BUSH, IRAQ, AL QAEDA AND THE LONG WAR: once and for all, dispelling the lies of the Left

Leftists are fond of saying that - with regard to Iraq - "Bush Lied and people died." They love to chant: "NO BLOOD FOR OIL!" I'd like to disprove these charges once and for all:

(1) "SADDAM AND 9/11": Bush asked for and received a SEPARATE authorization to attack Iraq and did NOT use the 2001 AUMF to attack Saddam. If he had belived that Saddam was connected to 9/11, then he could have merely used the 2001 AUMF. This proves that Bush never EVER DIRECTLY connected Saddam to 9/11. (There are, though, unequivocably ties between Saddam and al Qaeda and other jihadoterrorist groups.)

(2) "BUSH LIED ABOUT WMD": Neither the UNSCR#1441 or the 2002 Congressional authorization to attack Saddam limited the reasons Saddam was a threat to WMD stockpiles, but in fact contained two dozen reasons why Saddam was a threat to the USA and our allies and our interests. If Bush thought that WMD's were the only reason to go to war, then he would NOT have bothered to make sure all those other imporant points were in the resolution. Many had to do with the UNSC resolutions which Saddam had violated, and MOST of these had nothing to do with WMD.

ADDITIONALLY: Ex-Cia man Pillar - who has been getting a lot of press recently, rehashing his old vague and unsupportable charges - has recently been forced to REPEATEDLY admit that the Robb-Silberman Commission report was entirely correct when it concluded that not a single solitary intelligence officer or report was altered or adjusted in any way due to political poressure from anyone. And Pillar has also admitted that Cheney was 100% correct when he said that all intelligence agencies from all nations agreed that Saddam had WMD. Tertefore: BUISH DID NOT LIE.

(3) "SADDAM WASN'T AN IMMINENT THREAT": As to the charge that Bush lied about Saddam being an imminent threat - for without WMD stockpiles there could be no "imminence": Bush specifically argued that he would NOT wait for threats from untrustworthy tyrants like Saddam to become imminent because that would be too late.
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(4) "MISSION NOT ACCOMPLISHED": When Bush appeared on the deck of that aircraft carrier in front of that banner which said "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" that part of the mission which that aircraft carrier was involved in had been accomplished, as was the mission for most of the troops which invaded Iraq and deposed the genocidal tyrant Saddam.

The current fighting is against DIFFERENT forces with a different goal than Saddam, and as such it comprises what is essentially a SECOND mission: securing a self-determined pluralist democracy for Iraq. When this mission eneds - probably in 2007, then Iraq will have to maintain its security on its own. In a larger sense, we can only declare total victory in Iraq at that time.

(5) "DEMOCRACY FOR IRAQ WAS NEVER REALLY A GOAL": The very challenging goal of democracy for Iraq was EXACTLY what Bush said his ultimate goal was when he addressed the UN General Assembly in September of 2002 - a month before UNSCR#1441 was passed, four months before Saddam filed a false "fional decaration" - in ciolatiuon of UNSCR#1441, and six months before the war began. There was no "rush to war" and democracy was not an after the fact rationalization rushed into place when the ISG failed to find stockpiles. NOTE: the ISG did unequivocably determine that Saddam was in violation of most of the UNSR's which functioned as the armistice for the Gulf War.

(6) "NO BLOOD FOR OIL": It was liberal Democrat president Jimmy Carter (and not Bush, Cheney or Halliburton) who - in 1980 - declared that Gulf Oil was strategic necessity for the USA and the West, and that the USa would use any means necessary to defend its flow to the West. This became known as The Carter Dioctrine and has the same force today as it did then and as the Monroe Doctrine still has today. It is NOT a partisan policy inveernted to please oil companies; it is recognbition that the world's economy and the world's PEOPLE needs energy to survive, and the USA will guarantee that the world gets that energy. (REMEMBER: Europe and Asia get more oil from the Gulf than the USA does!)

If we won't fight to save our way of life and economy from becoming held hostage to oil-strong islamofascist tyrants, then we might as well NOT fight for anything - a position that the Left mostly endorses!

THEREFORE: When Leftists claim that Bush lied about Saddam's connections to 9/11, or Saddam's WMD, and what the exit strategy of mission was, or that democracy was ever a reason to depose Saddam - and that "BIG OIL" was the real reason we went to war - THEY ARE LYING, NOT BUSH.

The Left's and the MSM's continuous assault on Bush and Iraq (now screaming "civil war!") only serves the enemy by undermining support for our ultimate cause and the larger war.

Ultimately, we will only defeat jihadoterrorism when we drain the swamp. Tyranny - and the poverty which tyranny produces - is the "swamp." Democracy is the "drain." Since tyrants don't often leave voluntarily - and because islamofascism can only thrive under a tyranny - war and threat of war are really the only means of implementing this policy.

Appeasment only encourages the enemy. Draining the swamp will take a long time; hence, "THE LONG WAR." It might be a shorter war if the Left were firmly on OUR side. I'M NOT HOLDING MY BREATH!