Five years ago about this time I remember watching the bombing, carried joyously by our media. I called the Democrats who had voted for it...I asked if they were watching what was happening. I got some really stressed answers. One office said they did not expect so much killing.
I said that is what war looks like. People die. I'll admit, I cried that day.
There were some Democrats who supported the invasion of Iraq from the beginning. We can say they were not actually voting for military action, but of course they were. George Bush had been in the White House for a year and about 9 months when that vote was taken in October 2002. They knew him to be untrustworthy.
There are some Democrats who said if we go there, it will be hard to leave....that we will be setting in action things that would endanger the whole area and our country as well. That is NOT the same as "supporting" the invasion. It simply is not.
To pretend otherwise is unjust to those who said the case for war had not been made. It is unfair to pretend they supported it when they used cautious thinking after we invaded that country. I see it here all the time. There's an attempt to paint those who were against it as being for it.....in order to excuse those who voted yes. That's wrong.
There have been a lot of words said about Iraq. I am quoting just a few. There is a difference between real and true words, and using rhetoric geared to a demographic area during a campaign.
Obama intensifies attacks on Clinton's, McCain's plans for Iraq"Just yesterday, we heard Sen. McCain confuse Sunni and Shiite, Iran and Al Qaeda," Obama said. "Maybe that is why he voted to go to war with a country that had no Al Qaeda ties. Maybe that is why he completely fails to understand that the war in Iraq has done more to embolden America's enemies than any strategic choice that we have made in decades."
Obama also fired back at Clinton, McCain and at President Bush for belittling as naive his call for tougher action against terrorists in Pakistan's border region.
"Sen. Clinton, Sen. McCain and President Bush have all distorted and derided this position, suggesting that I would invade or bomb Pakistan. This is politics, pure and simple," Obama said. "The same three individuals who now criticize me for supporting a targeted strike on the terrorists who carried out the 9/11 attacks, are the same three individuals that supported an invasion of Iraq -- a country that had nothing to do with 9/11," he said.
Now let's hear from that great statesman, former Florida governor and senator...Bob Graham. I realize he was almost hawkish in some ways. However, though he believed targeted strikes might be necessary....he warned against the attack on Iraq powerfully.
Bob Graham's warning to his fellow Democrats in October 2002..."On Oct. 9, 2002, Graham the guy everyone thought of as quiet, mild-mannered, deliberate, conflict-averse let loose on his Senate colleagues for going along with President Bush's war against Iraq.
"We are locking down on the principle that we have one evil, Saddam Hussein. He is an enormous, gargantuan force, and that's who we're going to go after," Graham said on the floor. "That, frankly, is an erroneous reading of the world. There are many evils out there, a number of which are substantially more competent, particularly in their ability to attack Americans here at home, than Iraq is likely to be in the foreseeable future."
He told his fellow senators that if they didn't recognize that going to war with Iraq without first taking out the actual terrorists would endanger Americans, "then, frankly, my friends to use a blunt term the blood's going to be on your hands."
It was a watershed moment. Gone was the meticulous thinker who would talk completely around and through a problem before answering a question about it...
Time to hear what Hillary Clinton had to say in Texas, twice in the same day. This is what I call rhetoric that was meant to appeal to a particular demographic.
"And I believe that at the same time that we have to make clear to the Iraqis that they have been given the greatest gift that a human being can give another human being the gift of freedom. And it is up to them to decide how they will use that precious gift that has been paid for with the blood and sacrifice and treasure of the United States of America."Hillary speaks on Iraq She said it twice on the same day.
Orwellian speak...twice in one day.There was nothing accidental about this line. She delivered it in response to two Iraq veterans introduced at a town hall meeting at the Austin Convention Center by her friend and campaign surrogate Ted Danson. She liked the line enough that she delivered it again a couple of hours later, at a campaign-closing rally at a basketball arena in south Austin. "The gift of freedom" is, of course, a curious way to describe an unprovoked invasion and occupation causing hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths and leaving just about every aspect of life chaotic and fraught with daily dangers. To then lay responsibility for the mess on the Iraqis -- we did our bit, now you do yours -- is the worst kind of dishonesty, a complete abdication of moral principles.
In Howard Dean's foreign policy speech at Drake University in 2003, he pointed out dangers that might occur if we went ahead with the invasion. Here is only a small snip from
that speech in 2003.I do not believe the President should have been given a green light to drive our nation into conflict without the case having first been made to Congress and the American people for why this war is necessary, and without a requirement that we at least try first to work through the United Nations.
That the President was given open-ended authority to go to war in Iraq resulted from a failure of too many in my party in Washington who were worried about political positioning for the presidential election.
To this day, the President has not made a case that war against Iraq, now, is necessary to defend American territory, our citizens, our allies, or our essential interests.
...."Iraq is a divided country, with Sunni, Shia and Kurdish factions that share both bitter rivalries and access to large quantities of arms.
He then pointed obvious possible problems that no one talked about at the time. They were all centered on the power and might of our military, and consequences were never even mentioned.
Iran and Turkey each have interests in Iraq they will be tempted to protect with or without our approval.
If the war lasts more than a few weeks, the danger of humanitarian disaster is high, because many Iraqis depend on their government for food, and during war it would be difficult for us to get all the necessary aid to the Iraqi people.
There is a risk of environmental disaster, caused by damage to Iraq's oil fields.
And, perhaps most importantly, there is a very real danger that war in Iraq will fuel the fires of international terror.
Anti-American feelings will surely be inflamed among the misguided who choose to see an assault on Iraq as an attack on Islam, or as a means of controlling Iraqi oil.
Words are so important. Some are chosen carefully to appeal to demographics, some are just chosen because they are true. There has been a tendency in the conservative wing of the Democratic party for a couple of decades now to use the language of the other party and co-opt their positions instead of standing against them.
Words do matter. Votes matter. Those who trusted Bush, who voted to get tougher against Iran..need to stop and think about their words before we are plunged head on into another war.
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