My Tivo recorded the Frontline series on the war in Iraq last week. I watched the first episode last night. The series makes the argument that Bush’s administration colluded and distorted facts to garner American support for war in Iraq. I’m not close enough to the administration to comment on the validity of the claim, but I will say that Frontline presents a compelling argument. If they’re right, holy cow is that awful.
I have never fully understand this war. I’m not a pacifist, when the war started I was in favor because I generally trust that the government does what it can to protect my interests. Right after 9/11 we spent time in Afghanistan looking for Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, which made sense to me. I was in support of that plan. Then somehow attention shifted to Saddam Hussein and Iraq. Since then the logic for our involvement has been convoluted and hard to follow. There’s no question that Saddam was aweful, but that’s not justification for war in my mind.
I’m not sure what to believe, I’ve never heard a clear argument for war in Iraq or a clear plan for how to resolve the mess. I have heard the argument for democracy in Iraq, but it doesn’t make sense to me that the U.S. armed forces are the right group for that job.
I don’t talk about the war in Iraq very much anymore because honestly it sucks all around, and there really is no good place for the conversation to go. We began this war despite no substantial support from other United Nations countries. We now know that there were no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, which was our pretext for war. We have declined to honor protections offered by the Geneva Convention to Guantanamo Bay detainees. We have troops in Iraq and for all we know we will for the next 100 years.
As I said above, I’m too far from the White House to discern the truth, but anecdotally the Frontline series Bush’s War rings true. PBS has both episodes available to view online. I’d be interested in discussing this with anyone else that has seen the show.
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