A couple weeks ago, I was accused of using the civilian death count in Iraq as a "scoreboard" to justify Gulf War II.
The critic completely missed the point of what I was saying, but that's expected. The left's hatred of President Bush has blinding them so much that they're completely shutting out the truth about what happened there.
The Associated Press recently ended an investigation of the body count. After viewing death records in 60 of 124 Iraqi hospitals, "including almost all of the major ones," they concluded that there were at least 3,240 civilian casualties. Not to diminish those lives now lost, but recall back to before the war. Remember hearing "expert predictions" of at least 50,000 civilian casualties?
If you were told before the war that we would succeed in our mission and only inflict, say, 7,000 casualties, would that have been acceptable? I think so.
For taking over an entire country, ousting a regime as brutal as Saddam's and securing freedom for those who had lived under decades of brutality, 7,000 civilian casualties is a minuscule number, especially when you consider that, for the majority of the conflict, Iraqi soldiers were dressing in civilian clothes while doing battle with our troops.
And now President Bush is a war criminal?
According to some estimates I've seen, Saddam slaughtered about 7,000 Iraqis every month he was in power.
Remember the Iraqi National Museum where 170,000 countless artifacts were lost to looters while U.S. soldiers funneled oil to Bush's buddies? Well, according to Donnie George of the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and source of the original number, the actual number is thirty-three.
But now the big one. What about the WMDs? It's very simple.
Let's say that the powers that be decree that chocolate is illegal, and let's say that the cops are coming to your house to arrest you for possessing chocolate, and they publish in the newspaper that they're coming. You don't know when, but you know it's soon. You also know that they are going to find everything in your house.
Are you going to keep the chocolate in your house?
Naturally, you're going to do one of three things. You're either going to destroy it, hide it in a safe place away from your house or give it to a trusted friend to hold until the heat dies down.
Saddam had a several month warning that we were coming. What do you think he did with them?
All the Bush-bashers need to look at this situation with some reason and common sense. Yes, some people died. Yes, some valuable artifacts have probably been lost, and no, we haven't found the "smoking gun" yet.
However, what we did was very noble, and when it is all said and done, the Iraqi people will be far better off than they were under Saddam. With any other president, we would have been praised left and right for our actions.
Instead, Bush is called a war monger, paralleled to Hitler, and accusated about the "true" reason for conflict.
Now remind me again why the United States attacked Kosovo under Clinton.
Write to Gordon at gpheck@bsu.edu
Read More
Three Air Jam teams take home the win
October 12, 2012Nineteen teams shimmied, shook and flipped for a sold out John R. Emens Auditorium on Thursday night during the 25th annual Air Jam.
Bill Clinton Speaks at North Central High School
October 12, 2012Former President's Speech Could Have Effect on State Senate Race
