you defend conservative opposition to military involvement in such cases on grounds that no national interest was involved, never saying a word about humanitarian issues.

I don't think I'm shifting anything. I support the war in Iraq for both humanitarian and strategic reasons. I was personally apalled at much of what I'd read about the Saddam regime, from before Bush was president, and hoped we could somehow help rescue those people from it. (I guess I could find a few links that illustrate some particularly horrible stuff, but I hope I don't need to prove that Saddam and his sons were pretty brutal guys, and that many innocent Iraqis suffered at their hands.)

(In the midst of this you claim that it is obvious that the Iraq war serves the national interest - a matter of some debate outside dittohead circles).

Not at all. I don't know enough about geopolitics to try to claim that. I merely point out that this important part of the issue never seems to enter into the discussion. I'd appreciate reading comments realistically assessing the pros and cons from this perspective, actually. Anti-war arguments are typically moral (as in, 'We're immoral for taking out Saddam!') while at the same time immoral (as in, 'Who cares if there's a humanitarian disaster? Bring back the troops now!'). They rarely address, for example, the strategic advantages or disadvantages of having taken out Saddam, and/or of having significant acclimated, battle-hardened and well-equipped military forces stationed on two of Iran's borders.

In other words, you're just saying that conservative arguments for or against war, whether based on national interest considerations or humanitarianism, are always right, and liberal arguments are always wrong.

I suppose that saves a lot of thinking.

Actually, I'm not really saying that at all, and I'm sorry this is what I've communicated. I am saying that the liberal arguments I've been able to follow are somewhat immoral in terms of the human costs of what they advocate, and invariably devoid of any strategic arguments, such as how we're going to deal with a bunch of 7th-century nuclear-armed Islamic wackos in a decade or two if we bug out of Iraq and let the people there pay the price. How about we stick it out and win, instead?

(I realize that goes against the grain of some folks who think we deserve to lose, but I think those folks are somewhat irrational, if not suicidal.)

As a small government/limited powers sort, I always have been against going to war, as it really was just an extension of government's powers -- if we should have attacked Saddam, we should have attacked North Korea (again), Iran, numerous African countries, a few former Soviet satellites, etc.

But for those who still say it was a good idea, I ask the following three questions:

1) If you knew for absolutely certain that Saddam didn't have WMD before going to war, would you have supported going?

2) If the answer to #1 is yes, for what reason should we have gone?

3) Again, if the answer to #1 is yes, why didn't we use the reasons given in #2 instead of the WMD charade (a point earlier denied by Condi and Cheney on natl TV), as these points apparently justify the war regardless of the presence of WMD.

Leading up to the Iraq war, practically every representative of the Democrat Party in both Congress and the Senate was jumping in front of the cameras and vying with each other to lead the pro-war cheering. If the war had gone as expected, is there any doubt that these very same Democrat leaders would be claiming that it was they, rather than the President, who must be given full credit for forcing the simian-brained George Bush to finally take the decisive action they demanded against Saddam Hussein?

For those who have conveniently forgotten who was right out in front leading the dumbeat for going to war, here is a little refresher:


''Saddam's goal is to achieve the lifting of U.N. sanctions while retaining and enhancing Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. We cannot, we must not and we will not let him succeed.''

— Madeline Albright, 1998


''The community of nations may see more and more of the very kind of threat Iraq poses now: a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists. If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow.''

— President Bill Clinton in 1998


''As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, I am keenly aware that the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons is an issue of grave importance to all nations. Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process.''

— Nancy Pelosi, December 16, 1998


''We urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs.''

— From a letter signed by Joe Lieberman, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara A. Milulski, Tom Daschle, &John Kerry on October 9, 1998


''Saddam will rebuild his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and some day, some way, I am certain he will use that arsenal again, as he has 10 times since 1983.''

— National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, Feb 18, 1998


''This December will mark three years since United Nations inspectors last visited Iraq. There is no doubt that since that time, Saddam Hussein has reinvigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to refine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer- range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies.''

— From a December 6, 2001 letter signed by Bob Graham, Joe Lieberman, Harold Ford, &Tom Lantos


''Whereas Iraq has consistently breached its cease-fire agreement between Iraq and the United States, entered into on March 3, 1991, by failing to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction program, and refusing to permit monitoring and verification by United Nations inspections; Whereas Iraq has developed weapons of mass destruction, including chemical and biological capabilities, and has made positive progress toward developing nuclear weapons capabilities...''

— From a joint resolution submitted by Tom Harkin and Arlen Specter, July 18, 2002


''Iraq made commitments after the Gulf War to completely dismantle all weapons of mass destruction, and unfortunately, Iraq has not lived up to its agreement.''

— Barbara Boxer, November 8, 2002


''There's no question that Saddam Hussein is a threat. Yes, he has chemical and biological weapons. He's had those for a long time. But the United States right now is on a very much different defensive posture than we were before September 11th of 2001. He is, as far as we know, actively pursuing nuclear capabilities, though he doesn't have nuclear warheads yet. If he were to acquire nuclear weapons, I think our friends in the region would face greatly increased risks as would we.''

— Wesley Clark on September 26, 2002


''The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retained some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capability. Intelligence reports also indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons, but has not yet achieved nuclear capability.''

— Robert Byrd, October 2002


''In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security.''

— Hillary Clinton, October 10, 2002


''I am absolutely convinced that there are weapons. I saw evidence back in 1998 when we would see the inspectors being barred from gaining entry into a warehouse for three hours with trucks rolling up and then moving those trucks out.''

— President Clinton's Secretary of Defense William Cohen, April 2003


''Iraq is not the only nation in the world to possess weapons of mass destruction, but it is the only nation with a leader who has used them against his own people.''

— Tom Daschle, 1998


''Even today, Iraq is not nearly disarmed. Based on highly credible intelligence, UNSCOM [the U.N. weapons inspectors] suspects that Iraq still has biological agents like anthrax, botulinum toxin, and clostridium perfringens in sufficient quantity to fill several dozen bombs and ballistic missile warheads, as well as the means to continue manufacturing these deadly agents. Iraq probably retains several tons of the highly toxic VX substance, as well as sarin nerve gas and mustard gas. This agent is stored in artillery shells, bombs, and ballistic missile warheads. And Iraq retains significant dual-use industrial infrastructure that can be used to rapidly reconstitute large-scale chemical weapons production.''

— U.N. Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter, 1998


''Saddam Hussein's regime represents a grave threat to America and our allies, including our vital ally, Israel. For more than two decades, Saddam Hussein has sought weapons of mass destruction through every available means. We know that he has chemical and biological weapons. He has already used them against his neighbors and his own people, and is trying to build more. We know that he is doing everything he can to build nuclear weapons, and we know that each day he gets closer to achieving that goal.''

— John Edwards, Oct 10, 2002


''I share the administration's goals in dealing with Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction.''

— Dick Gephardt, September 2002


''Iraq does pose a serious threat to the stability of the Persian Gulf and we should organize an international coalition to eliminate his access to weapons of mass destruction. Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to completely deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power.''

— Al Gore, October 2002


''I will be voting to give the president of the United States the authority to use force, if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein, because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security.''

— John F. Kerry, October 2002


''We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction.''

— Bob Graham, December 2002


''Saddam Hussein is not the only deranged dictator who is willing to deprive his people in order to acquire weapons of mass destruction.''''

— Jim Jeffords, October 8, 2002


''We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction.''

— Ted Kennedy, September 27, 2002


''We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandates of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them.''

— Carl Levin, Sept 19, 2002


''The threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real, but as I said, it is not new. It has been with us since the end of that war, and particularly in the last four years we know after Operation Desert Fox failed to force him to reaccept them, that he has continued to build those weapons. He has had a free hand for four years to reconstitute these weapons, allowing the world, during the interval, to lose the focus we had on weapons of mass destruction and the issue of proliferation.''

— John Kerry, October 9, 2002


''There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein's regime is a serious danger, that he is a tyrant, and that his pursuit of lethal weapons of mass destruction cannot be tolerated. He must be disarmed.''

— Ted Kennedy, Sept 27, 2002


''We need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime. We all know the litany of his offenses. He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. ...And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction. That is why the world, through the United Nations Security Council, has spoken with one voice, demanding that Iraq disclose its weapons programs and disarm. So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real, but it is not new. It has been with us since the end of the Persian Gulf War.''

— John Kerry, Jan 23, 2003


The really sad thing in this situation is the fact that deranged Bush-hatred is causing these same Americans — who should be closing ranks, and presenting a united front against those trying to kill our soldiers — to instead lead the cheers against our soldiers and the tough job they have to do.