The thing that I can't escape is the question of "what was the hurry?"
Anyone with empathy and an understanding of the tragic suffering and loss that inevitably occurs when soldiers get into a shooting war would have closed all the loose ends BEFORE invading. This is especially true when you consider all of the "what do we do after we win the shooting war" complexities of dealing with a Muslim/Arab country with a long history of resisting occupation and with the default leadership being Islamic clerics.
The two bases for a "rush to war" in Iraq that make any sense are, one, that we were in imminent peril and had to act immediately to "protect" ourselves or, two, that if we waited the justifications the Bush Administration put forward to gather support for the war would begin to crumble under the weight of the facts. A possible third "hurry" rationale has been advanced that relies upon the assertion that because of "weather" we had to move earlier rather than later. I don't find that very convincing.
For reasons that I think are now apparent, the "immediate danger" justification, even under the most alarmist views of the intelligence we now know that Bush was getting, was woefully inadequate to explain our lack of patience in attempting to resolve the issues through means short of invasion and occupation. As I've already indicated, the "logistics and weather" justification is thin when you consider that magnitude of the decision to invade a sovereign nation.
That leaves me believing that Bush "hurried" to war because he thought, I think correctly, that if we waited the justifications the Bush Administration put forward to gather support for the war would begin to crumble under the weight of the facts.
For the Bush handlers to whip up a frenzy of support through the use of distorted facts to create fear, with full knowledge that time would result in a clearer vision and calmer decisions, and then to act before that could happen is a terrible indictment of the Bush Administration. In addition it soundly supports your "fraud" hypothesis because the "hurry" is only necessary IF the Bush war hawks KNEW that they were basing their rationales on facts that would NOT withstand careful scrutiny.
The "humanitarian" justification is pure fantasy. If you look at the pre-war statements and projected policies of the "we're not the world's policemen" Bush people, it's a little hard to see why and where they suddenly became willing to expend hundreds of billions of dollars and hundreds of American lives to help those "poor Iraqis" who hadn't asked for help. In addition, it appears that we're killing the same radical Islamics that Saddam was killing. But of course if you're a "trust the man in charge" believer, you'll accept a contrived feel good reason when there's nothing else to rely upon. |
