House of Eratosthenes

Today I am signing into law H.R. 4655, the “Iraq Liberation Act of 1998.” This Act makes clear that it is the sense of the Congress that the United States should support those elements of the Iraqi opposition that advocate a very different future for Iraq than the bitter reality of internal repression and external aggression that the current regime in Baghdad now offers.

Let me be clear on what the U.S. objectives are:

The United States wants Iraq to rejoin the family of nations as a freedom-loving and law-abiding member. This is in our interest and that of our allies within the region.

The United States favors an Iraq that offers its people freedom at home. I categorically reject arguments that this is unattainable due to Iraq’s history or its ethnic or sectarian make-up. Iraqis deserve and desire freedom like everyone else.

The United States looks forward to a democratically supported regime that would permit us to enter into a dialogue leading to the reintegration of Iraq into normal international life.

My Administration has pursued, and will continue to pursue, these objectives through active application of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions. The evidence is overwhelming that such changes will not happen under the current Iraq leadership.

In the meantime, while the United States continues to look to the Security Council’s efforts to keep the current regime’s behavior in check, we look forward to new leadership in Iraq that has the support of the Iraqi people. The United States is providing support to opposition groups from all sectors of the Iraqi community that could lead to a popularly supported government.

Clinton talked. Bush did.

Then, in September 2001, a rouge group of radicalized Muslims led by a man who was disgruntled by the fact that Western Infidels had their boots on the ground in their Holy Land of Saudi Arabia to support this part:

while the United States continues to look to the Security Council’s efforts to keep the current regime’s behavior in check

Hijacked some airplanes in the United States and tried to kill as many American civillians as possible. They succeeded.

That necessarily changed the mission from keeping the “current regime’s” behavior in check to getting rid of the “current regime” — it just got a lot more dangerous to merely “keep it in check”.

But of course as we’re repeatedly told, 9/11 had nothing to do with Iraq. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Now we could have just pulled out of Saudi Arabia and maybe … just maybe … they would be appeased.

Key word here is “appeased”.

This disgruntled Saudi had written much about his belief that the United States was a paper Tiger and was defeatable by Jihad. The Iranian hostage crisis seemed to support this. The 1993 WTC bombing. Somalia. USS Cole.

The same disgruntled Saudi and his cohorts had also written much about Islam’s rise and the destruction of Western Civilization. Would they really stop if we showed them once again and in a big way that we’ll even back down when directly attacked?

I think not.

This is why we went to war in Iraq. If you look at all of Bush’s speeches, he basically says all this. But it’s not what the press chose to highlight. They highlighted the WMD issue and to some extent Sadam’s brutality. And they insisted that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.

It was quite noticible how little Bill Clinton criticized Bush and the Iraqi invasion. Part of it may be the unwritten rule (that Carter seems to have forgotten) that former presidents do not criticize incumbent ones.

Or it could be that he knew what Bush knew. Plenty of evidence and common sense points to this explanation.
- philmon | 02/26/2008 @ 12:21
This is one of the reason that Bush is so hated, because he acts on his beliefs, as opposed to just harrrumphing.
- chunt31854 | 02/26/2008 @ 14:43
Yup. There’s a very clean split going on here. It doesn’t stop at the water’s edge. It’s a global thing.

Some of us think a “wrong” should involve a high standard of assault on freedom and property before it becomes legally significant, and open to proscription. But once something has been so proscribed and an offender goes and & does it anyway, something should HAPPEN.

The other half seems to think any ol’ thing is “wrong” just as long as you can find a bare-majority of folks who happen to not like it. Or not even a majority. A smooth-talking speech from a charismatic individual will do. Suddenly, something is universally “wrong.” But then once it’s prohibited, if someone breaks that code, NOTHING should happen to them.

I think that’s why people who are in favor of gun control, oppose capital punishment (for the offenders who not only violated the gun ban, but used the gun to take human lives as well). And they furthermore think the Iraq mess was being handled just fine right up until Pres. Bush took over — instructions dished out, “You’re A Bad Man Saddam Hussein” going on, but no enforcement where it was clearly needed. They come from a strange planet, the Planet Of Strongly Worded Letters, where all punishment ends with a finger-waggling.

Amazingly, that even includes punishment to enforce their own laws, for which their passion is so out of control, they can’t conceive the wrongness might be a matter of legitimate disagreement. They place effectively infinite weight on the definition of wrongness, and effectively zero weight on consequences.
- mkfreeberg | 02/26/2008 @ 15:08

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On the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

On the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008