Honor’s Logic Final Paper – Written April 30, 2004

The following was printed in the High Point Enterprise April 20 of this year…

Bush boosts U.S. security

The war in Iraq is the right thing to do.  I agree with Bush: “Stay the course.”
I admire Bush for doing what Clinton failed to do by removing a threat to this nation and making it a safer place.  If the Democrats were in power, Saddam would still be a threat to the United States, Israel and other peace-loving nations.
The liberals run around talking about how Bush lied and there were no weapons of mass destruction.  Well, that is false.  We all knew Saddam had them because he used them before.  The question is where has Saddam hidden these weapons?  If it weren’t for Bush, Saddam would still have weapons to threaten us, and he would still be sending money to terrorist networks.
If you want to end all threats to the United States, elect Bush. Elect Kerry if you want to continue to live in fear that there could be a repeat of 9-11.

JOHNATHAN WAUGH
Cook Street

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This is the argument I have chosen. To be completely honest, I have no idea what this assignment is supposed to be or how I plan to logically break down this argument, so I will do my best to destroy it in every way I can think of. At the same time, I will attempt to incorporate as much rhetorical devices into my writing as possible. If one were to combine the statements together and number them, it would look something like this:

  1. The war in Iraq is the right thing to do.
  2. Bush is removing a threat to the country.
  3. Clinton failed to remove the threat that Bush is removing.
  4. By eliminating this threat, the world will be a safer place.
  5. If the Democrats were in power, Saddam would still be a threat to the United States, Israel and other peace-loving nations.
  6. Implication of 5 – the United States is a peace-loving nation.
  7. Liberals claim Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction, and that there were none.
  8. Saddam has used weapons before, therefore he has them now.
  9. General Implication Statement – Saddam has hidden the weapons.
  10. If not for Bush, Saddam would still have these weapons.
  11. Saddam previously sent money to terrorist networks.
  12. Bush will end all threats to the United States if you elect him.
  13. Kerry will regress America to an age of a fear of a repeat of 9/11.

This whole thing is such a bad argument that it is almost too easy to break apart. Not only are there few logical connections, but the ones that exist are fuzzy. However, this will work well for our (or, more importantly, your) purposes, as the object of this assignment is to test my skills with deconstructing and reconstructing arguments. There are a few conclusions made in this document without many supporting statements for said conclusions. The prime conclusion is obvious – line 1 – the war in Iraq is right.

The first actual reason that the war itself is right is line 2, that Bush is removing a threat to the country, and through subsequent statements we discover that the threat is Saddam [Hussein] (or perhaps the Democratic Party). Line 3 claims that the previous president, Clinton, did not properly remove this threat when it was shown. This is a strange argument to make since Clinton’s agenda was not killing Iraqis, but wiping out Serbs and Africans. In actuality, it was Bush’s father (we’ll call him Big Bush) who had the original war in Iraq and did a poor job at removing the dictator Hussein. So, line 3 should actually read, Big Bush failed in removing the threat that Bush is removing. This is now much more accurate, as least as far as supporting statements are concerned. The premise (line 2) is still questionable, though after reading line 4, which claims that the world would be safer place without Saddam, it makes more sense, because line 4 appears to be a true statement.

Line 4 is a basically factual statement being used to back up line 2 – Saddam is a threat to the world, therefore the United States’ war with them, while in place to help themselves, will also help the world. Looking at this logically, this is a correct statement – if one being is a threat to the entire world, he must be a threat to each continent, country, and other being, ergo he is a threat to the United States. Unfortunately, line 4 is laced in rhetoric, not in the information it presents, but in the information it does not present. It’s not that line 4 lies to you; it just doesn’t tell you all the facts. Saddam is a threat to the world around him, much of which is allied with the United States. At the same time, these nations (coupled with America) pose a gigantic threat to his country, therefore by the same logic he should have just as much right to make war with a country as our country does. All we have done so far is to justify war, and we have done a poor job at it – if all a country must do is threaten another country to facilitate a war, then that goes against almost everything our (and most other) cultures accept as “morally right,” so-to-speak. I hate to drag morals into it, but our laws are based in something greater than the actual acts, and this must be examined.

I would like to add a line 4.1, which states that, within the laws of America, it is unlawful for human 1 to attack human 2 unless human 2 has somehow made human 1 feel he is at risk of life or limb. Since this is American law, one would assume America would act according throughout the rest of the world, especially since we are supposed to be “liberating Iraq.” The object here is to simply better define war. Within a war, there are two kinds of offensives – preemptive and retaliatory. To just work through the rhetoric for you, preemptive would be what we are doing, retaliatory is what we are trying to make it look like. Preemptive strikes are any strike that is made before an actual offensive is made by those being preemptively attacked; a retaliatory strike is when an attack is made based on a previous attack to compensate for damages. This also exists within our law, so I would like to add line 4.2 – the United States has the death penalty. This is the ultimate act of war on a personal level, and it is the perfect example of a retaliatory strike. Line 4.3 – based in these U.S. laws, attacking before an attack is made is not allowed, but attacking based on being attacked is allowed. Adding the extra lines, it looks like this:

  1. The war in Iraq is the right thing to do.
  2. Bush is removing a threat to the country.
  3. Big Bush failed to remove the threat that Bush is removing.
  4. By eliminating this threat, the world will be a safer place.
    1. Within the laws of America, it is unlawful for human 1 to attack human 2 unless human 2 has somehow made human 1 feel he is at risk of life or limb.
    2. The United States has the death penalty.
    3. Based in these U.S. laws, attacking before an attack is made is not allowed, but attacking based on being attacked is allowed.

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Now, understanding what a threat actually is – a real attack – one must jump to other statements. Line 11 states that Saddam funded terrorist networks. It can be insinuated by looking at the document (or, based in lines 12 and 13) that Saddam was somehow connected to the New York attack on September 11, 2001. One should really clear all that up and lose the rhetoric, so we will add line 11.1 – Saddam helped fund those that were responsible for the New York attack. Line 11.1 – Al Queda was the main organization responsible for the attack, using Osama bin Laden to head up the operation. Line 11.2 – Al Queda was in control, and had been in control of, the Taliban government in Afghanistan for over a decade. Line 11.3 – after the attacks, Afghanistan was believed to be harboring Osama bin Laden. Line 11.4 – the United States subsequently attacked Afghanistan for this offence (this is based in line 4.2 and 4.3). These lines justify the war that is really being talked about, and it was a justified war, despite what “the liberals” have to say about it – based in U.S. governmental policy, we had the right to hunt and destroy those that tried to do the same to us. The argument of line 11 is that, as we waged war against those that attacked us and harbored our attackers, we should attack those that gave them money as well. Unfortunately, this is poor logic, since the United States gave the Taliban in the years 2000 and 2001 the U.S. gave $345 million to Afghanistan, which is significantly more money than Iraq gave them; this statement is now line 14.

Line 5 is a bit of fact laced inside of rhetoric, since we know Clinton and the Democrats were not responsible for the situation in Iraq. In fact, it would be best to buckle down how exactly the situation in Iraq came to be. Line 15 – after seizing control of Iraq in the early 1980s, the United States gave Saddam Hussein weapons of mass destruction with instructions to use them against Iran in 1982. Line 16 – in 1983, the CIA gave Iran similar weapons to use against the Iraqis. The background between Iran and Iraq is fuzzy – there is a lot of differences in opinion about politics and, especially, religion – and people in the Middle East have a tendency to get heated about religion. In America, people are allowed to have a freedom of religion, so it is doubtful that our starting a serious war between two nations was of religious intent. Our political intent at the time was to eliminate Communism, and as it happened, both Iran and Iraq had systems of government that resembled fascist socialism (which is really what the Communism of the day was in most parts of the world). Fortunately, they had oil, so they were cool; we didn’t need to attack them, we could just get them to attack each other. At the same time, keeping with our fear of The Reds, the CIA gave Osama bin Laden $3 billion to train his organization to go to Afghanistan to keep it out of the hands of the Russians. Osama agreed, knowing Afghanistan was predominantly Islamic, and wanting to preserve the nation, waged war in the country until the end of the Cold War. At that time, the United States abandoned Afghanistan, allowing the Al Queda-controlled Taliban take over the country. It wasn’t until the year 2000 that the United states finally said that Taliban was an oppressive government that should be eliminated, but that didn’t stop us from giving them millions of dollars. After all this early-80s CIA weapons trading under the Reagan administration with George Bush first as the Director of the CIA and later Vice President, Big Bush was elected president in 1988. Based in Ronald Regan’s medical degeneration in the final years of his presidency, it could be said that Big Bush controlled U.S. foreign policy for the entire decade. But, while this is a statement that can be backed up with previous information, we’re leaving it alone – one would call all this a “can of worms.” For Bush, the can of worms was opened in 1990 when Hussein got sick of fighting Iran (and frankly, so did the U.S.), he used the weapons we gave him to attack Kuwait. As it actually happens, Kuwait was ruled over by a dictator with similar ideals as Saddam. We could be mad that he attacked Kuwait had we not given Iran weapons to attack him – if one was living in Iraq, seeing this happen, they would probably say that the U.S. should be attacked for funding the terrorism of their country inflicted by Iran. So, for that reason as well as others (we have established that Hussein is a threat to his neighbors – he likes to bomb people and take things over – we didn’t make him this way, we just enabled him), Iraq attacked Kuwait. Ordinarily, our government would sit back and enjoy the Middle Eastern bloodbath, but it wasn’t a very good time for it to be happening. While we were frustrated about losing oil, it was only a matter of time before someone asked where this crazy guy in the desert was getting his guns, and that cat needed to stay in the bag. It took our troops, based out of Saudi Arabia (a country with a government similar to Iran), and invaded Iraq in 1991, taking it over in less than three days, “liberating” Kuwait and reinstating their old dictator. Then, he pulled out the troops, and dropped bombs on Iraq like a blizzard. In fact, weekly bombing campaigns continued until Big Bush’s son will launch another war (the one we’re now talking about) a decade later. The United Nations have estimated that 500,000 children have died based in these attacks, which was the only Iraqi aggression that Clinton supported, though it was more of a silent approval (since most Americans don’t know that we’ve actually been warring with Iraq for over a decade) than the actual blatant attacks the launched in Eastern Europe and Africa. Once again, this is a can of worms, but there are many new lines now that are necessary to complete the argument.

The whole argument now looks like this:

  1. Saddam previously sent money to terrorist networks.
  2. Bush will end all threats to the United States if you elect him.
  3. Kerry will digress America to an age of a fear of a repeat of 9/11.
  4. The United States gave the Taliban in the years 2000 and 2001 the U.S. gave $345 million to Afghanistan.
  5. After seizing control of Iraq in the early 1980s, the United States Central Intelligence Agency gave Saddam Hussein weapons of mass destruction with instructions to use them against Iran in 1982.
  6. In 1983, the CIA gave Iran similar weapons to use against the Iraqis.
  7. Throughout the early 80s, the CIA gave Osama bin Laden $3 billion to train his organization to fight in Afghanistan against the Soviets.
  8. After the Soviet collapse in 1989, the United States allowed for the Taliban to gain control of the country.
  9. Big Bush was the head of the CIA in the early 1980s, vice president in the mid-80s, and elected president in 1988.
  10. In 1990 Hussein attacked Kuwait with the weapons given to him by Bush’s CIA.
  11. In 1991, Bush attacks Iraq, reinstates the previous Kuwaiti government, then withdraws troops.
  12. From 1991 until present, the United States has launched weekly bombing campaigns on Iraq – it is estimated that 500,000 children have died from these bombings.

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Since it is obvious that the United States is not a peace-loving country (line 6), and coupled with the new line 3, line 5 can not exist as it is. Logically, since one replaced Big Bush with Clinton in line 3, and since each man is associated with his political party, one should instead say Republicans. Now, since Israel has been at war with the nation of Palestine since it became a country fifty years ago, it can hardly be called a peace-loving nation either. Now, as it was that Iraq did attack Israel at the same time of Kuwait, Iraq does pose a real threat to Israel – the fact that they’re peace-loving or not is irrelevant. Israel is an ally of the U.S., and we helped them when they were attacked by Iraq, so if we gauge an attack on ourselves as an attack on our ally, America could be a threat to us, though not nearly what he is to the rest of the countries around him. But, this is not how the United States works; throughout history, we do our best to keep out of wars unless we are dragged in – Atlantic U-Boat attacks in WWI and Pearl Harbor in WWII – we care about what our allies can give us, not who our allies actually are. Had Saddam taken over Kuwait and given us all the oil in the country for free, he’d be the leader of the Middle East by now. But as long as we’re “what if”-ing, if we hadn’t given the weapons to him to wage war on his neighbors by our “peace-loving” government, this wouldn’t be a situation at all. Lines 5 and 6 are eliminated based first in the change made in Line 3 implicating Republicans, not Democrats, and further based in Lines 14-22, moving all the lines down, now looking like this.

  1. The war in Iraq is the right thing to do.
  2. Bush is removing a threat to the country.
  3. Big Bush [not Democrats] failed to remove the threat that Bush is removing.
  4. By eliminating this threat, the world will be a safer place.
    1. Within the laws of America, it is unlawful for human 1 to attack human 2 unless human 2 has somehow made human 1 feel he is at risk of life or limb.
    2. The United States has the death penalty.
  5. Based in these U.S. laws, attacking before an attack is made is not allowed, but attacking based on being attacked is allowed.
  6. Liberals claim Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction, and that there were none.
  7. Saddam has used weapons before, therefore he has them now.
  8. General Implication Statement – Saddam has hidden the weapons.
  9. If not for Bush, Saddam would still have these weapons.
  10. Saddam previously sent money to terrorist networks.
  11. Bush will end all threats to the United States if you elect him.
  12. Kerry will digress America to an age of a fear of a repeat of 9/11.
  13. The United States gave the Taliban in the years 2000 and 2001 the U.S. gave $345 million to Afghanistan
  14. After seizing control of Iraq in the early 1980s, the United States Central Intelligence Agency gave Saddam Huissein weapons of mass destruction with instructions to use them against Iran in 1982.
  15. In 1983, the CIA gave Iran similar weapons to use against the Iraqis.
  16. Throughout the early 80s, the CIA gave Osama bin Laden $3 billion to train his organization to fight in Afganistan againt the Soviets.
  17. After the Soviet collapse in 1989, the United States allowed for the Taliban to gain control of the country.
  18. Big Bush was the head of the CIA in the early 1980s, vice president in the mid-80s, and elected president in 1988.
  19. In 1990 Hussein attacked Kuait with the weapons given to him by Bush’s CIA.
  20. In 1991, Bush attacks Iraq, reinstates the previous Kuwaiti government, then withdraws troops.
  21. From 1991 until present, the United States has launched weekly bombing campaigns on Iraq – it is estimated that 500,000 children have died from these bombings.

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Lines 6 to 12 are highly rhetorical, and should really be broken into more statements in order to extract the rhetoric and fact. Bush did, in fact, claim that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Based on the threat of these weapons, the United States needs to use its weapons of mass destruction to eliminate him. We actually know from other statements (Line 21) that we have been using our weapons against Iraq for some time, so bombing them isn’t a new concept, just one that we’re only finding out about now. We also know from Line 14 that we gave Iraq the weapons we’re talking about them using and hiding, so this backs up the idea of “if he had them before, he has them now,” except for the most obvious problem. No weapons have been found. Based in this, if the weapons can not be found, but they are there, they must be hidden. If the weapons are hidden, they have yet to be found by the U.S. government that has had the entire country of Iraq under surveillance as it underwent bombing campaigns each week for the last decade and which has occupied the country with thousands of troops for six months. The argument that, had it not been for Bush, there would still be weapons in Iraq is validated by the statement, “If not for Big Bush, the weapons would not be there at all.” Line 10 states that Saddam sent money to terrorist networks, but we’ve already established that the United States has their hand in the cookie jar this time when it comes to funding people who like to blow things up. If Bush is elected, he will end threats to the U.S.; if Kerry is elected, Americans will continue to live in fear of a “repeat 9/11.” The first thing picked out of that statement is the implication that Americans already live in fear of a repeat 9/11 (they could not continue to be in fear unless they were already in fear). Throughout the 1990s up until 2001, Americans didn’t fear terrorism, that’s what allowed an attack to happen. Whether one blames Americans for being arrogant or the CIA for not seeing it coming, we saw terrorism as “their problem,” and by “their” I mean brown people living in brown countries. Yeah, I said it. Even now, Americans think “suicide bomber” or “hijacker” when they think of terrorists; the definition of terrorism is as follows, “The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.” Said simply, terrorism is any time any person(s) try to use force or violence to change their society or government. By this definition, the United States of America is the biggest terrorist in the world. But, regardless of this, a War on Terror is now being waged against anyone who even thinks about doing something that could mess with the American Way of Life. For whatever reason, Americans believe that their way of life is more important than any other, despite the fact that the way of life as all about consumption. American’s favorite word is “upgrade,” and it is followed closely by “war” and “greed,” though which comes first is a mystery, since is seems each begets the other. Listed, it all looks something like this:

6 Bush claimed that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that Saddam could use them.

6.1 Based in this potential use of weapons, the U.S. must use our weapons to eliminate Hussein.

7 Since Hussein used the weapons a decade earlier, he must still have them.

7.1 No weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq.

8 Hussein is somehow hiding the weapons in Iraq.

8.1 The U.S. took over Iraq in two weeks, and have had six months since to find weapons.

9 If not for Bush, Saddam would still have weapons of mass destruction.

9.1 If not for Big Bush, Saddam wouldn’t have the weapons in the first place.

10 Saddam previously sent money to terrorist networks.

10.1 The United States funded these same networks (line 14)

11 If reelected Bush will end all threats to the United States.

12 If Kerry is elected, he will do a poor job and Americans will continue to live in fear of another 9/11.

12.1 Americans currently live in fear of another terrorist attack.

12.2 Before 9/11, Americans did not live in fear of a terrorist attack, making the attack possible.

12.3 For a decade before 2001, Democrats controlled the government, and there was no fear of terrorism.

12.4 In 2001, Bush is elected president of a country that sustains an attack that kills thousands of civilians a year later – an attack this is arguably the worst in history.

12.5 This attack prompts a “War on Terror,” a campaign made to allow the Republican-controlled government to launch various offenses, starting with Afghanistan.

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Taking all thirty-three statements and reorganizing them to fit, the argument now looks like this:

  1. The war in Iraq is the right thing to do.
  2. Bush is removing a threat to the U.S. by removing a threat to the Middle East.
  3. Big Bush failed to remove the threat that Bush is removing.
  4. By eliminating this threat, the world will be a safer place.
  5. Within the laws of America, it is unlawful for human 1 to attack human 2 unless human 2 has somehow made human 1 feel he is at risk of life or limb.
  6. The United States also has the death penalty.
  7. Based in these U.S. laws, for one to attack before an attack is made on that one is not allowed, but attacking based on being attacked is allowed.
  8. After seizing control of Iraq in the early 1980s, the United States Central Intelligence Agency gave Saddam Hussein weapons of mass destruction with instructions to use them against Iran in 1982.
  9. In 1983, the CIA gave Iran similar weapons to use against the Iraqis.
  10. Throughout the early 80s, the CIA gave Osama bin Laden $3 billion to train his organization to fight in Afghanistan against the Soviets.
  11. After the Soviet collapse in 1989, the United States allowed for the Taliban to gain control of the country.
  12. Big Bush was the head of the CIA in the early 1980s, vice president in the mid-80s, and elected president in 1988.
  13. In 1990 Hussein attacked Kuwait with the weapons given to him by Bush’s CIA.
  14. In 1991, Bush attacks Iraq, reinstates the previous Kuwaiti government, then withdraws troops.
  15. From 1991 until present, the United States has launched weekly bombing campaigns on Iraq – it is estimated that 500,000 children have died from these bombings.
  16. If the Republicans were in power, Saddam would still be a threat to Middle-Eastern countries.
  17. Bush claimed that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that Saddam could use them.
  18. Based in this potential use of weapons, the U.S. must use our weapons to eliminate Hussein.
  19. Since Hussein used the weapons a decade earlier, he must still have them.
  20. Hussein is somehow hiding the weapons in Iraq.
  21. No weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq.
  22. The U.S. took over Iraq in two weeks, and has had six months since to find weapons.
  23. If not for Bush, Saddam would still have weapons of mass destruction.
  24. If not for Big Bush, Saddam wouldn’t have the weapons in the first place.
  25. Saddam previously sent money to terrorist networks, specifically the Taliban.
  26. In the years 2000 and 2001 the U.S. gave $345 million to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, part of which was used in the New York attacks.
  27. If reelected Bush will end all threats to the United States.
  28. If Kerry is elected, he will do a poor job and Americans will continue to live in fear of another 9/11.
  29. Americans currently live in fear of another terrorist attack.
  30. Before 9/11, Americans did not live in fear of a terrorist attack, making the attack possible.
  31. For a decade before 2001, Democrats controlled the government, and there was no fear of terrorism.
  32. In 2001, Bush is elected president of a country that sustains an attack that kills thousands of civilians a year later – an attack this is arguably the worst in history.
  33. This attack prompts a “War on Terror,” a campaign made to allow the Republican-controlled government to launch various offenses, starting with Afghanistan.

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Now, looking at this argument, the war in Iraq almost makes sense, except that there is still conflicting logic within the argument. The object of the argument is to determine how “right” the war is, and the only way our country can determine what is “right” for itself is to look at the way it governs itself, which we have done, and can now review the ethics of the actions. According to our law on assault and battery (Lines 5, 6, 7), one can attack another basing one’s attack on being previously attacked (self-defense, a retaliatory strike), or one can attack another basing one’s attack on a substantial threat to one’s life or limb, proving the attack was necessary to sustain said life or limb; this is also considered self-defense, but would be a preemptive strike, and in this case the government might even charge the victim of the battery if he assaulted (substantially threatened) the man charged with battery.

So, let’s go all the way back to the beginning, with Osama bin Laden being trained by the CIA – a totally justifiable action, as the United States perceived the Soviet Union to be a substantial threat, which it was. Iran, however, was hardly a substantial threat, nor was Iraq, so America’s giving of weapons to those countries to kill each other isn’t really “right.” It’s actually more along the lines of what our government did to American Indians, which is almost never referred to as “right.” Slowly, as the wars between Iraq and Iran, the Soviets and America, died down, so did America’s interest in countries that couldn’t give them anything. Afghanistan was similar to Iran in their view by the U.S. – who cares what they do as long as they’re not Communist?

Unfortunately, the armies that wanted Afghanistan weren’t doing it for America’s war against Communism – they were in it for their own ideals. Afghanistan was attacked from various factions of the broken U.S.S.R., finally getting fully taken-over by the Taliban, proving to bin Laden that not only did the United States not really care about the Middle East, but they only cared about themselves. Unfortunately, he was right, America is a peace-hating country despite how much we claim we distain waging war. As it happens, we’ve been bombing the same country for no apparent reason for the last ten years, killing half a million Iraqi children in the process; then, suddenly, we label their contributions to the Taliban as “terrorist funding” but ours as “humanitarian aid,” even though both went to the same place. What kind of rhetorical garbage is it to claim that a system of government is one of the most oppressive in the world, as the Senate did in 2000, and then give them a third of a million dollars? Then, after Afghanistan fell out from under us, we claimed that Iraq had enough weapons of mass destruction to not only threaten his neighboring countries, which we know the United States could care less about, but that he could even attack America. This argument doesn’t quite fit, though, since our government has been attacking him with weapons of mass destruction for over a decade and they hadn’t done anything about it except throw a few dollars towards an oppressive regime even we gave money to. Even after we took them over again, we have still not found any weapons of mass destruction, even though we claimed we knew they were there. One would think, after selling the weapons to them, watching them use them on Iran, Kuwait, and their own people, then attacking their country for ten years, one would have a good idea where they kept at least one weapon. In fact, looking at this breakdown, I can explain what the United States has been doing for the last twenty years:

  1. It is right for the U.S. to go to war with Iraq, based in the idea that Iraq is a threat.
  2. U.S. gave Iraq lots of weapons, making them the threat they are.
  3. Iraq used those weapons for things the U.S. didn’t like, and were attacked by us.
  4. The U.S. bombs Iraq, takes it over, and then keeps bombing it, killing over a half-million children over the next ten years.
  5. In 2002, the U.S. claims that Iraq is harboring weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; they should know, since they gave them to him and have had his whole country under surveillance for the last two decades.
  6. The U.S. finds no weapons.

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That’s it – nice and easy – forget the funding, forget all the weapons are ours in the first place, forget that we encouraged violence in the Middle East between Middle Eastern countries, and forget everything political. We have been bombing children for the last decade.

Looking at the facts alone, there is absolutely no justification for this war, because the weapons aren’t hidden in Iraq. Even if they still exist, which is really doubtful, they’ve been sold-off a long time ago. So, if the war in Iraq is based in Iraq having the capability to militarily threaten, similar to our assault and battery laws, the war would work. Sadly, this is looking more and more like a bar fight between a drunk and a cokehead; one so paranoid he’ll attack for any reason and the other so stupid he gives it to him. Unfortunately, the weapons were gone before we sent our troops in to occupy the intensely threatening nation of Iraq, which took about two weeks, making many question who the real threat is to the world. As far as Iraqi weapons are concerned, there are only three answers, the third of which just isn’t possible, but has to be listed for the sake of argument:

1. In our post-Gulf War bombings, we had already destroyed the weapons, in which case we had no reason to invade this time (or continue to bomb them).

2. The weapons were sold off after the Gulf War, in which case we had no reason to bomb them at all.

3. The weapons have been deftly hidden from U.S. intelligence ever since we gave them to Iraq, and continue to be hidden despite Saddam’s capture and U.S. occupation of the country.

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Logically, based in everything I have put into this document, I know what has happened in the Middle East. We started a bunch of wars in an attempt to stop the spread of Communism and, if the U.S. was lucky, allow some of the jihad-loving brown people to kill each other off. Unfortunately, our plan backfired, and both Iraq and Iran wound up hating America; luckily, America still had Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the rest of OPEC. The Saudis were close with the U.S. and had allowed them to set up military bases on their soil, helping both governments insure their investment since both were a little worried about Iraq.

Kuwait, however, was much smaller and without our military bases, but it still shipped almost as much oil to the U.S. as Saudi Arabia; from a “terrorist” standpoint, Iraq could attack the U.S. by attacking their oil supply, ergo their pocketbooks (this was really the same mentality as the New York Attack). We didn’t recognize it as terrorism then, or really even now, since terrorists are mindless guerillas that blow things up, not strategists; so the U.S. set out to immediately “liberate” Kuwait from the Iraqis so they could start oppressing their citizens again and give us good prices for gas.

Notice – that was the goal of the Gulf War, not to liberate Iraq, but to liberate Kuwait. The government defeated Hussein but (very deliberately) allowed him to stay in control, for a variety of reasons. The first was that his military was in pieces at the time and would take years to eliminate, very similar to the problems experienced in Afghanistan, which is another reason we stopped caring about Afghanistan and began caring about Iraq – we needed to defeat someone, and Iraq was a prime target, having been steadily bombed for over a decade. After a decade of bombing, most Iraqi military that wasn’t dead had gone away to a country that will let them train terrorists in peace. Not only were Americans mad about 9/11 and Islamic terrorism, but they still had a bone to pick from 1991 when many Americans saw our “victory” as letting Hussein get away, so they were more than happy to go back in, because of terrorism funding or weapons or just because we wanted to and felt it was right. We didn’t give much thought to how right it was to bomb innocent civilians for years, but the idea of someone else merely threatening to possibly do that someday to us was more than we could bear, and launched a full-offensive.

The actual goal of it all is uncertain. In my opinion, based in aspects not discussed within this argument, Bush’s administration had a number of reasons to go back to Iraq. The only reason that wasn’t true was that they thought Iraq had weapons, because they new for a fact they did not. Based in this administration’s “control-freak” nature, looking at everything from Afghani reconstruction belong led by Dick Cheney’s old corporation to the PATRIOT Act being written and passed in less than six weeks, I would say Bush quite possibly just wanted to finish up what Daddy had started, using whatever excuses necessary. Big Bush has been involved with oil since before he was a politician, with ties to the bin Laden family, as it is that they are Saudi Arabian; to think that his withdrawal from The Gulf coupled with weekly bombing campaigns from then on had nothing to do with business is very gullible. Anyone who sees this and doesn’t see a repeat of 1991 is blind; the current administration has set up so much within the government that it will take ten years before it will get adjusted. I say adjusted and not fixed because, in the instance of Bush’s actions in the 80s and early 90s, the adjustment was the New York Attack, and that hardly fixed anything. For all we know, in ten years, we might find out about how dirty 9/11 was in relation to the Bush family just as we’re finding out about Iraq.

Besides all that, we still hadn’t found Osama bin Laden yet, despite the fact that we took over Afghanistan, making our intelligence look almost as bad as after this war, when no weapons of mass destruction were found. The irony here is layered since Big Bush was Mr. CIA and now his kid can’t seem to find sand in a desert. After 9/11, people said he should have known, but it was OK because we were going after them. After we failed at finding bin Laden, people said he should have known, but it was OK, because Iraq was the real threat, not the Taliban, which was now gone. One can not have a war without an enemy. The connection between Afghanistan and Iraq is still shaky, but support for the war was built on a campaign aimed towards Americans’ sympathy for the New York Attack and their fear of having it happen again. Once the people ran out of 9/11 sympathy, having destroyed the Taliban, they got upset that bin Laden wasn’t found, which was milked by the government because “Osama could be anywhere…”

Now, at this point, the focus shifted from who actually attacked New York to who was responsible for attacking New York. When it really comes down to it, it was almost all the United States’ fault, whether from a lack of intelligence, their secret training of bin Laden in the 80s, their generally horrible treatment of the Middle East, or most likely a coupling of all three. For some reason, Americans really didn’t care about those reasons, despite their knowledge of them. It didn’t take long before America knew bin Laden was trained by our CIA, that we also funded the Taliban, that the Iraqi weapons were really ours, all of it – we just didn’t care. A population that was gorged with the fear of another terrorist attack like that which was sustained was willing to do almost anything to stop another, even if what they did was literally the least thing they could do, whether putting a flag on their car or bombing another country.

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