Matthew Yglesias talks some sense.
« Giuliani Claims An Evolution On Gun Rights | Main | Judith Interruptus » That MoveOn Ad21 Sep 2007 12:58 pm Comments (4)
That comment is nuts. First it is a complete mischaracterization of Greenspan's comment. Not only that, Greenspan did not say that it was "not about WMDs". Second, if the action is against the UN charter, then the multiple resolutions should not have been passed since the action is consistent with those resolutions. And by the way, if it is a violation of the charter, then we might as well end the UN since it has no teeth to do anything. Finally, the military defend the Constitution. The Constitution puts the President as the commander in chief. The Congress has the right to declare war and fund activities. While the term "war" was not used, Congress has done both, in effect. Nothing about reasons for declaring war. Nothing about the UN. Get real. 
General "Betray Us"... is just like everyone else who is entangled in the burning "BUSH". The Whitehouse edited his report and he had no choice in the matter. He had to say what they wanted him to say! He couldn't tell the truth. For Christ Sake, there's still millions of Americans in utter denial of the truth. The occupation... is about OIL. Iraq is a country in complete turmoil. No one to blame but us. And thats the TRUTH. General Petreus and his report is just another footnote in this human tragedy.
First, regardless of how one characterizes their comments, neither Greenspan nor O'Neill had anything to do with the decision to depose Saddam Hussein. They are expressing their own personal opinions. As they do not speak for the President or his Administration, they cannot "admit" anything on his behalf. Second, please spare us the canard that this war "is about oil." Where's your evidence? Just saying so doesn't make it true. I'm sure Saddam would have been more than happy to cut us the best oil deal we've ever seen in exchange for letting him work his will throughout the Middle East (think about the UN and European officials he enriched through the Oil for Food program - in exchange for becoming his "useful idiots," they received money meant to feed the Iraqi people, who starved in the meantime). If oil was our primary concern, deposing Saddam was the last thing we should have done. We knew what he did last time - remember the oil wells he set ablaze as we ejected him from Kuwait in 1991? Even if the Administration thought we could get control of Iraq's oil for ourselves by invading, wouldn't it have been smarter to install our own "strong man" in Saddam's place to enforce stability and get the oil flowing our way? By attempting to build a democracy, we created the turmoil that has dramatically reduced oil production. The reference to the Nuremburg trials is particularly ironic. By Mr. Fallin's standards, the wrong people were on trial. The Allies incinerated Dresden, pulverized Berlin, and killed hundreds of thousands of German men, women, and children in order to defeat Hitler. Unlike Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Left rarely questions (or even discusses) these actions because they were seen as necessary to eliminate the incarnate evil of the Third Reich. So, what about the estimate million innocent Iraqis and Kurds slaughtered by Saddam? What about the mass graves; the children's prisons; and the rape rooms? What about the doctor who was executed because she dared question Saddam - and whose family was forced to display her head in their front yard? For 12 years, we imposed sanctions upon Iraq to "contain" Saddam which may have resulted in the starvation and deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children. Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright once described these deaths as a "price worth paying." Three years later, Osama bin Laden declared war on the U.S., citing our sanctions on Iraq and our troops in Saudi Arabia as justification (again - those troops were there to "contain" Saddam). Question the wisdom, timing, and execution of the invasion - a lot of legitimate questions there. But, please, don't continue to insult our intelligence by suggesting that removing Saddam was anything BUT a moral and just cause - unless you are also prepared to question what we did to defeat Hitler.
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Since all military personnel swear an oath to "protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic": and, since former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil and former Fed Chairman Allan Greenspan admit the invasion of Iraq was about oil, not WMDs; and, since former Secretary General Annan admits the Iraq invasion and occupation violates the UN charter, MoveOn was gentle, if anything on General Petreus. The US attack on and occupation of Iraq is, plain and simple, premeditated mass murder. Americans better hope and pray our Middle East blundering doesn't weaken us to the point a "Nuremburg-style" war crimes commission treats our government and armed forces with the same degree of "compassion" as we did NAZI Germany and Imperial Japan.
Posted by Robert Fallin | September 21, 2007 1:32 PM