From: Gene McAloon 

On Tue, 23 Dec 2003 00:17:21 -0600, David N. Barnett  wrote:

>On Mon, 22 Dec 2003 21:17:01 -0500, Gary Wiltshire 
>wrote in message :
>
>| Sez you.  If Bush and Powell had meant "imminent" they'd have said
>| "imminent."
>
>Define "is."

Although few here even bother to mention it, the crux of the problem for
Bush was to justify a pre-emptive war against Iraq. That kind of war can
only be justified legally if the danger is imminent. Bush argued it was
because Saddam possessed WMD. The UN didn't buy that argument and Bush
could never got a majority vote in the Security Council for his draft
resolution favoring pre-emptive war.

At that point Bush changed tactics, arguing that there was a clear and
present danger and although that didn't satisfy the imminence legal
justification he argued that the clear and present danger meant that he
didn't have to wait around for imminence to go to war. It was an
embarrassingly feeble argument so he tried to reinforce it with the
additional argument that Iraq had to be punished for defying UN resolutions
and made that even more feeble argument despite the fact there is nothing
in either the UN Charter nor in subsequent resolutions authorizing war
against an Iraq defying those resolutions.

Bush was thwarted every which way he turned. No one believed the imminent
nonsense, no one believed the WMD lies and the war against Iraq for
violations of UN resolutions was laughable. Every argument Bush used was
rejected and deservedly so. He went it alone and now pays the price with an
Iraq he cannot control and a Saddam he doesn't know what to do with.

While the rest of the world rejected those arguments, the mindless Bush
followers are still pushing those ridiculous arguments. As I have said,
their fantasy world has no end., no restrictions. The truth doesn't matter
and spin is
all.  And it is all about justifying pre-emptive war, with WMD and all that used
merely as arguments for the justification.

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