I'm not a member, but here's a shot:
a. Everyone, including even those who opposed military intervention (such as Chiraq and Schroeder), believed that Hussein had WMD's -- he had used them before against the Kurds. In view of his gamesmanship with the UN inspectors made it reasonable to infer that he still had something to hide. Some intelligence analysts claimed that he was well on his way to developing nuclear weapons capability.
SFW?
Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell both said that Saddam Hussein was not a threat and that he was contained. This was before the war drums started beating, then that all got forgotten.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1X-I-38lrU
b. Hussein had defied a series of UN resolutions and was not complying with the conditions for the cessations of hostilities following the Persian Gulf War. Moreover, Hussein was giving active support and financing to Islamic terrorists. It was not inconceivable that he might share some of his WMDs with them. The Bush administration did NOT try to link Hussein to 9/11, but they did claim that Hussein had had some high-level contacts with AQ, and that one of the lessons of 9/11 was that we must not wait until a threat is imminent before we act.
Israel has defied many more UN resolutions than Iraq ever has. Should we invade Israel to enforce them?
And yes, it IS inconceivable that Saddam Hussein would share completely nonexistent nukes with his enemies.
And the term "act" with respect to the "lessons of 9/11" can mean many things. Invading countries left and right is not one of them.
c. After 9/11, a more proactive, pre-emptive stance seemed appropriate – especially in view of the evident failure of previous policy which treated terrorism primarily as a law enforcement problem.
Seemed appropriate to anyone who has no idea what they are doing. If you want to create MORE terrorism and shoot for another 9/11 or two, then by all means invade and occupy a few countries in the middle east.
d. Bush argued that the Creator has placed in the human heart an intrinsic desire for liberty and that nations that enjoy democratic liberties are less likely to be incubators for Islamist imperialism.
Since the Creator put the need for liberty in the human heart then we might as well carpet bomb and shock and awe them to freedom. After you've liberated a few hundred thousand people from their lives. the rest of the population is perfectly free to enact an islamic theocracy. Let freedom ring.
a. It turns out that Hussein did not have much of a WMD stockpile, although he still retained the capacity to replenish his stockpile once the US-led international pressure diminished. Had we known the true status of his stockpile -- as well as the huge cost in American blood, prestige, and money -- I doubt that Bush would have had the popular support that he had to go into Iraq when he did. Hindsight, however, is 20/20, and it does not answer what we should do now that we are already in Iraq.
The popular support was manufactured by the media through lies and distortions and by preying on fear.
b. The question is, given your "non-interventionist" approach, and your critique of neo-conservative multi-lateralism -- what should we have done? I take it that you opposed the UN sanctions and other non-military attempts to interfere with Hussein's quest for WMD's and his affiliation with terrorists. The UN sanctions were a joke and its "oil-for-food" program misguided and corrupt. But I honestly do not know what we should have done, and I still think it would have been unwise to ignore Hussein's ambitions unless/until he acted further against the US or US interests.
It was interventionism that put Saddam in power and kept him in power.
c. The use of proactive, preemptive use of military intervention in Iraq looks like it was a mistake (don’t laugh). But given your views on non-intervention, how do you assess our efforts to use enhanced intelligence gathering, international cooperation, and the tracking and shutting down of terrorist funding sources as a means of dismantling terrorist networks? Do we just let these groups grow and fester? You seem to think that if we back off completely – if we stop inflaming them with our interference – they will leave us alone. You implore us to listen to what UBL and other AQ spokesman are telling us about their grievances – but what about listening to what they are saying about their eschatological goals of establishing a global Caliphate? Should we wait for them to take over the Middle East, Southeast Asia, northern Africa, and Europe before doing anything?
He needs to realize what "non-interventionism" means, or what it doesn't mean. It doesn't mean that we can't work together with other countries to track and contain terrorists. Non-interventionism does not equal pacifism.
d. I admit that I was seduced by Bush’s neo-Wilsonian idealism regarding the spread of liberty. I approach these issues through the lens of a Christian worldview, and so what he said about the universal human desire for liberty made sense
How is bombing the shit out of thousands of people Christian and how does spreading liberty that way "make sense"?
