"ANALYSIS" FROM WINGNUTTIA

Neo-neocon, of blogger fatigue fame, has decided to try to explain why the Iraq war is so hated in America, as if that is a real question. Once again, I decided to reply on her blog and share some of my replies here. Her statements are italicized, my replies are directly below.


And it's not as though Saddam Hussein, whose regime was the original target of the war
Stop lying, NEO-NEOCON.
THE PRESIDENT: Our mission is clear in Iraq. Should we have to go in, our mission is very clear: disarmament. 3/6/03
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030306-8.html
NEO-NEOCON: No, there seems to be something special about the war in Iraq
It was special when the late Pope John Paul sent a personal emissary to Pres. Fredo urging him not to invade.
NEO-NEOCON: After all, it's not as though this is a war with especially high casualties on either side
Any casualties are "especially high" if the war is immoral and illegal, as this one is. Is your ass in Ramadi?.....Didn't think so.
NEO-NEOCON: Nor is there a draft.
But there are stop-loss orders and the unprecedented use of the National Guard.
NEO-NEOCON: This hatred--and "hatred" is almost not a strong enough word for it--predated the war, of course, so the war has not caused it.
Let's see some poll numbers that back this up.
NEO-NEOCON: The reasons behind it, although they were explained, were complex and multiple.
They were multiple but they weren't complex.
http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/tr20030509-depsecdef0223.html
"The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason. There have always been three fundamental concerns. One is weapons of mass destruction, the second is support for terrorism, the third is the criminal treatment of the Iraqi people. Actually I guess you could say there's a fourth overriding one which is the connection between the first two. The third one by itself, as I think I said earlier, is a reason to help the Iraqis but it's not a reason to put American kids' lives at risk, certainly not on the scale we did it. That second issue about links to terrorism is the one about which there's the most disagreement within the bureaucracy." - PAUL WOLFOWITZ
NEO-NEOCON: But it is especially hard for many to credit the "self-defense" or "defense of the neighbors of Iraq" argument
No shit!
"We do not have any direct evidence that Iraq has used the period since Desert Fox to reconstitute its WMD programs",TENET, 2/07/2001
http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/bian_feb_2001.htm
POWELL, 2/24/2001: "He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors"
"The Iraqi regime militarily remains fairly weak. It doesn't have the capacity it had 10 or 12 years ago. It has been contained." Powell, 5/15/01
"He [Saddam] does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt." Rice, 7/29/01
MR. RUSSERT: Do we have evidence that he's harboring terrorists?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: There is--in the past, there have been some activities related to terrorism by Saddam Hussein. But at this stage, you know, the focus is over here on al-Qaida and the most recent events in New York. Saddam Hussein's bottled up, at this point, but clearly, we continue to have a fairly tough policy where the Iraqis are concerned. http://www.whitehouse.gov/vicepresident/news-speeches/speeches/vp20010916.html
NEO-NEOCON: That's mostly because it involves a reconstruction
The reconstruction has been a miserable failure. We have wasted at least $32 billion and Iraq is worse off now than before the war.




There's a LOT more of this sort of crap from Neo-neocon and you should check out some of the wingnut idiots in the comments.