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| quote: | | Here are people's answers as to why Iraq is an issue now and never before. We now know that Rumsfeld, Perle, and Wolfowitz always felt strongly about the issue so it should come as no surprise now that the upper levels of US government feel the need to take action now. |
Occrider:
If Rumsfeld and co wanted to invade Iraq 5 years ago, why should we believe that they had any intention of solving this issue diplomatically this time around?
It you take an objective look at the diplmatic process preceding the war this time around, you can't honestly tell me that the US were ever going to settle for anything less than war? Look at what is said:
| quote: | | We urge you to seize that opportunity, and to enunciate a new strategy that would secure the interests of the U.S. and our friends and allies around the world. |
| quote: | | American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council. |
Like Vesa said, there is a "fundamentalism" about this policy (not necessarily just religious - I'm thinking primarily ideological and political here) that dictates that America's position is correct, and it is important that nations such as Iraq are brought in line. Given this self-apparent righteousness in US policy, they also have no responsibility to heed the opinion of the rest of the world, represented by the UN (is it any wonder the UN discussions were derailed when that is the attitude that Bush's key advisers hold?).
Then, secondly, two of the major reasons for this war currently propogated by the Bush administration are:
1) The plight of the Iraqi civilians
2) The threat of terrorism
With regards to the first issue, why should we expect that Rumsfeld and co are concerned enough about the Iraqi citizens now to spend $100 billion or more on liberating them, when their plight is not mentioned in this case for war here? Behind the scenes, I very much doubt that Iraqi citizens have been factored into the equation and have only been raised to garner public opinion. Fact is, I'm not sure if the US know whether their occupation of Iraq is going to be taken well by the Iraqi citizens (as one Arab-American reporter put it "The only person that Iraqis hate more than Saddam Hussein is George Bush" and I doubt that the carpet bombing of Iraqs two most major cities is going to change that) and given the abscense of their mention here, I'm not sure the US care either.
Secondly, this letter clearly shows that even before terrorism was an issue, it was a well held perspective in the Republican Party that Iraq needed to be occupied regardless. In this post September 11 world though - even though there is no real evidence supporting this assertion - the Bush administration were just able to tack the threat that Iraq poses to the US via terrorism to better sell it to the public. This desire for war was - as evidenced here - set in motion long before September 11th, but the events of this day merely gave the administration the impetus it needed to convert this desire into action.
By the way, no, I'm not a conspiracy theorist. What I'm saying here is just speculation by the way (that is, I'm not necessarily suggesting that I believe that all of what I'm saying is irrefutably true) but I think that the fact that this war was first planned at least 5 years ago - before all this other weak, subsidiary justification was sold to the indiscriminate public - brings into question the real motives. For me, I believe that Weapons of Mass Destruction are one of the main reasons, and the "secur[ing of] the interests of the US" (via the forceful removal of a man who is against the US, and the implementation of a man who is pro-US) is a main reason as well.
I'm way too tired (and hungover ) get further into this, but I may pick it up later on.
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http://eschatonnow.blogspot.com/
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