The conspiracy theorists have been pushing the "Downing Street Memo" for the last few months. It doesn't amount to anything, Tony Blair (no conservative but willing to do the right thing) says it's bunk, and the cartoon below says it all:
Conspiracy theorists have their own agenda. Driven by paranoia and emotion, they ignore mountains of facts, discern the motivations of people they've never met, and see connections that just don't exist to contrive their stories. There are no accidents; there are no mistakes. Everything is part of the conspiracy. I've also noticed how often conspiracy theorists tie everything to a super-powerful mind-controlling Satanic figure (I'm serious about this). I think that's how they dismiss how unlikely their theories are.
*sigh*
Well, for those who may be persuaded by facts, here's a short article by Austin Bay about why removing Saddam was important to the War on Terror. In short, promoting democracy is fighting terror.
Here's an even better article, "The Day that Binds," specifically enumerating why 9/11 and the War on Terror is connected to Iraq. And more of the same from Andrew McCarthy here.
2 comments:
Look, the President's conflation of September 11th and Iraq is "driving us batty" because it is clearly a lie and a deception aimed at the American people. Regardless of what Andrew McCarthy says, Iraq is not linked to September 11th - just ask US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Or perhaps every single report concerning September 11th - including September 11th Commission Final Report. Islamofascist terrorist groups very well might be operating in the Iraq theatre, but it is only because the President's foolhardy invasion of Iraq.
Well I looked, (try not to get too upset), and I'm not seeing any of the conspiratorial lies of the Vietnam era White House.
Here's the distinction that you may be failing to see. No one, including the president, has been able to link Saddam Hussein to 9/11. Saddam was not the 20th hijacker.
But, replacing Saddam with a democracy, which everyone agrees was necessary and became official US policy under Clinton (not Bush), IS PART OF THE SOLUTION. And it's a brilliant one.
Police work is not going to prevent future attacks. Being nice is not going to prevent future attacks. Fundamentally changing the culture which breeds and sustains this ideology will do the job.
Why Afghanistan? Because we had to. But the 'stan is not likely to infect its neighbors with democracy.
Why Iraq and not Syria or Iran or someone else? Because Iraq is far and away the best candidate: A large, educated, secular, middle class is rare in the middle east. Also, Iraq is uniquely a conflation (I had to look that word up) of different ethnic/religious groups and that's a good thing. We were already in position (since '91) to finish Iraq off (remember we'd otherwise still be there today getting shot at in the no-fly-zones). Unseating Saddam undermines the other Baathist regimes in the area (like Syria, which just pulled out of Lebanon--it's working!).
Here's another way of looking at it. If communist agents had conducted 9/11 (let's say from Cambodia). We'd probably have invaded North Korea instead of Iraq. Not following me? The president's approach is to attack the disease, not the symtom. To undo communist aggression, we would need to free people from the grips of communism. North Korea would be the logical first step, since we have been sitting on its border for 50 years. We would then create pressure on China by establishing a democracy on its border, affecting the young reformers in that country (this is what we're doing to Iran). Some countries you invade, others you let fall to internal pressures.
Also understand the filter that most of us see things through. The Watergate distrust of (Republican) government officials, the assumption that they have hidden agendas and are telling us bold-faced lies, the assumption from Vietnam that all wars are immoral and always wrong, and our side is always more wrong than the enemy -- affects how most people over 30 view president Bush (those under 30 are still watching MTV or are serving in Iraq already).
I may post this dialog as its own post; if you'd like to keep responding here, I'll keep updating it. Thanks, I eagerly await your reply. God bless,
Jared.
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