So, the Chicago Tribune (which supported going to war in Iraq) has been running a series of editorials supposedly examining the Bush Administration's case for war. Now, I'm not a subscriber and I haven't read all the editorials. Heck, I didn't even read this one all the way through. Because I didn't need to. Everything you need to know about the essentially dishonesty or stupidity of the Tribune editors is perfectly illustrated by one paragraph.
In addressing the Bush admininstrations completely false claims about Iraq's WMDs, the Tribune dismisses the importance of that with this...
"There was no need for the administration to rely on risky intelligence to chronicle many of Iraq's other sins. In putting so much emphasis on illicit weaponry, the White House advanced its most provocative, least verifiable case for war when others would have sufficed."
The Chicago Tribune editors are soooo stupid or soooo dishonest that they claim that if President Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and the rest hadn't run all over this country screaming their heads off about "mushroom clouds" and drone planes that might lauch WMDs at American cities, the country still would have gone along with attacking Iraq. That is total BULL that no one with a fully functioning brain can possibly believe. The idea that the U.S. Congress (even one run by Delay and company) would have authorized or the American people would have supported going to war because Iraq didn't comply with U.N. sanctions or any of the other lesser reasons offered up is nonsense.
And it's not just me who understands that. The Bush Adminstration also understood that, which is exactly why they made WMDs the first, second and third reason they gave for going to war. It's the reason why they were willing to use so many obviously questionable and dubious claims about WMDs over and over again. To make their war happen, they needed to scare people and that's what they did.
When I read the two sentences quoted above, I stopped reading because I realized there was no point. If the Tribune editors were going to be soooo stupid or soooo dishonest about WMDs, there absolutely no need to bother with the rest of their tripe.
Mike