[liberallarry]

...there was an imminent threat to the U.S. from Saddam Hussein's "weapons of mass destruction," something the leading neocons say in public but are far too intelligent to believe themselves. The Project for the New American Century urged an invasion of Iraq throughout the Clinton years, for reasons that had nothing to do with possible links between Saddam and Osama bin Laden.

Here's the 1998 letter the neocons sent to Clinton

Letter to President Clinton

Unless you believe they were trying to deceive Clinton I would say Lind is full of s**t.

As for a connection between bin Laden and Saddam, nobody would have made an issue of it at that time...Lind is again being disingenuous.

[tictoc]

It hardly needs to be added that if Saddam does acquire the capability to deliver weapons of mass destruction, as he is almost certain to do if we continue along the present course, the safety of American troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil will all be put at hazard.

In my opinion, that is the key passage in the 1998 letter, and what this war is about. Yes, it's about Israel too, and about the "moderate" Arab states, and about liberating the Iraqi people, but even all of these reasons taken together would not have sent one US Marine to Iraq.

However, a nuclear conflagration in the Middle East was an unacceptably high risk if Saddam had been allowed to continue his WMD programs. Modern industrialized nations cannot live without oil. It's about our own survival, pure and simple.

The Salon article is just anti-Semitic garbage. Maybe it will earn them another "bridge loan" from an "unnamed" (i.e., Saudi) investor, but no amount of artificial life support can hide the fact that Salon is finished, kaput, dead.