HankMorgan
5th August 2005, 05:03
Mark Goldblatt of National Review Online on rational arguments for and against toppling Saddam Hussein. (http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/goldblatt200508040833.asp)
"I don’t mean to suggest that opposition to the war in Iraq is inherently unserious. Indeed, a sober, well-reasoned argument against the invasion is altogether imaginable. Such a case would begin by acknowledging that, after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, President Bush had no choice but to oust the Taliban government in Afghanistan once it refused to hand over Osama bin Laden. (This requirement immediately disqualifies the Left’s tin-foil-hat contingent and much of the professoriate.) It would continue by acknowledging that, following the downfall of the Taliban, the question of what to do about Saddam was a difficult one, fraught with dire consequences regardless of what Bush decided, but then point out that toppling Saddam would likely, in the short term, strengthen the hand of the wall-eyed mullahs in Iran, would likely also inflame anti-American sentiment and might therefore destabilize the kleptocratic but marginally cooperative Islamic governments in the region, and might even provide an incentive for rogue regimes to seek WMDs as a deterrence to a future American invasion.
Such a case, in other words, would not question the Bush’s intelligence or good intentions, but would argue, based on a cost-benefit analysis, that going to war against Iraq was an error in judgment.
That case, of course, is almost never heard on the left. The antiwar movement, instead, organizes its rhetoric around two central axioms: 1) President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq was stupid; 2) President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq was corrupt."
All I ever seem to hear is "Bush lied, people died" which is so obviously false to anyone who paid attention to the news in the 1990's. Before the left gets any movement, they must first get traction by connecting with reality.
For fun, take a stroll down memory lane. (http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9802/18/town.meeting.folo/)
"I don’t mean to suggest that opposition to the war in Iraq is inherently unserious. Indeed, a sober, well-reasoned argument against the invasion is altogether imaginable. Such a case would begin by acknowledging that, after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, President Bush had no choice but to oust the Taliban government in Afghanistan once it refused to hand over Osama bin Laden. (This requirement immediately disqualifies the Left’s tin-foil-hat contingent and much of the professoriate.) It would continue by acknowledging that, following the downfall of the Taliban, the question of what to do about Saddam was a difficult one, fraught with dire consequences regardless of what Bush decided, but then point out that toppling Saddam would likely, in the short term, strengthen the hand of the wall-eyed mullahs in Iran, would likely also inflame anti-American sentiment and might therefore destabilize the kleptocratic but marginally cooperative Islamic governments in the region, and might even provide an incentive for rogue regimes to seek WMDs as a deterrence to a future American invasion.
Such a case, in other words, would not question the Bush’s intelligence or good intentions, but would argue, based on a cost-benefit analysis, that going to war against Iraq was an error in judgment.
That case, of course, is almost never heard on the left. The antiwar movement, instead, organizes its rhetoric around two central axioms: 1) President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq was stupid; 2) President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq was corrupt."
All I ever seem to hear is "Bush lied, people died" which is so obviously false to anyone who paid attention to the news in the 1990's. Before the left gets any movement, they must first get traction by connecting with reality.
For fun, take a stroll down memory lane. (http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9802/18/town.meeting.folo/)