Sometimes lately I remember just what it was like leading up to the vote on Iraq, and what it was like when they started bombing. I was stunned by the attitudes I had encountered when I called the offices of our Democrats. I knew most of us active online at the time could see all kinds of things showing it was a tragic unnecessary invasion.
But the offices I called were so casually accepting of the fact that Bush said it was necessary. He had been in office long enough by that time for them to know better than to trust him.
Do you remember when Bill Clinton said:
“I want it to have been worth it, even though I didn’t agree with the timing of the attack,” Clinton said
I realize that he really did pretty much go along with it. I guess that is why Hillary is having so much trouble speaking out about it.
CNN — Former President Clinton has revealed that he continues to support President Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq but chastised the administration over the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison.
“I have repeatedly defended President Bush against the left on Iraq, even though I think he should have waited until the U.N. inspections were over,” Clinton said in a Time magazine interview that will hit newsstands Monday, a day before the publication of his book “My Life.”
Clinton, who was interviewed Thursday, said he did not believe that Bush went to war in Iraq over oil or for imperialist reasons but out of a genuine belief that large quantities of weapons of mass destruction remained unaccounted for.
Noting that Bush had to be “reeling” in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001, Clinton said Bush’s first priority was to keep al Qaeda and other terrorist networks from obtaining “chemical and biological weapons or small amounts of fissile material.”
What I find even more devastating is that three of our major Democrats were told by former Clinton WH advisors that they should go along with it. Two of them did not, and they spoke out. One went along, has since said he was wrong, it was a mistake.
The advisors of our former Democratic president, and possibly the former president himself advising to vote for an unnecessary war….that seems so wrong. Brief snippets from what Howard Dean, Russ Feingold, and John Edwards said about the advice they got.
In 2003 Dean said once that Saddam should be disarmed, though in the rest of the interview he said Bush had not made the case yet. Jeremy Scahill later asked him about the “disarming” Saddam statement.
From Huffington Post in November 2005:
During the New Hampshire primary in January 2004, which I covered for Democracy Now!, I confronted Dean about that statement. I asked him on what intelligence he based that allegation. “Talks with people who were knowledgeable,” Dean told me. “Including a series of folks that work in the Clinton administration.
And Feingold’s reference about his advice. From David Sirota’s blog this month. Audio clip included.
Us versus the Washington consultants
After the election we had on November 7th and after polls have registered the public’s deep anger at the President for trying to escalate the war, you would think Democrats would be pushing legislation with real teeth and not just non-binding nothingness, especially if the GOP was going to filibuster anyway. Well, you’d be wrong. In the audio excerpt, I asked Feingold if this is because of Ben Nelson-ism – that is, because of conservative Democrats who are willing to use a brinkmanship progressive senators rarely use. As you can hear, Feingold says it’s even deeper – he says this is a battle between Democrats’ Washington consultant class and the rest of the country – and he specifically targets the D.C. elites from the Clinton administration, who he accurately notes largely supported the war from the get-go.
Dean and Feingold did not support the war, Edwards did. Here is what he says about advice he got.
MR. RUSSERT: Why were you so wrong?
SEN. EDWARDS: For the same reason a lot of people were wrong. You know, we–the intelligence information that we got was wrong. I mean, tragically wrong. On top of that I’d–beyond that, I went back to former Clinton
administration officials who gave me sort ofindependent information about what they believed about what was happening with Saddam’s weapon–weapons
programs. They were also wrong.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16903253 /
I hate to tell Bill Clinton this, but it does not appear to “have been worth it.” Not one little bit. And I fear this may be part of the reason Hillary can not speak clearly on this.
that’s been the mantra of this party since the early 90s. The think tanks on our side have been preaching that if we don’t sound tough we won’t win.
There was so little common sense applied about the Iraq vote….it was like a rush to be sure we sounded less tough than their side.
I visited the DLC site recently. They are still preaching it…that we must not appear weak. They seem to take credit for the win (which no one should do..it was all of us together)…by pointing to Iraq.
It has not occurred to them we are losing there.
One can sound “tough” and still have common sense, still demand evidence.
They basically agreed that Saddam had to go so we could get out of the business of containing him. After that, they disagreed on how to do it, how to justify it, and they decided to go along with Bush despite misgivings about his sales job.
Clinton’s administration had fed us a lot of misinformation as a way of sustaining support for containment. The Bush’s used it as blackmail against them.
I think that they as well as many other Democrats have had “persuasion” used against them, and the word blackmail might just be true. You can only go so far in going along with people who are wrong…it comes back to bite one in the butt.
Remember Bill Clinton’s speech to the DLC in December 2002? The words “strong and wrong” resonated with a lot of Democrats…it gave them a sort of permission to be “wrong” if they appeared “strong.”
http://www.dlc.org/print.cfm?contentid=251085
How many of our Democrats trusted him and did just that…tried to sound strong instead of having the courage to be wrong. After all being weak and right would not have counted until years later.
the people vote for someone who is strong and wrong, they are misguided, short-sighted, afraid, etc.
When a “leader” picks the “strong and wrong” course rather than fight for what is right, that is amoral, and not a little sickening. I’m still pleased never to have voted for Bill Clinton.
you speak killed 500,000 children.
But “it was worth the price.”
Actually, he has a point. The problem is where it leads… to leaders who are so damned afraid to be wrong that they can’t muster the will to be strong on what is right. They’re so afraid of APPEARING to be weak, that they won’t take a stand on anything until they know it’s “right.”
When people are insecure, they look for leaders. A leader who can inspire them to be brave, to make sacrifices, to do what needs to be done to deal with whatever it is making them feel insecure. They don’t necessarily need or want “protection” — they want leadership and direction. They don’t need perfection, or a leader who is infallible and never wrong. Most people are more than willing to do whatever is necessary in a crisis or in hard times — we saw that in New York. We saw it in the Gulf states after the hurricanes. People WANT to do something — but they need guidance and direction to know what to do, where, when, and what the immediate needs are. And in a time of crisis they need leadership, and they need hope.
Bush playacts at being a leader. He thinks it’s all about getting people to do what you say — uniforms and authority and giving orders. But that’s shallow reasoning and weak leadership.
Strong and wrong will only win if strong and RIGHT never stands up. Problem is, the Democrats don’t seem to have a lot of faith in their own judgment of what’s RIGHT — therefore they can’t be strong and right. They’re too afraid to be wrong; so as a consequence, they’re weak. They’re afraid that if they bring forth a strong measure against the war, and LOSE, that the cause for peace will suffer for it… (or maybe that their next election campaign will suffer for it). They seem to think they should only bring up legislation they are pretty sure will pass. They don’t seem to understand that being strong isn’t about winning. It’s about taking a stand and digging your feet in, even if you lose. It’s not winning that makes you strong. It’s taking a stand in the first place, even if you aren’t sure you’ll win. It’s being WILLING to risk losing, because the principle you’re standing for matters to you more than winning.
You don’t have to worry about “appearing weak” unless you yourself believe you ARE weak. And if that’s what you believe, then nothing is going to make you feel strong, win or lose.
If Iraq never happened because we took time to speak up and get it right. I think about that a lot. It makes me bitter because of all the deaths that did not have to be.
I think this invasion, more than anything in my adult life…..has been a defining point in who we are and what we stand for. It woke people up who had taken this country’s morality for granted. It was a shocking time.