Everything in this world flows from doing what is right. It is not about being right. It is about doing right. When we are in the twilight of our lives, approaching our deathbeds, the only thing that will matter when we take that last look in the mirror is if we did what was right.
I know that there is much that I do not know. I know that there are many people who have deep convictions that are diametrically opposed to mine. I only pray that those people that disagree with me do so with noble intentions.
As I look at the America I love, I see a country torn asunder by the Iraq War. Yes, there have been fierce political disagreements since the First Continental Congress, but the “You-tube” generation allows hatred to be magnified. LBJ and Everett Dirksen would castigate each other on the floor and in front of the cameras, but then laugh about it in the Oval Office over scotch, joking about who would get in the best zingers the next day. I wonder if that comity still exists.
The thing that bothers me about the antiwar supporters is that they have nothing to lose. There are no consequences to being wrong.
From a purely hypothetical standpoint, let’s say that the antiwar crowd turns out to be completely and utterly wrong in the long run. I think they are already wrong on most levels, but history has not rendered the final verdict yet.
Hypothetically, if Iraq turns into a peaceful haven with hearts, flowers, sunshine, lollipops, rainbows, and everything that’s wonderful, the antiwar crowd will have been wrong. What are the consequences of this? Nothing. The left can shrug their shoulders and say, “ok, we were wrong.” That’s it. There are no negative consequences to being wrong. Therefore, their position is riskless.
The left has done this before. The Bush tax cuts were going to destroy the economy. They didn’t. The left was wrong. Yet the economy is good, so no harm, no foul. When the worst case scenario is expected on anything, and the best case scenario occurs, there is no harm with taking a worst case scenario position. Being wrong is irrelevant.
This is tolerable on economic issues, but can be lethal when dealing with a war. It allows a cavalier attitude to prevail.
Now think about the supproters of the war, myself included. I have said many times that I will go to my grave believing the Iraq War was the right thing to do, and that we must stay there until the job is done. What happens if I was wrong from the beginning?
Picture the worst case scenario. What if President Bush did deliberately lied to get us into a war specifically for oil and to avenge the attepmt on his father’s life? What if the whole war was based on a lie, that the White House knew there were no WMD? The left believes those statements are true, and I reject them out of hand. However, hypothetically, what if I turned out to be wrong?
I will tell you what the result is. Everything in I believe in will have been blown to kingdom come. My view of the world will have been shattered. I will look in the mirror and fight the urge to hate my own skin. I will pray to God to forgive me that I believed what I was doing was right. It will not matter. I will have blood all over my hands for innocent deaths.
If I am wrong…I am done. If the supporters of the war are wrong, they are finished.
Therefore, the argument over the war consists of one side with nothing to lose and no reason to care and another side with everything they believe in at stake. You can be d@mn sure that I am sticking to my principles until I am proven that those principles were wrong.
It looks now that the supporters of the war are being proven right. Yet it is not about being right. It is not about winning an argument and gaining debating points. It is about doing right, which means liberating millions of people from dictatorship and giving them a chance at freedom and liberty. I will believe forever that this is the right thing to do.
When I look at the serious candidates running for President, I want to see their integrity on this vital issue to me.
Hillary Clinton keeps changing her position. Triangulation is fine for domestic policy, but not when dealing with a war. Hillary wants power. She wants to be right. She gets angry when told she is wrong. Yet by not taking so many different positions in such a short time span on such a critical issue shows that her views are based on naked political calculations. That is simply not honoroable.
John Edwards supported the war when it was popular, but then turned against it when it became unpopular. Unlike Hillary, he has not turned back in favor, but Dick Cheney rightly pointed out in the 2004 Vice Presidential Debate that he “could not stand up to Al Queda if he could not stand up to the Howard Dean Voters.”
Barack Obama claims to have been against the war from the beginning, but that is easy to say when there is no vote to be cast. He was not in the Senate at the time, and therefore did not have to make a tough decision. At least Hillary and Edwards were faced with a tough choice, and they were right to support the war even as they back away from it now.
Dennis Kucinich is not a serious candidate, which makes it easeir for him to take a clear position. Nevertheless, he voted against the war from the very beginning and never wavered. He is wrong, but honorably so.
Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Fred Thompson have been accused of supporting positions that many people, including many republicans, have objections with. Nevertheless they have never wavered on the Iraq War or the War on Terror. Romney wants to double Guantanamo, and McCain wanted a full scale escalation. Giuliani would be further to the right of the Bush Doctrine than Bush himself.
Changing a view does not mean one is insincere. It just has to be a sincere change. Brian Baird, a liberal congressman in liberal Washington State, came to the conclusion that he was wrong. He was against the war from the beginning, and now sees signs of progress as possible. he is also not running for President, which gives extra credence to his conversion as being a sincere one.
One can even have been for the war and then switched sides against it in an honorable manner. However, this honor has to be based on conviction, and that conviction must come from facts.
If the men with their lives on the line every day are supporting the war (George W. Bush had 75% of the military vote in 2004 to 25% for his opponent), and believe things are getting better, I believe we have to take their opinions seriously. Some would say their words are not absolute, because we live in a civilian society. Yet there is a middle ground. We trust, but verify. People going to Iraq are verifying that things are getting better.
When the history books are written, I plan to tell my grandchildren that I grew up in a world where America, while not pefect, strived very hard to do the right thing. We were not always right, but we tried to do it right.
We have to honor the concept of honor itself. We have to be moral, ethical, decent human beings. We have to strive to make the world a better place. Our beliefs must be based on integrity and decency.
Everything I believe in is on the line. I pray to God I am helping support those who are doing what is right. We must win the War on Terror, no matter what it takes.
eric
I do miss the days of more civil political discourse. I certainly wouldn’t blame “liberals” though. I blame the mainstream media, an anti-intellecual culture, and the self-centered “Me Generation.” Liberals have very little cultural and political power today. Back in LBJ’s day, liberals and progressives were part of the mainstream, and were represented in both poltiical parties to one extent or another. As you indirectly poined out above, liberals are scarce today. Kucinich (whom I adore) is part of a very, very small minority today. So please don’t put too much blame for anything on the anti-war-from-the-start crowd (I am one of them, and yes, I predicted pretty much everything that’s happened to date) or liberalism. It just ins’t all that potent a force in America today. The only reason most Americans now oppose the war is that it has completely and utterly failed, as I always knew it would.
“Yet the economy is good…” I disagree. But that’s a whole other topic.
“It looks now that the supporters of the war are being proven right.” I believe that’s ludicrous. I can’t even begin to imagine what you mean by this.
I agree with the main jist of your post, though. Honor is a rare commodity today. The Dems sold out when they voted for the AUMF, the Patriot Act, and the Protect America act. If you truly believe in ideals, you should stand by them, win or lose. And you shouldn’t be afraid to change your mind. There’s a fine line between consistancy and arrogance – and fatalistic pride.
JMJ
The two things on earth that probably come as close to heaven or hell as possible, are being on your death bed knowing you did well, or taking your last breath and knowing you pissed it all away.
Great piece, Eric. Passionate, honest and true. In my own thinking I got as far as the moral obligation to encourage liberty, and to fight for it if necessary. I got as far as watching the US surrender now would be far worse than accepting they chose the “wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time” (none of which I do accept).
You’ve crystallised a very important fact, though. It’s similar to a notion I’ve been thinking about for some time: that it takes far more moral courage to act, to do something, than to demur, to postpone, to wish problems away. If you act, and you’re right, well, that will be the status quo. Who will really give you credit? Who can say things would have been worse if you hadn’t acted? If you acted and you were wrong, however, the consequences can be dire. By contrast, if you don’t act and you’re right, well, things are going to be fine. And if you don’t act but you’re wrong, you can claim you did nothing to precipitate the disaster. It’s far harder to act, than not to act.
It’s very easy to say “I told you so”. As I wrote on my own blog, this sort of politics does not suggest pragmatic realism, nor an understanding of the way forward, nor even the wisdom of hindsight. Instead, it shows a venal need to be proven right, rather than to be doing right.
Having lived through a transition from oppression and injustice to liberty and democracy, a transition we call a miracle, I can’t accept the defeatist view. South Africans stared war in the face. They paid for their freedom with blood. Yet they believed it was the right thing to do. They won. With honour. Was it hard to make those decisions, to act, to pay that price? For sure. Was the price worth paying? A thousand times over.
When you say Hillary Clinton’s position has changed on Iraq, it has not changed. She feels the administration gave her false information to make the case for invading. For example, she believed Cheney when he promised the nation on August 26, 2002 that he knew where the WMD’s were. Remember THOSE days, when the case for invading Iraq was all about the mushroom cloud? Hillary Clinton is holding them accountable for what they told us before they invaded, and so are the majority of voters in America these days.
Even now, you claim the surge is working. Really? Who told you that? You believe it will be a bloodbath if we leave. Really, who told you that? You believe it will be a failure for our combat troops. Really? I heard that combat operations were over on May 1, 2003 and that the mission had been accomplished and that our troops and our allies had PREVAILED. “Prevailed” means “won” — right?
My question would be, why do Loyal Bushies still believe a single word from these people? Fool us all once, so be it. Fool us over and over and over and over, and you still trust them? Whew.
But I will leave you with asking you to pray for one thing — truth.
That’s what I pray for.
If Bush got us into a war that we didn’t need to get into, I want to know the truth.
If he got us into a war that we needed to get into, I want to know the truth.
So far, from my point of view, Bush got us into a war we did not need to get into.
I don’t reward bad decisions from my children, and I don’t plan on rewarding horrible decisions from my President.
If you currently believe it was necessary to the security of the US for the US to invade Iraq, I seriously don’t think we’ll ever be able to agree on Iraq, and therefore we can plan on our nation being divided for generations.
Bring it on.
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Hillary Clitnon should have damn well known that the Bush was going to use the AUMF for a heck of a lot more than just a threatening stick, Jan. I knew. Most people knew. We all knew Bush was heading for war with Iraq and the spineless Dems let it happen. If the Dems had united, especially in the Senate, the AUMF would never have passed and this debacle in Iraq would well have not happened. No one should be delluded into thinking that Hillary, or any of the other Senate Dems who voted for the AUMF, was somehow duped by Bush into the war. 9/11 riled Americans into a war-stance frenzy. Bush took advantage of that mood to feed the MIC and Big Oil in Iraq. Hillary should damn well have known that. I knew it, and I was just a regular working shmuck from New Jersey. If she really didn’t, then she really isn’t qualified to be president. But she did know it. She just lacked the HONOR to help stop it from happening. Bush has no honor, so he didn’t care. It was up to Senate Dems like Hillary to realize that and to stop him. They failed. The only Dem who’s owned up to that failure of honor is John Edwards. For that, and because Obama can’t win (neither can Hillary, but that’s beside this point), he is my favorite among the front-runners.
JMJ
Eric,
It is easy for people to bash America, many do world wide. The thing about America is when we rise to the challenges, through the centurys, we meet those challenges and we SHINE we give off a glow. Then there are times when we get it wrong, not I believe on purpose, people and governments, are not perfect. When that happens we stink the place up GRIN. America stands on the right side of history, God Bless America. Proud to be an American where at least I know I’m Free.
All I can say, Jersey McJones, is that you are then accusing Cheney of lying when he stated publicly that he knew where the wmd’s were.
So, the VP of the USA lied to the American people and they believed him (81%! yourself and myself, and Howard Dean, and Al Gore, and Scott Ridley et al NOT included).
But if a sitting US Senator does the same as 81% of the American people, it’s her fault for actually believing the adminstration was telling the truth??
Not a great choice for America, imo.
My husband bet a thousand bucks (and won) that there would be no wmd’s found in Iraq… because he was there, in the Gulf, on the very first day of the implementation of the no-fly zone over Iraq.
Does he blame a sitting Senator for the lying VP of the USA?
No, he blames the lying VP of the USA.
To each their own.
I blame VP Cheney and the Bush administration for lying.
You blame Hillary Clinton and her fellow Democrats for believing the President of the United States.
The originator of this posts blames…?
Well, he blames no one.
He appears to feel that Iraq is going to turn out to be “a peaceful haven with hearts, flowers, sunshine, lollipops, rainbows, and everything that’s wonderful.”
I guess those three attitudes pretty much sum up America these days.
I’m still standing by my decision to hold this administration accountable for the obviously failed policies in Iraq, starting with the FACT that Cheney lied on August 26, 2002 when he stated that he knew where Saddam Hussein’s wmd’s were.
Jan,
Here’s proof of just haw mistaken you are with the same old arguement that has been beat to death a hundred times.
http://www.bercasio.com/movies/dems-wmd-before-iraq.wmv
This not printed word or doctored video. These are YOUR favorite actors, saying everything to prove you wrong. This problem was mounting way long befoer Bush.
And the intelligence was mostlty gatherd way previous to Bush
And can you provve that with as much warning as we gave Saddam that those weapons were not moved from where Cheny and alot of other people thought they were ? Maybe they were there when Cheny said they were.
Untill you can prove otherwise you really hold off on the ” LIE ” word
Actually , if you bother to actually look back past 2002 you will see that this info had been flying around in Clintons administration loooong before Bush even came around.
Watch the video, if you dare.
Jan, I do put the onus on the administration, but that doesn’t excuse Clinton. She shares the blame, and especially because she should have known better. Bush and Cheney wanted war. That w3as obvious. These are guys that come from the MIC and Big Oil. This was there mission – to feed the beast. Clinton’s job was to stop them. If she had tried and failed, then fine – at least she tried. But she didn’t try. She went along, gave Bush anough rope to hang himself,. and would up hanging America, our troops, and Iraq in the process. I will never forgive her for that.
Micky, you should know the difference between rhetoric and reality.
JMJ
I met a guy with his finger in a hole in the sidewalk. I asked him why he was doing that. He said that if he removed his finger from the hole the earth would deflate and shrink into a small hollow sack, that was his “reality”.
I really dont care to converse with someone who doesnt believe that terrorism is a threat to our nation, you’re irrelevant and insignificant.
But I will say this, my comment was directed at Jan and anyone else who thinks thst because something is not there it is a lie.
There is no proof that Saddam destroyed or dismantled his weapons. He was asked to show verification of this. He would and could not.
Anybody that has any sense of process through elimination would have to wonder. Much like a police officer , you have used a particular weapon before and we cant find it , so would you please emtpy your pockets ? That suspect will be approached with extreme caution and searched. If no weapon turns up then his house , car and whatever are next to be searched.
Saddam would not allow the search to continue at a certain point. Even one weapons inspector got popped for giving Saddam a heads up as to what the inspections team next move was going to be. I wonder what individuals purpose was ? After he was exposed Saddam kicked all inspectors out of Iraq. These are facts that are documented with the U.N., I.A.E.A., and U.S. inspectors.
So when you call something a lie with absolutly nothing but opinion and speculation to back up your claim, it is you who are the real liar full of rhetoric. And you are making a reality that hold reality , but only the parts that dictate to what makes you comfortable
Typo screw up. Last sentence should read.
And you are making a reality that holds some reality, but only the parts that dictates to what makes you comfortable.
Micky, it takes a lot of arrogance to say to someone, ” you’re irrelevant and insignificant.” You should respect people, even if you disagree with them. I misght think you’re an idiot, but I do respect you. Belittling people just belittles yourself.
I am far from the only person, insignificant or important, who feels the way I do about terrorism. I believe that terrorism is just another facet of international organized crime and should be dealt with the way we dealt with the mafia or drug cartels (though we were far more sucessful against the former than the latter) – a mixture of military, intelligence, law enforcement and diplomacy. Terrorism could certainly be extremely painful and dangerous. Terrorists could get their hands on a nuclear weapon and take out a whole city, for example. But they are not an existential threat to our existance the way the Soviet Union was, or the British Empire of yore.
Terrorism is a bogeyman the way Red Scare was. It’s an excuse for the MIC to loot the public coffers. America is never going to become an Islamic state, just as we were never going to become a communist state. We Americans simply don’t want that. If some great number of us did want that, then I could see your point. But that is not the case. It is not REALITY.
I never cared whether Saddam had WMDs or not. That wasn’t an issue for me. If he had them, we could easily have taken them out without invading. If we were to incompetent to do that, then we could have asked Israel to do it. They’re good at that. And I never thought that getting rid of Saddam was all that bad of an idea. The question for me was how to do it. Seeing that we went in with too few troops (any idiot can rush into a crowd and punch someone in the face, but once that’s done, the idiot still has to deal with being in the middle of that crowd), and that we disbanded the institutional and military infrastructure, and that all this was the plan from the start, I could well see what came to pass. I’m not an idiot.
We should have just covertly instigated a coup or something. At least we could have paid for the war. That would have been smart. And we should have provided enough forces, rather than instituting 15 month stints and taking advantage of young men who always re-up in times of war out of comradery and bravado. This whole war has been a tragic joke, will make more terrorists, will rob our children’s tax dollars, and has ruined our reputation. It seems to me that you are just one of those people who can simply never admit when you’re wrong. It takes honor to do that. And it takes honor to treat others in debate with respect.
So let’s at least get on the same wavelenth here.
JMJ
micky, can you tell me why Bush pulled the weapons inspectors out of Iraq, in order to invade Iraq?
Doesn’t that seem a little stupid to you?
You want to believe what you want to believe; that’s obvious.
However, WHY you want to believe what you want to believe is still a mystery to me.
Seriously, has Bush been correct about anything? You believe every word he says. I believe nothing he says. That’s the difference between us. How many times are you going to let him be wrong before you start questioning what he tells you?
So, when Bush tells you that Osama Bin Laden was planning attacks before his adminstration came into office, and therefore 9/11 is not his fault…
but there is sworn testimony that Bush’s adminstration was warned by Clinton’s adminstration to keep their attention on only ONE person — Osama Bin Laden — and they obviously didn’t…
yet you still blame Bill Clinton for 9/11!??!
Think about that.
Seriously, how in the world did someone convince you to blame Bill Clinton for something that happened on September 11, 2001????
Yeah, sorry.
In the military I was a part of, the person on watch was held accountable for what happened on his watch, especially when he was warned by the previous watch that an enemy was lurking within striking distance.
And Bush has STILL failed to being Osama Bin Laden to justice!
And I suppose somehow that’s Hillary Clinton’s fault?
Jan said;
“micky, can you tell me why Bush pulled the weapons inspectors out of Iraq, in order to invade Iraq?
Doesn’t that seem a little stupid to you?”
“Bombing innocent inspectors is not stupid.
Are you O.K. Jan ?
Jan said;
“You want to believe what you want to believe; that’s obvious.
However, WHY you want to believe what you want to believe is still a mystery to me.”
I have no mysteries, you are however trying to create more.
I solve mysteries with the facts that I showed you. You have solved nothing. NOTHING!
Jan said;
“Seriously, has Bush been correct about anything? You believe every word he says. I believe nothing he says. That’s the difference between us. How many times are you going to let him be wrong before you start questioning what he tells you?”
Unlike you I deal with facts.
The fact is that no one, and not even Bush can be right all the time.
And he hasnt been.
Where as you believe “nothing he say’s” all the time.
This type of thinking is an extremist mode that our enemy holds.
Jan said;
” Bush’s adminstration was warned by Clinton’s adminstration to keep their attention on only ONE person — Osama Bin Laden — and they obviously didn’t…
yet you still blame Bill Clinton for 9/11!??!”
I never ever blamed only Clinton for 911. Get your facts STRAIGHT!
I {if you read back on this blog a couple days} said Clinton was responsable for not doing enough to prevent 911, along with previous administrations.
But if you must persist with this , Osama was in Billy Boys court much longer than Georges court. Bill hade numerous oppotunitys and failed at the ones he used and then passed the buck to Bush.
And since when does one administration take its strategies from another administration, this isnt a day time soap opera.
Jan said;
Seriously, how in the world did someone convince you to blame Bill Clinton for something that happened on September 11, 2001????
Its called preventative measures, Clinton had none. All did was say; Oh ! and by the way George, theres this nasty fellow called Bin Laden, I was trying to get him, but he got away, dont take your eyes off him. Even though I can tell you where to look right now.
If I don’t stop a cancer from spreading, who do I blame ten years from now when I’m dying. The emergency room ? or myself.
Really Jan, that was weak.
Jan said;
“In the military I was a part of, the person on watch was held accountable for what happened on his watch,” especially when he was warned by the previous watch that an enemy was lurking within striking distance.”
The enemy you are talking about was not ” lurking” he was “ATTACKING”, numerous times. WTC, The Cole, Our embassies. Clinton did squat about those.
Jan said;
“And Bush has STILL failed to being Osama Bin Laden to justice!
And I suppose somehow that’s Hillary Clinton’s fault?”
When did I ever say it was Hillarys fault ?
Man….
You’re lost.
micky, we can agree to disagree.
I am free to question every single thing Bush says, because Bush has not been right about anything yet.
You are free to continue believing whatever he tells you to believe, because you’re still hoping he will be right about something sometime.
You tell us it was a SMART decision on Bush’s part to pull the inspectors OUT from Iraq before we invaded iraq… so Bush wouldn’t bomb those inspectors, who were looking for the wmd’s in Iraq that we were going to bomb the nation of Iraq over, even though the inspectors weren’t finding any wmd’s in Iraq!!!!
Oh, man. That is CLASSIC!
And I’M the loser?
Whew.
You are free to continue to believe, for whatever reason, every single line of baloney that George W. Bush feeds you, even though he has failed at every single decision he has ever made.
Seriously, all I have left to say is… “Suck-er.”
Jan,
I’m curious as to what you think of Phosgene being found in the UN building two days ago. Phosgene taken from Iraq!
Here are a few facts from the CDC on Phosgene.
1. Phosgene is a major industrial chemical used to make plastics and pesticides.
At room temperature (70°F), phosgene is a poisonous gas. (Nerve gas is a pesticide ramped up to affect humans)
2. Phosgene was used extensively during World War I as a choking (pulmonary) agent. Among the chemicals used in the war, phosgene was responsible for the large majority of deaths.
3. If phosgene gas is released into the air, people may be exposed through skin contact or eye contact. They may also be exposed by breathing air that contains phosgene.
4. If phosgene liquid is released into water, people may be exposed by touching or drinking water that contains phosgene.
5. If phosgene liquid comes into contact with food, people may be exposed by eating the contaminated food.
6. Poisoning caused by phosgene depends on the amount of phosgene to which a person is exposed, the route of exposure, and the length of time that a person is exposed. Phosgene gas and liquid are irritants that can damage the skin, eyes, nose, throat, and lungs.
Now I don’t know about YOU but I’d say that Saddam had WMD’s. Also, we still have within our OWN inventory mustard and nerve agents produced in the 50’s and 60’s so that tired old libturd argument that Saddam’s nerve/mustard agents were “old” is complete bs. The Marines have found numerous arty shells loaded with a binary form of nerve agent. Of course, you won’t find THAT at Daily KoS.
Jan,
BTW, NO one is rubber-stamping Bush. I can’t stand him for his liberal stance on illegal immigrants, his limp-noodling on Dhimmicrats, and growing government. He’s about as much a conservative as Rosie O’Donnell is good-looking.
Jan,
Lastly, we’re you the one telling me you receieved terrorist training on active duty?
If so, then you slept through it. An attack the scale of 9/11 requires YEARS of preparation. Including flight training of the terrorists that happened on Ol Zipper Klintoon’s watch. BTW, Al Gore reorganized the INS in 99 and should have caught the fact that ATTA and crew were here illegally. The FAA even informed him of people wanting to learn to FLY but not LAND! Here is a nice paper on the terrorist planning cycle.
http://www.stratfor.com/products/premium/read_article.php?id=256542
Of course, OBL would never have attempted to hit us if Klintoon had arrested him after the Sudanese offered him up…three times.
Actually , I must correct myself.
Jan,
Saddam kicked the inspectors out.
And since he left us believing he had very much too hide.
He repeatedly and at that time broke U.N resolutions and surreneder agreements stemming from his defeat in Kuwait.
Jan said;
“Bush has not been right about anything yet.”
And yet you are alive and safer for it.
Jan said;
“You tell us it was a SMART decision on Bush’s part to pull the inspectors OUT from Iraq before we invaded iraq… so Bush wouldn’t bomb those inspectors, who were looking for the wmd’s in Iraq that we were going to bomb the nation of Iraq over, even though the inspectors weren’t finding any wmd’s in Iraq!!!!
Oh, man. That is CLASSIC!
And I’M the loser?
Whew.”
#1 I corrected this and never used the word “smart”
#2 Even Saddam was given a couple days notice on world wide video
#3 You at one point must look at some point beyond WMDs, even without them there were at least 10 other valid legal reasons to go in./
Clinton allowed him to shoot at American troops from agreed no fly zones.( 7 times}
That is legaly an act of war.
Saddam was paying families of Palestinians 2500.00 to send there young into Afghanistan as suicide bombers.
That is an act of war.
The revenues from Iraqi oil as part of the surrender agreement was to be traded for food. Saddam was trading the food for cash.
That was an act of war and a humanitarian sin against his people.
He killed 1000s of Kurds and innocent Iraqi citizens using the chemicals he said he didnt have.
He rejected and ousted U.N weapons inspectors after repeated attempts to get his co-operation.
That was an act of war according to surrender agreements stemming from his defeat in Kuwait.
This is all hard documented proof that is obtainable by any U.S citizen
Once again, I have a slew of facts that make any of your questions simple theory and paranoia and misguidance.
As Erics post says , people like you are of a weaker stance because if you are wrong you loose nothing but face.
If am wrong, I stand to live a life of regret and pain, and thousands of people will of died for nothing.
An awful lot more thought must be put into action, than just standing back and making accusations that you cannot prove still.
I stand behind my beliefs with hard cold evidence to give validity to my beliefs.
You have nothing but hatred, and this is all you have proven so far.
I can also back that statement up by quoting you on this statement.
Jan said; ” he has failed at every single decision he has ever made.”
The only way anyone could ever say aomething like this about ANYONE is by possesing a form of deraingement..
As far as this ” debate goes” you and Jay are ” irrelevant and insignificant”
It’s obvious that the character of debate in the last our is not condusive to anything but hatred and blind critisism.
Anyone who can look at the mess in Iraq today and still think it was a good idea is suffering from severe cognitive dissonance. WMD? Who cares? There are probably dozens of rogues states out there with one form of WMD or another. The key is containing them and disarming them. You don;t have to invade them to do that. Saddam’s Iraq was a hobbled state, beseiged, broke, isolated. In the old days, when we had competent administrations, we had ways of dealing with second-rate dictators like Saddam. They would get assassinated or there’s be a surprise coup d’tat. We had a long history of that sort of thing. Heck, we once even decided an Australian election! Now, I’m not saying that we always had the best interests of the nations in which we meddled, but we didn’t have to spend trillions of dollars and oceans of blood to accomplish what we wanted. No, there’s a very good, simple reason we invaded Iraq, and Eisenhower warned us about that reasoning a long time ago. Ike was competent. Bush and his crowd are less than just crooked. They’re inept. All you supporters of his blatantly failed policies just can’t be man enough, just can’t muster enough HONOR, to admit that you were wrong.
JMJ
Eric, where are you? You’re getting lambasted for having written an excellent and heart felt post!
I loved it and second your thoughts wholeheartedly. I too will go to my grave believing we were right to go into Iraq. Armchair critics are so sure they are right, but our warriors are there and our warriors are sure the armchair critics are wrong. I’ll place my faith in our troops over criticism from any critics any day!
Gayle, how can you look at a pile of dung and call it chocolate cake?
JMJ
(I meant the war as the dung, by the way. I disagree with Eric, but he seems like a good guy.)
JMJ
All,
What if Saddam moved alot of the WMDS to Syria?
75% of our troops voted for Bush in 2004.
Armchair critics are not the ones to be Questioned.
The commanders, troops and the commander in chief are the ones who are the majority of believers.
We have to remember that this is a volunteer force, not drafted.
This is exactly why I called you a sucker, micky:
“Jan, Saddam kicked the inspectors out.”
I TRULY think that is TRULY what you think is TRULY the truth, micky. However, here is the TRUTH:
Aired March 17, 2003 – 06:31 ET
–> And in case you’re just joining us, a big development in the showdown with Iraq. The U.S. has advised the U.N. to pull its weapons inspectors out of Iraq. That call for U.N. inspectors to leave Iraq does not surprise the International Atomic Energy Agency, although it was hoping the moment would never come.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: “Tomorrow is a moment of truth for the world.”
Micky, here’s my opinion:
March 18, 2003 was, instead, a moment of Truth for President George W. Bush. And he failed miserably.
You are free to consider Bush a raging success and defend him on every blog all over the world. But you have yet to name me one decision he’s made that turned out to be correct.
Including the *FACT* that *BUSH* was the one who pulled the weapons inspectors out of Iraq when they had thus far *NOT* found the promised wmd’s in any of the promised places… in order for George w. Bush to attack Iraq for having wmd’s.
I don’t hate you, and this is not blind criticism.
I’ve told you exactly where I’ve disagreed with you, and you’ve tossed back Bush’s propaganda at me, including this one now, that Saddam Hussein, not bush, was the one who ordered the weapons inspectors out of Iraq.
When the VP of the US promises you there are wmd’s in Iraq that are a threat to the safety of the United States, and then there aren’t, and then you make excuses for that failure, I stand by my opinion that YOU are a sucker for turning around and calling ME a loser.
“What if Saddam moved all the wmd’s to Syria?”
And how do you suppose that happened with a 24/7 no-fly zone overhead?
“75% of our troops voted for Bush in 2004.”
Who told you that?
You have absolutely no idea who “the troops” voted for in 2004.
Why do you all still spread this kind of crap for this miserable failure?
laree,
This was a point I made above in less detail.
We don,t know what we did with them, but we know he had them very close to 2001.
Inspectors were constantly coming across warehouse’s and storage areas that showed with forensics that they all had been recently cleared out.
The evidence was consistent with containers and trace materials that were used in WMDs but not enough volume to make a case.
It’s funny how people call for respect by asking me not to say they are irrelevant or insignificant. While they may not say this verbally as I do. They treat our president to such things as “never being right about a thing in his life”, ” murderer”, ” war criminal” , “thief” and “liar” This goes for anyone connected with him also.
And then throw unprovable and false accuasations at the administration and millions of Americans, and want respect ?
I thing that the guy with his finger in the hole in the sidewalk deserves respect, and he gets it. But his opinion cannot be taken seriously because it defies rational thinking.
So it cannot be used to get to any concrete results.
His opinion and will be irrelevant and insignificant in this case.
The left has been making the arguement you see above for years now and still has nothing to prove their point or accusations.
Insanity is described as doing the same thing over and over while hoping for a different result, but althogh the outcome is always the same, the insane try again anyway.
btw, micky, this is where I garner a lot of sympathy for you.
“If am wrong, I stand to live a life of regret and pain, and thousands of people will of died for nothing.”
If you are wrong, it’s because you believed that the President of the United States was telling you the truth.
He wasn’t.
But believing President Bush shouldn’t bring anyone a life of regret and pain, except Bush and those who helped him lie.
My only question to you and yours is, why in the world do you STILL believe everything Bush tells you?
Listen closely Jan,
I’m about to do something you are unfarmiliar with.
“I was wrong” and ” I’m sorry”
Saddam may of not kicked out inspectors, and they left by recomendation of the U.S. and the U.N.
Washington withdrew weapons inspectors in 1998, resulting in Operation Desert Fox, which further degraded Iraq’s WMD capability. The United States and the UK, along with many intelligence experts, asserted that Saddam Hussein still possessed large hidden stockpiles of WMD in 2003, and that he must be prevented from building any more. Inspections restarted in 2002, but hadn’t turned up any evidence of ongoing programs when the United States and the “Coalition of the Willing” invaded Iraq and overthrew Saddam Hussein in March 2003.
If notice there was a “coalitin of the willing”
Everyone else in the coalition and almost all of congress were wrong also?
Did you dare to open the link I provided ?
And of course you cant even touch me on all the other acts of war I mentioned, can you?
You are making the case for lies and deception than it is incumbent upon you to prove your case.
It is not for me or Bush to prove our case because we had unanimous support leading up to the war.
In terms appropriate to our justice sytem, you must prove guilt.
I do not have to prove my innocence.
You have no case.
You have nothing, nothing, nothing, to back up your claims.
The war and those that support it have all the facts and documentation to make their case.
Nobody today is denying the WMD thing was a mistake.
But the rest of the evidence was enough to justify going in.
And by the way, stop putting words in my mouth.
I never said I believe everything Bush says.
Jan said;
“But you have yet to name me one decision he’s made that turned out to be correct.”
Like I said: you are the one claiming that he has never made a right decision, so its on you to prove it !
Which means you really have nothing to say or do until the war is over, and history has been written. No doubt the left will try to change it.
Jan said;
“But believing President Bush shouldn’t bring anyone a life of regret and pain, except Bush and those who helped him lie.”
I’m helping him right now.
I take responsability for my actions, nobody leads me around. Unlike you, I am willing to take the chance of action against a proven enemy.
You leave yourself no chance of ever bearing any responsability.
All you do is run around and critisize and doubt and make unprovable points and accusations, and spew hate.
I said;
“75% of our troops voted for Bush in 2004.”
“Jan said
Who told you that
You have absolutely no idea who “the troops” voted for in 2004.
Why do you all still spread this kind of crap for this miserable failure?”
Here you go Jan ( more facts)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-10-03-bush-troops_x.htm
In the survey of more than 4,000 full-time and part-time troops, 73% said they would vote for Bush if the election were held today; 18% said they would vote for Kerry. Of the respondents, 59% identified themselves as Republicans, 20% as independents and 13% as Democrats.
One must also include the reality that our troops are a volunteer force, no one is being forced to do anything they dont want to do.
“Everything in this world flows from doing what is right. It is not about being right. It is about doing right.”
Excellent words. They remind me of Socrates’ words from Plato’s Crito:
“It is never right to do wrong.”
Similarly, from Plato’s Gorgias:
“It is better to suffer injustice than to do injustice.”
Good post. I do believe honor has been lost in our society. Maybe we can recover it.
Thanks also for your comment on my blog at Town Hall, http://jayperiod.townhall.com I would be interested in a link exchange, and in fact, I will post a link to your blog on there.