My letter to NeoCon talkshow on PBS (Fukuyama interview)

Last weekend on a Conservative interview show on PBS called "Think Tank with Ben Wattenberg", the guest was the most high-profile former neo-Conservative to publicly recant his support for "The Bush Doctrine" of preemption: Professor Frank Fukuyama (one of the founders of the Neo-Conservative movement who so publicly abandoned ship earlier this year). Mr. Wattenberg, an elderly man resembling Michael Chertoff, began the interview with the "warning": "I'll let you state your case before I *pounce*."

Below is my e-mailed response to Mr. Wattenberg's interview:
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Thank you for part-1 of your interview with Mr. Fukuyama on Sunday's "Think Tank" on PBS.

Knowing of his neo-Conservative background, and learning of his recent reversal of support for "The Bush Doctrine" of preemption, I was very interested in learning the basis for this transformation.

Full disclosure: I, myself, have always been a staunch opponent to the war in Iraq from the beginning. It bothered me that no one else seemed to consider how serious declaring war on another country is... especially when we hadn't yet finished getting Osama bin Laden... a far more "imminent threat" that had just attacked us on 9/11. The very thought of needing to declare war on another country should of sent chills down everyone's spine. Instead, the consequences of a "war with Iraq" was discussed in an almost blase' fashion, especially from the Administration ("greet us with flowers"), which promoted the idea that we could just walk in, remove Saddam, walk out, and get back to the business of getting OBL. A nation still surging with bloodlust following 9/11, stoked on by the Bush Administration for a full year with talk of "mushroom clouds" and "dirty bombs", hardly blinked at the opportunity to invade another country they were being gently messaged into believing was complicit in 9/11. Government should have been "the cool head of reason" in such times. Instead, the Bush Administration played the roll of "coalman" stoking the fire of revenge to further its own agenda.

Many neo-Conservatives have tried to defend the invasion of Iraq to me on the grounds that "Everyone believed Saddam had Weapons of Mass Destruction", and therefore President Bush was doing what anyone else in his place would have done. But even if... in fact ESPECIALLY if... Saddam had WMD's, "war" should have been a last resort after all other means have been exhausted. Going to war was not-even-close to the last resort for this Administration. A desire to invade Iraq and depose Saddam Hussein had been an agenda of this Administration from long before even the 2000 Presidential Campaign. Just imagine what the fallout could have been from an invasion if Saddam had indeed had WMD's. We might have PROVOKED the very situation we sought to avoid. He could have given his weapons to terrorists with instructions to use them should we invade. He could have used them on our troops and killed thousands. And of course, if he really did have those flying UAV's (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) capable to reaching the U.S. and spraying us with chemical weapons that we accused him of having, might he not of been provoked into actually using them should we invade? But none of that mattered to George Bush and his staff full of draft-dodging Nixon-era power crazed neo-Conservatives.

I wrote several editorials at the time noting that it would of been preferable "to send a million international inspectors, and keep them there for the next 20 years" than start a war with a madman that may have WMD's and no compunction against using them. Neo-Conservatives have actually tried to argue that "Saddam would not allow the inspectors in"... what President Bush would call "revisionist history"... as U.N. inspectors were on the ground in Iraq destroying four al-Samoud missiles a day in the weeks before the war (missiles that were only "illegal" because their range violated the 450mi limit permitted under the first Gulf War resolution by 50 miles). When the documentation we requested (and Iraq provided) on the destruction of their chemical and biological weapons caches for the past decade were provided, the Bush Administration instantly dismissed them without so much as a peek saying they were "the same documents they had seen before" and did not include the phantom weapons they KNEW Saddam must have built since then. So, by not showing proof of the destruction of weapons that never existed, the Bush Administration was able to accuse Saddam of "non-cooperation" and justify invasion.

I've often been asked, "If Saddam had no weapons, what was he hiding? Why did he play such games with the inspectors?" What Saddam was "hiding" was the fact that HE HAD NO WEAPONS. The last thing he wanted was his sworn enemy Iran to know was that he was defenseless. It is actually quite brilliant. Inspectors can't find weapons that you've destroyed, and you're enemies can't be certain you still don't have them... and Saddam had A LOT of enemies, including al-Qaeda, which President Bush has always tried to paint Saddam as having an alliance with... which would of liked nothing more than to see the overthrow of the secular Muslim leader in the heart of the Middle-East.

Saddam was cruel and inhuman... granted. So are a dozen other dictators across the globe. And as Mr. Fukuyama so rightly pointed out, "Do we invade them all?"

Mr. Wattenberg tried desperately and quite obviously to get Professor Fukuyama to recant his change of heart for the Bush doctrine of preemption, but the professor held fast. I was quite astounded by the transformation of such a noted former neo-Conservative. He correctly recognized the fact that "war" and "invasion" were not the best, or even necessary, means of keeping Saddam in check. It has not made us safer but in fact has made things worse, providing al-Qaeda with a live-fire training ground while bombings and terrorist attacks have spread throughout the world. Guantanamo Bay has become "the anti-Statue of Liberty", and all of the Good Will felt towards America following the horrifying attacks of 9/11 have been totally reversed, with more people in the world now fearing the United States, seeing us as the leading threat to World Peace, more a source of aggression and destabilization in the world than a force for good.

While 3,000 Americans died on 9/11, more than ten times that number, 50,000 innocent Iraqi's have now died of the Neo-Conservatives' long dreamt of war with Iraq... long before 9/11... which was no threat to us, neither directly, nor indirectly by selling non-existent weapons to terrorists they themselves feared. Mr. Wattenberg brought up Saddam's support of Palestinian suicide bombers as a possible justification for invading Iraq. Forget about the fact that perhaps a dozen other Mid-East Muslim nations do the same, including our ally Saudi Arabia and our new friends in Pakistan that also may be sheltering Osama bin Laden, but PLEASE tell me that we didn't start and unnecessary war, invade another country under false pretences, expend the lives of 2500+ of our Best & Brightest, spend nearly A Half Trillion Dollars in tax dollars we don't have, and cost the lives of 50,000 innocent Iraqi civilians because Saddam gave $5,000 stipends to the families of dead bombers!

Nearly 5 years after 9/11, Osama is still free and threatening the United States. President Bush now readily concedes without fear of repercussion that he willingly and repeatedly violates the Constitution that he swore an oath to uphold in his zeal to protect us from the very mess he himself created. The Bush Administration has suspended habeas corpus for American citizens, tapped our phones without Congressional oversight, can now search our homes and confiscate our belongings without a warrant on the grounds of "National Security" with only their own assurances that this new found power is not being abused and is holding "battlefield" prisoners in legal limbo in Gitmo until his "war-without-end" ends. ("We're the Government, You can trust us", they say. Really? Not based on THIS record.)

If one were to tally a balance sheet of what bin Laden has gained vs. what the United States has gained from the war in Iraq, bin Laden comes out far ahead. His reason for the attacks of 9/11 was in protest over our troops in Saudi Arabia. Immediately following the invasion of Iraq, the first thing we did was pull our troops out of Saudi Arabia and close our bases there. Saddam, a secular and permissive Muslim leader in the heart of the Middle East was now gone and the new Iraq is leaning towards a political alliance with Iran The invasion of Iraq is depleting our treasury and bankrupting our country. Our military is stretched so thin that true threats like Iran and North Korea know that threats of military force against them are more bark than bite. The price of gasoline has doubled to $3/gallon, making the Arab nations richer and more powerful than ever before (please note that in his 2000 RNC acceptance speech, George Bush criticized the Clinton administrations "nation building" for stretching our military so thin "two entire divisions would have to report 'Not ready for duty!'. It wasn't true then, but it certainly is today) and raised al-Qaeda from a third-rate terrorist organization that was on the ropes following 9/11 as even the Arab world began to distance themselves from an organization they consider may have gone "too far", to the pinnacle of respect as a leader in their war against American Imperialism, using the war in Iraq as the ultimate recruitment tool, ensuring blinding hated towards the West for the next 30 years.

I look forward to the follow up interview with Mr. Fukuyama next Sunday and hope his new found realization of the devastation and folly of the Iraq war makes a positive impression on the blindly Conservative Mr. Wattenberg.

I leave you with the prescient words of President Eisenhower:

"If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking... is freedom."

given to the families of suicide bombers in Palistine. I remember Saudi Arabia raising $50,000,000 for the families of suicide bombers.