[lit-ideas] Re: Quds forces
- From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 13:06:40 -0800
There was plenty of cause - see Nicholas Lehmann's arguments for going
to war in this 2003 article in the New Yorker. He's a liberal writer
commenting in a liberal magazine and detailing the reasons. They
haven't changed.
This is a laughable misreading of Lehmann's article. He is recounting
the reasons the Administration, and neo-con theorists were offering before
the invasion of Iraq. He is not endorsing. He did not then favor the
invasion, nor does he now favor 'the war.' Here's the first paragraph
of his article.
'Has a war ever been as elaborately justified in advance as the coming
war with Iraq? Because this war is not being undertaken in direct
response to a single shattering event (it's been nearly a year and a
half since the September 11th attacks), and because the possibility of
military action against Saddam Hussein has been Washington's main
preoccupation for the better part of a year, the case for war has
grown so large and variegated that its very multiplicity has become a
part of the case against it. In his State of the Union address,
President Bush offered at least four justifications, none of them
overlapping: the cruelty of Saddam against his own people; his
flouting of treaties and United Nations Security Council resolutions;
the military threat that he poses to his neighbors; and his ties to
terrorists in general and to Al Qaeda in particular. In addition, Bush
hinted at the possibility that Saddam might attack the United States
or enable someone else to do so. There are so many reasons for going
to war floating around-at least some of which, taken alone, either are
nothing new or do not seem to point to Iraq specifically as the
obvious place to wage it?that those inclined to suspect the motives of
the Administration have plenty of material with which to argue that it
is being disingenuous. So, along with all the stated reasons, there is
a brisk secondary traffic in "real" reasons, which are similarly
numerous and do not overlap: the country is going to war because of a
desire to control Iraqi oil, or to help Israel, or to avenge Saddam's
1993 assassination attempt on President George H. W. Bush.'
The reasons 'haven't changed'?
What I'm embarrassed by is the lack of wisdom on the Left. There are
good people with good intentions but little wisdom and moral clarity.
No comment.
Robert Paul
The Reed Institute
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