WhatFinger


Obama’s haughty, scripted rhetoric will likely prove again dangerously offhanded, amateurish, and unpresidential

WMD: “Shock and Awe” Versus “Leading from Behind”



Just over ten years ago (March 19, 2003), the United States led an invasion of Iraq. President George Bush declared the goal of this invasion was "to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), to end Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people."
Bush’s main ally in this “Coalition of the Willing” was P.M. Tony Blair of the United Kingdom. The U.N. did not endorse the war. Both Bush and Blair were roundly criticized as liars when no WMD were found. For his part after his trial, Saddam was rendered to room temperature, and democratic elections are now regularly held in Iraq. But what about those absent WMD that were never found? Remember that, near the end of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988, Saddam had perpetrated the largest chemical gas attack (WMD) on a civilian population in history. Up to 5,000 Iraqi Kurds were murdered, with thousands more very seriously injured. Fast forward to today, August 25, 2013. Yesterday, President Obama, huddled by phone for some time with the U.K.’s current prime minister, David Cameron. The U.K.’s Daily Telegram reports that “…Obama emphasized that a quick intervention in the Syrian civil war was problematic, given the international considerations that should precede a military strike…” Problematic, no doubt. “Quick intervention”? Really? The Syrian conflict’s been raging for two years. One hundred thousand are dead, and one million children alone are in refugee camps across Syria’s borders. Last Wednesday, undisputably, almost 400 Syrian civilians died in a chemical gas attack (WMD) in a suburb of Damascus. Whose WMD was it?

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But give Obama his due. He doesn’t want to be precipitous now like that cowboy Bush had been back then. Unlike Bush in Iraq, Obama in Syria wants the U.N.’s permission to act, but much like with Bush, the U.N. can’t determine who’s the perp here, the Syrian Government or the rebels. Until late today, U.N. “inspectors” were not being permitted to “inspect”. Ironic eh? That’s what happened to Bush. Even if WMD had been found in Iraq, Russia and China would have vetoed a U.N. resolution to act. Regardless of any positive findings from U.N. inspectors, Russia and China will veto any substantive resolution that Obama and Cameron propose in the U.N. Security Council. If any action against Assad is to be taken, it will be taken by some new day “Coalition of the Willing”, but that coalition will be led by someone other than Obama. After all, absent sanctioning by the U.N., Obama prefers to “lead from behind”, even though he’d proclaimed this past May that President Assad “…must go.” Someone famously once said, “If you’re going to tell a man to go to hell, you better be prepared to send him there.” Once again, and with all due respect for the office of the American presidency, Obama’s haughty, scripted rhetoric will likely prove again dangerously offhanded, amateurish, and unpresidential. Increasingly, world and domestic leaders no longer believe, fear, and/or respect his utterances. Finally, around the time of Bush’s Iraq invasion, mysterious and never explained convoys of covered trucks left Iraq for……Syria. So again, we beg the question, “What happened to Saddam’s chemical WMD?”


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Doug Jeffrey -- Bio and Archives

Doug is a retired teacher, living on the banks of the mighty Sydenham River beyond the eastern outskirts of Wallaceburg, Ontario.  Before entering the teaching profession, Doug spent fifteen years back and forth between a family business and the Universities of Windsor and Western Ontario.

Doug and his wife enjoy the company of our two children, four grandchildren, and a very spoiled indoor/outdoor brown tabby named Aslan.  Doug also dabble, as an assistant, in the genealogical research and writing pursuits of wife Margaret.


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