Excuses, Excuses

Tim Dunlop re-opened……if indeed it was ever really closed……that old and smelly can of worms,
Yes, I know I said I rarely read him, but today was a slow day. Anyway, it’s worthwhile to recall yesterday’s Insiders. I’m allowing my ‘no-Bolt-boredom’ syndrome to distract me from the issues. What Tim asks in today’s News blog is valid. Just exactly what did Costello infer when he advised Barry Cassidy to not argue about the what-if’s?
We’ve been fed all manner of excuses for going to war as a part of the CotW. From the original WMD, to spreading democracy, to helping to ensure safety of the Iraqi populace, to fighting against Al Qaeda (just what is Al Qaeda anyway?), to the now postulated energy security issue – read Oil. Let’s also remember that Howard did state rather categorically that were it not for the so-called WMD, then he couldn’t justify going to war for the purpose of regime change. Does this also mean, by inference, that while he couldn’t have found it within his conscience to wage war for regime change, he could have found the intestinal fortitude on the grounds of energy security?
If’s, but’s and maybe’s. It’s all after the fact anyway, but surely at some point in the past four years one could have expected to have heard the ‘energy security’ line being trumpeted before now? Why haven’t we? I postulate one valid reason, and that being because every man-jack in the street was trumpeting that line and castigating the U.S. for threatening to initiate what has become the twenty-first century’s version of Vietnam, thus far. Yes, we all presumed it was for oil because regime change was too distasteful to contemplate. The spreading of democracy was just too altruistic to be real and Al Qaeda (whatever that really is) didn’t exist in Iraq at the time. I don’t seriously believe that too many people were gullible enough to cop the 45-minute WMD line. After twelve years of harsh sanctions, I seriously doubt too many serious thinkers believed Iraq had that capacity. I know I found it difficult to swallow, but flawed intel has a way of seeming wholesome. At least initially. Within hours of the 20 March 2003 invasion beginning, it was fairly plain that Iraq’s military had bugger all to defend with, let alone weapons of mass destruction.
So that leaves just two valid excuses. The distasteful one – regime change for the political, economic and ideological benefit of the United States and it’s clients, like Australia – and oil. From my perspective, and that of hindsight, the two are virtually indistinguishable if not interchangeable. So why the reticence by the Howard government to acknowledge the glaringly obvious? Because it’s too late now to do anything other than stick to the script laid down in 2003. It was for WMD, but goodness me……the intel was faulty. We wuz misled, M’lud! We wuz sold a pup! But ne’er moind. Dere’s allus da democ-russie ting, isn’t dere? Oil!??? Not on yer Nellie, sir!
Which leaves only regime change, for all the right reasons, of course. Can we all live with that? I guess so……until an Aussie soldier dies, then all bets are off.