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December 29, 2003
And Now For The...
Dumbest. Article. Ever. The press loves these types of previously X now doing Y articles, especially when X is Democrat and Y is Republican. Just look at Zell Miller. The writer of this article ignores plenty of history in coming to her harebrained conclusion.
For one thing, Carter and Reagan may have ignored (or even partnered with) Muslim extremists because of a little thing called the Cold War. Was the Soviet Union and Communism in general a greater threat to world freedom than terrorism today? Arguable. But in the late '70's and early '80's, I'd say communism with it's grip on the Soviet Republics including Russia and much of Eastern Europe was unquestionably a greater concern.
One of many money quotes:
[Bush] then brought the fight to Iraq at a time when many experts around the world were convinced Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons and was actively pursuing a nuclear arsenal.
And what experts would those be? The politicized intelligence officers in his own administration? It seems clear to just about everyone, including the Bush administration, who have now shifted the rationale for invasion to humanitarian and democracy promotion, that WMD were a fantasy that, if true would be a political jackpot but if not wouldn't do much damage to their political futures.
It gets better, or worse, depending on your viewpoint. In the next few paragraphs, she mentions that Saudi Arabia in fact may be overtaken by radical Islamists (how that benefits us in the war on Islamic terror I don't know) sometime in the near future. Good thing we invaded Iraq, or a significant portion of the world's oil supply might be in extremists' hands.
After all, she says it best:
[This] forward-thinking, big picture scenario demanded the US protect itself from enemies gaining control of America's access to oil because oil still controls America.
It's a war for oil and that's a good thing, see! She's one good Democrat, if that Democrat's name is Zell Miller. Nevermind that Iraq's infrastructure might not be able to export significant quantities of oil for some time anyway.
I really wish we could do away with these types of articles. I'm sure at some point Ms. MacKinnon actually was a Democrat, probably working in the Massachussetts legislature and US Congress 20 or so years ago. What a surprise that she worked for Democrats in the Congress, last time I checked Massachussetts doesn't elect a single Republican Congressperson, so you don't have much choice if you want that experience. Look, when I was 14 years old, if I could have voted I probably would have voted for Republicans. I was into guns (though I didn't have any) like many 14 year olds are and so that was pretty much my only issue. I also voted for McCain in the Republican primary in 2000, even though by Super Tuesday it was doubtful he'd win the nomination. May I now write my "This Republican Will Support a Democrat Next Year, ANY Democrat" article? I didn't think so.
UPDATE: At least one of the "differences" "Democrat" Ms. MacKinnon has with Bush is not abortion.
Posted by Chris at December 29, 2003 06:48 PM
Comments
"The politicized intelligence officers in his own administration?"
And previous Administrations, and other countries' Administrations. (IIRC)
Posted by: zachary d smith at December 30, 2003 09:07 AM
I mean did you really believe it? You seemed more of the Saddam is a tyrant school than into WMD hysteria, which if he had them, may have been able to fly over a map of the USA on those duct-tape drone planes.
Posted by: Chris at December 31, 2003 02:29 AM
Yeah, I did believe it. Tony Blair, GWB, Clinton, (and so on, and so on) put their word against Saddam's. I side with the non-tyrant pretty much 99 times out of 100.
But, even if Bush/Blair/Clinton/et al were absolutely wrong about his weapons capabilities, the world is still a better place now that he's out of power. Win-win situation.
I do wish the Administration would be more forthcoming about the whole "we've failed so far to find WMD thing," -- true -- and not make such shallow attempts at switching the primary reason of the war to the humanitarian argument. On the flip side of the coin, critics should admit that there were humanitarian reasons for the war as well (mentioned in roughly every speech on the issue ever), even if it wasn't the primary one.
Then again, spreading democracy (and I'm very, very tired of 'liberals' pooh-poohing what is essentially the most representative government in the ME) is probably the best long-term defense policy a government can take.
Posted by: zachary d smith at December 31, 2003 09:14 AM
We'll see how it goes on July 2nd or in two years when the US troops may actually leave. It's not that someone like me is rooting against democracy taking hold and good things happening, I'm just totally convinced that the Bush administration can't handle it, and that they're rely on the short memories and lack of interest of the American people to argue as if they'd done everything right in the first place.
Posted by: Chris at December 31, 2003 01:57 PM
Now that we have found WMD, does that change your self-loathing stance?
Posted by: RyleWashburn at June 25, 2004 10:21 PM
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