Interesting Take Defending Bush and WMD in Iraq

Dear TIC Readers,


I'm not taking a side in this (though, I would generally side with the "there were no WMDs in Iraq view"; but mostly out of anti-Bush prejudice), but I found this article fascinating.  I know Robert Reilly (even here at TIC) has made similar arguments.

Regardless, this article by Christopher Carson is well written and well researched--it's worth considering.  It certainly made me pause in my libertarian anti-Bushism.


http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/57506/sec_id/57506


Yours, Brad

With Both Barrels:Erik Prince; King Barack; A-bombs; Jump Wings

Please forgive the brevity of this "With Both Barrels."  It's the weekend.  


I wasn't planning on posting, but Dedra is still drinking coffee, the kids are cleaning (whoo-hoo!), and it's a grey, rainy day outside.  Not good weather for the last Saturday of the summer.  But, hey, enough about the Birzer household and onto the larger world.

The New York Times reported on the fate (well, one step in the fate) of Xe (formerly Blackwater) with a bit about its founder, Erik Prince, a Hillsdale College graduate.  

Mr. Prince, a former Navy Seals member and the heir to an auto parts fortune, took an interest in Africa, particularly Sudan, and he is said to have wanted Blackwater to step in to help the rebels in southern Sudan, which is predominantly Christian and animist, fight the Sudanese government and the Muslim north, despite United States economic sanctions.

I've never met Mr. Prince, but he sounds like a fascinating guy.  Those who knew him here at Hillsdale only have good things to say about him.

A follow up to my post on Pat Buchanan's "Coming Home at Last"

In light of Bruce Frohnen's post which references the "combox" conversation between Kevin Roberts, John Willson and myself, I am taking the liberty of posting my comments regarding my post (Pat Buchanan post) below. I have sanitized it a bit as my wife said we should play nice.

1) Kevin,...I don't believe Buchanan is a pacifist, and I know I am not. However, I do believe that prudence demands we count the costs of our actions, especially so that we learn from the past and may make better decisions in the future. Certainly 4,200 U.S. dead, 35,000 wounded, and $700 billion is a very high cost indeed. 

Is it not legitimate to ask was it worth it?

Should we have stayed in Afghanistan for almost 10 years after we destroyed the terrorist training camps we went there for? Are you so much more enamored with the new political structure in Iraq (voting followed by chaos and violence) over the old system (dictatorship followed by repression and violence)? 

Is it truly a conservative position to go beyond punishing the terrorists, and destroying their camps, with a 10 year attempt to remake Afghan political culture in our own image? Come now, you must admit this has all the signs of going from justified military action to hubris on a grand scale. Or perhaps you don't.



Russell Kirk and Robert Nisbet, and other notable conservatives, have expressed great concern that centralization and militarization have been the greatest threats to preservation of the principles of the American Republic. They were not pacifists. They were true patriots who wished to guard against taking actions to destroy the enemy which may simultaneously lead to undermining the ordered liberty we claim to fight to preserve. Is the current TSA/NSA security culture in our nation consistent with freedom in this or any other century?

I am for taking military action against those who clear evidence indicates threaten the safety of our Republic and its citizens. But, does this necessitate a permanent military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan? How about Germany, South Korea and Japan? Is there no end to this? If not, I fear that we must (as Brad Birzer has suggested on this site) admit that the Republic is lost and that we fight to defend a democratic empire. 

Kevin, I would welcome a duel if you think me a pacifist. I say kill the enemy and come home. Don't move into his house and call it self-defense.

Excellent essay by Pat Buchanan on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq

Perhaps it is time to admit our program for "democracy in the middle east" is a failure before we spend more treasure and precious blood of fine American men and women.

Excerpt from "Coming Home at Last"

What did they accomplish — and at what cost?

Saddam and his Baathist regime were overthrown, the dictator was hanged, elections were held, and a government that reflects the will of a majority of Iraqis put in its place.

Cost to the United States: More than 4,200 U.S. dead, 35,000 wounded, $700 billion sunk. In the Islamic world, the Iraq War led to pandemic hostility toward America. At home, the war led to the rout of the Republicans and the election of an anti-war liberal Democrat.

If Obama is indeed leading America into socialism, the War Party that led us into Iraq can take a full measure of credit.

And what is the cost to the Iraqi people of a U.S. invasion and occupation and seven-year war, the end of which is nowhere in sight?

Perhaps 100,000 dead, half a million widows and orphans, 4 million refugees, half having fled their country, devastation of a Christian community that dated to the time of Christ and the ethnic cleansing of the Sunnis from Baghdad.

Four months after elections, they have no government, and bombs that kill dozens still go off daily. And, when the Americans leave, a civil and sectarian war may return. The breakup of Iraq along ethnic and religious lines remains a possibility. The price of liberation is high.

(Read "Coming Home at Last" by Pat Buchanan)