Impeach Bush

An Anti-War Argument Revisited

After the fall of Baghdad, reporters on Fox TV news were crowing about the liberation of Iraq. They said that the "left" should apologize for being against the war. So I am revisiting my anti-war page to see if I still feel the same way. My comments before the war are in black.

Bush Should NOT Start a War with Iraq because:

An all out war with Iraq could cause the death of thousands, perhaps millions of human beings.

True. Over 1100 coalition soldiers and over 14000 Iraqi civilians have been killed so far in this war. Because of the accuracy of modern weapons one can assume that the Iraqi military death toll is far higher than the civilian death toll. Many of those Iraqi soldiers were conscripts forced into battle. The death toll would have been far higher if Saddam had posessed and used weapons of mass destruction.

Attacking Iraq will make us less secure by inflaming anti-American sentiment, which could cause more terrorism, and could destabilize Egypt, Pakistan and other Muslim nations.

Time will tell. This war has already triggered deadly riots in Egypt and other Arab countries.

Iraq has not issued any threats against the United States and is not about to attack us.

After seeing how quickly the US military defeated the Iraqi military, one has to wonder how much of a danger they were to the homeland of the United States. Our military was vastly superior.

There are many viable alternatives to war that we have not pursued.

Sadly we will never know whether alternatives to war would have worked.

Attacking Iraq will encourage Saddam Hussein to use his weapons of mass destruction before he loses them.

I'm glad I got that one wrong. Saddam never used any weapons of mass destruction. US troops have been searching Iraq and cannot find any weapons of mass destruction. Now it appears Saddam never had any. I made the mistake of believing Bush.

Bush does not have legal authority to attack Iraq without UN approval.

Still true.

We need to focus our attention on Al Quaeda, which has recently attacked the United States and vows to do so again.
A pre-emptive attack by the United States would be a dangerous precedent that would destabilize international relations.
America should set a good example for other nations by operating within the confines of International Law. Otherwise we are an outlaw nation with no moral authority.
A war with Iraq could easily escalate to a regional conflagration.

Before the smoke cleared over Baghdad we were accusing Syria of having weapons of mass destruction and of harboring Iraqi leaders. Are they next? Al Qaeda is also now launching attacks in Saudi Arabia.

Attacking Iraq will hamper our ability to fight terrorism by turning our current allies against us. We had a great deal of sympathy and cooperation from other nations after 9/11. We have squandered that good will by pursuing this pointless war against Iraq.
Bush is attacking Iraq for all the wrong reasons: money and power.
War in the Middle East could interrupt the flow of oil to the United States which would harm our economy.

So far this hasn't happened. Also once we get Iraq's oil on the market we can counter Opec's and drives prices down by over-producing. Maybe this was part of the motivation.

War in the Middle East will cost between $100 to $200 billion, which we desparately need here at home.
The increase in military spending will mainly benefit defense industry king-pins, many of whom are Bush contributors and political associates.

True. Haliburton (Dick Cheney's old company) and Bechtel (big Bush supporters) have won lucrative contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq. No surprise there. The GAO is investigating this apparent sweet-heart deal.

I don't see much to apologize for here. My opposition to the war was not based on the fear that we would lose. So a relatively swift victory is no surprise. I am also not surprised that many Iraqis celebrated the fall of Saddam. He was a terrible blood-thirsty dictator that stole his countries wealth. We all knew that.

My oppostion to war was based on two main ideas. One is the fact that war kills and wounds lots of people. You wouldn't know that from watching TV but here are some images that tell more of the story. Secondly, Bush violated International law when he attacked Iraq. That is vigilante justice. Even though I also opposed Saddam, I feel that the way to prevent war is to build and support a system of International Justice. I have seen on TV a mother break into a court room to shoot a child molester. I understand the emotion behind that because I share her feelings. But I also know that we are better off letting the justice system do its work. So I still believe that attacking Iraq was the wrong thing to do. I hope that in the future we will learn to solve international problems through legal means.