I found this article from Slate linked on Andrew Sullivan's site today. It is an analysis/criticism of President Bush, and I think it does a great job of summing up what I don't like about George Bush without falling into the horrible traps that other critics fall into way too much of the time.
First of all, it doesn't say that the war in Iraq was unequivocally a bad idea. I can appreciate a lot of the criticisms over the intelligence and a great many other things related to the war in Iraq.
- In recent months, congressional hearings and document leaks have unearthed a disturbing history. Again and again in 2001 and 2002, U.S. intelligence agencies sent signals that Bush was wrong. The FBI and CIA debunked putative links between Iraq and al-Qaida. The CIA rejected the claim that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Africa. In its National Intelligence Estimate, the CIA calculated that it could take Saddam up to five years to make a nuclear weapon and that he would transfer WMD to terrorists only if he were invaded.
I didn't want to be in that war originally either. My problem with criticisms today is that people want to say that Bush flat-out lied, when I think that is a bit too much. He used intelligence (suspect or not) and came to conclusions (right or not.) This is no more blatant than anything that any other politician engages in on a daily basis.
Then, people confuse the fact that they don't like the war with the war's success. This war has not had a ridiculous amount of casualties and has been relatively successful. It isn't easy and it isn't over, but it hasn't been the disaster that a lot of critics would like to claim it is.
Article comments
1 - Mark Saleski
one point that is often ignored about the state of the economy post-9/11 is that while the events of that day had significant negative effects, the decision to go to war magnified them.
not surprisingly, most companies shelved new project plans in hopes of dealing with them in the new year...but once the war buildup began, that uncertainly put those plans off for at least another six months.
and we're still waiting.
2 - Craig Lyndall
That is true, but the initial war action in Afghanistan to remove the Taliban was not very controversial, was it? I don't want to argue over Iraq because we will never get anywhere, but we did need to mobilize our military after 9/11, at least for Afghanistan.
3 - Hal Pawluk
I agree that the invasion of Afghanistan was part of the war on terrorism, but overall that war is not a relative success: invading Iraq had nothing to do with that war.
Had we stopped the invasions with Afghanistan, we could have used some of the resources expended on Iraq in actually doing the job in Afghanistan and pursuing terrorism around the globe (instead of increasing it).
The huge expenditures that were made and are being made because of the invasion of Iraq will continue to have huge negative effects, globally and domestically.
4 - Craig Lyndall
Hal, I said I didn't want to argue over Iraq, because we won't agree. I stand by that statement.