<p>The Bush administration’s justification for the war in Iraq is bi-polar:</p>
<p>1) We went to war because Iraq was a threat to U.S. security. They had stockpiles of WMD, a thriving nuclear program, strong connections to terrorism, etc. We had to act preemptively – and now – if we wanted to keep America safe.</p>
<p>2) Saddam was an atrocious dictator guilty of atrocities. It was our duty as a good, democratic nation, to liberate the Iraqi people and to bring democracy to the Middle East. Regime change was a good in and of itself, if the regime was committing atrocities. And the spread of democracy is always a good thing.</p>
<p>Here’s the problem. Under the first justification, we were dead wrong. I won’t even get into all the accusations (many of which are warranted) that the Bush administration lied, or deliberately misled and manipulated, etc. Let’s just say we were wrong. If that’s the case, then why isn’t the Bush administration being held more accountable? Any accountability for our grievous, costly mistakes, has been pushed off onto intelligence agencies – and I think we can all agree that no one has really been held accountable. After all, Tenet wasn’t fired, Rummy hasn’t been fired, Powell hasn’t been fired. Heads should be rolling, you would think. But nobody’s is.</p>
<p>Part of this is because the Bush administration was very successful in shifting the justification for the war from #1 to #2. The push for this began at the time of the invasion, and even just prior to it, when they started calling it “Operation Iraqi Freedom” and talking about liberation. There are problems with this justification, too, of course. First, Saddam hadn’t committed any major atrocity for years. Yes, he was a dictator. Yes, Iraqis were oppressed. Yes, Iraq is better off without him. But we were basically justifying an invasion of a sovereign nation by pointing to atrocities committed a decade ago, at best, and fifteen years ago, if you want the real dirt. (And those were committed when Saddam was our ally – so we turned our heads the other way.)</p>
<p>Let’s go ahead and put all of this aside and say that justification #2 works for us. The war in Iraq was justified by the cause of liberation, regime change, and the spread of democracy.</p>
<p>Doesn’t this present a problem? I bring all of this up because of the present situation in Sudan. If this is really “genocide,” as the Bush administration (i.e. Powell) is claiming, then the Sudan situation is much, much worse than the Iraq situation was. (No one was claiming genocide was taking place in Iraq, unless they were referring to stuff from 10-15 years ago.)</p>
<p>The problem is, what do we do? It’s interesting to note that nobody in the American public was thinking we needed to invade Iraq until after the Bush administration made a strong case for doing so; conversely, today polls show that a majority would favor military intervention in Sudan – but the Bush administration has shown almost no sign of interest in doing so. The Sudan problem’s been around for a long time, and it took a long time for Bush or anyone else in the administration to even comment on it. Now, we’re declaring it’s “genocide,” but there’s still no sign of doing anything about it.</p>
<p>Somebody, please explain to me an administration that makes a strong case for war with one country – a country no one thought we needed to invade until after the case was made – and a case that was based on either a host of falsities or objectionable events from the previous century – yet this same administration makes no case for war, in fact hardly even acknowledges, the current genocidal atrocities going on in another country, even though most Americans believe that something ought to be done about it.</p>
<p>I just don’t understand these people.</p>