Thursday, January 29, 2004

 
Recovered Memories*
*(*Real* ones, that is, oh ye of little faith in the Great Wisdom of this here site)

Jonah Goldberg and others have finally gotten around to noting that the Bush administration fostered the impression(and almost certainly believed)that Saddam's regime had stockpiles of WMDs in part to gain the support of clods, both foreign and domestic for whom the blatant non-compliance with UN inspections and obvious intent to build(or rebuild) WMDs was not enough. That said clods would make some noise as time elapsed without the capture of stockpiles of WMDs is hardly surprising, although their vehemence would be more forgivable if the context were say, of them having shouted tragically unheeded warnings to police sharpshooters that their(the sharpshooters') target was *innocent.* Jonah and others have rooted around in his archives, and the worst thus far that could be said from a non-scumbag perspective is that he may be too pessimistic about the consequences of not finding WMDs. -And that his statements were perhaps too quotable by America's enemies. I dashed off a title-length email to JG noting his uncharacteristically sloppy statement about a "blunder"(in his syndicated column of Jan 16, '04) by US intelligence, and today he notes some lefty archivist's quotation of his (Jonah's) foolish advice to hand Iraq over to the UN if WMDs are not found. We all make mistakes and I don't doubt that JG and Ann Coulter are on our side.
Jonah, at least, *has* archives, while mine have been wiped out by computer crashes. I have only vague memories of emails regarding the other directedness of Bush's campaign to obtain support for the war. I allowed that the choice of Iraq as the next major target after Afghanistan was reasonable in that other countries, including Moslem ones, could at least not strongly oppose us without "losing face."(this exercise in reconstituting these lonely memoirs is succeeding in recovering some memories as I type)I had hoped that an unspoken message might be heard by the criminal regimes that rule most Arabs: "Afghanistan was not enough for us. If we are thwarted in our attempt to go to war against Saddam, why, heh-heh, we'll just have to go to war against some *other* country -hint, hint."(the wording was something like that, clever, but clumsily written. Along those lines was also the hope that those criminal regimes would feel that they must "rat out" or "throw to the wolves," Saddam's regime in order to save their own, hoping that Uncle Sam's appetite would be sated. I had hoped, instead, that it would be whetted, and hoped that bases and momentum obtained would lead to a wider war against Islam. There was also some rambling about the perils of being the "World's Policeman," called upon by Arab and european weasels to intervene with a minimum use of force in the manner of police responding to a "domestic disturbance" so as to bring about conflict resolution with the aid social worker counseling and so on.
The point, petty as it may be, is that the purported existence of stocks of WMDs, was to the extent that memory(perhaps a poor, self-serving thing for all of us)serves, never a biggee for moi with respect to justification for war.
That is not to say that even absent the events of 9/11, that we should not have gone to war against Saddam because of his non-compliance with non-sustainable international sanctions. And sad, to say, we would probably not have gone to war(under a Bush or a Gore)without those events. Saddam's non-compliance, in other words gave us the will(about that we should be a little ashamed) and yes, in a sense, a useful pretext(about that-no shame at all), for making a wider war on Islam.
And is "blunder" too strong a word to coming to the conclusion that Saddam more likely than not(I'd set the threshold for action far below say, that standard used in civil cases)? How many of us, given the satellite, electronic, and HUMINT intel would have concluded otherwise? It shouldn't matter -or at least doesn't matter much to those who harbor good will for the U.S.
As to going to war to bring liberation, freedom and democracy to the people of Iraq, now *that* may be shown to have been a blunder. (Just as while it was good that we brought those things to Germany and Japan, bringing them wasn't the primary reason for entering WWII.) Most Moslems, however "peaceful" or "decent" or "hard-working" are, at present, our enemies. We might muddle through for a long time in some sort of cold peace or war by threatening the annihilation of most Moslems and all of Islam if attacked with WMDs by *any* Moslems. If we deny that option to ourselves, we had better be prepared to make a much wider and much bloodier war on Arabs, at least. The "shock and awe" was too much like the "ooh and ahh!" of a relatively harmless fireworks show. -Deadly enough, perhaps, for some of the Baathist elite, but not enough to truly terrify most Moslems. -deadly also enough for a small number of civilians to spark "outrage" but, again, not enough to terrify or convert our Moslem enemies or embolden enough of our few Moslem friends.(Arab weasels, bootlicks, thieves, quislings, fair-weather Wahabis, etc. aren't enough) Let's hope I'm wrong on this last. Any "satisfaction" about being "proven right" would be small consolation if a bad outcome in Iraq led to anything like some of the consequences of the debacle in SouthEast Asia. Yeah, there is the argument that the war in Vietnam bought the West some valuable time in what was ultimately a victorious struggle against messianic communism, but, sheesh! -the effects on the Democratic party alone are horrible and are *still* much in evidence, time may not always be on our side.....blah, blah, blah, blah -to bed it is.