The Worm Turns

You may have seen the reprint of Bob Alexander's Lansing State Journal op-ed over at Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood (if you haven't, do check it out). It's a calm, reasonable op-ed that provides a much-needed reminder of Rogers' flip-flop on Iraq.

Five years ago Rogers returned from a Middle East trip and surprisingly announced that he no longer favored a military attack on Iraq (Ann Arbor News, Sept. 6, 2002). Rogers said information from Israeli and Saudi intelligence officers and others caused him to reassess his position.

Rogers' objections to military action then are still true:George Bush hasn't made a case for military action.

He was not sure a military action is in the best interests of the United States. We ought to pursue inspections.

He was not convinced that Iraq has the capability to deliver weapons of mass destruction.

What will happen after a fall of the Hussein government .. how it will it affect stability in the Middle East?

Mike definitely drank the Bush Kool-Aid on this one. But he wasn't alone:

Political Wire started off this morning's news roundup with a flashback of Dick Cheney's 1994 C-SPAN interview, in which Cheney said that a U.S. invasion of Iraq would result in a quagmire.

He [Cheney] even asks, "How many additional dead Americans is Saddam Hussein worth?" and answers himself saying, "Not very many."

So what happened? How did cautious, realistic views of U.S. involvement in Iraq morph into a 21st century equivalent of the Salem Witch Trials?

There's an antidote for this particularly noxious Kool-Aid: it's called the 2008 elections. Unfortunately, it will come too late for more than 3,000 U.S. service members who lost their lives in this war.