Downing Street memo
It's always nice to have snappy names for political stingers.
Will the "Downing Street Memo" one day be like "Watergate" as the event that threw down a president?
I got and Democrat Party email today, linking to:
http://bsd.democracyforamerica.com/page/petition/downing
It would be cool actually if the president just went on National Television and say "Sure, back in 2002 we wanted to rid the world of Saddam" and we used sketchy intelligence reports of WMD as a political weapon to get the job done."
I don't know. It's really hard to say "Mr. President, you lied." It seemed obvious from the start that WMD were a mere front to justify the invasion.
Perhaps we can blame democracy itself for this "corruption".
Yes, 1700 American lives have been lost in Iraq. Yes perhaps 100,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq since the invasion. However what value do we give to the 500,000+ children who died during the 12 years of economic sanctions against Iraq?
The PROBLEM is the President (and UK Prime Minister) DID have a moral position to rid the world of Saddam. AT least we had a moral position to STOP the sanctions which primarily harmed the people of Iraq and actually strengthened Saddam's power over the people of Iraq.
Do the ends justify the means?
Well, we don't even have the ends yet, but at least Iraq is rid of their dicator leader. And the U.S. is free from some of our responsibility for his rise to power and maintaining power. I wouldn't want to live in Iraq now, but some people call it home. If I called it home, I'd be happy Saddam was gone.
For me the issue is not whether invading Iraq was done through manipulating the facts, although I consider it a FOREVER future point to bring up when we use claimed facts to justify another invasion or bombing.
For me the issue is "Escape strategy" - Now that we've done what we "had to do" - how do we retreat without risking a country going into civil war? Power vacuums can be worse than dictatorships.
I suppose I should be on the side of the peacenicks, and I am overall. I must believe there was a BETTER way to free the world of Saddam than what we did. And the results speak for itself - a bloody war - billions of dollars wasted - a budget deficit that will never be zeroed short of revolution HERE!
The hawks have proven their incompetience. They have to live with it. I know, saying "I told you so", isn't overly useful. At least they've demonstrated our weaknesses. We won't as easily be pulled into war against Iran or North Korea, and yet we still have to deal with them.
The biggest lesson for me is that power needs to look in the mirror before it judges others. We've got plenty of housekeeping to do before we can be reasonable character judges of other countries. We've proven we're just as capable at harming freedom and human rights as an country. We've proven money doesn't buy justice.
Look in the Mirror America. Not just our president - all of us.
Look at the WMD issue and let's apply the same standards to ourselves first!
Will the "Downing Street Memo" one day be like "Watergate" as the event that threw down a president?
I got and Democrat Party email today, linking to:
http://bsd.democracyforamerica.com/page/petition/downing
It would be cool actually if the president just went on National Television and say "Sure, back in 2002 we wanted to rid the world of Saddam" and we used sketchy intelligence reports of WMD as a political weapon to get the job done."
I don't know. It's really hard to say "Mr. President, you lied." It seemed obvious from the start that WMD were a mere front to justify the invasion.
Perhaps we can blame democracy itself for this "corruption".
Yes, 1700 American lives have been lost in Iraq. Yes perhaps 100,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq since the invasion. However what value do we give to the 500,000+ children who died during the 12 years of economic sanctions against Iraq?
The PROBLEM is the President (and UK Prime Minister) DID have a moral position to rid the world of Saddam. AT least we had a moral position to STOP the sanctions which primarily harmed the people of Iraq and actually strengthened Saddam's power over the people of Iraq.
Do the ends justify the means?
Well, we don't even have the ends yet, but at least Iraq is rid of their dicator leader. And the U.S. is free from some of our responsibility for his rise to power and maintaining power. I wouldn't want to live in Iraq now, but some people call it home. If I called it home, I'd be happy Saddam was gone.
For me the issue is not whether invading Iraq was done through manipulating the facts, although I consider it a FOREVER future point to bring up when we use claimed facts to justify another invasion or bombing.
For me the issue is "Escape strategy" - Now that we've done what we "had to do" - how do we retreat without risking a country going into civil war? Power vacuums can be worse than dictatorships.
I suppose I should be on the side of the peacenicks, and I am overall. I must believe there was a BETTER way to free the world of Saddam than what we did. And the results speak for itself - a bloody war - billions of dollars wasted - a budget deficit that will never be zeroed short of revolution HERE!
The hawks have proven their incompetience. They have to live with it. I know, saying "I told you so", isn't overly useful. At least they've demonstrated our weaknesses. We won't as easily be pulled into war against Iran or North Korea, and yet we still have to deal with them.
The biggest lesson for me is that power needs to look in the mirror before it judges others. We've got plenty of housekeeping to do before we can be reasonable character judges of other countries. We've proven we're just as capable at harming freedom and human rights as an country. We've proven money doesn't buy justice.
Look in the Mirror America. Not just our president - all of us.
Look at the WMD issue and let's apply the same standards to ourselves first!
posted by Ares Olympus at 1:02 PM
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