What's Going on With the Axis?

Remember what was really said about the “Axis of Evil?” You don’t? Come on, now. Surely you remember which countries constituted President Bush’s Axis of Evil? That’s right. It’s Iraq, Iran and North Korea. What did the president say about them, in his first State of the Union address, long, long ago, way back in that year of yore, year of Fresh Wounds, 2002?

Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction. Some of these regimes have been pretty quiet since September the 11th. But we know their true nature. North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens.

Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom.

Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade. This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens -- leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to international inspections -- then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world.

States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.

Remember all the howls of outrage about the phrase “Axis of Evil?” It was almost as annoying as the furor over the Great Turkey Scandal of Thanksgiving 2003.

Looking back, other than the question of whether Iraq still possessed Weapon of Mass Destruction--or NBC weapons as they called them back in my day; thanks for reminding me, Ith—can anyone tell me where the president was mistaken? (Whether he lied or not isn’t even a serious question except for partisan Bush-haters who want to re-define the verb “ to lie” to mean whatever it is that will make the object of their hatred look bad.) Where’s the beef?

Should this administration be punished for its inability to accurately predict that Saddam was too stupid, prideful and short-sighted to tell the truth from the beginning? He could have said, “Hey, dudes, I was just funnin’ , I got rid of all those nasty nuclear, biological and chemical precursors. Come check it out.” But nooo, he had to front as the big man for his boys in the ME. Is that the administration’s fault? (Libya’s Kaddafy, 4989th spelling, turns out to be far more teachable. Who knew?)

So we go in, take care of his monstrous sons, stop the filling of mass graves and eventually capture him. Are there WMDs? I say no. But is what we did right? I say yes. One prong of the Axis in the chrysalis stage, transforming, hopefully into a democracy.

Now we have the next one, Iran. Nuke program far more advanced, mullahs hating on the West. However, its population is much more free and better informed than that of Iraq. And, many may have had it with the mullahs, as bloggers are reporting:

Roger L. Simon

The Command Post

Conversely, “the professionals” are reporting the riot-like conditions in Iran’s capital, Tehran, as well as other cities, as the “celebration of a fire festival.” Who’s right? We’ll see. Is another prong of the Axis falling by the wayside? And if it is, will the “amateurs” have the scoop?

If Iran falls out of the hands of the mullahcracy and starts making inroads into democracy, what of the third prong of the Axis? That place headed by the craziest of dictators, the one about which horrific rumors are spread; of kidnappings and concentration camps and cannibalism. What of that place in which guns don’t just come before butter, but in which there’s no such thing as butter? (And somebody ought to smack this guy and run for posting this early April Fool’s joke.)

We can only watch, wait, hope and bloviate.

Comments

[walter]

Actually, if you'll remember, in Dec. 2002 Iraq released to the White House a sh*tload of documents declaring all of their WMD programs and weapons had been destroyed. The Administration poopooed on it saying it was bogus but would not let the UN inspectors see it. Huh? Weren't they there to find the suppossed weapons. Anyway, who knows what was in it since no one else saw it but in effect he did say "“Hey, dudes, I was just funnin’ , I got rid of all those nasty nuclear, biological and chemical precursors. Come check it out.”

How quickly we forget.

[Tim]

I read your link, walter, but it doesn't seem to mesh with anything you said. In fact, "U.N. experts have begun analyzing and translating the report to see if Iraq has fully accounted for its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons" sounds on the up-and-up. And censoring the report for "information that, if made public, would help other nations or terrorist organizations obtain nuclear weapons," is just common sense. We've got enough problems without giving terrorists Iraqi WMD blueprints. Nice try though. How about next time providing a link that actually supports your point. Try here, here, and here

[RickinVa]

Walter...

How quickly have you forgotten 12 years and 7 months of Iraq's lying to the UN and the world?

How quickly have you forgotten the multitude of UN resolutions that the Iraquis thumbed their nose at?

Hmmm?

[walter]

Tim,

Haha, I guess those links were suppossed to be humorous. I guess you don't understand the difference between making something public and sharing the info in full with those gov'ts and intelligence agencies that you want to support your actions. They are not the same thing. True, we did share much of those documents release by Iraq with the UN, I meant, as states in that article, we did not share our intelliegence that proved beyond a doubt that Iraq had WMD's with the inspectors. If we knew where they were, why not tell them so they can go find them?

Anyway, my point was to show that, unlike baldilock's claim, there was a release of documents showing that Iraq had no WMD's. I couldn't care less what happens to Hussein or his cronies other than they burn in Hell,or know what specifics were in those dcuments, but the fact that there have proven to be no WMD's in Iraq means maybe they did come clean.

Rickin,

Please, we weren't going to war over "12 years of lies". In fact, most of those 12 years, UN inspectors were in Iraq doing their job. Seems like they did a pretty good one to me.

[Tim]

You're right, Walter. You've convinced me. How foolish it was not to take Saddam at his word when he said he had no WMDs. And who but a crafty cynic would challenge the authenticity of Saddam's scrupulously authentic documents. It's not like he's a known liar. And it's not like he ever actually had WMDs and used them. No, of course not. That's all right-wing propaganda. I can't believe it's taken me this long to see that.

[walter]

Tim,

Jesus, calm down. Can't you have a discusssion w/out going into a fit? I never said anything about "right wing propoganda" but since you brought it up, there's tons of propoganda out there my friend, from both right and left wings. Becuase someone doesn't agree with you doesn't mean they are out to expose some cabal. I know first hand how politics is played, I don't need to resort to conspiracy and propoganda claims. But hey, thats just me. You can go right ahead if you wish.

[Tim]

Are you finished... ?

[baldilocks]

Ah, yes the 12,000 page report that conclusively proved that SH had given up all of his country's WMDs. And after the years of his lying, stonewalling and defiance, of course we should have taken SH's millions of words for it. I see.

[walter]

*Sigh* Unfortunately, you don't see. Try reading it one more time.

But i'll take your advice. After three years of lying, stonewalling, and defiance I will no longer take W's word for anything.

"Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production." W, 1/2003

""We recently found two mobile biological weapons facilities which were capable of producing biological agents." W, 6/2003

"We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories. You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said, Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons. They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two. And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them." W, 5/2003

...or was that weapons of mass destruction related program activites, or something?

[Syl]

Stockpiles of wmd make no difference at all. Since Saddam wasn't an imminent threat (which is why we had a war of pre-emption) the most important matter turns out to be (1) how easy for him to reconstitute his chem and bio programs and (2) all he needed was cash to pull nukes together from the Khan market.