I protest.

A chickenhawk squawks.

Back in September I noted in "Ted Kennedy: Bush lied" the Republican reaction to Ted Kennedy's assertion that the "imminent threat" from Iraq was made up out of whole cloth in Crawford, Texas. An anonymous "Republican official" made the usual accusation that Democrats are "soft on defense." Of course, as we have seen over most of the last year, Saddam Hussein's Iraq was quite definitely not an "imminent threat," there were (and are) no "weapons of mass destruction" and that at least one of the pieces of "evidence" used by the Bush Administration to "prove" their assertions was forged. I think that now it's reasonably safe to say that Bush did indeed lie, as did Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Rice and the rest.

So the other day some chickenhawk ran across my article (which has a reasonably good set of comments except for his, by the way) and decided to "rebut" me. How did he go about his "rebuttal?" By quoting a speech by Hillary Clinton given on the Senate Floor on October 10, 2002. Of course, he neither quoted the entire speech nor provided a link to it. I've given you the link so that you can go read it yourself, and I'll quote a few relevant bits from it. It begins,

Today we are asked whether to give the President of the United States authority to use force in Iraq should diplomatic efforts fail to dismantle Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological weapons and his nuclear program.

She discusses the recent history of Iraq, including Hussein's atrocities, the invasion of Kuwait, the first Gulf War and the U.N. weapons inspection process. She gets to the part of which the chickenhawks and freepers seem to be so fond (and the only part that this "David" person quoted in his comment):

In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001.

It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security.

Yep, she said it. But wait, what else did she say? Well, a paragraph later, she says,

Now this much is undisputed. The open questions are: what should we do about it? How, when, and with whom?

Some people favor attacking Saddam Hussein now, with any allies we can muster, in the belief that one more round of weapons inspections would not produce the required disarmament, and that deposing Saddam would be a positive good for the Iraqi people and would create the possibility of a secular democratic state in the Middle East, one which could perhaps move the entire region toward democratic reform.

This view has appeal to some, because it would assure disarmament; because it would right old wrongs after our abandonment of the Shiites and Kurds in 1991, and our support for Saddam Hussein in the 1980's when he was using chemical weapons and terrorizing his people; and because it would give the Iraqi people a chance to build a future in freedom.

However, this course is fraught with danger. We and our NATO allies did not depose Mr. Milosevic, who was responsible for more than a quarter of a million people being killed in the 1990s. Instead, by stopping his aggression in Bosnia and Kosovo, and keeping on the tough sanctions, we created the conditions in which his own people threw him out and led to his being in the dock being tried for war crimes as we speak.

If we were to attack Iraq now, alone or with few allies, it would set a precedent that could come back to haunt us. In recent days, Russia has talked of an invasion of Georgia to attack Chechen rebels. India has mentioned the possibility of a pre-emptive strike on Pakistan. And what if China were to perceive a threat from Taiwan?

So Mr. President, for all its appeal, a unilateral attack, while it cannot be ruled out, on the present facts is not a good option.

She goes on to express the opinion that working through the U.N. and only resorting to force if the Security Council approves it is also a bad idea. She presents the Kosovo conflict as an example of the problems with that approach and says,

In the case of Iraq, recent comments indicate that one or two Security Council members might never approve force against Saddam Hussein until he has actually used chemical, biological, or God forbid, nuclear weapons.

She then asks a really, really good question:

So, Mr. President, the question is how do we do our best to both defuse the real threat that Saddam Hussein poses to his people, to the region, including Israel, to the United States, to the world, and at the same time, work to maximize our international support and strengthen the United Nations?

Emphasis, of course, mine. She then offers the following approach:

While there is no perfect approach to this thorny dilemma, and while people of good faith and high intelligence can reach diametrically opposed conclusions, I believe the best course is to go to the UN for a strong resolution that scraps the 1998 restrictions on inspections and calls for complete, unlimited inspections with cooperation expected and demanded from Iraq. … if we get a clear requirement for unfettered inspections, I believe the authority to use force to enforce that mandate is inherent in the original 1991 UN resolution, as President Clinton recognized when he launched Operation Desert Fox in 1998.

If we get the resolution that President Bush seeks, and if Saddam complies, disarmament can proceed and the threat can be eliminated. Regime change will, of course, take longer but we must still work for it, nurturing all reasonable forces of opposition.

If we get the resolution and Saddam does not comply, then we can attack him with far more support and legitimacy than we would have otherwise.

If we try and fail to get a resolution that simply, but forcefully, calls for Saddam's compliance with unlimited inspections, those who oppose even that will be in an indefensible position. And, we will still have more support and legitimacy than if we insist now on a resolution that includes authorizing military action and other requirements giving some nations superficially legitimate reasons to oppose any Security Council action.

(This is, in fact, what happened. Bush tried for the resolution he wanted and he didn't get it.) Unfortunately, Clinton makes a very big mistake, both in her speech and in her vote:

President Bush's speech in Cincinnati and the changes in policy that have come forth since the Administration began broaching this issue some weeks ago have made my vote easier. Even though the resolution before the Senate is not as strong as I would like in requiring the diplomatic route first and placing highest priority on a simple, clear requirement for unlimited inspections, I will take the President at his word that he will try hard to pass a UN resolution and will seek to avoid war, if at all possible.

Emphasis again mine. She has more to say and you should go read the whole thing, but this is enough for me to make a couple points. One, rather than suggesting that Clinton lied, the speech suggests to me that she really believed that Hussein had those "weapons of mass destruction." Of course, given the push by the Administration to "prove" that Hussein was an imminent threat, it's possible that she was misled by the available evidence. But so what? Let us assume that "David" and the chickenhawks are correct and she did lie, saying that Hussein had WMD while knowing full well that he did not. There's no evidence whatsoever for this assumption (while there's certainly plenty of evidence that Bush has categorically and continuously lied throughout his administration), but leave that aside for now. What was her intent? It appears that she intended that we work through the United Nations, that if we go to war with Iraq we do so legitimately, with the backing of the international community. Lastly, what would she get out of lying? Bush would get the war he wanted, he would get to kill the guy that his Dad didn't get. What would Clinton get? Influence? Power? She's a Senator, for crying out loud! And a Senator, what's more, from one of the two or three most powerful states in the U.S.!

As I read Clinton's speech, I was struck by what seemed to me to be her naïveté, that she actually seemed to believe not only that Hussein had WMD but that Bush was worthy of her trust. I daresay that she now feels differently.

Ultimately it is down to this: When Ted Kennedy asserts that Bush lied, all "David" can do is whine that "so did Hillary." While I'm no particular fan of Hillary Clinton, it appears to me that Clinton is guilty perhaps of that naïveté I mentioned, perhaps of idealism (which would be pretty amazing to me considering how long she has been in politics) or at worst of simply being a politician that knows which way the wind is blowing. On the other hand, Bush is guilty of more than I can easily put in words. He lies at the very least, habitually and continuously. Perhaps those lies are fed to him or perhaps they are his own, but quite honestly I don't care. On his best day he's a terrible President and on his worst he's a war criminal.

And this "David" character is an idiot who needs to learn how to think critically about what he reads.

Oh, and as for "civil discourse," I'll start using it when the assholes on the Right start doing so as well, and not one fucking second before. When they vilify my very person and call me a traitor because I have the temerity to disagree with them, they deserve neither respect nor civility.