Bush's Opposition

Senator Leahy, fortunately, has been proved wrong. To have made such a statement before the Iraq War is so grossly self serving, almost as if he hoped one of more of these possibilities would occur and the war go terribly wrong. It's as though he is hoping we'd fail. I find this sort of pre-war positioning disgusting. Howard Dean was in the same boat, which seems to be springing leaks, spouting his anti-war rhetoric. Hopefully, his rhetoric and demeanor, which are wearing thin, will lead to the quick demise of his Presidential bid. Since most of this is for their own political gain, I continue to lose respect for both of these politicians who try to be statesmanlike. They don't have the 'stuff' of statesmanship.

Leahy's Statement
"It is possible that the President’s advisers will be proven right, and that a war will be over in a matter of weeks. That the Iraqi army will
crumble like a house of cards. That Saddam Hussein will not blow up his oil wells and refineries. That he will not use chemical or biological
weapons. That our troops will not become bogged down in hand-to-hand urban combat. That there will be few Iraqi civilians killed. That predictions of
massive unrest throughout the Muslim world in protest of a U.S. military invasion of Iraq, and increases in the number of terrorist attacks against
Americans, will be proven groundless. That the ethnic and religious factions within Iraq, some of which hate each other, will put aside their
differences and join together to build a representative, democratic government. And that the President’s grand vision ­ about which we have no
details ­to democratize the entire Middle East, will be off to a successful start.... But it is also possible that any one of these dire predictions could come true..." -- Senator Patrick Leahy on the Senate floor, 3/3/03
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Here's another excerpt from a liberal Salon editor/writer written post war. At least he is honest and open about his ambivalence. But to hope that America would fail in this war and actually take more casualties so as to hurt Bush and his administration is obscene. Have these people no moral compass, no faith and hope in America? Is this person nothing more than an intellect with a word processor adrift from right and wrong? So sad!

"And so, at this moment, as the Mordor shadow of Saddam Hussein, a truly evil man who, like a sociopathic murderous husband, killed everything that he could not control, lifts from the long-suffering people of Iraq, all of us, on the left and the right, Democrats and Republicans, America-lovers and America-haters, Syrians and Kuwaitis and Israelis and Palestinians, owe it to our common humanity to stop, put aside -- not forever -- our doubts and our grief and our future fears, and for one deep moment, celebrate."

...
"I have a confession: I have at times, as the war has unfolded, secretly wished for things to go wrong. Wished for the Iraqis to be more nationalistic, to resist longer. Wished for the Arab world to rise up in rage. Wished for all the things we feared would happen. I'm not alone: A number of serious, intelligent, morally sensitive people who oppose the war have told me they have had identical feelings."

Gary Kamiya

"morally sensitive" is a poor description for people who would think this.