Sure, as long as you're not fooled into thinking that your analysis is anything like objective. Your parsing words to a fair-thee-well. I could say Iraq was absolutely no threat at all to the US imminent or otherwise, that al Qaeda was the threat and the invasion did nothing to address that threat. The WMD's are now safely in the hands of the terrorists, their training camps are now set up in other locations, OBL is apparently at large, the cash is still flowing into the hands of the international terrorists from countries like Syria, Saudi Arabia and others. Arafat is still firmly in control. And on top of all of that resources must now be directed to nation building in Iraq and Afghanistan. Billions and billions of dollars that could be used to fight the problem of international terrorism directly but now have to be diverted to the nation building of those two countries.

The money we are spending in Iraq on nation building efforts could have been use for domestic anti-terror efforts for international aid to moderate Muslim countries to keep them friendly and to build relationships that encourage constructive expressions of the Islamic religion and to support the efforts of the intelligence efforts in countries like Pakistan and Kuwait (who have been scoring many of the recent anti-terror successes). I could go on and on but you go ahead and tell yourself it's nothing but Bush hating, whatever make you sleep at night.

Nation building does not = fighting terror.

The Bush administration engaged in a coordinated campaign to give the American people the distinct impression that the threat posed by Iraq was credible, imminent and substantial. Without the notion that the regime of Saddam Hussein represented that credible, imminent and substantial threat broad popular support would never have been achieved. The campaign to win that support was carefully planned by the administration and executed precisely so that the need for urgency in acting on the Iraqi regime would be unmistakable but to also allow for the equivocation that is currently being offered as cover for the abject failure of anyone to produce evidence that the regime posed any threat at all to the US beyond the capability that the terrorists enjoy right now without him.

If you can produce some evidence that the international terrorist have been significantly reduced as a direct result of the removal of Saddam Hussein then please let us know. Hussein's Weapons program was not vital to the goal of terrorists getting chemical and biological weapons. The funding of Al Qaeda has never bee established as a primary source of funding (evidence suggests that elements of the Saudi government is though), and future attacks by terrorists will most likely be with weapons not so exotic (like maybe a truck load of fertilizer). So after all the hand wringing and the sacrifice of our troops we are, at best, only marginally safer from terror attacks.

But just write all of the legitimate criticisms off to Bush hating that will help the situation. I'm sure everyone who's intelligence you're insulting will come around when they understand the power of your conviction on the issue. I'm sure that people who are pointing out the very reasonable criticisms of Bush's approach to the problem will wake up tomorrow seeing the error of their ways and realize that Bush is simply infallible because after all they are blinded by hate for the man. Dean this line of reasoning is just weak and frankly it's beneath you.

"The money we are spending ... could have been use for ... aid to moderate Muslim countries to keep them friendly."

Yes, and we all know that the way to get friends is to buy them. BTW, how's that $2B a year that we're goving to Egypt working out on the "keeping them friendly" thing?

"If you can produce some evidence that the international terrorist have been significantly reduced as a direct result of the removal of Saddam Hussein then please let us know."

First off, the job of the American President is to protect *America*, not other countries ("international").

And, of course, we all know what a lousy job Bush is doing on that issue, what with all the bombs going off in American cities, and the thousands who dropped dead from Congo Hemoragic Fever. Oh--wait--that's not happening.

So what you're saying, Rick, is that lying about Bush's statements is a reasonable method of criticism? That it is a method used by reasonable people?
The WMD's are now safely in the hands of the terrorists
Prove it. We haven't seen a single WMD attack yet since the end of the war. If the terrorist groups know better than we do were to look, that proves that Saddam was in cahoots with them, one of the justifications for the war.
The money we are spending in Iraq. . . international aid to moderate Muslim countries to keep them friendly
Billions for defense, not one penny for tribute. Our friendship and trade are what we will give to keep thse countries friendly, not payoffs to prevent them from turning terrorist on us. And now we are demonstrating the very real risk of being an enemy of the United States.
Nation building does not = fighting terror
As we see from all the Japanese, French, and German terrorists swarming into our country. Rick, you're dead wrong on this one.
we are, at best, only marginally safer from terror attacks.
Thank you, best thing you've said. We have a long way to go, 9/11 woke us up, Afghanistan was first, Iraq merely the next.
But just write all of the legitimate criticisms off to Bush hating that will help the situation If you had stated a legimate criticism somewhere along the line, I'd be inclined to agree. But you weren't able to provide any. Your biggest error?
The Bush administration engaged in a coordinated campaign to give the American people the distinct impression that the threat posed by Iraq was credible, imminent and substantial.
Bush's speech has been quoted over and over, until people are blue in the face and their fingers are sore. Bush did NOT say Iraq was an imminent threat. Saddam's regime was a credible threat, and a substantial threat.
I don't speak for Dean, and I'm sure he has his own thoughts and rebuttal. But your ad hominem way of ending your statements reeks of the tactics desperate Democrats having been using for one purpose: To be elected no matter what the cost to the integrity or national security of the United States. And I find that disgusting to the extreme.

Oh Dean. I don't know what I was thinking.

I went back and re-read what Joseph Curl of the Washington Times had to say on October 2, 2002:

President Bush last night said Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is a “murderous tyrant” who could attack the United States “on any given day” using unmanned aerial vehicles loaded with chemical or biological weapons.

I see now how clever this POTUS is -- it really depends on what the meaning of "could" is!

I hardly ever do this (OK, never) but this time I will.

I'm quoting, verbatim, from a comment at the blog you quoted above. This guy speaks for a lot of us:

Christ... you people are grade-A morons.

It should be absolutely clear, to anyone with 3rd grade reading comprehension skills, that Bush and Wolfie were implying that Iraq was an imminent threat. When Wolfie said "we have to attack because we (or, more accurately, anti-war people) don't know when the threat is imminent" or when Bush said "no one (i.e., the people who are the source of this threat) will tell us when the threat is imminent"- they are saying that the threat is imminent, but people who keep asking for more evidence fail to see the imminence.

But because no one in the administration said, "Listen....right....wing....chuckleheads....Iraq....is....an......imminent.....threat", slow enough for you to comprehend, and in that exact manner, why it's evidence of liberal Democratic Goebbels-type plot to take over America.

Never mind all the times we heard "we can't wait", "3 million may die if we don't do something", "dictators, terrorists, and WMD, all together, are the worst threat that can be imagined, and, of course, the "smoking gun in the shape of a mushroom cloud" - all of which, in regular, non-wingnut English, would be perfectly good synonyms for "imminent threat".

Here's my advice: get a real job and, for the love of god, make sure you don't try to home-school your child.

Uh, Ara, chill dude.

Speaking as a right-wing chucklehead, when I hear Bush say something like

"we have to attack because we (or, more accurately, anti-war people) don't know when the threat is imminent"

I don't hear that the threat is imminent, I hear that we can't be sure its not, and since I prefer not to play Russian roullette with mass murdering dictators, lets kill him now before it becomes certain that it is imminent, or even worse before its too late.

Its a fairly simple arguement. There's a bad man whose done bad things, and has tried to build bad weapons, and we don't have proof that he has stopped so lets just kill him now, and save ourselves the worry.

Works for me.

Tadeusz,

That is exactly the point. Bush said the threat isn't imminent, but intelligence is an inexact science and we cannot be sure when we move from a gathering threat to an imminent one. If we must wait for imminence our first knowledge may be the attack. After 9/11, we aren't going to take that chance. Instead of responding to his words, his critics shout "he meant imminent".

I guess they can't refute the entirety of his point so they simply misrepresent it. Tiresome.

As to Rick's words, if you define the threat narrowly as al Queda, his argument carries weight. If you define the threat as Islamic Fundamentalism the relevance of his thoughts is greatly diminished.

As long as there are radical Islamic Fundamentalists supported and protected by nations there is always going to be terrorism. Whether it was one group or another makes no difference. They all have the same goal.

But not all radical Islamic Fundamentalists are a threat to the US. Many are devoted to destroying Israel and don't give a wite what we do as long as we stay here. It international terror that seeks to export the violence to our shores, not all terrorism. If that were the case we would have invaded Ireland.

John If the WMD's are not in the hands of terrorists then there are only two other explanations, they were destroyed as many in the first round of arms inspections insist or they were destroyed buy Hussein. If the former then Bush has even more explaining to do, if the latter then he was not the crazy unhinged maniac that everyone was accusing him of being. You might have another explanation.

Nation building does not = fighting terror
As we see from all the Japanese, French, and German terrorists swarming into our country. Rick, you're dead wrong on this one.

Not sure what your trying to say here but the fact is that Nation building does not = fighting terror, they really don’t have anything to do with anything unless we can create the Administrations vision of a secular democratic state. If that happens with out the regain decaying into factional / tribal warfare then I will concede the point.

but the fact is that terrorists are caught with intelligence, black ops, covert operations and most importantly support for friendly governments in the region like Pakistan who we have already paid off and will pay of even more because that what it takes to gets the job done. Using the military to fight terror is like using a SWAT team to catch Wiseguys, wrong tactics.

Billions for defense, not one penny for tribute. Our friendship and trade are what we will give to keep thse countries friendly, not payoffs to prevent them from turning terrorist on us. And now we are demonstrating the very real risk of being an enemy of the United States

God can you be any more naive? Look what we were willing to give Turkey just to get them to let us stage our invasion. Glad you not running things.

Bush's speech has been quoted over and over, until people are blue in the face and their fingers are sore. Bush did NOT say Iraq was an imminent threat. Saddam's regime was a credible threat, and a substantial threat.

It was not one speech, it was a campaign over almost a year that was designed to over stat the direct threat to the US to a degree that could not be supported by fact, intelligence, or anything other then broad speculation. You guys are parsing words to a level of nit that would make Clinton blush.

But that what it's all about isn't it. hatred of war opponents. [grin]

Rick,

It's difficult to take your arguments seriously when no one was making them until we won in Iraq. It's only now you bring up these arguments, and assert them as fact.

The Democratic presidential candidates, the Clinton Administration, The UN, and every intelligence agency in the world thought Saddam had credible WMD's and posed a threat to the region, our interests, and by extension us.

Your plan to avoid war sucks. What terrorists world-wide now know is that attacking the US will not make us withdraw as we have been doing since Beirut. Attacking our homeland only makes us angrier.

That makes us safer. You should understand that.

As for the job of our intelligence agencies - you may be watching too much television. It's been piss-poor intelligence for over a decade.

The choices Bush made are and continue to be debatable. You see this in Rumsfeld's memo that asks questions about how they are doing. It's called adaptation. It's what responsible government does.

Perhaps if the Democrats had stood up just once and put forth reasonable alternatives you'd have some credibility.

That isn't happening. That's deplorable. if you don't like what Bush is doing, perhaps you ought to volunteer to campaign for someone who does have a plan.

What's that? No one else has a plan either? Damn shame. Guess I'll just trust the people who are doing the job now.

15,000 troops from other countries serve in Iraq right now. What do the leaders of those countries know that you do not?

How about a debate on this issue moderated by Dan Dreznor, a noted conservative?

Sounds like a better source to me...

http://www.danieldrezner.com/archives/000830.html

Read it, and see if you still feel like making fun of the debate. Comparing this debate to the moon landing isn't funny. It cheapens our democracy.

Tadeusz--

Why obsess on what Bush didn't say when the record is clear on what he DID say?

Again: Joe Curl from the Washington Times of 10/2/02:

President Bush last night said Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is a “murderous tyrant” who could attack the United States “on any given day” using unmanned aerial vehicles loaded with chemical or biological weapons.

On any given day means the threat is imminent.

And we acted accordingly.

And since I supported the war before, during, and after the fact, I have no problem with it.

What I DO have a problem with is how you right-wing chuckleheads are backtracking on what Bush said and why he did what he did.

Christ! I'm defending the USA and you guys are defending GWB.

What's up with that?

Rick,

Nothing but withful thinking. Jews first, westerners next, asians last. You're just praying for the tiger to eat you last. Forgive me for not joining your prayer.

Ara Rubyan is full of prunes.

He's (incorrectly) citing an article he obviously hasn't read. Nor has he read the Presidential speech that the article incorrectly reports.

Details in the comment section of my original post.

"That isn't happening. That's deplorable. if you don't like what Bush is doing, perhaps you ought to volunteer to campaign for someone who does have a plan.

What's that? No one else has a plan either? Damn shame. Guess I'll just trust the people who are doing the job now."

I'm sure Rove will be glad to hear that at least you're following the game plan, Yeti.

Isn't it a shame that every time a Republican administration opens an ugly can of worms, it's up the Democrats to devise a plan to clean up the mess. Good thing they're usually up to the job.

shep, I guess you mean like when the Republican Johnson got us into Vietnam, and the Democrat Nixon got us out, or when the Republican Jimmy Carter allowed America's strength, security, and prestige to be weakened for the first time at the hands of terror and kidnappers, and Democrat Reagan succeeded in freeing them.
OR maybe when the first Bush sent troops into Somalia, with international approval mind, and Republican Clinton pulled us out with the mission in shambles after degrading our effectiveness to nothing.
I'm sure Rove will be glad to hear that at least you're following the game plan, Yeti
You might want to loosen the tinfoil, shep, it's cutting into your circulation.

John If the WMD's are not in the hands of terrorists then there are only two other explanations, they were destroyed as many in the first round of arms inspections insist or they were destroyed buy Hussein. If the former then Bush has even more explaining to do, if the latter then he was not the crazy unhinged maniac that everyone was accusing him of being. You might have another explanation
Read the UN timeline. Hussein never provided proof of destruction of the WMD's he admitted to having. Even if he had destroyed them, and for whatever reason wished to conceal this fact he was still in violation.
Also, we have barely searched 10% of the known arms caches, and are finding more daily. You seem to have a severe disconnect from the concept that the man who ruled Iraq had twelve years to bury, conceal, and continue to develop his WMD's, in a nation the size of California. It's a failure of imagination and scale on your part.

but the fact is that terrorists are caught with intelligence, black ops, covert operations and most importantly support for friendly governments in the region like Pakistan who we have already paid off and will pay of even more because that what it takes to gets the job done
Pakistan is hardly the Administrations vision of a secular democratic state but we're providing them with money in exchange for their assistance. Trade, not tribute. And you seem to show a complete lack of understanding of intelligence, black ops,and covert operations . These operations have value, but limited in a region we are so culturaly remote from. So we turn a hostile nation-state in the middle of the region into a more Westernized, friendly country. Room to maneuver. And you seem to believe that such operations are not ongoing now, maybe because they aren't announcing it on CNN. Which brings us to your next statement.
God can you be any more naive? Look what we were willing to give Turkey just to get them to let us stage our invasion. Glad you not running things.
Same offer was made to Turkey. They rejected it. It was not international aid to moderate Muslim countries. It was a bribe to allow us to use their country to invade Iraq, and it turns out we didn't need them. Important lesson for many countries to learn, that just because we may wish their help, doesn't mean we will fail or be deterred without it. But keep up the personal attacks there, Rick, you're more convincing by the day. Really.

Rick, so what you are saying is that we should toss the Jews from the troika to the Radical Islamicist wolves? Sorry, I'm not a Jew, but "never again" still means something to me. I'd turn Damascus into a radioactive hole in the ground before I let a Second Holocaust happen.

Ara, why don't you check out Stefan's article first, and get back to me? I seem to recall something like Stefan's interpretation, and I'm pretty sure I remember Bush saying that it was not imminent, but that we could not wait for it to become so.

So, you support the effort to drain the poisen swamp of the ME, and invade Iraq, and turn them into good small-d democrats? Your only problem is that you think Bush used illegitamate arguements to get us there?

Sorry, Stefan. The battery on my watch died. I got the date wrong.

After I changed my battery, I went over to Whitehouse.gov and read this:

Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists. Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints. [emphasis added]

The Times got it right. POTUS was talking imminence of threat.

Tadeusz:

Yes, I supported the war before, during and after the fact. You are free to search the archives here or at E Pluribus Unum.

What disturbs me is the corner-cutting that this administration seems to have undertaken in the run up to the war.

Why would they do this? I have no idea. But the fact remains that they played fast and loose with the truth.

Does it matter?

Well, yes it does.

Your response might be to ask, "If the ends don't justify the means, what does?"

But allow me to quote Mark Bowden, the celebrated author of "Black Hawk Down" and a sincere supporter of the war.

Listen to what he said about POTUS in the Philadelphia Inquirer:

When a president lies or exaggerates in making an argument for war, when he spins the facts to sell his case, he betrays his public trust, and he diminishes the credibility of his office and our country. We are at war. What we lost in this may yet end up being far more important than what we gained.

That's how I see it. Of course I could be wrong. But I doubt it.

Let me see if I get this right. . .

This is the current version 123.0 of the pro-war theory.

“I don't hear that the threat is imminent, I hear that we can't be sure its not, and since I prefer not to play Russian roullette (sic) with mass murdering dictators, lets kill him now before it becomes certain that it is imminent, or even worse before its too late.”
This translates to; “The Bush Administration never said that the threat was imminent. He said that we just can’t know, so we are going to have to perform a pre-emptive, pre-emptive war. We are not going to have a pre-emptive war to prevent an imminent threat. We are going to have a pre-emptive war to what could be an imminent threat. Let’s pre-empt the need for a regular pre-emptive war, by erring on the side of caution. Is this not pre-empting doubt?

A “we are not sure, but you never how this thing will shake out” war.

A “possibility that Hussein is considering restarting his WMD programs” war.

A war to “prevent any other tenuous ties between Iraqi intelligence agents and members of Al Quaida.”

A war to “prevent anymore completely fabricated yellowcake transactions from triggering our fear of mushroom cloud fantasies.”

A war to “free the Iraqi people” does not have any thing to do with the War on Terrorism.

A war to “remove a murderous tyrannical bastard” does not have anything to do with the War on Terrorism. Unless, you are actually invading a country where OSB is located. (If so we had better start up the draft for the war with North Korea).

Yes, that is it! Let’s pre-empt doubt!

Luckily, using the example of logic and inference as supplied by Democrats and newsmedia outlets, since, "There is no imminent threat" means "the threat is imminent", we can now assume that by criticizing President Bush, they actually mean they support them. By saying they disagree with the invasion of Iraq, they clearly imply that they actually agree with it.
I love liberal logic. It makes it so much easier to ignore facts and evidence.

Regarding the quote: "Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists. Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints."

That has been proven to be TRUE. (My emphasis.)

From Why We Went to War

Kay and his team have discovered:

* A clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi Intelligence Service that contained equipment suitable for research in the production of chemical and biological weapons. This kind of equipment was explicitly mentioned in Hans Blix's requests for information, but was instead concealed from Blix throughout his investigations.

* A prison laboratory complex, which may have been used in human testing of biological weapons agents. Iraqi officials working to prepare for U.N. inspections in 2002 and 2003 were explicitly ordered not to acknowledge the existence of the prison complex.

* So-called "reference strains" of biological organisms, which can be used to produce biological weapons. The strains were found in a scientist's home.

Regarding the speculation of Iraq's ties to terrorism, also from the Weekly Standard (same issue, different article Dick Cheney Was Right):

Yasin fled to Baghdad shortly after the 1993 bombing and was given safe haven and financial support by the Iraqi government.

[snip]

On October 21, 2001, Shakir flew to Amman, Jordan, where he hoped to board a plane to Baghdad. But authorities in Jordan arrested him for questioning. Shakir was held in a Jordanian prison for three months without being officially charged, prompting Amnesty International to write the Jordanian government seeking an explanation. The CIA questioned Shakir and concluded that he had received extensive training in counter-interrogation techniques. About the same time, the Iraqi government began to pressure Jordanian intelligence to release Shakir. They got their wish on January 28, 2002. He is believed to have returned promptly to Baghdad. (Amnesty International later claimed to have learned that Shakir "had lost weight during his detention and appeared traumatized.")

[snip]

If the CIA ever gets serious about investigating Saddam-al Qaeda ties, it can start by sending someone to Toronto. On April 27, 2003, Toronto Star reporter Mitch Potter, his translator, and a colleague from the London Telegraph came across a document in the burned-out headquarters of the Mukhabarat in Baghdad. The document was found in the accounting department of the old Iraqi intelligence building and discussed who would pick up the tab for upcoming meetings between a bin Laden representative and Iraqi intelligence. It was, Potter wrote at the time, "the first hard evidence of contact between bin Laden's al Qaeda organization and Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime." Bin Laden's name appeared three times in the document--crudely covered with liquid paper. The goal of the meeting, according to the memo's author, was to discuss "the future of our relationship with him, bin Laden, and to achieve a direct meeting with him." The individual coming to Baghdad, the memo continued, may represent "a way to maintain contacts with bin Laden."

[snip]

Documents uncovered recently tell us that Yasin was harbored by the former Iraqi regime. That bears repeating. The man who burned his leg mixing the chemicals for the 1993 World Trade Center truck bomb has been living in Iraq and received a monthly stipend from Saddam Hussein.

Those are TWO articles. There are hundreds of others. The information is out there, if you're willing to look past the liberal spin.

Ara,
Your post is interesting, but it contradicts other things Bush said where he claimed no imminent threat, I believe. Perhaps this is about chemical vs. nuclear weapons.

I did not support the war because I expected an imminent attack on American soil. If I had, I would have supported a far more brutal, and quick occupation.

I supported the war because I want to start removing a 'capability' to use military speak. The nexus of terrorists, rogue states with power and desperately unhappy populations, and WMD's is gravely threatening to the West. So, we have to change it or eventually watch plague stalk our land, and major cities go up in fireballs.

Don't get me wrong. These evils may happen anyways. We may not be able to stop it. But we have to try to drain the "poisen swamp", and turning Iraq, a terrorist supporting state with links to Al Quaida, and WMD programs in hiatus, and lots of discretionary income, and a very sick and dangerous man in charge, into a liberal democracy with rights and freedom and prosperity which shames the rest of the Arab world, and suppresses its own terrorist elements, and gives its own young men a decent life is a key element of the War on Terror.

We have taken a terrorist stronghold, and are quite successfully, I think, pacifying it. Hussein is not offering Palestinian kids 25k to blow themselves and a few Israeli civilians up anymore. Neither is he stashing biohazzards in a scientist's home refridgerator.

As to NK, Mr. Swift, they are indeed a problem. I wonder if we could nuke that mountain over there with its tens of thousands of cannons holding Seoul hostage, and then as a part of a deal, give NK to the Chinese.

As much as possible, we need to pre-empt reasonable doubt. The downside is too great to ignore.

And we do need to expand the military. After all, invading Syria, and Pakistan is going to require some more troops. Although, I suppose we could bomb the Paks nuke sites, and then give Pakistan to India with the understanding that the Radical Islamicist overrun secret services in Pakistan get thoroughly purged. It would be a good object lesson--be a jerk, and the US will give you to your worst enemy as a present.

It's like I said. These folks just want to get Bush, not the truth.

Take any quote, take it out of context of everything else that was said, and make it look like the American people were "fooled."

Bah. It's highly partisan crap, and that's all it is. "I don't like Bush so I'm going to twist and mangle things as much as possible so I can make him look bad."

A year ago they were saying that we were given too many reasons for invading Iraq, that the administration was "slippery" and "waffling" because it kept giving different reasons. Today, they act like we were only really given one reason, which conveniently happens to be the one where we seem to have been fooled. They also find some way to weasel it into looking like all the Democrats, including the entire Clinton administration, who said that Iraq definitely had WMDs were not lying, but Bush was.

Partisan crap. That's all it is. These are people who wouldn't vote for Bush under any circumstances. They don't agree with his policies so they'll twist everything they don't agree with into a "lie."

Whatever.

"A year ago they were saying that we were given too many reasons for invading Iraq, that the administration was 'slippery' and 'waffling' because it kept giving different reasons. Today, they act like we were only really given one reason, which conveniently happens to be the one where we seem to have been fooled."

Yes, there are plenty of people like that; but can we bear in mind that not everyone who raises hard questions deserves to be sentenced to reading Barbara Kingsolver novels for eternity?

Which of the legitimate reasons for invading Iraq did the administration, in fact, act on? How do they set a precedent for further action? I've seen Mark Noonan, mj, Mrs. du Toit, and several others make arguments here (not all on this post)--I don't agree with them all, but they for the most part hang together.

But the strategy of the Bush administration seems to be, "Whichever reason you attack at any given moment, we'll take refuge in one of the others." Sorry, I supported the invasion and still think we did the right thing, but that sounds mighty weaselly to me.

It's also dangerous. Re. something that mj responded to in a different thread: I agree that the European intelligentsia and political leaders are probably responding more to US actions than to Bush's charisma.

But bear in mind that on Asian television, speeches are subtitled or dubbed. When someone says that America is not trying to subjugate the world but to protect its citizens while spreading freedom, non-native speakers have to rely more on body language than we do when assessing sincerity. Condi Rice is not perfect, but she has the glorious Margaret Thatcher way of looking as if every word she emits has been weighed carefully. I don't know that Bush does. If we're trying to reach hearts and minds, these things are not more important than policy, but they do matter.

Rick, Ara and their deluded friends notwithstanding, fact of the matter is this : the majority of the voters in this country agree with the policies of the current Administration. And Ara, Rick, and all their naysaying friends can get even redder in their face, trying to figure out, why despite their intellectual sophistication and their superior understanding of the current situation, why dumbassed "rightwingers" like me and many others who vote, dont buy into their the "GW Bush and his Administration are always wrong" worldview.
I guess these naysayers will be happy only when Hillary Clinton and Barbara Lee get elected Pres and VP. Dream on fellas ..........

fact of the matter is this : the majority of the voters in this country agree with the policies of the current Administration.

Not sure what poll you are consulting. But I'd daresay that you'll see as many polls that refute you as support you on this contention.

Besides: a recent poll showed that the majority of people in this country believe they'll go to heaven after they die.

So what?

Sean,

There's quite a bit of truth that the administrations answers differ from mine and most others. My popint is simply that the administration did the right thing in this case based on the information available.

I think Bush administration did an awful job making the case for war, and I think he's done an awful job defending it as well (so far). Their reasoning does seem scattered and often they emphasize the less important issues, at least from my perspective.

But since they made the right call I don't care as much about their presentation. This is one of the main reasons why I dislike political commentary. It's a debating contest where presentation matters more then being right.

And that's one reason to dislike the Big Media;they deal with presidential races as a horse race rather than a debate of ideas.
I think they do this in large measure because its easier than actually learning about topics.

Dean, if I may intrude on your bandwidth, even more than usual…

Sean, I think our lives in the post-Vietnam era have been far too lenient on our enemies. The bar for military intervention became too high. I think far too many people are looking for a hard and fast rule or something completely impossible (such as finding pictures of Saddam Hussein in a missile silo, in a Slim Pickins pose atop a nuclear warhead). While Dean is correct in describing these war discussions as political, the real issue being fought in the hearts and minds isn’t about Iraq (or even about Bush). It’s a much bigger battle over America’s influence as a Constitutional Republic. That is why the hostility and rhetoric has become so shrill: it is the final battle of the Cold War, and a winner-for-all-time, can’t say nothin’ victory over socialism. I may sound like a tin foil hatter with that statement, but I believe there is sufficient justification for that belief.

If we set a precedent that we will not tolerate infringements on liberty, in our country or elsewhere—if we establish that Constitutional Republics/Democracies and Capitalism can bring the third-world into prosperity, who loses the most in our victory?

Simply look at who is lined up at the front lines in the battle of words: Every socialist and socialist leaning government, and every socialist and communist group in the U.S. and abroad. It was no accident that the “Not in Our Name” folks were being supported by the American Communist party. And it was no accident that the formerly oppressed Soviet states were the first to join on to the effort. All these groups know what the real battle is about on this one.

But getting back to Sean’s question… The rule for war, if there ever was one: "when a nation state or group poses a threat to the lives and property of the United States or her allies."

The case, made by the Bush Administration, despite all the rhetoric and finger pointing, was about making THAT case, and they did a masterful job of doing that. If there is any fault, it is that they made the case TOO strongly (and setting the bar a little high for my liking).

What was unusual about Iraq was that we were already at war with them, in a diplomatic sense. The tragedy was that it took so damn long to return, that many people forgot (or chose to forget) the details. Iraq was operating under what could simplistically be referred to as a "cease fire agreement" which they entered into as a method of stopping the bombing in Gulf War I. That being the case, the bar for re-entry was low: violate the agreement, the bombing resumes. In the terms of that agreement, Saddam was allowed to stay in power with the close monitoring of the U.N., with the US and Brits doing most of the work. Saddam was given a list of things HE agreed to do. He didn't do most of them and some he completely ignored. It took a DOZEN years before any action was taken.

9/11 was only a contributing factor, in the sense that the reality of terrorist attacks on American soil became all too real a threat--one that Americans, prior to 9/11, much preferred to ignore. In that sense, as was the case with the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the veil of security that most Americans lived under was removed. It was because of the reality of 9/11 that Americans had, what I cannot describe as anything other than an ‘awakening’ to the real dangers brewing in the world.

We had plenty of warnings (USS Cole, Trade Towers episode I, and before that Beirut embassy bombings, etc.), but until 2001, no sitting President had made the case for war.

And that's what it really comes down to. We've had plenty of similar, justifiable reasons for engaging in war--with Iraq and other nations. But the American people have to support it. So in presenting the case to the American people, the President was all over the board. He knew, as history has shown us repeatedly, that wars are ugly things, that take much longer to resolve than we'd wish, and we have to support both the war itself and long road to peace that follows. We need the backbone to sustain the interest to see the job done.

The case for Iraq could have been a simple one: they violated the cease fire agreement. Bang Bang Boom, you're out Saddam. But that wouldn't work in the long term and our strategy in the ME, and against terrorism in general, is going to be a very long war (one that will make the Cold War seem trivial by comparison).

We waited far too long. Our enemies have grown strong and organized against us. Iraq was the WWII equivalent of watching the Germans march into Paris, because the Americans were too dismissive of the threat, and not interested in a war that didn’t appear to be a threat at home. Americans were wrong about that one, and it cost us dearly. The post WWII series of wars, which led up to the Vietnam war, was an attempt to rectify that error, by never repeating a too-late entry again. Unfortunately, Americans lost interest during Vietnam and became horrified at the realities of war (uh DUH!) and tied the hands of our military and attempted to micromanage (to the extent of having MBAs applying accounting models to the supply strategy—McNamara’s whiz kids) and limited the authority in the field to such an extent, that they were incapable of achieving anything close to victory, or a stand off in that region, which could have resulted in a Korea-like settlement agreement.

There is a wonderful set of essays and discussions on www.nas.org about how the terrorist groups, and rogue organizations, could have been stopped a long time ago (while they were still in their fledging stages), but we didn't have the leadership that did anything about it. Now we do.

It would be reasonable to assume that we will be engaging in far more military battles in the next 25 years and that will not be the fault of the Bush Administration. The fault, if there is any besides the fault of the enemies who would rise against us, is with previous Administrations who lacked the backbone and the courage to defend America and her allies. In that sense, the chatter over Iraq is a distraction, and intended only to prevent us from pursuing and engaging in other battles to secure our safety and liberty, and the safety of others around the world.

While predictably tribal and yoo-rah-rah-ish, the left's hatred of Bush is also understandable. It's called fair turnabout, and has been integral to our two-party system for, quite literally, hundreds of years. It seems like each generation discovers it anew and bemoans the state of political discourse when, in reality, it hasn't changed all that much.

I work for a publishing company that's entirely Macintosh based. One person in my office is overtly pro-Microsoft, and he's continuously trying to pick Microsoft vs. Macintosh fights with me. He evidently assumes that because I'm an occasional Apple user, I feel the same kind of loyalty toward Steve Jobs that he apparently feels for Bill Gates. But truth be told, I'm an advocate of open source software and operating systems like Linux and FreeBSD. To me, Microsoft and Apple are more or less two sides of the same coin.

At the onset of our discussions, my otherwise friendly office-mate always assigns to me the monolithic role of "Microsoft hater". Then, one right after another, he rolls out every dismissive anti-anti-Microsoft smear in his repertoire. When he stops for breath, I try to say, "Jeff, ya know, I'm not really a Steve Jobs fan, I actually..." But he never hears me. He's too occupied with expounding on that weeks theory about why Apple would never have made it off the ground without Microsoft.

My coworker has at least two mistaken beliefs:

a) He assumes that he's winning, simple because he fills the rhetorical space more fully than I.
b) He thinks that our discussion, in which he tries to ensnare me on an almost daily basis, is actually an intellectual debate.

Dean engages us here in similar style.

Actually, he doesn't. The person co-worker you describe is (evidently) picking a fight with you out of a clear blue sky. Dean is responding to the comments of critics of GWB. Their debates stances are diametrically opposed.

Be advised: if you fail to refute an argument, you do lose. Complaints about debating style and tone don't change this self-evident fact.