Asked whether he would have attacked Iraq knowing what we know now, that Saddam didn’t have WMDs and that civil war would result, Jeb Bush echoed his brother Dubya, saying that he would indeed have done the same. As usual, the media missed the real story. But was it an accident?
None Knowns
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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His latest merry-go-round response was “No,” I believe. 😀
Every second that the Army spent in Iraq without being attacked with chemical weapons was proof that he had nothing.
Good point!
My wife came up with an interesting perspective on this: Why are they asking, “If you had known then what we know now…?”
The question should be: “What kept you (and Dubya, etal) from knowing then what many people knew then and everybody knows now?”
Your wife, mein verehrter Lehrer, hit the nail squarely on the head – kudos ! But the question could also be rephrased as follows : What prevented you from publicly acknowledging what so many people – including those carrying out inspections for the UNO – knew then and what everybody knows now ?…
Henri
The assumption of the lame, if not war crime enabling, press (and, it seems, also in these comments) is that Bush/Cheney were operating rationally and “in good faith.” Nothing could be further from the truth.
They were planning war with Iraq as soon as they took office (tinyurl.com/2s6aq)
With 9/11, as “the first MBA administration,” the ONLY challenge was mounting the PR campaign to “roll out” that war. Here’s a link to the study that laid out the 935 lies, made in public sources, that were an integral part of the “roll out.” tinyurl.com/ls2llay
The weapons inspectors were NOT sent into Iraq to possibly diminish the chance of war but rather to CONFIRM (see “stolen Iraqi weapons report at the United Nations”) that there would be no obstacles to the “Mission Accomplished” national, collective masturbation.
I suggest, falco, that most of us who post here are quite aware that the only «good faith» Messrs Bush and Cheney exhibited with respect to the US war on Iraq was that they showed their principals, who had been guaranteed such a war during the first Bush II administration (Cheney, I submit, was the point man, there to see that the dirty deed was done, «the decider» Bush being deemed insufficiently determined), «Good faith» vis-à -vis the people of the United States, much less the people of Iraq, never entered into their calculations….
Henri