Preemption and democracy
Reader comment on item: Defending and Advancing Freedom

Submitted by Donald W. Bales (United States), Nov 2, 2005 at 16:12

1. Our intelligence stinks. Over reliance on technology and not enough humans on the ground. The CIA missed the imminent downfall of the USSR. Also the Church Committee forbade the use of anyone other than Boy Scouts. Then Janet Reno and Gorelick prevented the sharing of info between the FBI and the CIA.
2. When all the intelligence services, the UN, and many prominent Democrats, including the Clinton admiistration, stated that Iraq had WMD's, Bush would have been derelict in his duty after 911 had he not acted against Afghanistan. Scott Ritter did maintain that Iraq had none. He was right. There was plenty of time for almst anything in any amount to have been moved.
3. As to Iraq, being wrong in not taking action-if Iraq had WMD's, would have been unforgivable had one or more of our cities been attacked.
4. The previous plan of accepting blows with no response and consorting with autoctatic states did not seem to prevent 911. Try something new, since the old wasn't working. The Iraqis had not had the stuffing knocked out of them as had the Germans and the Japanese, and they did not have support or funding to mount a resistance as the insurgents have nor did they have a religious revival to tap into the energy of.
5. Having elections showed that we did not want to keep on occupying Iraq even though we should, and probably will, have troops there for very many years. Don't we still have troops in Germany, Japan, and Korea?
6. The hazard is that the Iraqis could elect a regime hostile to the U. S.
7. The other hazard is that the people of the U. S.will force a withdrawl from Iraq as they did from Vietnam. That makes time more important. We can't wait decades.
The Vietnam defeat was bad, but did not carry the same threat the homeland that a defeat in Iraq would carry.

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened for relevance, substance, and tone, and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome, but comments are rejected if scurrilous, off-topic, vulgar, ad hominem, or otherwise viewed as inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the Guidelines for Comments. For informational purposes, we identify countries from which comments are sent.