Yea they were much better off getting attacked with biological weapons by their own leader.
In the 1980s, when Iraq war our ally. Does kind of bring into question alliances with..say.. the Uzbeks or Saudis. But the needs of the War on Terror are paramount, just as the needs of the War on Communism were paramount, and I'm sure there'll be something else to be paramount about in the future to justify propping up dictators.
On Bush and WMD's, its a lame argument for bashing the Iraq war, if not the lamest. WMD's was not the only reason we went to war with Iraq, and even if it were, its not Bush's fault at all. Bush had every ounce of reason to belive there were WMD's in Iraq because that is what the US intellegence told him, Bush didn't deliberately lie to the "american people"...
No, it's pretty blatantly Bush's fault.
There was
zero evidence that there ever were any WMDs. Even a cursory look at the prewar intelligence process reveals that it was the purest kind of bullshit: they really didn't care whether it was true or not. WMDs were the only way to present the war as preemptive and defensive, and were also a key part of the "Saddam = Al Qaeda" wink-wink nudge-nudge campaign. WMDs were
all you heard about in the runup to Iraq and they were the proximate cause for the war.
Lemme put it this way, there's a lot more evidence for the "War for Oil" than there ever was for WMDs. (Oil ministry, postwar profiteering, Iraq's now-aborted switch to the Euro standard...vs aluminum tubes that can't be used in nukes, informants that are known to be unreliable, and weather balloons)
Does all of that make it Bush's fault? Well, yes. Does anyone think Al Gore would have invaded Iraq? Hell no. Because he is not a fucking stupid douchebag like Rumsfeld or Bush or...hell, Doug Feith.
I guess you could say it's not Bush's fault if you are of the persuasion that he's too mentally ill to take responsibility for his own actions. The old stupid/evil paradox.
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As for the ethics of the Iraq war, there's really no reason to reinvent the wheel in this argument. I'm a lapsed Catholic at best, but the Just War Doctrine lays it out pretty well:
The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:
the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
there must be serious prospects of success;
the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.
These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the "just war" doctrine. The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.
Iraq: No, no, no, and no. Fancy that.
