The Case for War (Sans Smoke and Mirrors)
From Edward at the inspiringly reasonably Obsidian Wings (which has long belonged on my blogroll, but, you know, I'm lazy). If the case had been made in this honest way, there's a better chance that I would have supported the invasion. And even if I didn't, at least I wouldn't be as disgusted by the administration as I currently am.
From Edward at the inspiringly reasonably Obsidian Wings (which has long belonged on my blogroll, but, you know, I'm lazy). If the case had been made in this honest way, there's a better chance that I would have supported the invasion. And even if I didn't, at least I wouldn't be as disgusted by the administration as I currently am.
posted by Winston Smith at
12:24 AM
4 Comments:
Thanks for this link. I at least agree that it's better to listen to some calm discussion than to the spin war the Administration is now engaged in. As far as the actual argument herein, tho, it doesn't convince me. I don't think there was a chance in hell that the American people or even Congress would accept an optional war based on a rather abstract theory of how we are capable of manipulating nations and, as the administration put it at the time, "changing realities." The Iraq War is grounded in the Pearl Harbor effect engendered by 9/11 (and the anthrax scare which followed on immediately). The push for Congressional approval came as well in the context of the 2002 election, in which any charge of being unpatriotic carried great weight. My point here is fundamentally moral I think: war is too terrible an option to be grounded simply in some theory concocted by neocons (or classic internationalist liberals) in the halls of academe. The administration should have done its best to remove the emotionalism, the fear, that clouded the decision-making process. Instead they traded on it, and on creatively shaded intelligence, and on an actual criminal attack on a public servant, Valerie Plame, to achieve the dubious ends we are now living with, and which the Iraqis are dying under in great numbers (not to mention our own soldiers. Calm abstraction is fine and necessary, but it can hide the enormous human tragedy we are continuing to generate in Iraq. --Beel
Agreed on all counts, Beel, FWIW.
The American people would never have gone for it--which is why the spin began. At the time there's a good chance that *I* would have supported such a case for war, overestimating the administration's commitment and competence. I'm still not sure about the horrors of war vs. the horrors of tyranny.
I know it's unpopular around here, but I still think that a UN-backed effort with sufficient troops and good post-war planning would have made Iraqis better off than they were under Saddam.
But I admit that I have little confidence in that opinion.
What's funny is, that is the case for war that my ears heard. Almost chapter and verse. Honestly.
tvd, do you remember hearing the following from malAdministration officials?:
"We know where they(the WMD) are."
"We can't afford for a smoking gun in form of a mushroom cloud"(Paraphrase).
Just curious.......
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