I guess I can agree up until this point....it may be used for political gain, this is normal and bidirectional, but the issue is very tangible....this adminstration has published a doctrine of pre-emption - the subject of much debate and the cause of a great deal of animosity, at home and abroad. That is the self granting of the right to attack another country on the presumption of a threat. At a minimum fairness would say that you act on bullet proof knowledge. To understand now that there are no WMDs -the reason bush touted for war, that the war may have been marketed to the american public, that we may have made serious mistakes, who made them, under what circumstances, what failures...all of these are crucial issues that need to be understood in their infinitesimal detail because the stakes are too high, people get killed, lose kin, come home maimed, their lives are forever changed...if in the process certain folks pay a political price, this is far less important than getting to the bottom of the matter.
I'm glad that we have at least some points of agreement.
Note that the preemption doctrine was specifically
embraced by virtue of the vote to authorize the President
to go forward. That is the only way to rationally
evaluate that vote. If the notion of preemptive
strike under any circumstances were not embraced,
the vote would have been "no."
As for the intelligence, that is a separate matter.
It sounds like you want an investigation to "get
to the bottom of it." My reaction is "have at it."
If there was an intelligence failure, it appears
to have been of long standing duration, and likely
attributable, at least in part, to our decisions to
restrict CIA intelligence gathering activities.
Correction of such deficits is important to our
continued security.
The other outcome, and the one evidently hoped
for by Bush opponents, is that the President
lied or is just plain stupid. If the latter, he's
not the only one mislead by the intelligence.
There's plenty of blame to go around on that score.
If the former, I would imagine it would be very tough
to prove.
I'll give you the perspective of a trial lawyer.
A plaintiff must prove his version of the facts.
If he fails to do so, he should lose.
While defendants, in general, don't have to
prove anything (since the burden of proof, at least
initially, is on the plaintiff), if you don't have
an explanation for why something happened, which
was not related to the defendant, there is a
practical problem at trial. At bottom, a jury
needs to be satisfied that they understand what DID happen
and that it makes sense.
Here, let's say that Bush lied.
Why exactly did he do that?
You hear all kinds of allegations
but none that pass muster when
critically evaluated.
In other words, there has to be
a really rational explanation for
why a sitting President would deliberately
dupe the American public, commit the lives
and limbs of our military, and cost the
country potentially billions of dollars.
Was it to win a popularity contest?
If he knew the intelligence was false,
he had to also know that no WMD's would be found
and that there would be an uproar.
Does that make any sense to you?
It's also an horrendous allegation
to be made against any sitting
President, regardless of political persuasion.
The allegation also necessarily assumes that
Tony Blair was "in" on the deliberate deception,
and that all of the countries who joined the
coalition were all equally stupid, corrupt
or duped.
You also hear all about oil as being
the real reason for the war. You mean
everybody involved had that goal?
And exactly how did they all benefit?
IMO, conspiracy theories have a way of becoming
complex when spun out to their logical
conclusions.
I'm certainly not satisfied.
The witchhunt will likely continue.
It will be interesting to see
how much political hay the Bush
opponents will really get out of it.
After all, a whole slug of them went
on record, repeatedly, about Saddam,
his WMD's, and the threat he posed
to the world.
Seems to me that what changed the tune is
politics---pure and simple.
JMO. |
