The Real Issue

I hate arguing with people who are ignorant of the facts. More than that, I feel angry with myself for even engaging such people, often without precondition. I just end up feeling pissed off, and that only hurts me.

Let me give an example. Tonight, in response to a family member expressing nervousness about Obama's impending victory, I said something to the effect of "Luckily, Presidents are limited to two terms. Thank goodness for that or George W. Bush might be running again, and nothing would be worse than that."

A different family member attacked, saying, "Nobody gives Bush credit for preventing another attack on the United States."

"I give him credit for that, but my biggest problem with Bush is the War in Iraq, which has nothing to do with the fact that we haven't been attacked again, and we spend $10 billion per month there. Besides that, do you give credit to every other post-World War II President, including Clinton, for preventing a 9/11-like attack in the first place?"

Somehow, the conversation devolved into my relative stating that "Clinton's moral actions in the White House cost us far more than the $10 billion we are spending per month in Iraq."

Yeah, right. Ad hominem at its best.

Here are the facts about the War in Iraq:

1. At the latest, Bush started planning an invasion of Iraq in January or February of 2001, so the invasion was clearly not part of the post-9/11 war on terror.
2. Bush circumvented George Tenet and the C.I.A. in order to judge raw intelligence for himself without the benefit of the professional analysis that consistently failed to corroborate the evidence he wanted to find.
3. Even Colin Powell stated that the intelligence he relied upon to present his case to the U.N. was, in some cases, "deliberately misleading."
4. Bush continually alleged (even in the State of Union Address) that Iraq was attempting to buy yellowcake uranium for the production of nuclear weapons, despite the fact that C.I.A. intelligence "unequivocally" showed that to be wrong.
5. In clear violation of a federal statute, someone in the Bush White House "outed" Valerie Plame as a C.I.A. agent after the New York Times published an op-ed authored by her husband that stated Iraq was not attempting to purchase nuclear materials from Nigeria. Nobody has been prosecuted for that illegal leak, although "Scooter" Libby was found guilty for perjury in conjunction with an investigation of the matter.
6. The U.S. invaded Iraq and made no major discoveries of weapons of mass destruction.
7. In October of 2004, an Iraqi terrorist organization pledged its allegiance to Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda. To the best of my research and knowledge, Al-Qaeda had not operated in Iraq prior to that date.
8. Many lives have been lost. We have spent hundreds of billions of dollars, and polls indicate that Iraqis do not want us in their country any longer.
9. Somehow the above-factors play a role in the fact that our country hasn't suffered another 9/11-like attack?

I feel a lot better now.