Originally posted by Todd
How is that a question for conservatives only? I know republicans, democrats, and independents that supported this war. Most of whom still do support this war. Tony Blair is taking more heat because he never had the levels of support that Bush had. It also doesn't help when Hans Blix and others in their media attack him non-stop.
Personally, I don't know a single liberal who supports the war, and Republicans, Democrats,
and independents all can be conservatives. There seems to be this misconception that only Republicans are conservatives, for some reason.
- Saddam Hussein was a terrible man with a horrible human rights record. In the long run countless lives will have been saved as a result of this war. People think of the greater good.
But this does not justify the other countries that we haven't attacked simply because we like them. If we ranked the 191 countries (not including Holy See) by their human rights record, you would find that Iraq would have ranked around 100th. The other 91 should be our priority.
- He has not only possessed but used weapons of mass destruction. It's no secret that he hated the USA and would have tried to kill "the infidels" as he put it. In my opinion it was just a matter of time before he caused more chaos, either directly or indirectly.
As much as Saddam Hussein hated America, he knew better than to attack the US, either directly or indirectly. I wouldn't mind if the US took a pre-emptive strike against Iraq with more evidence that Saddam was a threat. But with what little evidence we have now, it seems that Saddam was never a threat to the United States.
- Documents, documents, documents. They're still in Iraq uncovering documents that show he had a WMD program. Every now and then we find something small such as digging up the garden to find a nuclear material and plans. Was it for a recent program? No, but why would it be there at all? Clearly they had such plans and wanted to save it for the future or else it simply would have been destroyed.
In this area, I agree with you. Saddam could have been planning to restart a weapons program as soon as the weapons inspectors got out. Although there have been documents uncovered that might lead one to believe that Saddam
may have had a weapons program, again, it is not substantial evidence.
- Time. Those who criticized the choice for war said the UN needed more time. Yet they don't want to provide the US with more time to discover things. If there isn't any new evidence of WMD's within a year I think public opinion would dramatically shift. Until then many Americans simply want more time to see how it plays out.
Similarly, I can ask why the US government deserves more time when they weren't willing to give time to the UN inspectors. A war is a serious issue. It is not to be taken lightly. But if the US was to go to war with Iraq, I would expect that they
already have sufficient evidence to back up the war. But after several months, they still have not found anything substantial. That's primarily why I'm very disappointed.
I think that pretty much wraps it up. There are definite concerns to raise but it's far to early to attack Bush as being a liar to call for impeachment. Those people seem to believe there was an elaborate behind the scenes scheme to invade Iraq. To me that's simply ridiculous, if it were true I'm sure Bush would have been smart enough to try and plant WMD to justify his actions. Clearly he didn't do such a thing so at best you can criticize the intelligence / faulty statements. Just my two cents.
Bush is smart enough to
not plant fake weapons in Iraq until after Election Day. After all, if such a plan were discovered by Bush's opponents, it would cost him the election. The only thing that matters to him is his re-election, not the welfare of the American or Iraqi people.
