Sunday, June 01, 2003

Marshalling Revisionism (or maybe not)

Someone point out anywhere in this article where Josh Marshall tries to claim US attempts to "box in Saddam" , as he says here, would result in "blowback like al Qaida's attacks on the United States."

Jeebus, at least with the ex post justifications by the right wing hawks I know they're just making shit up.

UPDATE: Okay, okay, as Jim E. points out in comments he does say "All of that changed after September 11. Suddenly the prospect of Saddam slipping a dirty bomb to terrorists to blow up in, say, Milwaukee, didn't seem so far-fetched. It also became clear that our efforts to contain Saddam--sanctions that wound up hurting Iraqi civilians, U.S. troops on Saudi soil--were ideal recruitment tools for Osama bin Laden." So, my charge of revisionism is invalid and completely unfair. (I'll leave it up there to make myself look nice and bad).

But, still, this whole justification is silly. The idea that "boxing in" Saddam would cause blowback but invading and occupying the country would stop it is just ridiculous.