re: #47 What, me worry?

Indeed. I was actually in favor of the Iraq war for a very long time and I’m probably the only liberal on the planet who felt that way, WMDs or no. Now I think that revolution has to come from within. Anyone who enters a country will always be seen as an occupier even if they have the best intentions. And of course, it’s never that cut and dry.

The weapons inspectors had been in Iraq about 12 years prior to the U.S. invasion and they could never confirm what Hussein had, other than chemical warfare which he had already used on the Kurds, killing some 200,000 I believe. So the whole WMD was a ruse and I believe Bush knew that from the get go.

I actually don’t think that he knew so. I don’t think that he would have taken the risk of justifying the invasion on the basis of WMD if he actually knew they didn’t exist. I don’t think he had that political courage.

I think that he was just willing to jettison rational cost/benefit analysis on the basis of ideological justification. He basically stated exactly that in interviews. He stated that he didn’t worry about negative consequences because god told him his decision-making was correct, and he was supported in such views by those who were blinded by a driving vision of American hegemony.