>Which was exactly the original point: that there were
>plenty of people misled by the liberal media into
>believing that Bush had said the threat was imminent.
What liberal media? America has (at least by UK standards) a very right wing media...
Anyway, why would an anti-war media want to portray the threat as "imminent" - that intensifies the case for war.
Bottom line : Bush's description in the state of the union address amounts to "we must deal with Hussein now, otherwise it will be too late". To me that is a text book example of an "imminent threat". In truth, we could have continued containment for another decade without any great difference.
> > > That is why Iraq was a preventative
> > > war rather than a pre-emptive war.
> >
> > You mean one unjustified and illegal? Yeah, that's
> > kind of at the heart of the opposition.
>
>No, justified and of dubious legality.
A preventative war is both unjustified and illegal. It is not a matter of last resort.
> > No Dong missiles are not WMD in and of themselves.
>
>Your point, though, was that the Iraqis had no
>delivery system.
I stand by that - the No Dong missiles could not have reached America. Even if they had acquired them, Iraq would have lacked the capacity to threaten America.
> > > > no chemical, biological, or nuclear
> > > > programs at all,
> >
> > My mistake - that should have been "weapons" not
> > "programs".
>
>And Bush's justification for was was to prevent the
>further acquisition and effective weaponization of
>WMD. If we had found WMD, we would have arrived to
>late (and likely, they would have been used against
>us).
That wasn't the case before the war. Bush's declaration of war speech
included the statement that "
Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that
the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal
weapons ever devised. "
The justification was always that Hussein had WMD. Not programs.
> > It is a very, very dangerous mistake to believe
> > that you can stop Al Qaeda by attacking the
> > countries in which they happen to have a known
> > presence.
>
>Sounds like a good start to me.
Very, very bad start. For starters, you need to attack America, Britain, Germany, France... Secondly, you do little to damage Al Qaeda (which scattered from Afghanistan, leaving the Taliban to fight the Americans) while costing money, lives, and possibly driving new recruits into the ranks of Al Qaeda (and similar organisations).
> Maybe we should do
>something about their Saudi financiers, too.
Oh yes. That's a move that makes sense.
>Besides, the Taliban gave them assistance and succor.
>The situation is not really comparable to Egypt, say.
The Taliban is a special case. Removing the Afghan base has hurt Al Qaeda - but they were ready for this, and their capacity to attack America has not been diminished. The biggest threat to America still comes from Al Qaeda cells already inside the country.
Cheers,
Graham
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