Iraq
I've been getting into a number of debates with people at my school, nestled into the Finger Lakes region of New York, perhaps the most liberal section of the country. Yes, even more liberal than Massachusetts. Anyway, the people I debate/argue with are typically very anti-Bush. They blame him for the Iraq debacle, for 9/11, for the economy being "bad," and claim that he and his supporters are all fundamentalists who want to combine church and state.
The biggest criticism of George W. Bush is that the War in Iraq is a senseless waste of human life and that Saddam Hussein was not an immediate threat. Furthermore, Bush is wrong for lying to the American public when he claimed that Saddam and Iraq were an imminent threat and were in league with al-Queda. Here's why this criticism of Bush is unfounded and oversimplistic:
The President is surrounded by a vast number of people who have certain responsibilities. Some of these people have relatively unimportant jobs like writing down what the President dictates. Others, such as the head of the CIA, have dramatically more important duties to the President.
The CIA, along with British intelligence, and Russian intelligence told Bush that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. The UN ignored this information but the US did not. How could they? Not only did we go to war with Iraq slightly over a decade ago. but in that war, they launched ballistic missiles at our ally Israel. Certainly a Saddam Hussein led Iraq with any type of weapons of mass destruction was a threat to our allies in the region as well as to our citizens in the United States. One biological or chemical weapon released in a crouded New York subway or street and thousands to millions of people would die. If this isn't a threat, I really don't know what one would be. One of the other major criticisms of Bush is that he did not treat bin Laden and AQ as a major threat. No matter what W's policies are, the liberals will criticise it. Either he is being too paranoid or not paranoid enough. People like Michael Moore and Jon Stewart crack jokes about Americans being too paranoid about terrorism and then a second later complain that Bush didn't do enough to prevent 9/11. Which is it? Do you think we should not think about terrorism at all or should we worry about it?
Anyway, the intelligence that Bush received was wrong. We all know this now. Or at least, we're pretty sure of it. The border between Iraq and let's say Iran isn't exactly protected by a large wall or anything. It is a definite possibility that any illicit materials were moved from Iraq to Iran or any other country bordering Iraq. Back to the point, who is responsible for the lack of WMD in Iraq? Yes, GWB is the one who told the public that Iraq had WMD, but he thought what he was saying was true. Is that a lie?
Let's say your mother tells you something. Something along the lines of a fat guy who dresses in red, flies on a sleigh, lives at the North Pole and distributes toys to good children once a year. You're still a kid so you beleive in this lie. You even tell your friends about it. What you have done is tell others something that is not true. However, you beleived it was true because someone whom you trust told you so. Have you done anything along the lines of lying? If you ask me, no you have not. The people responsible for the lie are your parents for convincing you of the existance Santa. It is unreasonable for you to suspect your parents of making the whole thing up just as it is unreasonable for Bush to doubt his intelligence gatherers who know much more about the world of espionage than any President could.
The biggest criticism of George W. Bush is that the War in Iraq is a senseless waste of human life and that Saddam Hussein was not an immediate threat. Furthermore, Bush is wrong for lying to the American public when he claimed that Saddam and Iraq were an imminent threat and were in league with al-Queda. Here's why this criticism of Bush is unfounded and oversimplistic:
The President is surrounded by a vast number of people who have certain responsibilities. Some of these people have relatively unimportant jobs like writing down what the President dictates. Others, such as the head of the CIA, have dramatically more important duties to the President.
The CIA, along with British intelligence, and Russian intelligence told Bush that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. The UN ignored this information but the US did not. How could they? Not only did we go to war with Iraq slightly over a decade ago. but in that war, they launched ballistic missiles at our ally Israel. Certainly a Saddam Hussein led Iraq with any type of weapons of mass destruction was a threat to our allies in the region as well as to our citizens in the United States. One biological or chemical weapon released in a crouded New York subway or street and thousands to millions of people would die. If this isn't a threat, I really don't know what one would be. One of the other major criticisms of Bush is that he did not treat bin Laden and AQ as a major threat. No matter what W's policies are, the liberals will criticise it. Either he is being too paranoid or not paranoid enough. People like Michael Moore and Jon Stewart crack jokes about Americans being too paranoid about terrorism and then a second later complain that Bush didn't do enough to prevent 9/11. Which is it? Do you think we should not think about terrorism at all or should we worry about it?
Anyway, the intelligence that Bush received was wrong. We all know this now. Or at least, we're pretty sure of it. The border between Iraq and let's say Iran isn't exactly protected by a large wall or anything. It is a definite possibility that any illicit materials were moved from Iraq to Iran or any other country bordering Iraq. Back to the point, who is responsible for the lack of WMD in Iraq? Yes, GWB is the one who told the public that Iraq had WMD, but he thought what he was saying was true. Is that a lie?
Let's say your mother tells you something. Something along the lines of a fat guy who dresses in red, flies on a sleigh, lives at the North Pole and distributes toys to good children once a year. You're still a kid so you beleive in this lie. You even tell your friends about it. What you have done is tell others something that is not true. However, you beleived it was true because someone whom you trust told you so. Have you done anything along the lines of lying? If you ask me, no you have not. The people responsible for the lie are your parents for convincing you of the existance Santa. It is unreasonable for you to suspect your parents of making the whole thing up just as it is unreasonable for Bush to doubt his intelligence gatherers who know much more about the world of espionage than any President could.
