http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-502es.html
Executive Summary
President Bush asserts that U.S. military action against Iraq was
justified because Saddam Hussein was in material breach of United
Nations Security Council Resolution 1441. But even if Iraq was in
violation of a UN resolution, the U.S. military does not exist to
enforce UN mandates. It exists to defend the United States: its
territorial integrity and national sovereignty, the population, and
the liberties that underlie the American way of life. So whether Iraq
was in violation of Resolution 1441 is irrelevant. The real question
is whether Iraq represented a direct and imminent threat to the United
States that could not otherwise be deterred. If that was the case,
then preemptive self-defense, like Israel's military action against
Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq in the 1967 Six Day War, would have
been warranted. And if Iraq was not a threat, especially in terms of
aiding and abetting Al Qaeda, then the United States fought a needless
war against a phantom menace.
In the final analysis, the war against Iraq was the wrong war. Not
because the United States used preemptive military force—preemptive
self-defense would have been justified in the face of a truly imminent
threat. Not because the United States acted without the consent of the
United Nations—no country should surrender its defense to a vote of
other nations. And not because Iraq had weapons of mass destruction
(WMD)—none has been discovered and, even if they existed, they were
not a threat.
The war against Iraq was the wrong war because the enemy at the gates
was, and continues to be, Al Qaeda. Not only was Iraq not a direct
military threat to the United States (even if it possessed WMD, which
was a fair assumption), but there is no good evidence to support the
claim that Saddam Hussein was in league with Al Qaeda and would have
given the group WMD to be used against the United States. In fact, all
the evidence suggests the contrary. Hussein was a secular Muslim
ruler, and bin Laden is a radical Muslim fundamentalist—their
ideological views are hardly compatible.
Ironically, President Bush provided his own indictment of the Iraq war
when he addressed the United Nations General Assembly in September
2003: "No government should ignore the threat of terror, because to
look the other way gives terrorists the chance to regroup and recruit
and prepare." But that is exactly what the United States did by going
to war against Iraq. To make matters even worse, the American taxpayer
is stuck with the bill for the war and postwar reconstruction.
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Yang
a.a. #28
AthD (h.c.) conferred by the regents of the LCL
a.a. pastor #-273.15, the most frigid church of Celcius nee Kelvin
EAC Econometric Forecast and Socerey Division
Proudly plonked by Lani Girl and Crazyalec
The Bush 'balanced' budget: 1.2 trillion and worsening
The Bush 'economic' policy: -3 million jobs and counting
The Bush Iraq lie: -899 GIs, one friend's co-worker's son and mounting
Having Bush ***** up my country: Worthless
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