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It's More than the WMD, It's the Sophistry
BUZZFLASH
READER COMMENTARY
by Michael Scott
Sophistry n: a deliberately invalid argument displaying ingenuity in reasoning in the hope of deceiving someone
The focus on the search for the elusive WMD unfortunately clouds the bigger tragedy of our war on Iraq; we didn't have to fight, but we chose to fight and the arguments for the war were pure bogus. If it wasn't clear to the American public before the war, it should be now: Even with a dedicated WMD program, Saddam Hussein was not an "imminent threat" to either the US or our allies and our aggression was a pre-determined policy in search of a justification. WMD may have made a nice political consensus to feed to America's intellect, but they didn't represent a threat that required invasion and occupation.
However, the Bush Administration probably isn't worrying too much about the lack of evidence at this point, because, eventually, some damming evidence of Saddam's WMD program will be uncovered. After years of trying to hinder the UN weapons inspections, it's unlikely that Saddam decided to entirely abandon his WMD program after the UN was forced out in 1998. Surely, some remnants of WMD must be buried somewhere. In many ways, the longer the wait for the discovery of Saddam's WMDs, the better it will be for Bush because the greater the marginalizing of effect will be. Cowering in fear of voicing honest dissent, many war opponents are feeling emboldened by the lack of WMD. However, once those illusive WMDs are found, what will the opponents of the war say then? The discovery of WMD is really only a side issue to the more important questions about the legitimacy of the war. While Bush should have his feet held to the fire because no WMDs have been found, the risk of focusing on this issue is that once something is found, dissent will be squashed and Bush will claim moral victory despite his moral bankruptcy.
The main issue is that Saddam Hussein never posed an imminent threat to the US and the only two options were not invasion or capitulation. Why would Saddam provoke a country infinitely more powerful than itself in a way that would guarantee it's own destruction? An honest view of Saddam's history, taken in context, shows that he doesn't have a history of acting so reckless that he threatened his own destruction. For example, In the Iran / Iraq war, Saddam was supported and aided by the United States. In the first Gulf War, he was clearly told that if he used WMD on the coalition, the coalition would respond in kind. In 1994, when Saddam began massing troops in an apparent attempt to revise the terms of the cease-fire, the US immediately began moving in troops and equipment and Saddam promptly backed down. This list goes on...
There is no question of Saddam's brutality, but is it right for a president to risk the lives or our servicemen on bogus arguments? While all Americans are undoubtedly thankful that the war was relatively quick and the loss of lives was small compared some estimates, it basically showed that the Iraqi regime was not the threat the Bush advertised. The third world country, after being crushed in the first Gulf War and then having suffered from a decade of crippling sanctions and continual bombardment, was not an imminent threat to the US and we did not need to invade them. Looking back over the past several months, the desperation at which Bush used any piece of evidence in the face of logic only further clarifies this war was going to happen regardless. The march to war and the sheepish way in which the American public accepted arguments without question are not an encouraging signs about how we will use our unprecedented power.
It must have been a sobering moment for president Bush to visit Auschwitz and see what the worst elements of humanity are capable of. But if America is going to live up to the best of its ideals, it can't ignore some of the serious lessons from post war Germany. While no credible person compares Bush to Hitler or the current administration to the Nazi regime, it's important to remember that Hitler's tyranny slowly gained momentum through the complicity of his citizens. We must also remember that America's freedom was not handed to us and that we have a choice on how to use that legacy of freedom. If America wants to avoid the mistakes of other fallen empires, we can't simply ignore when our leaders use sophistry to take us to war.
BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY
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