Imagine all the people
'...let’s try to imagine how President Bush would have summed up his case for war, knowing what we know now:
“I believe Iraq is a threat. Though he has no biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons, Saddam Hussein did some terrible things in the past. Yes, the greatest threat to American safety is the Al Qaeda terrorist network that attacked us on 9/11, and we know that no matter how bad a guy Saddam is, he had nothing to do with that. But we’ll take resources out of Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden is, in order to send them to Iraq. And come to think of it, this war will be the greatest recruiting tool Al Qaeda could ever dream of. What’s more, thousands of jihadists will get training and experience in killing Americans as they come to Iraq to fight us. Within a year or two this war will help transform Al Qaeda from an organization into a movement, in part because the war will lead to growing anti-Americanism across the Muslim world. Prisoner abuse scandals and civilian deaths will further inflame world opinion against us. You think they don’t like us now—just wait. Terrorist attacks around the war will increase in the wake of this war.
“And the war will not be easy. Indeed, by the time it’s over it may cost as much as half a trillion dollars. It will stretch our military dangerously thin, making it harder to respond to crises in other places in the world. Military recruiting will become more difficult. Thousands of brave young American men and women will be killed, and thousands more will be maimed for life. We will find ourselves presiding over a virtual civil war in Iraq as the varying religious groups struggle for power and a vicious insurgency takes more American and Iraqi lives every day in a seemingly endless cycle of chaos and misery.
“Now who’s with me?”
FROM...Tom E c/o antiwar.com
“I believe Iraq is a threat. Though he has no biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons, Saddam Hussein did some terrible things in the past. Yes, the greatest threat to American safety is the Al Qaeda terrorist network that attacked us on 9/11, and we know that no matter how bad a guy Saddam is, he had nothing to do with that. But we’ll take resources out of Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden is, in order to send them to Iraq. And come to think of it, this war will be the greatest recruiting tool Al Qaeda could ever dream of. What’s more, thousands of jihadists will get training and experience in killing Americans as they come to Iraq to fight us. Within a year or two this war will help transform Al Qaeda from an organization into a movement, in part because the war will lead to growing anti-Americanism across the Muslim world. Prisoner abuse scandals and civilian deaths will further inflame world opinion against us. You think they don’t like us now—just wait. Terrorist attacks around the war will increase in the wake of this war.
“And the war will not be easy. Indeed, by the time it’s over it may cost as much as half a trillion dollars. It will stretch our military dangerously thin, making it harder to respond to crises in other places in the world. Military recruiting will become more difficult. Thousands of brave young American men and women will be killed, and thousands more will be maimed for life. We will find ourselves presiding over a virtual civil war in Iraq as the varying religious groups struggle for power and a vicious insurgency takes more American and Iraqi lives every day in a seemingly endless cycle of chaos and misery.
“Now who’s with me?”
FROM...Tom E c/o antiwar.com
posted by professor rat at 5:21 AM
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