| EXAMINER PUBLICATIONS - JAUNUARY 25, 2006 A VIEW FROM THE CHEAP SEATS By Rich Trzupek Speaking of Lies... We�ve all seen the bumper sticker: �Bush lied�people died.� Not exactly Shakespeare, but a catchy little couplet. The implication - that the President is a clever, devious bastard who suckered the nation into war - runs contrary to the other popular propaganda commonly spouted by administration-haters: the Prez is a moron, barely capable of coherent thought. He�s either incredibly stupid or amazingly sinister, depending on what point opponents are trying to prove at the time. It would be nice if they just picked one persona and stuck to it. We may quickly summarize the �Bush lied-people died� doctrine as follows: The President knew that Saddam didn�t have weapons of mass destruction, but managed to convince the world that the dictator did. This provided a pretext for a war that does no one any good, except for the oil companies. As a consequence, all we have done is to enflame the Arab world against us, encourage terrorism and needlessly sacrifice American and Iraqi lives. Let�s examine those arguments, piece by piece. Did Bush lie? He acted on intelligence provided by the CIA, which was compelling enough to convince most Democrats at the time. British intelligence, Israel intelligence and Russian intelligence were in agreement as well. The opinions of the intelligence community were compelling enough that Bill Clinton repeatedly warned the world about the danger that Saddam posed, even contemplating invasion himself to head off a disaster. In 2000 Al Gore identified removing Saddam from power as his number one foriegn policy objective. The intelligence community blew it, but clearly Bush didn�t �lie.� He acted on the best information available. In retrospect, it�s clear that Saddam was playing a dangerous game. He had WMD before. He would�clearly�seek to acquire the capability again. In the meantime, he kept weapons inspectors at bay, to enhance his prestige in the Arab world and protect his independence until he would get his chemical and biological weapons industry back into gear. He overplayed his hand. Betting the pot on a pair of fives is just stupid, but Saddam was never the brightest bulb in the pack. So America and Britain go into Iraq, under what would turn out to be false pretenses. Is that really a bad thing? The suffering of the Iraqi people and American casualties are clearly not a good thing. Yet, the vast majority of Iraqis and of our military personnel agree: the nation is a better place with us there compared to what it was before. Instead of the nation�s resources being sucked away by Saddam and his cronies, Iraq�s infrastructure and economy has been rebuilt. Instead of living in fear of a dictator�s death squads, Iraqi�s are free to live and express their opinions. Outside of the Summi triangle, the vast majority live in peace and increasing prosperity. Is the world a more dangerous place? Actually, no. Living in the Summi portion of Iraq is dangerous. Living anywhere else isn�t all that bad. Terrorists flock to Iraq these days. Let �em flock. Better that they should take on the Big Red One than the NYPD. While terrorist activity outside of Iraq has not been eliminated, it has decreased markedly. We�ve effectively chosen the battlefield, and put the best of our might in a position to fight it. The non-lunatic portion of the Arab world is figuring that out too. Mainstream Iraqis are increasingly disgusted with the terrorists. When the fanatics struck Lebanon, the Lebanese turned out by tons of thousands to denounce fanaticism. Syria, the biggest supporter of terrorism in the Middle East, is in full retreat. We may have picked this particular battlefield by mistake�not by a lie�but, having chosen it we would be idiots to retreat now. We�ve stumbled into a good cause�a great cause�as most anyone who has served in Iraq can attest. If we have the strength to persevere, we have the opportunity to make the most positive difference in the world since we helped defeat Hitler. If we lack the will and choose the foolish, selfish course of retreat, we will do nothing but to leave our children a world far too dangerous. |