Posted on 02/16/2005 7:55:15 AM PST by WayneLusvardi
Edited on 04/10/2005 1:31:17 PM PDT by Sidebar Moderator. [history]
"The pictures in the media of an overwhelming number of Iraqis going to the polls to vote on January 30 have seemingly quelled the doubt and outright anger among many in the U.S. that the war in Iraq was illegitimate based on the supposedly hollow claims of WMD’s, the dubious need to depose the dictator Saddam Hussein in a world full of many equally bad dictators, and the historical unlikelihood of the prospects for democracy in the Middle East. Abounding conspiracy theories about an oil-grab, Halliburton political pork, and imperialism as the real reasons behind the war all of a sudden seem paranoid compared to what many called the incoherent reasons for launching the war in the first place. Suddenly out of nowhere the war has subtly changed from a seemingly unjust war to a just war, however tenuous it may be."
The rest of the essay: Guess Who May Be Doing the Will of Allah: The 'Infidel' President Bush Written by Wayne Lusvardi
Good article...lack of moral high ground is why the Democrats were such failures in the last election. Without it, one is just treading water.
the dubious need to depose the dictator Saddam Hussein in a world full of many equally bad dictators,
Equally bad dictators? Certainly there are some real bad guys in that line of work, but Saddam (IMO) really was in the elite class.
That is utter nonsense. There were several reasons we "won all the battles but lost the war" in Vietnam and that is not even one of them. Quite the contrary actually.
The need to depose Saddam and Sons was only "dubious" because Bush was doing it, since I have read hundreds of articles, opinions, speeches, by the NYT,WP, and all liberals and their media saying Saddam had to go, under Clinton.
Intellectually dishonest.
I never read a solution to the further "containment" of Saddam and Sons after 12 years.
What would the left had done with him, once sanctions and diplomatic relations had been restored?
Assume his madman tentencies would suddenly leave him, or that he would forgo WMD forever?
Nonsense.
The moral legitimacy of Vietnam was based on the lost lives of 50,000 Americans and it was very real. The liberal communist socialist democrat cowards and parasites of freedom and their ilk smothered it with nonsense and that is what obscured it. LBJ was a coward and his conduct of the war led the parasites to believe their obscuration was legitimate.
One reason our moral legitimacy in Vietnam was undermined goes back to the early days. JFK, persuaded that it would please Vietnam's Buddhists, ordered the Catholic president of Vietnam, our ally, to be assassinated by the CIA. (Perhaps, too, he was worried that his own Catholicism was a political liability unless he bent over backward to be a bad Catholic.) That was a serious miscalculation, as well as a criminal act.
But at the time we pulled out, the South Vietnamese certainly were still willing to fight. The problem was in the U.S. Not that we "lacked moral legitimacy," but that the fellow travelers in the media persuaded many people (not a majority, even then) that we lacked moral legitimacy.
The whole picture of the war was enormously distorted by Hollywood, as well. Most of us get a kick out of watching "Apocalypse Now," but it's not exactly an accurate picture of allied military operations in Vietnam. The whole war was turned into a hippie caricature by clever propagandists, and the fallout of that deception is with us still. That's just one reason why John F'n Kerry can't be let off the hook.
I never read a solution to the further "containment" of Saddam and Sons after 12 years.
I recall reading that Saddam and (our extra special very good friends) the French were working on a plan to lift the sanctions, and there only a couple of months away from getting them lifted.
I’ve been saying the same for years now. I’m not sure that it would even be technically and logistically possible to maintain the attack force we had in the Gulf and on Saddam’s border. I’m pretty certain that no border nation could politically afford that kind of US presence without certainty that we wouldn’t give in to the left, withdrawal and leave them with an even more powerful Saddam and fundamentalist movements.
AFAIK, no one of any credibility has ever defended an alternative invasion plan beyond vague sound bites of “give the UN more time” or “get more international support”.
I thank you both for making my point. Personally I think the moral legitimacy rested on helping South Vietnam resist the murderous tyranny of the communists in the North who were backed by other communists, Chinese and Soviet.
I have believed (way before 9/11), that the policy of containment was immoral and consigned millions to tyranny for decades.
The President had absolutly NO choice after 9/11, he could not depend entirely on the predictability of a madman and sons, with billions for WMD, the M.O. to use them, the open threats to the US, and the open support, financial and territorial, of the Islamic cults.
Take a few hours one night and read articles by the NYT, WP, or Robin Wright, "expert", from about 93 on, you will be amazed at their logic at that time, and amazed at their intellectual dishonesty now.
I am sick of it, and crave an honest accounting of Iraq, and the US for the last decades, our citizens deserve it.
Because for most of the left, history begins when they wake up in the morning, which is their plan to defeat Bush's efforts in Iraq, to reinvent history everyday.
What could you possibly mean? Howard Dean made it very plain. They ARE the party of morality! They support letting any combination of humans and animals of any age engage in any sexual activity they wish anywhere they wish, and call it a marriage. What could be more moral than that? They believe in taking money from the evil business owners and giving it to the poor people in government paid housing. It's not their fault they dropped out of school, do drugs and have children they don't intend to raise. They believe that you should have firearms taken away from you to make the gang members who are shooting each other safer. They believe that freedom of expression means you can demonstrate fisting techniques in school and teach about fatal forms of masturbation, but that saying a prayer over the school PA system is offensive. And you call yourself moral.
Well, I try to take the high bike path.
They ARE the party of morality! They support letting any combination of humans and animals of any age engage in any sexual activity they wish anywhere they wish, and call it a marriage.
Somewhere there are a BUNCH of sheep with worried looks on their faces.
Yeah, they sound a lot like this guy, don't they?
"We, the German Führer and Chancellor, and the British Prime Minister, have had a further meeting today and are agreed in recognizing that the question of Anglo-German relations is of the first importance for our two countries and for Europe.
We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again.
We are resolved that the method of consultation shall be the method adopted to deal with any other questions that may concern our two countries, and we are determined to continue our efforts to remove possible sources of difference, and thus to contribute to assure the peace of Europe.
My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I hold in my hand the promise signed by Chancellor Hitler. I believe it is peace for our time..."
-Neville Chamberlain, Croydon Airport, 1938
That agreement really contained Schicklgruber, didn't it?
"I just love the smell of napalm in the morning."
Sounds like an old Texas A&M joke.
Democrats too often claim the high ground because they are standing upon a mound of freshly covered cat excrement.
Faith will get you through the roughest of times.
Are there any quotes published that you know of that were made between us and Japan before they bombed the crap out of Pearl Harbor? Supposedly, they were fooling us with the same type of rhetoric to make us think that a diplomatic solution was close at hand.
Then they bombed us.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.