How many people actually believe that the current conflict is really all about oil? How many believe that it’s all about human rights? How many believe that it’s all about wounded pride? How many believe that it’s because we know where Saddam is and we can’t find Bin Laden so we have to shoot someone?
It seems I run into a large number of people on both sides of the political fence who can’t seem to form a logical basis for their beliefs about the war. It’s very frustrating that someone can claim with a straight face that the reason France was against our going into Iraq is because of money. When pressed for some rationale for that statement, he had none. He COULD HAVE mentioned the large number of contracts that French companies have with Iraq, and the doubt about their being honored by whatever government succeeds him. But he hadn’t done the research to back up what someone told him, he just believed what his gut said made sense to him.
The appeal to emotional reactions over logic is certainly rampant. If you’re against the war, you’re an ignorant sympathizer with the evil Iraqi overlord. If you’re for the war, you’re an ignorant sheep following a president who looks like a chimp. These are the best most people can come up with?
If Bush really was concerned mainly with propping up his oil buddies in Texas, he’d keep the sanctions against Iraq forever, helping to push American oil as cheaper and easier to buy. If he were really primarily concerned with human rights abuses, we’d be peering more closely at our putative allies, the Saudis. If he were really concerned with democracy, same thing.
So, what are your thoughts on motivations? And back them up with some verifiable detail, not just, “war is bad.”
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I’ll take “We don’t know where Bin Laden is” for 500 Gary.
Seriously, I don’t believe this is all about oil, although I bet it does play a small part. Bush IS an oil man after all. And I do NOT believe it really has anything to do with human rights and freeing oppressed Iraqi’s. That’s just the public excuse. Wounded pride? Maybe. But not for the reasons people might come up with. Bush won the presidency by default, by a little loophole called the electoral college. I think he feels he has something to prove. Well, I wish he’d prove it WITHOUT trashing the (nearly) balanced budget Clinton worked 8 years to create.
Clinton didn’t balance the budget, a wildly successful tech economy (see Internet Bubble) did that and he got credit for it. Repeat after me, “Democrats like to spend money.”
Unfortunately, the big oil folks don’t really want lots of cheap Iraqi oil on the market anyhow, so the oil argument is hard to use logically. Although, Bush may be doing illogical things.
The electoral college is not a loophole, it’s the law of the land. You can claim it is flawed all you like, and even call for its abolition and replacement with direct elections, but it is in no way a loophole. For that matter, every recount done by a legitimate unbiased group after the election found that Bush was the undisputed popular-vote winner in Florida. It may have been a difference of a couple thousand votes, but he was still the winner. Mentioning that more than half the people didn’t vote for him is irrelevant, as more than half didn’t vote for Gore either. The tally was 48% to 48%, plus change.
And, it sure is easy to show we’re doing something and being tough on terrorism so long as nobody looks too closely at the rationale for it. I think the “where’s Waldo” aspect is about equal to the “Inigo Montoya” aspect.
Bad use of the word loophole. Whatever, it’s ultimately irrelevent, we’re stuck with him.
The Internet boom wasn’t the only thing that happened during Clinton’s presidency. There were also massive welfare reforms, tax reforms, and apparently, he stopped sending out certain types of aid to foreign nations who didn’t need it. Internet bubble aside, there were other things Clinton actually DID do to balance our nation’s budget. He didn’t spend his whole term getting blowjobs from interns.
Now, the “Inigo Montoya”, that’s a wonderful parallel Gare. I can almost hear Bush saying “My name is George W. Bush. You tried to kill my father, now I will kill you.” Of course, he’s full of SHIT, because apparently there was only a “credible threat”, not ever an actual attempt on Bush senior, and the evidence that Saddam set it up was apparently a bit weak.