So my friend Bryan posted a very good reaction to my post on the war yesterday (in my now working comments section) and I want to go ahead and respond to it here on the front page. You should read it, its lengthy, but worth it.
First of all let me point out that the moveon.org movie was not the reason I feel and think the way I do, it just prompted me to write. It wasn't a very good movie even. The main points I think I got from it were that the administration tried to play up the imminent-threat thing and the ties to al quaeda which never existed as a way to sell a preemptive strike - a strike that fit into a political ideal. As a documentary it was doomed to failure in the fact that it was made by moveon.org - there just can't be an elimination of bias... but that's a different story.
I do not think that Bush and Co. created the idea of the weapons otherwise I would think that most of the world did too, as well as the last few Presidential administrations. I think they used the convenience of the situation to walk down the path the neocons have mapped out.
And thats the rub... my big problem comes from the simple disagreement with the ideas of the neocons (which I still don't like the terminology). The new book by Richard Pearle sums it up better than any other source, these guys want to take pre-emptive action against nations that they deem to be enemies in order to show other countries that we play hardball. His book lays out actions against many other nations besides Iraq. These guys have Dick Cheney's ear and to some extent, the President's ear. Their main triumph these days is Libya - "see how good the action in Iraq was for changing the area!" - which is bogus as Libya has been reaching out to the Western world since Clinton's presidency because they wanted the sanctions lifted. They offered hard intelligence on 9/11, they gave up the Pan Am bombers, etc. I can not buy into the neocon's ideal, it seems wrong on too many levels.
To one point, I don't have the answer to dealing with countries like North Korea but preemptive force just isn't it. To his credit, Pearle is a little shaky on invading them too - so I suppose he isn't off his rocker completely, but the core of his argument is something I will never buy into and it scares me that the ones who do buy into it are working with the administration.
Posted by dmason at March 10, 2004 09:57 AM