[Vision2020] Bush Found Excuse to Invade Iraq

[Tom Hansen]

>From today's (June 29, 2005) Spokesman Review Opinion Section -

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Bush found excuse to invade Iraq
 
Molly Ivins 
Creators Syndicate

June 29, 2005

AUSTIN, Texas - The first thing I ever learned about politics was never to
let anyone else define what you believe, or what you are for or against. I
think for myself. 

I am not "you liberals" or "you people on the left who always. ..." My name
is Molly Ivins, and I can speak for myself, thank you. I don't need Rush
Limbaugh or Karl Rove to tell me what I believe. 

Setting up a straw man, calling it liberal and then knocking it down has
become a favorite form of "argument" for those on the right. Make some
ridiculous claim about what "liberals" think, and then demonstrate how silly
it is. Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and many other right-wing ravers never seem
to get tired of this old game. If I had a nickel for every idiotic thing
I've ever heard those on the right claim "liberals" believe, I'd be richer
than Bill Gates. 

The latest and most idiotic statement yet comes from Karl Rove, who is not,
actually, an objective observer. He is George Bush's hatchet man. Last week,
Rove, in an address to the Conservative Party of New York, made the
following claim: "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and
prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted
to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our
attackers." 

This seemed to the editorial writers at the San Diego Union-Tribune such a
reasonable summary of the liberal position they couldn't figure out why
Democrats were "hyperventilating" and getting "bent out of shape." 

"What is harder to understand is how Democrats can think they can have it
both ways," they wrote. "Even as they beat their chests and profess support
for military action, they can't help but criticize the military and do
everything they can to undermine the war effort." 

What a deep mystery. Let's see if we can help the San Diego thinkers solve
it. On Sept. 14, 2001, Congress approved a resolution authorizing the
president to take military action. The vote in the Senate was 98 to 0; the
vote in the House was 420 to 1. The lone dissenter was Democrat Barbara Lee
of California, who expressed qualms about an open-ended war without a clear
target. 

Find me the offer for therapy and understanding in that vote. Anyone
remember what actually happened after 9/11? Unprecedented unity, support
across the board, joint statements by Democratic and Republican political
leaders. The whole world was with us. The most important newspaper in France
headlined, "We Are All Americans Now," and all our allies sent troops and
money to help. That is what George Bush has wasted with his war in Iraq. 

The vote on invading Iraq was 77 to 23 in the Senate and 296 to 133 in the
House. By that time, some liberals did question the wisdom of invasion
because: A) Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and B) it looked increasingly
unlikely that Iraq actually had great stores of weapons of mass destruction,
since the United Nations inspectors, who were on the ground, couldn't find
any sign of them - even though Donald Rumsfeld claimed we knew exactly where
they were. 

Since my name is Molly Ivins and I speak for myself, I'll tell you exactly
why I opposed invading Iraq: because I thought it would be bad for this
country, our country, my country. I opposed the invasion out of patriotism,
and that is the reason I continue to oppose it today: I think it is bad for
us. I think it has done nothing but harm to the United States of America. I
think we have created more terrorists than we faced to start with and that
our good name has been sullied all over the world. I think we have alienated
our allies and have killed more Iraqis than Saddam Hussein ever did. 

I did not oppose the war because I like Saddam Hussein. I have been active
in human rights work for 30 years, and I told you he was a miserable S.O.B.
back in the '80s, when our government was sending him arms. 

I did not oppose the war because I am soft on terrorists or didn't want to
get Osama bin Laden. To the contrary, I thought it would be much more useful
to get bin Laden than to invade Iraq - which, once again, had nothing to do
with 9/11. I believe the case now stands proved that this administration
used 9/11 as a handy excuse to invade Iraq, which it already wanted to do
for other reasons. 

It is one thing for a political knife-fighter like Karl Rove to impugn the
patriotism of people who disagree with him: We have seen this same crappy
tactic before, just as we have seen administration officials use 9/11 for
political purposes again and again. But how many times are the media going
to let them get away with it? 

The first furious assault on the patriotism of Democrats came right after
the 9/11 commission learned President Bush had received a clear warning in
August 2001 that Osama bin Laden was planning a hijacking. 

Batten down the hatches: This is the beginning of an administration push to
jack up public support for the war in Iraq by attacking anyone with enough
sense to raise questions about how it's going.

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Take care, Moscow.

Tom Hansen

"What is objectionable, what is dangerous, about extremists is not that they
are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say
about their cause, but what they say about their opponents."

-- Robert F. Kennedy