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Which smoking gun do you want?

9 comments on Which smoking gun do you want?

Which smoking gun do you want?
: MSNBC says the latest three suspected WMD finds are testing negative.

Let’s deal with this canard right now:

What if we don’t find WMD? So what? Yes, it was the pretext for war.

But after watching the liberation of a people who clearly want to be liberated — and after already hearing more details of the tyranny they suffered — can you still say that we should not have waged this war to oust Saddam Hussein?

Is the smoking gun a chemical?

Or is the smoking gun hundreds of children in prison?

Is the smoking gun a missle too long?

Or is the smoking gun a cell where citizens were tortured and murdered by their government?

Is the smoking gun a germ?

Or is the smoking gun a people who yearned to be free and now are?

9 responses to “Which smoking gun do you want?”

  1. Laurie K Avatar
    Laurie K

    Yes, I think that chemical weapons need to be found to justify our presence. It’s nice to see the Iraqis happy, but that’s not the reason we went in. The liberation spin came rather late in the game. We went to get rid of someone we felt, rightly, was dangerous to our security. He was not dangerous to us or the world community because he was brutal to his people. He was dangerous because of what he was believed to possess, and that’s why our tax dollars were spent, and that’s why our blood was shed. Liberation is a pleasant outcome, but, to me, it’s totally secondary. I don’t want my country in the business of waltzing into other nations to “liberate” people. There’d better be a compelling national security reason for doing so.
    So yeah, I hope we find chemical weapons, and believe that eventually we will. If we haven’t already. I think there’s such fog now that neither the various claims or discountings of claims can necessarily be believed.
    That’s what this liberal thinks.

  2. Robert Speirs Avatar
    Robert Speirs

    This objectivist thinks that the victory has proven that the Saddamite regime was both stockpiling and developing chemical and biological weapons, whether or not any large stocks are found. It couldn’t be clearer that if we had “left Saddam alone”, he would have continued his WMD programs. The presence of hundreds, maybe thousands of non-Iraqi terrorists, the only force that fought at all effectively, nails down beyond dispute the “links” between Iraq and international terrorism. And isn’t that what the “War against Terror” is fighting against? But some people will never accept any amount of proof.

  3. stageleft Avatar
    stageleft

    Words fail me – is there any other possible spin that you haven’t put on this yet? I await with baited breath your next spin dish offering.

  4. Dan Hartung Avatar
    Dan Hartung

    The Iraqi behavior regarding the inspection process gave me all the proof I need that they had something they desperately wanted to hide. This was not the behavior of a regime seeking international legitimacy and friendship by baring its darkest secrets, as has been done by South Africa, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and others. This is a regime that sought to avoid being invaded.
    But regardless, this liberal thinks that liberation and human rights should have been part of the equation from the beginning. It’s a shame the UN never put together a team of Human Rights Inspectors. (Of course we know why: too many member states would be vulnerable. But maybe with Iraq off the list that’s something that they can start considering.)

  5. Chad Avatar
    Chad

    Frankly, I have a hard time seeing how many of my fellow liberals could not come to the conclusion that finding no WMD’s in Iraq is the best possible short-term scenario.
    If no WMD’s are ultimately found, the United States gets to liberate an obviously oppressed people (always a good thing) and the Democrats have a giant pretext for going after Bush with in ’04.

  6. Pithpott Avatar
    Pithpott

    This whole business of finding a smoking gun is becoming rather irrelevant don’t you think?
    Sub-human, suicidal terrorist actions and the continued, aggressively illogical posturing from Islamic religious leaders have forced the inevitable conclusion that meaningful negotiation is way beyond Arab ambition or capabilities.
    These attitudes have so boiled down the options for us in the free world that we are finally forced to make a fundamental choice between the moral polarities of “right or wrong”.
    It must be quite apparent, even to our liberal thinkers, that ordinary political agreement is no protection against regimes or ideologies who think outside of basic human morality. Such as shooting from behind little children, faking surrender, and endlessly so on and so forth.
    We look at Saddam’s resume and can only conclude that he is wrong. We make a moral choice to disarm him and show enough balls to stand by it. In the process of doing so, surely we have seen already, enough overpowering smoke to make a moral judgement, rendering the finding of physical evidence somewhat underwhelming.
    If liberal minds won’t accept what is plainly evident it can only be because they prefer not to.
    They have made their choice between right and wrong, and the coalition need not waste much-needed energy looking for proof which the naysaying conspiratists will never believe anyway.
    Western democracies faced the same moral choice regarding Iraq and those with the most to hide decided that they preferred to idley fart and fiddle around the moral decision facing them.
    Bush, following Sep11, had this option to him removed. Forced into the aforementioned choice he chose action over acting, right over wrong.
    In his non-eloquence he stumblingly failed time after time to convey his strategists’ advice to a sophisticated and hugely negative world audience.
    But he is being proved, daily, to have made the right choice and I for one thank his God that he did. And respectfully suggest that he no longer needs the vindication of finding a smoking gun.

  7. Mike G Avatar
    Mike G

    To believe there are no WMDs is to believe that Saddam threw the inspectors out, stared down the world and ultimately wrecked his regime for no reason at all. Try to have some of the patience you didn’t display toward this incredibly drawn-out three-week quagmire of a war…

  8. dave t Avatar
    dave t

    There is already a “smoking gun” people. Article 32 of UN resolution 687. They can’t support international terrorism. They did support international terrorism. nuff said

  9. Dan Hartung (blogging again) Avatar
    Dan Hartung (blogging again)

    The smoking gun is there, regardless. He had proven his regime could not be trusted not to develop WMD without crushing sanctions and intrusive inspections. The world would not continue either, let alone both, for very long. He had to be dealt with.
    Of course, as I point out on my blog [plug!], we should have had Human Rights Inspectors in there the whole time as well. That we didn’t is testimony to the emasculation of the UN.