In my view, the most important factor is a very personalized one, namely, a visceral hatred of Bush which trumps Saddam's misdeeds. This business of "risk calculation," etc., is ex post facto balderdash. It's the same [I suppose] psychological dynamic we saw during the Vietnam war, with LBJ and Nixon being the goats instead of W, while the Vietcong's atrocities were seriously minimized and, in fact, made glamorous.
It's a combination of Bush hatred and cognitive dissonance about their own policies. Since the only course they approved involved leaving Saddam in power and lifting the sanctions, they must whitewash Saddam and blackwash all America's actions, so that they can believe that they were well-intentioned to the Iraqis, and anyway the Americans have impure motives and made everything worse. "Iraq was just fine until America broke it" is how GST put it, I believe.
If you admit how awful Saddam was it becomes hard to hold this position. You come off as quite uncaring. |
