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"Don Swayser" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wroteOnly because you choose to consider it so. You are making assumptions which are unwarranted. The threat was, ultimately, the mushroom cloud but only after he had attained hegemony over the Persian Gulf which his previous actions demonstrate was his goal. Hussein had already invaded the three other largest oil producers in the gulf. The nations od Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia produce 90% of the worlds excess oil.
In a false dichotomy (also called a false dilemma, either or, black or white, the missing middle) you are presented with two choices, when in fact there are more than two choices. If one choice is discredited, then the reader is forced to accept the other choice. But this is not an adequate argument, the choice favored must be supported by evidence.
Good so far.
Now, I've looked at the situation in Iraq. What was the middle of the road solution.
Well, seeing as the American people were sold this war on the basis of "we cannot wait for the smoking gun to come in the form of a mushroom cloud" (and yes, I have to type that instead of "imminent threat" so the idiots will keep closed the pieholes proclaiming that one does not mean the other), and THAT threat certainly did not exist in March, 2003, the solution was to continue with the sanctions, U.N. inspections and enforcing the no-fly zones. Now YOU might say that supports Saddam; I say it provides the checks and balances to preserve regional stability.
So what? Have you any idea how few presidents ever told the truth about the reasons for going to war? Wilsons "To make the world safe for democracy, and after the war it was the Zimmerman Telegram when in reality it was the collapse of the mutinied Frnch Army in 1917. Roosevelt kept telling the American public that America wouldn't go to war while the US Navy, at his orders, were assisting the Royal Navy in hunting and sinking German U-Boats. How about Johnson and the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution? Or McKinley, "Remember the Maine". I seriously whether any world power leader EVER told the truth about why they went to war, particulaly those of the democracies.I'm glad to see Saddam gone, but he now needs to be killed or captured. Iraqis aren't going to feel 100% secure in the "new Iraq" as long as he remains at large.
Iraq is a sovereign nation, and Hussein was in control of that state. He had ignored the damage that the embargo was causing his people for a decade. He did not suffer, he got richer. He ignored pleas to moderate his bestial treatment of his own people made by international organizations presumably. He invaded his neighbors, always seeking their oil production facilities. He was planning on building offensive ballistic missiles.
The point remains, Bush didn't use ANY of the
reasons you give to explain to the American people
why we were going to war with Iraq (which was a
war we could undertake "at a time of our choosing,"
Mr. Bush said). Why? Because the American people
wouldn't have supported *him* if those were his
reasons. On the other hand, by manufacturing this
WMD and al Qaeda threat, he got support at home -- and got shoved away from the table by the rest of
the world, as everyone else knew it was a fabrication.
Prior to March, 2003, there weren't any Iraqis waiting
for an opportunity to sneak into the U.S. to lay
mushroom clouds; now, during the occupation, I'm
not so sure.
Ths sanctions were devastating the Iraqi people, not Hussein. The "weapons inspectors" never found a munition production plant over a quarter mile square less than twenty miles from Baghdad, and that was after nearly a decade of "inspecting". And his threat range was expanding geometrically. What do you suppose that new missile engine test stand was for?Now, explain to me how that is a false dichotomy to present it as an either or situation. He either remained in power or he had to be removed by force. That means someone who opposed his removal was in favor of some other course of action, or was in favor of maintaining the status quo.. Tell us what course which wasn't tried would have been a success.
The sanctions were doing the best job possible. Add to that weapons inspections, et al, and there you have it. Nothing new about that, yet those were the things containing Saddam's threat to ever-shrinking radii.
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