A reader sums up one way in which the anti-war left is still fighting the war – by trying to create a new narrative of the pre-war. Of course, the analogy is from the Simpsons. The argument about the war is a little like Apu’s citizenship exam (my reader paraphrases from memory):
Exam Giver: “What was the cause of the Civil War?”
Apu: “The split between abolitionists and secessionists had come to a head in in The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 when…”
Exam Giver: “Just say slavery.”
Apu: “Slavery it is, sir!”
“What was the reason given for the war against Saddam?”
“Well, the previous Gulf War’s truce required Saddam to give up all WMD research and development and weapons, and U.N. Resolutions … ”
“Just say we said he was on the brink of killing us with nukes!”
“Weapons it is, sir!”
So we get the baldfaced untruth that the war was because Iraq posed an “imminent” threat. It wasn’t. Or that it was about a causal link between Saddam and 9/11. It wasn’t. Or that it was based in intellgience from Niger. It wasn’t. Technically, the war was a continuation of the last one, and was fully supported by umpteen U.N. resolutions, including a 15-0 Security Council vote to force Saddam to comply. 9/11 made a war far more conceivable because it revealed the U.S.’s vulnerability to fanatical terrorists who might get hold of WMDs from Saddam. The casus belli was not proof of Saddam’s existing weapons, but proof of his refusal to cooperate fully with U.N. inspectors or account fully for his WMD research. Nothing we have discovered after the war has debunked or undermined any of these reasons. And the moral reason for getting rid of an unconscionably evil regime has actually gotten stronger now we see the full extent of his terror-state. But the anti-war left sees a real advantage in stripping down the claims in people’s receding memories to ones that were not made but which can now be debunked. It’s propaganda, to which the media in particular seems alarmingly prone to parroting. We have tor esist it at every stop – because this war has not yet been won, and the really crucial battle, now as before, is at home.
THE “IMMINENT” LIE: Two AP stories that keep up the “imminent threat” lie: one from John Lumpkin on October 2; and one by Jim Abrams on October 4. Please send in any new post-October 6 versions of the lie. The Associated Press is particularly important, since it is so widely disseminated in local papers.
EMAIL OF THE DAY: “I have e-mailed you and disagreed with you many times, but please do me one favor: STOP WRITING ABOUT THE CUBS!!!!!! YOU ARE GOING TO JINX IT!!! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA OF WHAT YOU ARE MESSING WITH????!!! THIS IS 95 YEARS OF PAIN YOU’RE F***ING WITH!!! I PROMISE TO NEVER DISAGREE WITH ANYTHING YOU SAY AGAIN, JUST PLEASE STOP WRITING ABOUT THEM UNTIL THEY……… gulp.”
The Dish 