For Me It Is the Timing of the War in Iraq
We have hashed the issue of how the argument for war was overblown for a while now. No one seems to want to take the next step in the analysis of the reasons for such exaggeration. Most people seem to want to give Bush the benefit of the doubt. But for me the issue could not be clearer. While they may have sincerely believed that Saddam was sitting on a stockpile of WMD, they did not want to be proven wrong by any means.
The Bush Administration has wanted to go to war with Iraq from the beginning of the current administration. Too many people in his administration had eight years going to think tank meetings with PNAC and were signatories of its documents. In their version of Pax Americana Iraq was the first domino that had to fall to bring peace and stability to the Middle East. In many ways, I believe this is still the underlying motivation for much of their rhetoric about the war. Recent revelations are starting to push the world to the belief that the decision to proceed to war was made much sooner than the administration told us.
Bush had to go to war fast. The longer the inspectors were there the more they were coming to the conclusion that Saddam posed no real threat to the West. From what we have learned in our initial foray into Baghdad is that Saddam was no longer even a threat to his immediate neighbors. I have heard many say that the fact that he did not come clean is evidence of the fact that the mysteriously missing WMD had to exist. However, the king of the hill can not show any weakness for fear he will be toppled. It may be that psychology held the Baath Party in power than the actual strength of his Republican Guards or stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons.
If Bush did know the truth about the intelligence he risked exposure the longer he waited for U.N. approval of our proposed action. The conviction of the top Bush Co. executives in the correctness of their conceptualization of peace and stability is at the heart of their policy. And it seems to me that the arguments in that theory need to be at the heart of further debate in this country.
What remains confusing to me is that if the rationale is correct, they do not seem to have a lot of confidence in being able to sway the majority of America. I have reviewed many of the documents on the PNAC site. Perhaps hidden somewhere is the one discussing the deeply held conviction by the majority of Americans that we have no business imposing our way of life on people who are for religious or cultural reasons opposed. Of course it may be because “a war waged for the purpose of removing a regime deemed by the attacking parties to be repressive is defined as an illegal war of aggression.” Right now people on the right are trying to make the argument that the terrible human rights record of Saddam and his past use of force to maintain his place of power were adequate to warrant our move to war. I wonder if they are suggesting that all the international laws are incorrect on this issue. I further wonder why they are not proposing to go after some of our friends who are using torture of their people to maintain their own power. While I support Human Rights Watch, I also believe that we have a fundamental responsibility to follow international norms as we try to change tyrannies.
10:23:25 AM 
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