At 10:23 PM 1/11/2004 -0800 Doug Pensinger wrote:
>John wrote:
>
>
>> If you go back and look at almost any major speech on the subject by the
>> Bush Administration, you will not find the case presented as you did
>> above.
>>
>
>Sorry, John, this is completely revisionist. I posted a URL to Colin
>Powell's speech to the U.N. several months back while discussing this
>topic. He spent about 95% of the speech pointing out the evidence for
>WMDs in order to justify the invasion. There was one paragraph relating
>to the plight of the Iraqi people. The Bush administration sold this war
>to us by telling us Iraq was a threat. Period. any attempt to deny this
>is .....
Well, first of all, I disagree with your characterization of "95%." But,
even conceding that for a moment..... what, does the other 5% suddenly not
count any more?
Secondly,if you go back to Colin Powell's speech, I think that you will
clearly find COPIOUS references to the legal justifications for the war
based on Iraqi noncompliance with UN resolutions. The same is true for
Bush's speech to the United Nations. In both cases, Powell and Bush
asserted that the UN's credibility was at stake by not enforcing Iraqi
compliance with UN resolutions. Tom, however, ommitted these legal
reasons.
Furthermore, what about the two reasons for this war that the Bush
Administration couldn't publicly admit, because to do so would completely
undermine those very same reasons? I would also add a third reason to
that list in that the Bush Administration could certainly never *say* that
"Well, the record of our intelligence services is complete and utter
failure in keeping track of the nuclear programs of Pakistan, India, Iran,
the DPRK, and indeed, pre-war Iraq.... and since it is undipsuted that Iraq
wants to acquire nuclear weapons, and since we don't have great confidence
in our ability to *know* how close Iraq is, especially with the Iraqis
clearly trying to hide something from us."
Lastly, what is so wrong with the Bush Administration saying that we
believe that we should invade Iraq for reasons A, B, C, D, E, and F.....
but we recognize that reason "D" is a bit complex/disputed, and that "D" is
the reason that skeptics would be most receptive to, and so we are going to
spend most of our timearguing for "D" as that is the reason that will get
us the most votes? It is the nature of the republic and the nature of
the United Nations that you don't spend a lot of time making a case based
on reasons that *you* believe, but aren't like to convince many of the
swing-congresspersons and swing-ambassadors who will be doing the voting.
JDG
_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
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