Yeah, after I posted this and went off to class, I was thinking I'd probably catch some heat...

So, longwinded post ahead. You have been warned.

> > The thing you're missing is that this whole thing about being in Iraq to promote freedom or democracy or find WMDs or whatever is political rhetoric to make a war that was really started for selfish reasons (I'm still trying to decide whether it was just as revenge for Saddam trying to assassinate Bush Sr (or whatever), for the sake of oil, because our president is a scared man who feels the need to lash out when he's frightened, or some combination) palatable to the American public, the majority of whom unfortunately don't have the critical thinking skills to see the lies we're being told on a daily basis.
>
> Just out of curiosity. You have any evidence for this, or are you just assuming? The fact that you say you're "still trying to decide" what the REAL reason is definitely implies that you've basically made all this up. If you haven't, that's great. Now please supply your evidence.

I've based my opinions on discussions I've had with people who I consider to be knowledgable over the past few years, on my observation of Bush and the Iraq situation, and on my own opinion of human nature as a whole.

Of course, I'm well aware that saying I've talked about this with people doesn't count as good support for my claims. Point by point, here's my support/reasoning:



As far as support for W. believing that Saddam tried to kill his father (whether or not Hussein actually did attempt this is immaterial -- it's what Bush thinks that's relevant here), I've pulled a few paragraphs from http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1019-05.htm:


During a campaign speech in September 2002, Bush cited a number of reasons -- in addition to alleged terrorist links and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) about why Saddam was so dangerous to the U.S., noting, in particular that, ''After all, this is the guy who tired to kill my dad.''

He was referring, of course, to an alleged plot by Iraqi intelligence to assassinate Bush's father, former president George H.W. Bush, during his triumphal visit to Kuwait in April, 1993 [...] Although he did not name his father, Bush Jr. also cited the assassination attempt in his September 2002 address at the United Nations General Assembly where he called on the U.N. Security Council to approve a tough resolution demanding that Saddam fully give up his (non-existent) WMD weapons and programs

While the alleged plot was never cited officially as a cause for going to war, some pundits -- including Maureen Dowd of the 'New York Times'-- have speculated that revenge or some oedipal desire to show up his father may indeed have been one of the factors that drove him to Baghdad [...]


About.com also discusses Bush's belief that Hussein tried to kill Bush Sr here: http://atheism.about.com/b/a/120699.htm


I find it perfectly believable given what I have seen of Bush's personality (headstrong, authoritarian, seeing the world in black-and-white terms of good and evil and tending to want "evildoers" to be severely punished) that vengeance could have played a part in his decision to declare war on Iraq. Of course it wasn't a motive that was made public. I could believe that it may even be a subconscious thing for Bush. Even if it was a conscious motive, Bush and/or his advisors are too politically savvy to make such a political blunder as saying we should go to war because Hussein may have tried to assassinate Bush Sr ten years ago. That would be blatantly selfish and silly, and wouldn't have gotten any support.



As for the oil thing, I'll admit to basically taking that almost as a catchphrase from a bunch of other people I've talked to without ever really considering it more. Thanks for calling me out on that. I'm not going to try to support this point in depth, because I think that it'll probably end up being complex enough that I should spend a couple of days doing my own research into it and redeciding if it's an opinion that I really should be holding. I will say, though, in response to this:

> If this whole war is just for oil, where is all the oil?

If we went into this war with a goal (oil or whatever), that doesn't mean that we must have achieved that goal. We went into Afghanistan to find bin Laden, and we still haven't caught up with him, have we? I think it's silly to assume that if we haven't achieved a goal, we can't possibly have done what we did with the purpose of achieving that goal. People can fail at things. People can miscalculate the effects of actions. We could've gone in thinking that we'd get control of more oil-related resources, only to find that things didn't work out as expected.



And the third theory is more or less what I think. You can call it an assumption, though I think that "assumption" connotes believing something without doing some thinking about it first, and I've definitely thought about this quite a bit. I've come to the conclusion that people in general are easily scared and will go to extreme measures to protect their sense of safety. (Maybe that's not so surprising, either, because this world is damn scary.) I believe that Bush is, frankly, frightened. Who wouldn't be? Imagine being at the head of a country that has just suffered a devastating and unexpected (I'm not going to get into whether people knew that 9/11 was going to happen beforehand, okay?) attack. I'm extrapolating somewhat from what I and others to whom I spoke after 9/11 felt here -- but the idea of the United States being attacked on its own soil was pretty much an impossiblity in many people's minds before that day. We had believed that we were fundamentally safe in some way. Suddenly it was clear that we weren't. It was scary. When you're frightened, you want to feel safe again. How do you feel safe? You can go and cower somewhere protected, but Bush as president couldn't do that. One big, other option is to make yourself feel strong and powerful again -- when you feel as though you can hurt whoever wants to hurt you, you feel safer. (Also, you want to get rid of the people who make you feel unsafe.) The war in Afghanistan was the first reaction along those lines. But the world was still dangerous and frightening, and there were still people in it who could threaten our sense of security. So again, Bush lashed out -- this time in Iraq.


(semi-aside: Yes, the whole thing about people being easily frightened is cynical and pessimistic. Believe me, I'd love to have an optimistic view of humanity and the future of the world, but looking at history, especially the events of the last century or so, makes it impossible for me to believe that this world is going anywhere other than hell in a handbasket. My thoughts are based on my own observation of the world around me and on a bunch of psychology classes. It's not scientific research, obviously, and I'm sure that a bunch of people are going to disagree with me here. And of course those who disagree with me aren't going to agree with my thoughts on Bush as reacting to his own fear. I am aware that that is essentially unprovable and unsupportable. But I haven't arrived at it out of the blue. I've come to this conclusion based on observation and reflection. I think that that's the best that anyone can do in interpreting the behavior of people you don't personally know.)



So I do have some evidence, where it is possible to have concrete evidence. I will freely admit that I am also making assumptions, primarily about the kind of person that Bush is. I think that these assumptions are justifiable because one has to make assumptions about people that one does not know in person if one is trying to figure out the motivations behind their behavior. Maybe my assumptions about Bush are wrong. If I see him behave in a way that contradicts them, I'll rethink my beliefs. But I have yet to see him act in a way that makes my assumptions definitively false. Yes, there are other ways to interpret his behavior, and if you want to construe his actions in some other way you're free to do so. But my interpretation is that he is just as frightened of things going on in the world today as anyone else would be, and that he is lashing out to make himself feel powerful (and therefore safe). Unfortunately, he happens to have the clout to lash out on a huge scale, and he is not giving enough thought to the broader consequences.

> If it's just "revenge" on Saddam or because President Bush is "afraid" of him, then please explain why we still have troops there. Saddam, in case you haven't heard, was captured a few years back. If our whole goal was to "get" him, well, he's been gotten.

Our current stated objective is to establish democracy. (I'm not arguing that that isn't also a goal or even a motivation of the war. (My initial statement sounds like I am, and that was a mistake -- chalk it up to trying to get something out in 10 minutes before class and not having enough time to refine the phrasing.) If it is a motivation rather than pure rhetoric, I just don't think that this is a primary motivation; I feel like it's more a convenient excuse to try to accomplish other goals.) Regardless of whether or not this is a true objective, it would be a political blunder to withdraw before Iraq is sufficiently stabilized that it won't descend into real chaos as soon as we're out. Admittedly, at this point it's getting to be as much of a political blunder to leave the troops in. But Bush, as I think I said up above, is headstrong, and my guess is that having said that we are going to establish democracy in Iraq (again, regardless of whether that was PR spin or not), he and his administration would like to try to at least leave the country marginally stable when we get out of there.

> The theory that the United States went into Iraq to liberate it from a dictator and build a better society and a better life for the Iraqi people is the only one that fits the facts.

...except for that bit where we were initially going in because "Saddam had WMDs." As I recall things, freedom for the Iraqi people became a major objective only after a few months had gone by without our finding any weapons. I'm not saying that it wasn't mentioned earlier on, but I recall the huge push for going in being focused on the fact that Hussein was manufacturing weaponry.

>Argue with our success or with our right to interfere in the first place, but please abandon the cynical conspiracy theories.

I'm not really sure I've been propounding "conspiracy theories," since mostly I've been focusing on just one person. But call it what you will. ;) Definitely cynical, yes. Can you convince me that the people at the head of our current administration are good people?


~Chrysan(feeling parenthetical today)themum~