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Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: rrufff who wrote (4870)	12/8/2003 7:17:55 AM
From: Dale Baker	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20773

It's always possible that Saddam reckoned he would provoke an invasion sooner or later and prepared his loyalists for the guerilla war they are now waging. We won't know that until/if/when he is finally caught. I am not concerned with whether the invasion was justified - doing bad things to bad people is fine with me - but more with whether it was necessary, important and part of a coherent international strategy to use US force to combat human rights violations. IMHO, the administration strikes out in three pitches there. Others disagree. I would like to see them explain the US failure to intervene in dozens of past and present HR abuse situations of equal or greater magnitude. We also fail to intervene in other clear WMD situations with regimes that have committed horrible abuses against their own people. To those who say "at least we did something", I would say that it not a policy, it's just an emotional outlash. Basing actual military deployments and huge financial outlays on best guesses and possible threats also falls short in my book. As the roughest, toughest, smartest superpower on the planet, we should know wtf we are doing before we charge ahead on anything. Many people in Washington believe in the rule "never apologize, never explain". It's part of a macho political style that emerged from the fog of con-game-crapola that political campaign experts foisted on the American people over the years. IMHO, it takes a lot more character to admit what you did wrong and stand by what you believe was right than it does to dig in your heels and parrot the same idiotic line ad nauseum despite clear facts to the contrary. Some of Tony Blair's remarks the past few months were headed that direction, though he never came clean 100% either. But truth is obviously not a prized possession in American politics any longer. It's all about hustling to spin your own views and bash the other guy into oblivion until you see who wins the next elections by 5-10%. Then start all over until the next election is held. Doesn't solve anything or make the country a better place to live, but the politicians get off on it, and clearly many voters do too. Let the games begin.