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October 18, 2004
Now He Tells Us . . .
The neocons and their buddies are becoming increasingly unhinged as their war rationales fall by the wayside.
If you thought that the war on Iraq was all about WMDs, well, forget it, says Alan Caruba at CNSNews.com.
Which leaves the question of what the hell are we doing in Iraq? And is it a good idea, given the amount of national treasure being spent and the loss of some very brave soldiers? Let's get one thing out of the way. There were no WMDs and that was NOT the real reason we invaded Iraq.
So what was the real reason?
The real reason is also both complex and nuanced. [What? John Kerry's a liberal weenie for being "nuanced," but Bush is a conservative genius?] One does not go to war frivolously, but neither do you have to be the President, a four-star General or a Ph.D. in global affairs to figure out why we're in Iraq. All you have to do is look at a map. Iraq is the single most strategic nation in the Middle East. . . .
We are in Iraq because the general view throughout the Middle East was that the United States of America lacked the guts to wage and win a war. If we can bring an end to the guerrilla war in Iraq, maneuvering, i.e., buying our way through the often-shifting alliances of Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds, and even Iran, we will have proved them wrong.
Yes, folks, we went to war in Iraq not because Iraq posed any threat to us at all but because we had to show that we're he-men with "the guts to wage and win a war." Oh, yes. We also went for a little thing called empire:
Once a new government in Iraq is secure, functioning, and friendly to the US for having liberated it from three decades of horrific despotism, America's military bases will allow it, as Friedman notes, to "dominate the area between the Mediterranean and the Hindu Kush; it would control the pivot of Eurasia.
This, along with absolute control of the seas, would give the United States a global empire that was unprecedented in history." The irony is, America has never wanted to be an empire or an occupier.
Mr. Caruba could have more accurately stated that the American people, by and large, have never wanted to be an empire or an occupier. Their leaders, on the other hand, have wanted to do so and have done so for years.
Apparently the neocons are so sure the election is in the bag for Bush that they now believe they can tell us the truth (or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof) and still win. Unfortunately, they're probably right.
Posted by Mike Tennant at October 18, 2004 04:34 PM