No WMDs in Iraq

[opebo]

Cool map Gustaf!  Interesting how many of those little blue states are in fact Bush states anyway.  Victory with 48% sounds realistic to me.

[Gustaf]

Cool map Gustaf!  Interesting how many of those little blue states are in fact Bush states anyway.  Victory with 48% sounds realistic to me.

Glad you liked it. I did one mistake though, you should exchange NJ for GA, the difference isn't huge but there are more voters in NJ than GA, but the same number of EVs. Now, it's possible that an even better result could be reached if different voter turnouts were taken into account, but I didn't bother with that.

[Gustaf]

OK, this is not an electoral map per se, but the blue states are states with less votes per EV than the national average, so they're the best to have. It only takes 17% of the national vote to win these blue states.

[Nym90]

Well, then why did Bush say he was certain there were WMDs and make it a major point in defense of the war, if it was all nonsense and a minor issue? Just use the 9/11 justification then. But Bush says there isn't a 9/11 link.

This is my point which you are failing to get, conservatives are going to be asking the same questions and be confused about it also. Your theory doesn't jibe with what Bush said.

Why did Bush put so much emphasis on WMD, and why did he say that Iraq didn't have a connection with 9/11?

Bush said he was certain there were WMDs. He shouldn't have been so certain about it. It was at the very minimum deceptive language on his part. He knew that it would sound lot better if he said there definitely are WMDs then if he had been more honest and said that he thought there were, or that there probably were, or that there had been in the past.

[opebo]

Well, then why did Bush say he was certain there were WMDs and make it a major point in defense of the war, if it was all nonsense and a minor issue? Just use the 9/11 justification then. But Bush says there isn't a 9/11 link.

This is my point which you are failing to get, conservatives are going to be asking the same questions and be confused about it also. Your theory doesn't jibe with what Bush said.

Why did Bush put so much emphasis on WMD, and why did he say that Iraq didn't have a connection with 9/11?

Bush said he was certain there were WMDs. He shouldn't have been so certain about it. It was at the very minimum deceptive language on his part. He knew that it would sound lot better if he said there definitely are WMDs then if he had been more honest and said that he thought there were, or that there probably were, or that there had been in the past.

You're making the mistake of assuming the election is like a debate, where any minor detail of inconsistency is something to jump on for advantage.  Sometimes fussing over details while missing the over-arching point - 9/11 and The War On Terror - you actually lose support and alienate people.

[Nym90]

But Bush is right, there wasn't a link between Saddam and Bin Laden. The only link that I can see is that they were both of the same race.

It's way too simplistic to assume that the entire Middle East is one big evil block of hatred against us. They oversimplify us and assume that we are all evil; let's not make the same mistake in reverse.

[opebo]

But Bush is right, there wasn't a link between Saddam and Bin Laden. The only link that I can see is that they were both of the same race.

It's way too simplistic to assume that the entire Middle East is one big evil block of hatred against us. They oversimplify us and assume that we are all evil; let's not make the same mistake in reverse.

Whether you think it is simplistic or not, it is a commonly held view among American voters, and will help to get Bush re-elected.  Its also on balance more accurate to say 'the whole middle east is against us' than to say 'the middle east is our friend'.   The half of American on the Bush side of the cultural divide doesn't mind the lack of a 'direct connection' between 9/11 and Saddam - for us it is enough to know that he was our enemy, he rejoiced at our loss, and would have liked to see more of the same.

[Nym90]

I don't deny that it's a commonly held belief. It doesn't make it correct though, and I think that people can see beyond that kind of simplistic analysis. I don't see a groundswell of support for attacking Iran though, which you suggested was the next step. If this is Bush's plan, he owes it to the American people to discuss this before the election. Yes, Saddam was bad, but is this just phase one in a plan to take out every country that doesn't like us? That's going to be massively expensive in both lives lost and money spent. Personally, I believe that there needs to be a direct connection with 9/11 in order to justify an attack, or else clear evidence of a threat to the US or another country. I supported attacking Afghanistan and supported attacking Iraq in 1991. But this unilateralist doctrine is only going to encourage other countries to do the same. Should every country in the world be allowed to justify attacking another country just because they don't like them?

However, I think that swing voters are really upset about the WMD issue, and that resonates everywhere. We'll just have to wait for the election to see who is correct about that, as it's obviously all speculation at this point.

[Mort from NewYawk]

There is no direct connection between 9/11 (that is, Al Qaeda) and Saddam.

However, there is a direct connection between the corrupt, elitist tyrannies and theocracies of the Middle East and the terrorist threat that is springing from militant fundamentalist Islamism.

The Arab "street" opposes it's own governments, and to the extent America supports them, America as well.

America's past support for tyrannies has fueled classic liberal anti-American sentiment, but the present administration has repudiated this support, and has been pushing a country like Saudi Arabia hard to democratize. The present philosophy of our government would definitely support an elected government in Saudi Arabia over the elitist monarchy that exists now.

In places like Iraq (before it's liberation) and Iran, the "street" likewise wants to rid itself of tyranny, whether religious or secular. The Iraqi people as a whole are glad that we intervened, and their leaders have so far proven that they are more interested in furthering compromise than chaos. If this trend continues, Iraq will set an example in the heart of the Middle East of what Arab democracy can look like.

Although there has been an isolationist streak in American politics (until recently a characteristic of the right), most Americans have historically supported intervention abroad to defeat tyranny, if we identify that our interests are at stake.

In the case of the Middle East today, our interests are at stake because some Arab governments are unable or unwilling to grant basic rights and opportunity to their own people, support radical religious education that demonizes America and Israel as scapegoats for their own failures, and support terrorist groups (in the case of Saddam, the rewards he provided to Palestinian suicide bombers are enough to make that case).

We were right in deposing Saddam, because he was an enemy of ours in the global war against terror for all of these reasons. The Iranian government is also an enemy, but intervention there will hopefully not be necessary, since it will eventually be liberalized from within (the reformers are already boycotting elections and organizing protests). Syria, Pakistan, Sudan, Yemen, Egypt and Saudi Arabia are all governments that will eventually be caught up in this liberalizing trend, and our approach to each will be, and is already, different.

I believe most Americans support unilateral intervention in Middle East countries if they see that we plan well, have positive outcomes, and don't get involved in a "quagmire".

So far, the Bush foreign policy team, though not doing everything perfectly, has done a decent job in Iraq. They've learned from the mistakes of Vietnam, and will learn from whatever mistakes we've made in Iraq.

I agree with opebo that picking apart the Bush approach will not get the Democrats anywhere with the broad middle. Even the WMD controversy, and the revelation to some that WMDs were a political justification to begin reconstruction of the Middle East, is not going to upset anyone except the 20% of the country that are confirmed Bush-haters.

[Mort from NewYawk]

Some excerpts from CNN story today:

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Facing lingering questions about the nature of the prewar threat from Iraq, President Bush on Friday appointed a bipartisan commission to "figure out why" apparent intelligence failures regarding Saddam Hussein's weapons capabilities occurred.

We're also determined to make sure that American intelligence is as accurate as possible for every challenge in the future," Bush said.

The panel members:
• Co-chair: Former Sen. and former Gov. Chuck Robb of Virginia
• Co-chair: former U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Laurence Silberman, a conservative who served in the Nixon and Ford administrations.
• Lloyd Cutler, who served as White House counsel to Presidents Carter and Clinton;
•  Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona;
• Former appellate court judge Pat Wald, a Democrat;
• Rick Levin, president of Yale University, Bush's alma mater; and
• Ret. Adm. Bill Studeman, a former deputy director of the CIA.

The question of Iraq and WMD promises to be an election issue, as Democrats have steadily assailed Bush on the campaign trail. They've also questioned whether a commission appointed solely by the president -- as opposed to some members named by Congress -- would be able to get to the bottom of the matter in a fair manner.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, dismissed the commission as "wholly owned by the executive branch."

"To have a commission appointed exclusively by President Bush investigate his administration's intelligence failures in Iraq does not inspire confidence in its independence," Pelosi said in a written statement on Friday.

********************************************

Will this move by the Republicans begin to defuse the issue among swing voters, or does it still have firepower for the Democrats?