For what it's worth:
1. A Moral Reason for the War: Ol' Senator Medal Thrower parrots the
leftist argument that we had Saddam contained. This was done using
sanctions and a blockade. The problem with this is that the sanctions hurt,
and kill, the people, not the leaders. They also did NOTHING to help the
move the WMD inspections along. The sanctions killed between 500,000 and
1,000,000 Iraqi civilians (depending on whose estimate you believe). The
Oil for Food program was supposed to mitigate the effect of the sanctions by
letting Saddam sell oil and use the money for food. Because of UN
corruption, the money went to Saddam, who used it to buy palaces, with bribe
money being paid to, among others, Kofi Annan's son. France and Russia were
involved in this. So, the plan of the leftists was to keep Saddam
"contained" by killing innocent civilians. No matter how bad things get,
the death and misery toll will not reach the levels resulting from the
sanctions.
2. The report that came out today says that Saddam produced no WMD since
the Gulf War. It also states that, as soon as the sanctions were lifted,
that Saddam was ready to reacquire the weapons. The author of the report
stated that we are safer because of the war.
3. What Saddam had to do was let the inspectors do their job and verify that
he had no nuclear/bio/chem weapons. He refused right up to the end to give
them unfettered access (which was part of the agreement he signed to end the
Gulf War), and that is what we needed in order to verify that he was
WMDrein. We were entitled to believe that he had them and would use them,
and act accordingly. In fact, since he violated the agreement he made at the
end of the Gulf War, we had a legal right to enforce the terms of the
Armistice by use of force. After 9/11, we are also entitled to err on the
side of caution.
4. All intelligence services at the time stated that Saddam had WMD. What
was GWB to do?
5. John Heinz-Kerry and his ilk keep saying that Saddam was no threat to
us. Yet we were enforcing the no-fly zone and our pilots were getting shot
at daily. Is this his idea of no threat?
6. Senator Ketsup says we should have given inspectors more time. That
assumes that Saddam would have let the inspectors do their job. Even under
the threat of war, Saddam obstructed the inspectors and would not let them
go where they needed to go when they needed to go. Without unfettered access
(which he GUARENTEED at the end of the Gulf War), we could not have verified
the lack of WMD. Saddam evidently was counting on the coalition eventually
falling apart and him getting off scott-free, and if the US had not taken
him out, I think that would have been the case.
7. I am always amused when Senator Swift Boat and the Democrats say that we
should have left Saddam alone; after all "he didn't attack us". I can just
imagine these guys in WWII: "Germany didn't attack us, so why are we
fighting them? Why don't leave the poor Germans alone, and go after the
Japs?". To me, it's a failure of imagination. As in WWII, it's an
integrated war. President Roosevelt and the Joint Chiefs did not fight the
war piecemeal, but as one confilct. They never lost sight of the big
picture, and Teresa's Husband hasn't seen the ball since kickoff.
8. I am also amused when the Dumbcrats say, as Baby Edwards did, "Al Quada
is in 80 countries. We can't invade them all?". Another WWII parallel
here: "The Fascists are in 20 countries; we can't invade them all, so lets
give up!". What we CAN do is divide them and make sure that they can't be
mutually supporting. To do that, we fight where it makes sense, and use
other means (financial, police, diplomacy) where it makes sense. It's
called STRATEGY. You don't attack problems as individual parts, especially
when we are at war.
9. And that's the part I think the Senator Waffles loses sight of: we are
at WAR! There are people out there that want to destroy us, and impose an
Islamo-fascist regime on the world. We will make mistakes in this war, just
as we have in all wars. Think Civil War, and the disasters and mistakes we
made at the beginning: Fredericksburg (twice), Bull Run (twice);
Gettysburg, for gosh sakes, was a full balls-ups on both sides. Think WWII
(Pearl Harbor, the Phillipines, Kasserine Pass, Anzio). Think Korea, where
we nearly got driven out of the country in the beginning. These mistakes
did not affect whether the war was right or wrong, and whatever mistakes
President Bush has made PALE in comparison, both in dollars and lives, to
those made in earlier wars. Yet what is at stake is the same.
10. On the other hand, and most importantly, I don't think the Iraq war was
a mistake. We took out a dictator who was an enemy and harboring our
enemies, and the Islamo-fascists are now trying to fight our armed forces in
Iraq. This means they are not only going up against our strengths, and they
are NOT targetting the US. We finally settled the question of WMD in Iraq,
moved our forces out of Saudi Arabia (where they were an irritant), and we
are making the lives of the Iraqi people better than it has been for many
years. We also showed that we are willing to do what is necessary to make
our country safe: the lesson was not lost on ol'd Kaddafi duck, the leader
of Libya. If we follow through, it will help us for at least the next 10
year (assuming Senator Train Wreck doesn't get elected President).
11 And lastly: Geez, if we hadn't taken him out, would we have given the
Kurds back to him and left them to his tender mercy? They have operated,
under our protection, a democracy in North Iraq for the last 10 years. He
commiting genocide on them BEFORE Gulf War I. What would he have done if we
had left?
For what it's worth...
