First, I’ll lead off with another false State of the Union accusation that’s not getting enough press. The recently issued 9/11 report has determined that there was no link between Iraq and al-Qaida. As former Democratic Senator Max Cleland puts it,
“The administration sold the connection (between Iraq and al-Qaida) to scare the pants off the American people and justify the war,” said Cleland. “What you’ve seen here is the manipulation of intelligence for political ends.”
That’s the second piece of misinformation used by the Bushies to justify an invasion of another country.
Of course, Cheney came out in defense of the war, swaddled in a big American flag, labeling all those who dare disagree that they’re unpatriotic. It is hard to see what is so strong, as CNN calls it, about Cheney’s defense of the Bush lies.
Both Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney on Thursday made strong defenses of the war, with Cheney telling a conservative think tank in Washington it would have been “irresponsible” not to take on Saddam Hussein.
Is it more or less “irresponsible” to recklessly send American troops to bring down a foreign government which, as far as anyone has honestly been able to tell, appears to pose no immediate threat to the United States? There are no WMDs to be found, thus far. There were, in fact, weapons inspectors in Iraq, and for all intents and purposes, the inspectors plus sanctions appear to have been doing the tricks.
As a humanitarian crisis, I wholly agree that Saddam should have been toppled. But then, it shouldn’t have taken weeks to agree to send troops to Liberia. And certainly, far fewer Americans, particularly the conservative isolationists, would have supported the Iraq invasion, had it been pitched solely in humaitarian terms.