This is why we invaded Iraq: "a robust show of force"(Blair). . .posturing

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Thu Jun-30-05 09:45 AM
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This is why we invaded Iraq: "a robust show of force"(Blair). . .posturing

Blair 'Astonished' by Coverage of Memos

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BLAIR_INTERVIEW?SITE=APWEB&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2005-06-30-05-40-05

{snip}

For Prime Minister Tony Blair, the road to Iraq started with 9/11. The British leader said Wednesday in an interview with The Associated Press that the attacks on U.S. soil fundamentally changed "the balance of risk" in the world, sharing President Bush's view that the tragedy had made a robust show of force an urgent priority.

The attacks, he said, made it necessary to "draw a line in the sand here, and the country to do it with was Iraq because they were in breach of U.N. resolutions going back over many years."

Sitting on a stone terrace overlooking the garden of his Downing Street residence, Blair reflected on how Sept. 11 convinced him of the need for a new approach to the threat of international terror.

"9/11 changed the whole picture for me, it changed the politics of how we dealt with the threat," he said.

Although Blair gets points for a moment of candor, this is a stunning admission, and a window into the flawed logic that convinced Blair to let Bush lead him into an illegal, manufactured war of opportunity. Blair admits that the assault on Baghdad was essentially a muscle-flexing exercise, yet he conveniently leaves out issue of the hyped rhetoric about WMDs and the non-existent nuclear threat that he and Bush wined on and on about as they sold the invasion to their respective countrymen.

Now these jokers want to be seen as, essentially, just these two well-meaning warriors who had our backs. But Blair reveals their true personalities: two paranoid boobs who were more concerned about rehabilitating their own weak images after 9-11, than in formulating and executing a prudent response that wouldn't isolate us and further threaten our security.

They thought Iraq would be a cakewalk (the hunt for bin Laden was a bust) so they loaded up our national pride and covered all of us with Iraqi blood to go with the blood of innocent Afghans caught in our swaggering reprisal. Tens of thousands of innocents, in Iraq and Afghanistan have been killed by our cluster bombs, our search and destroy missions, and by the misguided hands of our nervous soldiers so that Blair and Bush could "draw a line in the sand" like bullies in front of a crowd.

So the numbers of bystanders slaughtered by our aggression quickly outpaced the numbers killed in the 9-11 attack, but that wasn't enough to satiate the fear of Blair and Bush. And they seem shocked (as bullies often are) at the lack of fear from those they sought to dominate with their violence. And their enemies multiplied. More shock. And their critics multiplied. More shock.

They are caught in their own vain play. Bush and Blair's rout of Saddam may have made them appear to be warrior kings. But in the context of their overwhelming domination of the inept Saddam and the hapless Iraqi army, they more resemble Don Quixote. In the classic tale of the ideal vs. the real, Quixote battles windmills that appear to be giants, and sheep that look to him like armies. He believes himself the victor, comes to his senses, only to be trapped by his delusion; forced to play the conquering hero.

According to our own military and intelligence operatives, our presence in Iraq is having the effect of creating more enemies and resistance to the U.S. than can be countered by any new recruits or any new Iraqi government intuitive sponsored or propped up by our heavy-handed military forces and their war of aggression against all who would resist our occupying army. Our oppressive posture has pushed the citizens of this once sovereign nation to a forced expression of their nationalism in defense of basic prerogatives of liberty and self-determination, which our false authority disregards as threats to our consolidation of power.

Yet, Bush and Blair push on, mesmerized by their own hypocritical rhetoric about freedom and democracy. It's more than clear to all in the Middle East that these stated ideals mask the bloody reality that the U.S., under Bush's leadership, has become the type of oppressor that all the suffering people around the world fear. The random exercise of our military strength and destructive power will not serve as a deterrent to these rouge, radical terrorist organizations who claim no permanent base of operations. The wanton, collateral bombing and killing has undoubtedly alienated any fringe of moderates who might have joined in a unified effort of regime change which respects our own democratic values of justice and due process.

Bush, in his Iraq speech, quoted General John Vines who said: "We either deal with terrorism and this extremism abroad, or we deal with it when it comes to us."

That's the common mantra coming from the White House. Vice President Cheney cautioned in a speech before the Heritage Foundation: "We are fighting this evil in Iraq so that we do not have to fight it in our own cities."

Sadly, American soldiers also serve as targets in Iraq, and their lives are no less important than ours here in the states. Inviting attacks overseas is an amazing retreat from the peaceful influence of a great nation of justice; humbled by bloody, devastating wars; and witnessed to the power of liberty, and to the freedom inherent in the constitution we wisely defend with our peaceful acts of mercy, charity, and tolerance.

What is the value in using Iraq as a terror magnet? It has resulted in daily attacks on our soldiers by an Iraqi resistance. What is it about our operation in Iraq that would support the argument that we won't have to fight them (terrorists) on our shores? Most observers predict another devastating attack in the U.S. is inevitable if not imminent. Further, by likening Iraq to the worldwide Muslim terror offensive the president does what Hussein could not; he binds Iraqis to the Muslim extremists. He practically invites them to join the battle there and ally with the forces that threaten our soldiers daily.

"Peace," Herman Wouk wrote, "if it ever exists, will not be based on the fear of war, but on the love of peace. It will not be the abstaining from an act but the coming of a state of mind." All else that we pursue should be a means to that peace; and a wholesale rejection of violent postures which just invite more violence.