The Way The War Is Viewed — Before And After

24 Jan, 2003 by John Hawkins

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The Way The War Is Viewed — Before And After: We’re getting very close to war and the voices of opposition are raising to a crescendo. France and Germany are thrusting their daggers into our back, the anti-war left is protesting, the UN inspectors are deliberately trying to put a good spin on Saddam’s non-disarmament, and the Democrats in the Senate are making every effort to undercut the support for the war. We’ve heard that no “smoking gun has been found” (the empty chemical warheads & artillery shells loaded with mustard gas apparently don’t count) although the inspectors are there to confirm that Saddam has disarmed, not find a smoking gun. We’ve heard condemnations of Bush’s “rush to war” although W. has been building up to this for more than a year and has gotten authorization from Congress. People are still demanding that we go through the UN although it’s obvious that at least France and Germany are willing to do anything possible to stop an invasion for their own selfish ends.

But, all of this means precisely jack squat. Do you know how the American people and the history books are going to judge this war? Really, truly, there are going to be three questions that are going to be asked….

– 1) Did we win?
– 2) How long did it take
– 3) How many American casualties were there?

The rest of it is going to largely be spin. If we win and we win big, Bush will be the genius who made a tough decision despite criticism and France, Germany, the UN, and the all these eternally questioning Democrats running for President will look like idiots. If we go into Iraq and for some reason it turns into a disaster, Bush will be the goat and all the aforementioned weasels and left-wing contrarians who’ve been criticizing him will be sitting pretty.

The time for talking is going to be over soon and then who was right and who was wrong in the public’s eyes is going to be decided largely by what happens on the battlefield and the aftermath. That may not be what people want to believe or what they think is right, but that’s the way the world works.

***Update***: I did mention the aftermath, but let me give you a little more information on what I mean by that. Not only are we going to find more weapons of mass destruction than you can shake a stick at, but we’re find a lot of evidence that ties Saddam to terrorism, and the people of Iraq are going to tell stories about how Saddam treated them that’ll make your hair curl. I didn’t reallty go into all of that because it goes without saying, but taking all that info and throwing it back in the face of the anti-war crowd is going to be quite enjoyable.