We are still fighting a war that was started based on the claim that Iraq harbored weapons of mass destruction, a claim that proved false, and one for which our government is now scrambling to make excuses. It reminds me of Ashlee Simpson, in a way.

Even if I believed that the President truly thought all along that Iraq was indeed in possession of these weapons, I would still fault his actions. This is why:

George W. Bush having bad intelligence certainly wouldn’t be a change. Let’s say that all his intelligence sources pointed to Iraq having weapons of mass destruction. Even if it was an honest mistake, even if the true reason for America’s rash, unilateral declaration of war really was that he believed Saddam Hussein’s regime to be in possession of such weapons and thus a threat to the United States and the rest of the world, and he acted on intelligence that turned out to be wrong, I still fault him. Because you don’t start a war on intelligence unless you’re damn certain the intelligence is correct. You don’t go to war on a fucking hunch.

This is common sense; that intelligence (if it can be called that), that perceived threat, was not enough to start a war over.

Unless, of course, that perceived threat was only a secondary motive.

I supported the invasion of Iraq. I still support it. Here’s why that statement doesn’t render moot everything I’ve just said.

As I said, even if Bush was misled by his intelligence, that’s still no excuse. Which leaves his humanitarian reasons for the invasion: deposing a cruel, despotic totalitarian and liberating his people. While I never believed that this was the true reason we invaded Iraq, it’s still a decent reason. Yes, I think the only things Saddam ever possessed that posed a threat to the United States were his oil fields. And I still think it’s a good thing that we removed from power a tyrant of questionable mental acuity. But here, the ends do not justify the means:

We don’t need a President who, depending on your opinion, either outright deceives us, or acts rashly, unilaterally, and with insufficient cause; nor should a nation which purportedly separates church and state have an Executive who attempts to legislate based on his own religious beliefs.

Deposing a grossly unfit leader is always an honorable cause; the reason I supported the invasion of Iraq is the same reason I urge you to vote for John Kerry today.

-Dan Moynihan

(And I do believe that Saddam Hussein never had any of the weapons in question. If you ask why, if he never possessed any weapons of mass destruction, Iraq’s ruler would have been so averse to Hans Blix’s weapons inspectors having complete freedom, the answer is simple. Because he’s Saddam fucking Hussein; he’s a criminal mastermind, and you can be sure he had plenty of other shit that he would much rather the UN not find out about. Like what? This is pure speculation, of course, but how about stores of opium ready for export? How about weapons of less-than-mass destruction, but way more of them than he would want the whole world knowing about? You can be sure he had more than enough reason not to want to give UN inspectors the run of the place. I believe that there were never any WMD’s, and even that our government knew, or suspected, early on that this was the case. You’ve seen the memos. We impeached Bill Clinton for lying to us about oral sex. George W. Bush lied to us about a war. You tell me which is the worse offense.)