Orchestration of Conventional Wisdom Gave US an Unjust War
At LewRockwell.com, Michael S. Rozeff wants to know how Saddam Hussein became such a "grave threat." He believes that our understanding of the history of how this all came to be conventional wisdom so quickly is important. We do not want our nation - our troops- our treasure - to go into avoidable wars. He says, "We have yet to see the full consequences of this war, in terms of shifting resources away from going after terrorists, in fostering new terrorists, in strengthening Iran’s hand in Iraq, in encouraging Islamic fundamentalism, in weakening the U.S., and in other as yet unrevealed ways."
"If Saddam Hussein was not a grave threat, how did so many people come to view him as one? When did common perception transform him into a mortal threat to America? Who stimulated this transformation and why? What accidental factors contributed to this error? .. If we can answer these questions in depth, perhaps we can learn more about the fundamental failings of our system of state and government. Perhaps we can change our system. Perhaps we can avoid similar errors in the future. This article merely begins to raise pertinent questions. It does not answer them. Perhaps it points in fruitful directions; perhaps not. It only begins to sort out the strange case of Saddam Hussein’s transformation from two-bit dictator and strong man into an evil the size of Hitler, capable of producing mushroom clouds over America, possessor of unmanned vehicles filled with biological diseases lying off the Atlantic shores.We're in this strange place in time - where we must look back in order to avoid disastrous mistakes in the future. We're also in the middle of a war about which we cannot allow to bring our nation to be brought its knees - mired in failure and strung out alone playing unilateral savior to every nation whose geopolitical interests happen to coincide with ours. Bush's use of an alleged divinely-guided "national theology" as a reason for war is a perverted, partisan, and hollow abberation of religion and has not provided a sound moral basis to initiate war with another nation. Accusing Democrats of providing comfort to an enemy is the only defense of Bush's Iraq war policy that he can muster, and it also rings hollow and defies common sense. A patriot cares enough about his country and his people that he will gladly risk imprisonment, as H.D. Thoreau did in the nineteeth Century. (see Civil Disobedience)
Michael Rozeff's article is important. You were sold a war that your nation never needed to enter into. That much is true. It should be alarming that so many believed that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat.
Now that we are there - what will we do, as moral citizens with our careful eyes fixed upon America's best interests? How will we reconcile those interests with the due responsibility for what we have wrought in Iraq?
Why do we fail to trust political leaders who send out ideas to set things right? Is it because we see how one administration failed us so miserably (and betrayed our trust)? Is it because we hate war and know that there are better solutions to dealing with our international tensions?
Talk.
*tip of the hat to Charlene B - the Duchess.
