Bandow on the Conservative Duty re: WMDs
Doug Bandow has a great opinion piece running in the Christian Science Monitor: Conservatives’ core duty on WMD. Here’s the real heart of the WMD issue. For those whose willingness to give Bush & Co. the benefit of the doubt has kept them from seeing the WMD thing as a big deal, please consider reading this article, and telling me which part of the author’s argument you disagree with. Or, if you agree with it, let me know what you think would be an appropriate approach to holding Bush accountable.
July 9th, 2003 at 2:08 pm
In their view, even to ask the question is to mount a partisan attack on President Bush, and that’s downright unpatriotic.
I don’t think that’s the case. I couldn’t care less about an attack on Bush per se, the problem is that many of the criticisms are motivated largely by hate for the president, and not because there is actual merit to the claims.
The point is not that the administration is necessarily guilty of misbehavior, but that it should be forced to defend its decisionmaking process.
I can agree with that, but I think that the administration HAS defended the process. Contrary to Bandow’s claims, WMD were never the central issue for the battle. Iraq was attacked because it was a part of the Islamofacist swamp that produces terrorists. We have to drain the swamp. Afghanistan was act 1, Iraq was act 2, Iran will probably fall on its own as act 3, and if we play our cards right Saudi Arabia will be the grand finale.
Thus, in their view, once someone is elected president, he or she faces no legal or political constraint. The president doesn’t need congressional authority; Washington doesn’t need UN authority. Allied support is irrelevant.
Bush HAD Congressional authority, twice over. America certainly DOES NOT need the approval of dictatorial failed-states and the UN for anything we do. We had allied support: Britain and Australia, Poland, and a host of others, including some Arab and Muslim countries.
The whole article is full of strawmen. Set ’em up, knock ’em down. I want to know where the WMD are; I’m concerned they’ve already fallen into terrorist hands (if not Al Qaeda, then Fatah or Hezbollah).