It should be remembered that while Bush and his gang were successfully scaring the wits out of us about the alleged Iraq-Al Qaeda alliance, U.N. weapons inspectors were on the ground in Iraq. Weapons inspectors Hans Blix and 2005 Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei promised they could finish scouring the country if given a few more months. But instead, they were abruptly chased out by an invasion necessitated by what the president told us was a "unique and urgent threat." [LA Times]
We now know that just wasn't true.
It also should be remembered that in other cases in the past, our intelligence had failed. Pearl Harbor, The Bay of Pigs, Viet Nam, 9/11 were all failures of US Intelligence. Pearl Harbor and 9/11 were both cases of surprise attacks that were responded to with swift force. No doubt, nothing would have prevented the wars that followed them, nor should it have. The only major difference between the Bay of Pigs and the Iraq war was the level of initial success. If Kennedy had had even half the success Bush had in his invasion, we would have had war with Cuba. As it was, we cut our losses after 4 days and ran. On the other hand, Viet Nam cost us much more in lives and time, but the end result was the same.
With these glaring errors in judgement by our "intelligence" services and leaders, it is our duty to question the march to war based on hearsay and inuendo. It is actually our government's duty to question for us. Our elected leaders have let us down by not pursuing the truth, resulting in the loss of American lives. I'm no fan of his, but Bush is not the only president to have lied to us. The reality is, we are a gullible people. We want to believe, so we do. It is long past time for us to question authority.
1 comment:
Very intelligently and consisely put. Its good to know there are people who question, who challenge, who think for themselves.
Post a Comment