Conceding Mistakes About War-- It's time to admit that President Bush should have delayed war against Saddam Hussein until after obtaining approval by, and participation of, the United Nations, NATO, France, Canada, and "moderate" Arab countries in addition to Britain and Australia.

May 16, 2004 #01: Political Satire/Commentary where satire is always commentary but commentary isn't always satire™
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It's time to admit that President Bush should have delayed war against Saddam Hussein until after obtaining approval by, and participation of, the United Nations, NATO, France, Canada, and "moderate" Arab countries in addition to Britain and Australia.·

It's time for those of us who supported President Bush's war against Saddam Hussein to admit that Bush should have delayed war against Saddam Hussein until after obtaining approval by, and participation of, the United Nations, NATO, France, Canada and "moderate" Arab countries in addition to Britain and Australia. It's time that we also admit that before commencement of such warfare, there was every reason to believe that assembling such "international" coalition of moral and legal authority would have been prevented such war from serving as an incentive for terrorist organizations covertly aided by lawless and/or outlaw states to recruit fanatics to attack the United States and its allies.

It's time that we also admit that assembling such broad, international coalition would discourage lawless and outlaw states from continuing to covertly facilitate terrorism against the United States and its allies. It's time to admit that commencing warfare only after assembling such coalition would have maximized our ability to minimize casualties among United States military personnel.

It's time to admit that commencing warfare only after assembling such broad, international coalition would have minimized the ability of terrorists to characterize such action as a war by the United States against an Arab country and/or a Muslim country. It's time to admit that commencing such warfare only after procuring such broad, international support constituted the best way to minimize the risks of the conflict worsening the prospects for the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.

It's time to admit that President Bush ought to have expected that to commence such warfare without such broad international support would increase incentives for terrorists to attack the United States. Indeed, it's time to admit that everyone expected that procurement of support for such war from the U.N., NATO, France, et al, would reduce, not increase, the abilities of our adversaries to recruit fanatics to attack us.

Likewise, it's time for those who most vociferously opposed commencement of President Bush's war against Saddam Hussein to admit that before President Bush ordered commencement of war, he did obtain United Nations approval, he did procure NATO participation, and he did procure support of, and participation by, Arab countries, When such critics dispute these assertions, it's time to remind them that the President was George Herbert Walker Bush and the war was the Persian Gulf War to evict Saddam Hussein's forces from Kuwait. When such critics fail to grasp the relevance of these facts, it time to remind them that the major reason described by Usama bin Laden and his al Qaeda fanatics as their "justification" for the 9-11 attack was that the United States had "desecrated" Arab/Muslim land by deploying military forces into Saudi Arabia in the Persian Gulf War and by thereafter maintaining a smaller deployment in Saudi Arabia to "contain" Saddam Hussein.

Likewise, with respect to those who contend the United States' failure (thus far) to find evidence of the presence of massive stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons and/or re-constituted nuclear weapons programs in Iraq during the time period preceding commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom invalidates Bush's assertions of moral justification for the war, it's time for them to admit that for Bush to have abstained from war in favor of complying with demands of the United Nationistas (i.e., the French, the Russians, the Germans, and the Chinese) to merely "continue inspections" and "contain" Saddam Hussein would have required the United States to indefinitely continue maintaining a military force in the Persian Gulf and Saudi Arabia many times larger than the small, pre-positioned force in Saudi Arabia before 9-11, the presence of which bin Laden cited as his chief justification for the 9-11 attack. The refusal of Bush's critics to acknowledge the validity of such common-sense conclusions proves not that they lack common sense but rather than they lack the political will to forego the partisan advantage of pretending they're inapplicable.

George W. Bush and those of us who support Operation Iraqi Freedom should demand that critics of the war explain to the American voters how refraining from toppling Saddam Hussein unless and until the United Nationistas' were to have approved, and participated in, such action could have made us "safer" or somehow reduced terrorists' motivations to strike us again for maintaining a larger force in the Persian Gulf post-9-11 (to enforce "sanctions" and "inspections") than the token-size of the pre-9-11 force, the existence of which motivated their 9-11 attack. Making such demands would remind voters currently distracted by unexpected difficulties in completing the tasks at hand that there is no common-sense basis for critics to make such claim. Rather than falling prey to such baseless claims by critics, voters would be more likely to remember the Prime Directive of International Law: "Fool us once, shame on you; fool us twice, shame on us."

Conceding Mistakes about War.

Say critics of Bush, "Waging war
has made us less safe than before.
To merely contain
Saddam," they proclaim,
"is all that was needed, not more."

They claim that we shouldn't commence
a war without U.N. consent
because such support
they'd hope would help thwart
revenge for the warfare commenced.

For we who approved war by Bush,
it's time for conceding that Bush
should first have procured
the U.N.'s de jure
support for the warfare by Bush.

It's time to concede that before
the pushing of buttons for war,
such U.N. support
we'd hope would help thwart
revenge against us for the war.

But likewise, it's time Bush's critics
admit facts they'd not like admitted:
That Bush did procure
the U.N.'s de jure
support to start war when he did it.

They'll claim this by Bush wasn't done,
forgetting 'twas Bush 41,
whose U.N. support
for war didn't thwart
revenge in September, '01.

They'll try to pretend they've forgotten
the motive explained by bin Laden
was basing our force
with U.N. support
in Mid-Eastern lands against Saddam.

So therefore, it's time Dubya's critics
against their own theories be pitted
to quash their retort
that U.N. support
would help thwart revenge on our cities.

It's time they be forced to concede
if Bush had said, "War we don't need,"
a much larger force
than forces deployed
before 9-11 we'd need.

It's time that they further concede
maintaining the forces we'd need
in Mid-Eastern lands
to tie Saddam's hands
would make our risks grow, not recede.

It's time for such critics to end
their naive desire to pretend
such much-larger force
would not have perforce
increased Qaeda's lust for revenge.

--Jim Wrenn, Editor@PoliSat.Com.

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