link
Quote:
'It didn't work' Buckley on Iraq war
AMERICA?S most respected conservative intellectual, arguably, is William F. Buckley, a Republican powerhouse whose columns once appeared regularly in this newspaper.
In the Feb. 24 issue of his magazine, The National Review, Buckley says President Bush?s Iraq war is a flop. His commentary, titled ?It didn?t work,? says:
?One can?t doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed.... Our mission has failed because Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an invading army of 130,000 Americans. The great human reserves that call for civil life haven?t proved strong enough. No doubt they are latently there, but they have not been able to contend against the icemen who move about in the shadows with bombs and grenades and pistols.
?The Iraqis we hear about are first indignant, and then infuriated, that Americans aren?t on the scene to protect them and to punish the aggressors. And so they... say that everything is the fault of the Americans. The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, elucidates on the complaint against Americans. It is not only that the invaders are American, it is that they are ?Zionists.? ?
Buckley wrote that Bush?s goal of fostering democracy in Iraq was noble, but unworkable. ?Different plans have to be made. And the kernel here is the acknowledgment of defeat.?
Frankly, we doubt that Bush?s original goal was to foster democracy. We suspect that it was to gain control of Iraq?s oil, and to protect Israel, and to wage his father?s old vendetta against dictator Saddam Hussein. But the president hid such motives.
In launching the war, Bush declared that an invasion was imperative to save Americans from Saddam?s horror weapons ? and the United States couldn?t wait for U.N. inspectors to continue searching for them. Yet the weapons were imaginary. Bush said Iraq?s oil would pay the cost of the U.S. invasion ? but, instead, American taxpayers have shelled out about $300 billion. Bush said Iraqis would greet U.S. soldiers as liberators ? another false expectation.
Now, even America?s most ardent Republican can see that Bush?s war is a failure. The debate no longer is partisan. The invasion was an unnecessary attack that has cost thousands of American lives and vastly more Iraqi lives. History will record the Iraq venture as a blemish on America.
Remember ?The Rime of the Ancient Mariner?? A sailor used a crossbow to kill a friendly albatross that perched in his ship?s rigging. The vessel became lost, storm-raked, then becalmed. Suffering fellow sailors superstitiously hung the dead bird around his neck as punishment for his needless cruelty.
The Iraq war hangs around President Bush?s neck like the albatross.
--------------------
|