Junto Boys

"IT'S THE ECONOMY STUPID" becomes "INVADING IRAQ WAS A MISTAKE"

George Bush 41 lost his re-election bid in 1992 on the argument that the economy of horrible, although the charts show the economy was in recovery about 10 months before the election. Maybe the relief wasn't immediately felt, but if you weren't sure what to think of the economy you could hear the media reminding you every night how bad everyone had it. That recovery began under Bush and lasted until the final year of the Clinton presidency. Bush was elected in the midst of a recession and Democrats were already blaming the economy on him before his economic plan went into effect. The Democrats tried the same "horrible economy" strategy in 2002 and no one listened. The public was more concerned about terrorism. Democrats in the early primaries started to make the argument as the economy was recovering before their eyes. Okay, the economy isn't going to be a winning issue with the voters. Let's try Iraq.

PLAN B - IRAQ was a mistake

1. No links between Saddam and Osama
2. WMD alegations were lies
3. Attacking Iraq will just make Muslims angry
4. Rebuilding Iraq is too expensive and dangerous
5. We didn't gain anything by defeating Saddam

1. Since there isn't a paper trail from the 911 investigations leading to Saddam Hussein's palace, Saddam is innocent of threatening American lives.

The fact the Iraq had numerous ties to Osama and most likely participated in any number of anti-American or anti-Israeli acts is buried under the headlines that the they weren't mobbed up for 911. The insinuation is that Saddam's links to Osama posed us no danger whatsoever. Does anyone think that Saddam was minding his own business?

2. Since we didn't find any WMD the intelligence was skewed, and maybe Bush himself used documents he knew were false to push his larger agenda.

When Clinton warned of WMD in 1998 everybody just figured it was a sideshow meant at distracting us from the Monica Lewinsky mess. Maybe it was a sideshow, but wouldn't it be nice to hear the Democrats who were full support back then step to the mic now and admit their contradiction. What the media has refused to do during this war is make Democrats reconcile their 1998 positions with their current ones. It would be nice to hear them admit that they would bomb a country just to take heat off the president. Or they could admit that Saddam was as dangerous in 2003 as he was in 1998.

Isn't it funny how Democrats will tell you that Bush's negligence caused 911 after Clinton did a genius job against terrorism in the 1990s? We're also supposed to believe that Saddam became less dangerous after he kicked out U.N. inspectors. Therefore, with no inspectors and incompetent Bush at the helm, Saddam wasn't as dangerous as when Clinton warned about him in 1998.

So where are the WMD? Syria. Some cave. Who knows? Iraq was trying to buy Uranium from Niger according to European intelligence. Doesn't this tell us enough about his aspirations? Not in an election year.

3. Attacking Iraq will just make them angry is an age-old argument reserved for people who would rather turn a blind eye. Could they hate us any more? Are they doing any less to come after us than they have? Aren't the citizens of Iraq actually citizens now? Don't they stand to be friendlier to the U.S. than their neighbors?

4. It's a relative question. We could have leveled the country to the ground, grabbed Saddam and walked. That would have provoked the kind of ire that critics warned about in complaint #3. Whether rebuilding was a mistake will be shown down the road. If Iraq eventually takes an anti-American stand then woe to the countries that we defeat next time. We'll just as soon walk away than spend more money that doesn't effect change. But with what we know now I don't see how we couldn't spend the money and rebuild.

5. We needed a target that would wake the Muslim world up. Afghanistan was just a holding ground for terrorists. That was an easy play. By attacking Iraq we showed other nations who support or harbor terrorists that we're not afraid to bring them down. This silly idea of sovereignty for dictators needed to die. Now if Iran or Syria wants to support our enemies they will be opening themselves up to a similar invasion. This was the most important factor in the Iraq invasion and yet the one we hear about the least.

The tragedy is that much of this capital has been squandered by politicians that complain about Iraq to the extent that it seems somewhat unviable for us to take out any of the other pesky countries. If Democrats had only shown a united front on Iraq then the world would have been on notice in a bigger way. Without a united America behind future invasions I fear that these countries will begin to feel too safe. Strength is more in the willingness to action than simply the ability. Our willingness is locked up in an election. The more we're willing to fight the less we'll actually have to fight. Opposition to an offensive campaign only makes our struggle longer and harder.

It would be ironic if Demcorats won by attacking Bush's strong stand on terrorism when they did so little about it in the 1990s. But it was ironic that Bush 41 would lose because of the economy in the midst of a recovery. Politics is the essence of getting your point of view into mainstream thought via the media. As long as the media continues to focus on some parts of Iraq over others, Bush is going to have a tougher fight.