Rising to the challenge...
Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has decided to enter the fray with his esteemed Minister of Propaganda. He feels as though there is an implication in the Minister of Propaganda's last post the the war in Iraq was not properly debated.
Of course there is a more insidious implication in the last post. Namely that the administration, through use of cleverly manipulated intelligence information (or out and out fabrication of intelligence information) to move the people of our nation towards favouring war with Iraq.
As we all know, the war was debated by our elected represenatives in Congress. And after that debate both houses of the Congress voted to authorize military action by the president. Your Maximum Leader believes that one could make an argument that Congress rushed the debate and therby did not give the war as full consideration as one might desire. The Congress did have, in your Maximum Leader's opinion, plenty of debate before voting.
Unfortunuately, our Congress doesn't generally like to have lengthy debates on contraversial subjects. They instead like to have intermidable debate on lower profile subjects and rush through the items on which they should concentrate their energies. This has been a tendency in Congress since the 1960s at least; and doesn't appear to favour one party or the other.
The more important implication of the Minister of Propaganda to discuss is the misleading of the public (and by extension our representatives). Your Maximum Leader will agree that there was a considerable amount of misinformation floating around during the debate preceeding the war. Information that was judged at the time credible by the US, UK, France, Russia, and other nations has now been shown to be innacurate. And there should be a price to pay in the intellegence community for that.
However, there was no significant dissent at the time concerning the quality of intelligence information under discussion. If those in Congress, or in the public, had concerns about the quality of intelligence they should have acted in a way to get more time. Senator Kerry, for instance, could have quietly asked for more time to debate. Or Senator Edwards could have discreetly threatened to use various parliamentary tactics available to all senators to get a longer period of debate. And use that time to get more intelligence review.
But they did not.
It is one thing to carefully consider the information at hand, and then upon learning that the information is not accurate; declaring that your decision was bad. It is another thing to give cursory examination to information presented to you; and then later declaring that you lied to. Alas it is the latter statement that both Kerry and Edwards are declaiming now.
Your Maximum Leader would also like to take a moment to address the question of intelligence information. While most would agree that the immenent Iraqi threat to the US did not exist as it was portrayed; that does not equate to an immenent Iraqi threat not existing at all. We have found artillery shells containing nerve agents (which were supposed to be destroyed years ago). We have found and removed from Iraq over a ton of radioactive material (that the Iraqi's were not supposed to have). We have evidence from the United Nations no less that Iraq shipped missles (they weren't supposed to have) to various nations around the world before the war began. We know that Saddam Hussein was neither a friend of the civilized world, nor his own people. We know that Saddam's intelligence services did have contact with Al Qaida.
And we don't know what would have happened had we not acted.
Your Maximum Leader still believes that our actions in Iraq were justified, and are a positive accomplishment towards a safer world and a more progressive Iraq. Has the administration done the best job possible in rebuilding Iraq? No. They have not. Have we done the best job possible in managing Iraq? No. But the job we have done is not over. Your Maximum Leader doesn't believe that Kerry/Edwards will do a better job. Nothing Kerry has said has given your Maximum Leader any reason to believe that he would, in fact, do anything different. Thus, changing presidents would have zero net effect on Iraqi policy. And would only give a possible President Kerry the opportunity to stay the course and blame everything (rightly or wrongly) on Bush. Your Maximum Leader would just as soon retain President Bush, who has at least demonstrated that he will act in the manner that he believes is best for the country.
We continue to have a democratic system of government, and if Bush's opponents hold contrary opinions to the president's they can use our existing institutions to force/make changes. If they do not (as it seems they haven't in the past to listen to them), they have, in your Maximum Leader's opinion, very little ground on which to make a principled stand.
Carry on.
Of course there is a more insidious implication in the last post. Namely that the administration, through use of cleverly manipulated intelligence information (or out and out fabrication of intelligence information) to move the people of our nation towards favouring war with Iraq.
As we all know, the war was debated by our elected represenatives in Congress. And after that debate both houses of the Congress voted to authorize military action by the president. Your Maximum Leader believes that one could make an argument that Congress rushed the debate and therby did not give the war as full consideration as one might desire. The Congress did have, in your Maximum Leader's opinion, plenty of debate before voting.
Unfortunuately, our Congress doesn't generally like to have lengthy debates on contraversial subjects. They instead like to have intermidable debate on lower profile subjects and rush through the items on which they should concentrate their energies. This has been a tendency in Congress since the 1960s at least; and doesn't appear to favour one party or the other.
The more important implication of the Minister of Propaganda to discuss is the misleading of the public (and by extension our representatives). Your Maximum Leader will agree that there was a considerable amount of misinformation floating around during the debate preceeding the war. Information that was judged at the time credible by the US, UK, France, Russia, and other nations has now been shown to be innacurate. And there should be a price to pay in the intellegence community for that.
However, there was no significant dissent at the time concerning the quality of intelligence information under discussion. If those in Congress, or in the public, had concerns about the quality of intelligence they should have acted in a way to get more time. Senator Kerry, for instance, could have quietly asked for more time to debate. Or Senator Edwards could have discreetly threatened to use various parliamentary tactics available to all senators to get a longer period of debate. And use that time to get more intelligence review.
But they did not.
It is one thing to carefully consider the information at hand, and then upon learning that the information is not accurate; declaring that your decision was bad. It is another thing to give cursory examination to information presented to you; and then later declaring that you lied to. Alas it is the latter statement that both Kerry and Edwards are declaiming now.
Your Maximum Leader would also like to take a moment to address the question of intelligence information. While most would agree that the immenent Iraqi threat to the US did not exist as it was portrayed; that does not equate to an immenent Iraqi threat not existing at all. We have found artillery shells containing nerve agents (which were supposed to be destroyed years ago). We have found and removed from Iraq over a ton of radioactive material (that the Iraqi's were not supposed to have). We have evidence from the United Nations no less that Iraq shipped missles (they weren't supposed to have) to various nations around the world before the war began. We know that Saddam Hussein was neither a friend of the civilized world, nor his own people. We know that Saddam's intelligence services did have contact with Al Qaida.
And we don't know what would have happened had we not acted.
Your Maximum Leader still believes that our actions in Iraq were justified, and are a positive accomplishment towards a safer world and a more progressive Iraq. Has the administration done the best job possible in rebuilding Iraq? No. They have not. Have we done the best job possible in managing Iraq? No. But the job we have done is not over. Your Maximum Leader doesn't believe that Kerry/Edwards will do a better job. Nothing Kerry has said has given your Maximum Leader any reason to believe that he would, in fact, do anything different. Thus, changing presidents would have zero net effect on Iraqi policy. And would only give a possible President Kerry the opportunity to stay the course and blame everything (rightly or wrongly) on Bush. Your Maximum Leader would just as soon retain President Bush, who has at least demonstrated that he will act in the manner that he believes is best for the country.
We continue to have a democratic system of government, and if Bush's opponents hold contrary opinions to the president's they can use our existing institutions to force/make changes. If they do not (as it seems they haven't in the past to listen to them), they have, in your Maximum Leader's opinion, very little ground on which to make a principled stand.
Carry on.
posted by The Maximum Leader at 7/10/2004 03:33:00 PM
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