Quote:
Originally posted by ARTelevision
I am satisfied with our policy even if the threat of WMD was needed to galvanize public and world opinion so that those who would have kept us from doing what was and is the right thing to do - given the geopolitics of the region and the need for security and stability in the world - were and are rendered sufficiently powerless to subvert the effort.
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Interesting wording. Let me get this straight. What you are saying is, "I don't mind that we were lied to, because if people were told the truth, they might not agree it was the right thing to do."
I just want to be clear on this. Is that what you are saying? Perhaps I misunderstood. I really hope I did, because that's outright insane. If you can't sell the truth to the general public in a supposedly democratic society,
maybe it isn't the right thing to do.
We elect our officials on the basis that they will represent our beliefs. It is not their job to then
subvert the wishes of the electorate through outright deception and distortion of reality. If the Bush administration could not get public support for an invasion by telling anything
but the truth, then by golly, he has no business going in there.
To suggest that our leaders do not have to adhere to the beliefs of the populace that elects them is to advocate fascism, pure and simple. I am not okay with that, thank you very much. I love this country and I am becoming increasingly disturbed with the trend of some conservative pundits to openly embrace the principles of fascism, and then to my utter astonishment turn around and accuse their detractors of being un-American.
Again, whether this war was just or not is one issue. The fact that we were lied to is another, and it is an important one. Supporters of the war need to stop tying one to the other. Yes, we overthrew a cruel dictator. But that was not the stated reason for the invasion -- it was a side effect. And a convenient one for those who would like to derail the debate with rhetorical devices such as "Saddam was a bad man, to not support the war means you support him."
I did not support his dictatorship. And I do not support Bush behaving as a dictator for the same reasons. Yes, Saddam is guilty of much more evil than Bush. But by that logic, Bush could do
anything short of murdering thousands of his own people and still be a saint. Sorry, but being less evil than a really evil person does not make you good. It may be a cliche, but it's a fundamental truth: the lesser of two evils is still evil.
So, can we put the question of whether this war was just or not aside for the moment, and address the fact that the administration intentionally misled the public by playing off the lingering fear and anger caused by the bombing of the World Trade Center to gain support for a war it might otherwise be reluctant to wage? We cannot go back in time to change this. What's done is done. But I think it is high time that the administration come clean to the public about this.