More thoughts on the war and the election

Bush used the potential of Iraqi WMDs to invade Iraq so that we would have Iran (a country that there is not question anymore about being inimical to the USA and attempting to acquire WMD) caught in a two-front vise. So that we would have battle-hardened troops on the border of Iran. He took advantage of Saddam's intransigence.

This compares to the undeclared war FDR had going in the North Atlantic between the US Navy and the Nazi Kriegsmarine. FDR had to drag the US kicking and screaming into WWII. He got a boost for this from Pearl Harbor, and from Hitler deciding to declare war on the USA; but make no mistake, the US involvement in WWII was just as much of "FDR's war" as the War on Terror is "GWB's war". And the decision to invade Iraq after being attacked on 9/11 is just as valid as the decision to invade Africa was after being attacked on 12/7. More valid, in some ways, as we are putting troops into the same theatre of operations from which our attackers came.

Could Bush have used this argument to get the US people behind him? Please. Look at the problems we have now. So the argument was, Iraq has not stopped trying to obtain WMD, they show no signs of changing their habits, and the efforts we are making to keep him from getting them are becoming intolerable to maintain. So we have chosen to make sure he can no longer attempt to acquire WMD and threaten stability by removing him from the equation. The enemies of the President have chosen to interpret this as "Saddam has WMD, we must get rid of him for that reason". That's not what he said. He said Saddam wants to get them, and we can no longer keep doing what we are doing to keep him from getting them. We're doing things differently now.

Remember, people, the final goal is not a stabilized Iraq. The final goal is a world where terrorists cannot flourish because all the world's governments will not support them. This will require a stable Iraq, so that is one of the results. But it is not the goal. Focusing on results in Iraq is like complaining because your football (US rules) team is not trying to make a first down when it is 2nd and 7 on the 11th yard line, with your team down by 4, and 30 seconds left on the clock. Kerry wants to punt, others want to concede the game. Bush wants to score the touchdown. But that means taking risks, that means putting the ball in the air where it can be intercepted. But it needs to be done.

Did Bush mislead the American public? Did FDR mislead the American public in 1940 when the US Navy was fighting engagements with the Kriegsmarine off the coast of the USA? Did FDR mislead the public when he loaned US equipment to warring nations with no real expectation that they would be able to pay for it? Or would you like to argue that WWII was illegitimate because a cabal of Interventionists tricked the country into war?

Except this time our president is merely guilty of over-emphasizing one aspect of a complicated calculus of decisions that have led us to this point. And it looks a little grim from here. But I recently re-read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by robert Heinlein. In is, a group of revolutionaries decide that they will go ahead with their revolution if (and only if) their computer says to them that they have better than one chance it ten of succeeding. After much time spent calculating, the computer comes up with 1 chance in seven, and they go ahead. But during their struggle, the computer keep srecalculating, and the odds spend a lot of time getting worse (they hit under 1% at the low point) before they get better. That's where we are right now - the odds at the beginning looked pretty good. They have gooten worse as we have chosen certain paths over others. But we still have a chance, and things are beginning to look better. We can try and make it better, or we can give up now, and leave an even worse mess for the next time around.

You know where I stand on that question.