Originally posted by Pete
What I am sick of is liberals who stick their head in the sand over the transgressions of their own, yet squeel like little pigs at what republicans do.
I'm really just sick - or shall I say, flabbergasted - by liberals who vote for the Patriot Act - and then go on record about how bad it is. Who vote FOR the war, and then tell us how wrong it is. Who tell the world just three months before the war that Saddam was a dangerous man with WMD's and had to be taken out - and the list of such liberals is LONG - but afterwards decry the war and castigate Bush over it. Who, after being called on the phone by ABC Nightline's Ted Koppel, and admitted they STILL would have voted for the war even knowing what they know now (and THIS list contains all the top Democrats who voted for the war), but nevertheless will excoriate Bush this week over the war.
And I'm not just talking Kerry and Edwards. It's all of them. And I'm not just talking six years ago, when THEY were the hawks determined to go to war with Saddam. I'm talking 3-6 months before the war.
See the thing is, going to war is like jumping out of a plane - you don't decide halfway down you'd rather go back into the plane - you have to see it through. You MAKE THAT decision when you decide to go. The decision to follow it through to the end is made at the beginning. And the reason for that is, it's going to cost lives. It's the part of being a president I don't envy - bartering in lives. Pay 800 lives to save a million lives.
Another thing about Kerry - he's gone on the record recently as saying, if the situation presented itself that an enemy was preparing to attack us, he would have no problem pre-empting an attack unilaterally, if the threat was there. Now this is precisely the kind of thing Bush is being drilled a new a**hole over, and Kerry says the same thing, and gets a free pass.
The toughest thing about doing things pre-emptively with someone like Saddam is, there's probably no way to ever know what MIGHT have happened had he been left alone. If we had arrested those 19 hijackers, undoubtedly the ACLU would be crying foul and everybody would be up in arms, but no one would have any idea what might have happened on 9/11. If someone had shot Hitler back in 1923 in Munich, no one would have ever heard of him, and WW2 might have been averted, but the thing is, no one KNOWS this after the problem is AVERTED.
This is the central problem I have between the purpose of the 9/11 commission, and the war in Iraq. The commission is supposed to answer the question - could we have stopped it? Well, without direct knowledge of what they had planned, the answer is clearly "no". No measure we had in place would have averted it, and if someone from the future had TOLD them what would happen, arresting 19 Arabs would have infuriated the world. On the other hand, we STOP Saddam in his tracks over similarly damning evidence - actually MUCH more damning evidence - and we're criticized, but the world will likely never know the disaster that was stopped because of that.
And the answer seems to be - either way, someone will hate you for it, but you have to go with the one that will likely save more lives. On that, I don't fault the president. I don't really fault those who disagree, because they believe a different course of action will save lives, even though I think they're mistaken. But I DO find fault with those who do BOTH, because they're not on anyone's side but their own.