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Mr. Bush's Un-Constitutional War in Iraq
September 10, 2004
Dear Friends of the Constitutional Republic,
As the U.S. military death toll reached 1,000 in George Bush's unnecessary, un-Constitutional and enormously expensive ($200 billion plus) war in Iraq, long gone is any talk about Saddam Hussein having any Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs). The only things that have been massively destroyed are the original rationales for this conflict. The old arguments for this conflict lie in rubble.
In his 2003 State of the Union address, Mr. Bush said: "Year after year, Saddam Hussein has gone to elaborate lengths, spent enormous sums, taken great risks to build and keep weapons of mass destruction. But why? The only possible explanation, the only possible use he could have for those weapons, is to dominate, intimidate or attack. With nuclear arms or a full arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, Saddam Hussein could resume his ambitions of conquest in the Middle East and create deadly havoc in that region."
But, in his 2004 State of the Union address, Mr. Bush said nothing about Iraq having WMDs or, possibly, nuclear weapons or a full arsenal of chemical and biological weapons. Instead, he spoke of a report which identified dozens of weapons of "mass destruction-related" program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations.
This is a far cry from Bush Administration officials who warned that Saddam Hussein's "smoking gun" just might be "a mushroom cloud."
Also just a fading memory is Mr. Bush's explicit opposition to so-called "nation-building." In a Presidential debate on October 11, 2000, candidate Bush said that what "went wrong" in Somalia was when the mission of our troops there "changed into a nation-building mission." He said: "And so I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called nation-building."
The next day, on NBC's "Today" program, Mr. Bush was shown saying that he was not for using our troops all around the world "to serve as social workers, or as policemen, or, you know, school-walk crossing guards. I'm not for that. And I don't think America is for that either."
Pat Buchanan is right. On NBC's "Meet The Press" (9/5/04), he said we should execute a "strategic withdrawal" from Iraq because this war is "a terrible mistake." Pat also noted, correctly, that while Saddam Hussein was a criminal, a thug and a brute, "he was no threat to a country (the U.S.) that flew 40,000 sorties over Iraq in 10 years. He did not shoot down a single one."
Disagreeing with Pat was former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich whose arguments for the war in Iraq, ironically, demonstrated the truth of what Pat had just said. Gingrich noted that Hussein "was paying $25,000 to the family of every Hamas and Hezbollah bomber." But, were these bombers bombing Americans in America? No.
Gingrich said that the terrorist organization Ansar al-Islam "was in Iraq." So? Did they attack America? No.
Gingrich also, bizarrely, attacked Pat for "wanting to pull out of the biggest oil region on the planet" since this would mean, among other things, giving up "the right to have female American soldiers go in places that [Osama] bin Laden defines." He, of course, did not say where such "a right" comes from because there is no such "right."
What we want to do, Gingrich says, is have Iraqis patrolling the streets as the enforcers while American troops "are the reinforcers." This, over time, he adds, will "grind down the terrorists and the evil people."
Well, thanks but no thanks. As it stands now, it looks like the terrorists and evil people are grinding US down, blowing our people up at will, like sitting ducks in a shooting gallery. In Proverbs 26:17 God tells us: He that passeth by, and meddleth with strife belonging not to him, is like one that taketh a dog by the ears." By launching a war against Iraq, we stuck our nose into a situation that was none of our business. We picked a dog up by the ears. It's way past time we let go of this dog --- the sooner the better.
For God, Family and the Republic,
Michael A. Peroutka Back to September, 2004
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