gravy wrote:...I find just persistent repetition. I realize now that arguing wether or not WMD justifies the war already gives credence to WMD as an issue...
I agree that the Invasion did resolve the "WMD issue"; by verifying it being a non-factor trumpetted fear-tactic to incite paranoia in a public at a time of vulnerability, which is shameless. Whether or not the administration foolishly believed, or pretended cynically, they proceeded to create a crescendo of threat formation from Iraq that fit their timeline and goals (all the while the world, as well as internal admin sources were pointing out the disconnection of the rhetoric from reality).
The administration's careful orchestration led the majority of Americans to believe erroneously that war was necessary because otherwise doomsday was imminent. Majority of Americans also felt a viceral need to retaliate based on misinformation tactics alluding to Iraqi culpability/connection to the 9/11 attacks.
The reason why the invasion was necessary was that there was a perfectly real chance that Hussein was continuing to hide his WMD and WMD programs, as he had before. These are weapons that can kill on a colossal scale and can easily be smuggled into the US and detonated from within. Faced with a plausible chance of Hussein with significant and effective WMD at some unknown time in the near future, we had no choice for our own safety but to find out for sure.
gravy wrote:Without selling us on the imminence of a mushroom cloud, while tacitly misleading us of a 9/11 connection, there would be no majority popular support...some of us still seem quite smittened by the sell-job.
Bush never, ever said that Hussein had a planning or implementation role in 9/11. Any significant possibility that a latter day Hitler might acquire weapons so powerful that even one use of one could hurt us tremendously worse than 9/11 had to be resolved with certainty. The danger was real, and will arise over and over again in the future, as WMD continue to come within the possible grasp of dictators and terrorists.
