Canada’s Conservatives

[jdobbin]

If everyone knew what the situation in Iraq would be now, no one would be there.

It's awfully high and mighty to say that Harper was wrong at the time... overwelming evidence showed that Saddam had WMD's, and posed an imminent threat to peace in the region. He had invaded neighbouring countries before. I would have and did support the mission in Iraq to remove him and his WMD's.

Sure, in the end no WMD's existed. But to Harper's best knowledge, and to the Liberals best knowledge, they did exist. It was a complete abandonment of responsible to the world for the Liberals not to have commited at least symbolic support to the Iraq mission.

It's nice that the mission didn't go as planned and no WMD's were found, worked well for the left right. Well, I still see it as they failed their duty. With the information we all had at the time, invasion was the right choice, and the Liberals failed.

There were many people in the U.S. including some in the administration who questioned whether the intelligence was correct. Canada was already heavily involved in the interdiction and questioned what the rush was to invasion.

Important questions were being asked about what was happen when the war was over. How would the peace be won. There were so little answers. Just supreme confidence on the part of the right. Well, they were wrong. Wrong about the WMD, wrong about winning the peace, wrong that Iraq was involved in 9/11 and wrong that this was about terrorism.

Harper ought to count himself lucky he didn't end up in Iraq. It might have been the end of the Conservatives as we know them.

[bradco]

If everyone knew what the situation in Iraq would be now, no one would be there.

It's awfully high and mighty to say that Harper was wrong at the time... overwelming evidence showed that Saddam had WMD's, and posed an imminent threat to peace in the region. He had invaded neighbouring countries before. I would have and did support the mission in Iraq to remove him and his WMD's.

Sure, in the end no WMD's existed. But to Harper's best knowledge, and to the Liberals best knowledge, they did exist. It was a complete abandonment of responsible to the world for the Liberals not to have commited at least symbolic support to the Iraq mission.

It's nice that the mission didn't go as planned and no WMD's were found, worked well for the left right. Well, I still see it as they failed their duty. With the information we all had at the time, invasion was the right choice, and the Liberals failed.

So that's why Harper can easily say he doesn't want to be there now. Bush certainly does not want to be there anymore, neither do the Republicans in general... the horrible cost of retreating now though keeps them there. It was right to join the mission then, it's not right to join any longer.

That doesn't mean Canada is free from its obligations to provide humanitarian aid once peace is established.

Invading Iraq was poor policy and it was not right to join the mission then...

Overwhelming might be the wrong word to describe the evidence they had to prove that Iraq had WMD. If the evidence was truly overwhelming they would have had weapons. Thats beside the point. I wonder about your way of dealing with a nation that has WMD. Starting a war with a country that you can roll over in your sleep is probably the last thing you would like to do in a situation where you truly believe them to possess WMD. America should be lucky that he did not have any because faced with invasion is the ONLY time he would have ever used them. Hussein might have been a bad, bad man but I highly doubt he was a complete idiot. He would have known that if he ever used any WMD he would have the entire world allied against him.

I just don't see how Iraq posed an "imminent threat" to the region or America. True they had invaded their neighbours but I think it is fair to say that Saddam learned exactly what he could get away with then. I don't see why a man who had pretty much absolute power would throw that away. He would have to be acting fairly irrationally to attack anyone and therefore I don't see how you can describe Iraq as an imminent threat to anyone. The only threat he could have possibly have posed would have been a WMD attack carried out via unconventional means so that it could not have been traced back to him. Such an attack would be expensive and risky and provide little or no benefit to himself so I find this hard to consider. I find the argument that this war was necessary to get rid of an imminent threat to be troublesome.

The only argument that had real legitimacy was to free the Iraqi people from his brutal oppression. However I question whether this was at all a priority of this war. I wonder what the estimated death toll due to Saddam was because the death toll created by this war and the following insurgency is getting awfully high.

Of course Canada should feel obliged to provide humanitarian aid once peace is established but the "coalition of the willing" should be responsible for cleaning up the mess that they have created.