Do you care about our military and national security?

[hollodero]

(06-14-2020, 02:48 AM)Dill Wrote: There is one thing you remembered in an earlier post which I will remind you of here--9/11.  Bush would never and could never have invaded Iraq except on condition of that devastating attack on civilians, to which he and our NATO partners had to respond. What steered the US away from Afghanistan was, as you know, were PNAC folks, whom Bush collected and appointed within his administration, and who eventually constituted an "extra" intel service, a stovepipe mixing unvetted with vetted intel for Congress. 

So you are comparing W's actions in the context of a necessary war with the erratic Trump, who undid a treaty creating stability and brought us to the brink of unnecessary war twice.  Is there any reason to suppose Bush would have gotten us into ANY war had not Al Qaeda attacked the US? I don't think there is. 

I see some reasons to believe that. First, the whole weapons of mass destruction narrative was not inherently based on 9/11 (or say could have been followed regardless of 9/11). Sure there also was the "al qaeda is in iraq" narrative, but I don't know if people in the US believed that. Most NATO members did not.
Also, Bush had picked Cheney as his VP. If you initially intend to be all peaceful, you do not choose the devil as your running mate. Also he went with Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, who already had advocated violent regime change in Iraq back when Clinton was president.

Of course, I don't know what would have happened if 9/11 hadn't occurred, but imho these are some hints that the Iraq invasion would have happened anyway.