Kay, a weapons hunter in Iraq, says they might be in Syria. So, if that is the case, should we bomb Syria?

After this election formality, don't you think Bush will go after Syria? After all that is in keeping with the president's perpetual war philosophy.

Do we need to go after Syria?

How many have to die to get these elusive WMD's?

But, knowing (acc. to Kay) that Iraq didn't have WMD's, is/was the war justified?

Before you war-lovers answer, consider the official rationale for war:

Bush said Saddam violated resolutions from the U.N. Said Saddam was in violation of Gulf War I treaties and for that we needed to invade because the WMD's Saddam had were an imminent threat to the U.S. The argument for war was threefold:
1. Iraq in violation of treaties state they can't have WMD's.
2. Iraq in violation of UN resolutions concerning WMD's.
3. Iraq's WMD's direct threat to the United States and states in the mideast.
(of course there are some ancillary reasons for the war, but this was the major argument repeated by the administration as a legal justification to invade Iraq)

We go to war, topple the Saddam regime and find no weapons.

Based on that recounting of the rationale for war, and the fact that the search in Iraq for WMD's are over, one simply has to conclude that something stinks to high heaven about GW's little war!

(Unless the weapons really are in Syria, let's go git em boyz!)

I thought the original rationale was because of Saddam's alleged links to the Al Queyder network.

What a surprise. No Cons wanted to jump into this trap thread, I see. You can't defend the indefensible.

Yeah Stalin, the whole war had to do with the WMD's and that is why we went to war. These pesky WMD's were threatening us. So much so that Colin 'cancer' Powell took photos of trucks to the UN and said 'here they are, the mighty WMD's and they are pointed right here at New York.' Well not really, but he made the case that Iraq was in violation of UN Resolutions, as well as the treaty that ended the Gulf War because they had these WMD's.

Al Quayder was what the President said so he could link Saddam with 9/11. The mythical link between the two sources of evil (Saddam and Al Quayder) never really existed but on the heels of 9/11, Bush was determined to take us to war.

What is funny about Bush's war, in the 11th hour, Bush said that no international body was responsible for the security of the United States and we'd act without the UN even if they did not support us.

What this did was completely unravel any argument they had. They based their arguments for war against Iraq on UN legal documents and resolutions. The UN did not approve force so the United States acted anyway, effectively saying we don't agree with this body (the UN) but we're going to go to war to enforce the UN resolutions.

This whole method of justifying war stinks and stinks to high heaven! I don't know why the neocons don't recognize this stench. After all, it is so pervasive!

Anyway, there are no weapons, so Saddam was not in violation of UN resolutions, but we don't care about the UN anyway.
No weapons, no resolution violations, no nothing. The rationale for this war just flew out the window and in the meantime, servicemen and women's bodies continue to come home in bags. That sucks! :mad:

This was posted about ten days into the war in the Sports Lounge.

Funny, in retrospect.

Quote:And there, ladies and gentlemen, is your proof of Iraq having WMD's!

Quote:A senior pentagon official has confirmed to Fox News on Sunday that coalition forces have discovered a "huge" chemical weapons factory near the Iraqi city of An Najaf, which is situated some 225 miles south of Baghdad.

Coalition troops are also said to be holding the general in charge of the facility.

The chemical plant is described as a "100-acre complex," surrounded by an electrical fence. The plant was also apparently camouflaged to avoid aerial photos being taken.

It is perhaps the first illegal chemical plant to be uncovered by US troops in their current mission in Iraq. The surrounding barracks resemble an abandoned slum.

[URL=http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,81935,00.html]

Not sure about the neocons, but here is what one Democrat had to say about him:

It may well be that weapons of mass destruction will never be found in Iraq. They may have been destroyed after the first Gulf War in 1991, or were buried in the desert or shipped out of the country.

David A. Kay, who was appointed by President Bush to search for these weapons, recently said, according to The New York Times, that, "the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies did not realize that Iraqi scientists had presented ambitious but fanciful weapons programs to Mr. Hussein and had then used the money for other purposes." If this is true, we were not the only ones duped by the Iraqis.

The United Nations Security Council passed its Resolution 1441 which unanimously threatened Iraq with serious consequences if it did not account for its weapons of mass destruction, based on the assumption that Saddam Hussein failed to destroy those weapons after the first Gulf War. Hussein's refusal to demonstrate to U.N. weapons inspectors in the weeks leading up to the second Gulf War that he had eliminated his prohibited weapons led to the assumption that he still was in possession of such weapons.

In my view, it was not necessary for President Bush to wait for absolute proof that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction to take action against him. If the President believed, based on, at the time, credible intelligence provided by the C.I.A. and the British, that Iraq had such weapons, and Saddam Hussein declined to prove he had destroyed them, that was enough to justify war. As the President stated in his 2003 State of the Union address, "Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent

Finally a war lover who can form a decent argument!

thanks Road! :wave:

[quote="Road Warrior"] Not sure about the neocons, but here is what one Democrat had to say about him:

It may well be that weapons of mass destruction will never be found in Iraq. They may have been destroyed after the first Gulf War in 1991, or were buried in the desert or shipped out of the country.

David A. Kay, who was appointed by President Bush to search for these weapons, recently said, according to The New York Times, that, "the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies did not realize that Iraqi scientists had presented ambitious but fanciful weapons programs to Mr. Hussein and had then used the money for other purposes." If this is true, we were not the only ones duped by the Iraqis.

The United Nations Security Council passed its Resolution 1441 which unanimously threatened Iraq with serious consequences if it did not account for its weapons of mass destruction, based on the assumption that Saddam Hussein failed to destroy those weapons after the first Gulf War. Hussein's refusal to demonstrate to U.N. weapons inspectors in the weeks leading up to the second Gulf War that he had eliminated his prohibited weapons led to the assumption that he still was in possession of such weapons.

In my view, it was not necessary for President Bush to wait for absolute proof that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction to take action against him. If the President believed, based on, at the time, credible intelligence provided by the C.I.A. and the British, that Iraq had such weapons, and Saddam Hussein declined to prove he had destroyed them, that was enough to justify war. As the President stated in his 2003 State of the Union address, "Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent

First, I am neither a war lover, nor the author of that article. It was written by former NYC Mayor Ed Koch and appeared in this morning's edition of Jewish World Review. I should have probably put that at the beginning instead of the end. I apologize for any confusion.

If you will indulge me, I'll attempt to rebut your rebuttals on behalf of His Honor.

Quote:1. According to what you wrote about the Iraqi scientists appealing to Saddam for money for "programs" this represents an intelligence failure on our part. We should have been able to distinguish between actual WMD programs and scientists grappling for Saddam's funding. Similarly, our intelligence should have known the Soviet Army was as weak as they were.

The CIA clearly overestimated Saddam's WMD stockpiles this time around. But let's remember that the CIA had underestimated the progress of his nuclear, chemical and biological programs before the first Gulf War. We are also now learning that the CIA has long underestimated the extent and progress of nuclear programs in both Libya and Iran. Why aren't Democrats and liberals just as alarmed about those intelligence failures?

Quote:2. I agree, Saddam wasn't very cooperative. Juxtaposing this with our military action, I still believe that this war was a waste of lives and resources on our part. How have we gained?

He wasn't just uncooperative. He was a highly destabilizing force in a region that is critical to our national interests. He had invaded two of his neighboring countries, used chemical weapons and attempted to assassinate a former US president. Let's also remember that Osama Bin Laden's main gripe with the US was the fact that infidel soldiers were in the land of Mecca and Medina. Why were they there? To protect Saudi Arabia from Saddam's territorial ambitions. So what have we gained? We have eliminated a serious threat to the US and it's national interests. We are bringing stability to a region of the world that desperately needs it. We have liberated a country from an evil dictator and begun the process of restoring our credibility to those we abandoned in the past. We have shown the world that you threaten us at your peril.

Quote:3. You wrote: "In my view, it was not necessary for President Bush to wait for absolute proof that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction to take action against him."
Maybe not in your view but contrary to popular opinion, we must follow the by-laws of the international organizations that we form a part of. If we have no intention of following organizational procedures, then why do we make the commitment we do vis-a-vis international organizations?

We did. UN Security Council Resolution 687 (1991) declared that a ceasefire would be based on acceptance by Iraq of the provisions of that resolution, including the obligations on Iraq contained therein. They had continually failed to comply, so we continually bombed them. President Bush just escalated the hostilities to effect regime change, a policy first adopted by the Clinton administration. And speaking of President Clinton, his administration tried to get an authorizing resolution for Kosovo but couldn't get around a threatened Russian veto. Guess what? We went to war anyway. Why aren't Democrats and liberals just as incensed about that little bit of "unilateralism?"

Quote:4. You wrote: "If the President believed, based on, at the time, credible intelligence provided by the C.I.A. and the British, that Iraq had such weapons, and Saddam Hussein declined to prove he had destroyed them, that was enough to justify war."
War, as stated by the Bush administration, is a last resort. The manner by which we've waged this war suggest it was not a last resort.

Sure it was. 12 years of sanctions and air raids had failed to achieve our stated goal: disarmament and regime change. The Iraqi people were suffering terribly under the sanctions and Saddam was still refusing to come clean about his weapons programs. The definition of lunacy in doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

Quote:5. From this same paragraph, I think you are conveniently forgetting that Bush said Saddam HAS/HAD WMDs. It was definite. No beliefs or two-ways about it, Saddam had WMDs acc. to the Bush Administration.
Now the rhetoric is changing to justifying war based on a variety of conditionals.

As did Clinton. As did the UN. As did France. As did Saddam himself. As did the Kurds and Iranians who were gassed. That Saddam had WMD was the consensus of the U.S. intelligence community for years, going back well into the Clinton Administration. The CIA's Near East and counterterrorism bureaus disagreed on the links between al Qaeda and Saddam--which is one reason the Bush Administration failed to push that theme. But the CIA and its intelligence brethren were united in their belief that Saddam had WMD, as the agency made clear in numerous briefings to Congress. And not just the CIA. Believers included the U.N., whose inspectors were tossed out of Iraq after they had recorded huge stockpiles after the Gulf War. French President Jacques Chirac warned as late as last February about "the probable possession of weapons of mass destruction by an uncontrollable country, Iraq" and declared that the "international community is right . . . in having decided Iraq should be disarmed."

Quote:6. The big difference between the current president and the last one is that the current president waged war against Iraq and the former Prez. just sent air strikes from time-to-time.

Air strikes are waging war. It's a matter of scale. Deciding to use force is decision that should never be taken lightly. But once that decision is made, I believe you use overwhelming force and finish it as quickly as possible. Less people die that way. (See Vietnam War). 12 years of pin prick bombing raids accomplished little, but it was still use of force, aka waging war.

[quote]7. You wrote: "In other words, the U.S. did not go into Iraq because we knew for certain that Saddam still had weapons of mass destruction

In my mind, it is wrong for the United States to go to war unless:

1. The United States or an ally is attacked.
2. The United States or an ally is in imminent danger of attack.
3. The United States does so with the broad support of the international community. A U.N. resolution is the ideal expression of the broad support of the international community.

None of these scenarios applied in Iraq. Therefore, I am against action in Iraq.

The weapons were really never the issue for me. I do revel in the fact that weapons were not found, as it shines an even bright spotlight on what a foolish waste of money and lives the whole enterprise is.

I am neither a pacifist nor a isolationist. I consider myself a foreign policy idealist, somewhat in the Jimmy Carter mold.

Well said, Schade.

-----


14 wins and counting!

Another article for you to read:

By George Neumayr
Published 1/28/2004 1:07:07 AM


The conventional wisdom before the Iraq war was that Saddam Hussein had plenty of weapons of mass destruction but no ties to Al Qaeda. It is beginning to look like the conventional wisdom was backwards: Saddam Hussein's regime had ties to Al Qaeda but nowhere near the level of weapons of mass destruction suspected.

Iraq under Hussein was a nest for anti-American terrorists. Little noticed in weapons inspector David Kay's recent remarks was his observation that Iraq was not less dangerous than assumed but more dangerous: "I actually think what we learned during the inspection made Iraq a more dangerous place, potentially, than, in fact, we thought it was even before the war."

What Kay means is that terrorists were traveling through a country where free-lancing scientists had nuclear, biological, and chemical programs underway -- erratic weapons programs even Hussein wasn't aware of that these terrorists could have easily exploited: "We know that terrorists were passing through Iraq. And now we know that there was little control over Iraq's weapons capabilities. I think it shows that Iraq was a very dangerous place. The country had the technology, the ability to produce, and there were terrorist groups passing through the country -- and no central control." Up until the war started Iraqi scientists were "actively working to produce a biological weapon using the poison ricin," says Kay.

The antiwar Democrats are cheering Kay's report that he found WMD programs but not WMD stockpiles. They conveniently ignore that the assumption of WMD stockpiles was a bipartisan blunder and completely ignore Kay's point that WMD programs, chaotically administered in a haven for terrorists, is itself an imminent threat. Kay's statement in effect punctures their claim that the Iraq war had nothing to do with the war on terrorism.


EVEN AS THESE DEMOCRATS DENY any connection between Hussein's Iraq and Al Qaeda, the U.S. military is capturing Al Qaeda operatives in Iraq. Last week the White House announced the capture of Hassan Ghul. Ghul worked for Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the architect of the 9/11 attacks.

The war has led to the capture of innumerable terrorists like Ghul. But the antiwar Democrats don't want Americans to know that Hussein's Iraq was a safe haven for Al Qaeda operatives, as this information causes their claim that the Iraq war undermined the war on terrorism to collapse.

After Vice President Dick Cheney recently endorsed the Weekly Standard's article, "Case Closed: The U.S. government's secret memo detailing cooperation between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden," Democratic presidential nominee Wesley Clark rebuked him.

The media, though curious about the WMDs claim, has also been generally incurious about connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and usually observes with sourness that a majority of Americans still believe Hussein was part of the Islamic terror network responsible for 9/11.

The Los Angeles Times basically scoffed at Cheney's remark that evidence of a relationship between Hussein's Iraq and Al Qaeda is "overwhelming." The Times reported dismissively that "U.S. intelligence officials agree that there was contact between Hussein's agents and Al Qaeda members as far back as a decade ago and that operatives with ties to Al Qaeda had at times found safe haven in Iraq. But no intelligence has surfaced to suggest a deeper relationship, and other information turned up recently has suggested that significant ties were unlikely

Schadenfreude Wrote:I am neither a pacifist nor a isolationist. I consider myself a foreign policy idealist, somewhat in the Jimmy Carter mold.

Holy Macaroni!

Jimmy "Desert One" Carter??!!

I guess if your ideal is to make the United States look weak and ineffective, then Jimmy Carter is certainly your idealist. Let's see, foreign policy success stories under President Carter... Oh yeah, Camp David peace accords. That one costs us $5 Billion a year for Egypt and Israel and what exactly have we gained from it? And he gave away the Panama Canal that we built and paid for, which is now controlled by a front company for the the Chinese PLA. A strategic blunder of immense proportions. And of course, his "ideals" did us a heck of a lot of good dealing with the Iran hostage situation.

Jimmy is a great guy, no question. But as President, we was a weak bumbler. You know he meant well, but every thing he touched pretty much turned to shite. Can you imagine the idealistic hand-wringing that would have taken place if he had been President on 9/11? "Oh no! Why do they hate us? What did we do wrong?"

Road,

I've read your response and I'd like to first say that I appreciate your well-thought out responses that provide arguments rather than platitudes. You are a great addition to this forum just for that reason. Without naming names, too many personalities over here just banter about on the issues without really qualifying their opinions and disagreements.

War-lover was over-the-top, but that is my M.O. on this forum. I know that you and others likely do not love war, but sometimes talking with hardcore right wingers and war proponents I get the impression that they are "trigger-happy" with lack of a better descriptive term.

On your post:

I am not a democRAT, but sometimes I do agree with their positions, just like I oftentimes agree with some GOPpers. I think many in the DNC have been critical of defense issues and intelligence failures.

I know many Democrats who were upset with Clinton's little war in Kosovo. I even know there was alot of discontent on our involvement there, but not on the scale of discontent in relation to Iraq. I remember in the late 90s, many protests concerning Clinton's decision to bomb. I was fervently upset with Clinton on bombing Sudan and Afghanistan after the Cole incident, in addition to his policy on Kosovo. I thought this was a poor way to combat terrorism and/or ethnic cleansing.

As far as threats go, I think Saddam's military was sorely lacking to pose any serious threat to any of the mideast region countries. Osama's gripe with our staging troops in Saudi Arabia is founded more on cultural grounds than anything else. That is a big problem with the West and the mideast that has been festering since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire early in the 20th century, perhaps even festering long before that event.
Don't get me wrong, I am not defending Osama. He's just an opportunist who's using our cultural influence in the mideast as a way to push is radical philosophies and actions on the world.
Saddam was not a threat simply because he had a watchful eye on him. The Brits and the U.S. have been watching him like a hawk since the end of the first Gulf War. We would have been able to neutralize any threat he might have posed, i.e. moving troops to the common border between Saudi and Iraq. Had Saddam done that, we would have responded swiftly and actually, if Saddam was such a loose cannon, then we should have waited for such an action on his part--it would have made invasion much more justifiable.
If we are going to speak of regional threats, then we certainly have to include Israel in this assessment. They pose, IMO, more of a threat to the stability of the region more than any other country. They use WMD's and have a violence perpetuaty policy in regard to the Palestinian situation--the Palestinians being second-class citizens of that nation.
Also, our armadas that have been in the Med and the Red Sea for more than 12 years also constitutes a threat, or that is the way unfriendly nations in that region see us--the United States.

I mention Israel here because I think that is the most important foreign policy issue in regard to the mideast. If we are going to assert freedom and democracy, peaceful relations, etc. then we need to reevaluate our alliance with that nation.

You wrote:
"Sure it was. 12 years of sanctions and air raids had failed to achieve our stated goal: disarmament and regime change. The Iraqi people were suffering terribly under the sanctions and Saddam was still refusing to come clean about his weapons programs. The definition of lunacy in doing the same thing and expecting a different result."

Regime change from within would have been better than the "nation-building" we are currently involved in over there. It has been messy, as I knew it would be. The president should have prepared the people for this a year ago before the war officially began. Instead, we got rhetoric from the Administration on how easy this would be.

More on your statements here: acc. to the cease fire, Saddam was allowed an allotment of conventional weapons. If we wanted complete disarmament, then we should have included provisions to that effect in the cease fire agreement(s).

And again, I reiterate: Saddam was not a threat to stability or peace of that region than any other nation, i.e. Israel, the U.S., Great Britain.

Lastly, what we were doing before invasion was less coslty than "nation-building." Less costly monetarily and in human lives, enemy and friendly.

You state: "Believers included the U.N., whose inspectors were tossed out of Iraq after they had recorded huge stockpiles after the Gulf War."

It is my understanding that Clinton voluntarily pulled the inspectors out in 1998.
Inspectors returned in 2002 and the top U.S. inspector, the former Marine (can't remember his name but he was vilified by the Bush Admin.) said Saddam and Iraq had no WMD's threatening the U.S. or Iraq's neighbors.

And you say:
"Air strikes are waging war. It's a matter of scale. Deciding to use force is decision that should never be taken lightly. But once that decision is made, I believe you use overwhelming force and finish it as quickly as possible. Less people die that way. (See Vietnam War). 12 years of pin prick bombing raids accomplished little, but it was still use of force, aka waging war."

I agree. What some Dems are advocating is complete pullout and I disagree. It has started, we're probably at the midpoint (hopefully the beginning of the end is in sight), and we need to see this through.
Historically, the U.S. has a poor track record at nation building, especially in the post-war model. I am specifically thinking of the Phillipines, Cuba, Guam, Vietnam, and Korea (which was quite messy back in the 50s). We had successes in Europe, but we find less cultural roadblocks when dealing with Europeans.


You said:
"I find it intriguing that an "America Firster" would have a problem with us failing to follow the by-laws of an international organization as you mentioned earlier, when it clearly would not have been in the interests of our security to do so."

First of all, if we are going to sign international treaties and become a part of international organizations, i.e. NATO, UN, Hague and Geneva Conventions, Kyoto, et al, then we need to agree with the rules and laws. If we don't agree with all the rules and laws then we need to get out of these organizations. We can't just change the rules because we disagree in the middle of the game. Doing so is not "agreeing" it is being unfair and dangerously ethnocentric.
Secondly, I am not certain Saddam posed a threat to our national security.

By America First, I mean we should actively work to perfecting (I know it isn't possible to be perfect) our democracy by tackling our major domestic problems. We have alot of problems as a nation, a society, a culture and these need to be addressed. I am not going to list these problems, because I'm sure you are aware of many of them.
G. Washington warned us about entangling alliances abroad. Yes it was a different world then, but does this admonishment count for something?
Ike warned us of the dangers of the influence the military industrial complex has on our government. Have you seen our defense budget? It dwarfs the defense budget of any other nation! Combine the defense budgets of all other nations on earth and we still outspend them in this area.

You state:
"I disagree. The president reached a conclusion based on the available intelligence; a conclusion that was shared by the previous administration, members of congress on both sides of the aisle that had access to said intelligence and the UN. Was the intelligence 100% correct? Obviously not. But as intelligence failures go, I'd much prefer one that honors a threat too much over one that does so too little. The latter is what allowed 9/11 to happen. "

The conclusions reached by the Bush Admin. are not congruent with Clinton's conclusions a because the latter did not invade a nation. Bush's conclusion was invasion as the best way to "protect and secure" our country and our national interests.
Are we more secure? As long as we have a threat level index, no we are not.

In conclusion, Road, I say this:
The war, as sold by the President to the American people, rested solely on the question of WMD's and these weapons threatening our security. Bush and his cabinet outlined an argument based solely on Saddam's dabbling in WMD's. Now that no WMD's have surfaced, I have two very important criticisms:
1. We need to find the WMD's because until we do, we are not safe and our troops in the theatre are not safe.
2. Now that no WMD's have been found, the Administration is saying that Saddam was bad and "everyone should agree the world is better off without the likes of Saddam..."
This is a problem because we based our justifications for war on the presence of WMDs and the threat they posed. If we had better policy makers, they would have said simply that Saddam was bad and we are taking him out for that reason (which is something I would have found easier to agree with)-- the so-called humanitarian justification for war.

I reiterate the pre-war argument by the Bush administration, included are my criticisms:
1. Saddam is in violation of the cease fire and UN resolutions persuant to the proliferation of WMDs.
2. These WMDs pose a security threat to the United States and to nations in the mideast region.
3. Therefore, we are going to invade and topple the Saddam regime to secure his WMDs because the UN security council resolutions give us the authority to act.

Point three is spurious because the UN did not agree with our proposed action--war. In fact, they voted it down. So, we then set about a completely contradictory policy. We intended to wage war to add "teeth" to the UN resolutions--a body that we considered irrelevant.

Can't you see the contradiction here?

Finally, this whole mess would have been ancient history had we:
1. Not propped up Saddam's regime in the 70s and 80s.
2. George HW Bush would have toppled Saddam in '91.
3. We had a more cohesive and even-handed foreign policy through the years.

rickheel Wrote:It is beginning to look like the conventional wisdom was backwards: Saddam Hussein's regime had ties to Al Qaeda but nowhere near the level of weapons of mass destruction suspected.

Boy, that's a heavy, heavy spin based on a rickety foundation of evidence.

The idea of Saddam-Qaeda ties are based on this:

1. Qaeda occasionally passing through Iraq during the Saddam era (which doesn't strike me as much more worthy of note than than passing through Indiana on a trip from Cleveland to Chicago).
2. An al Qaeda member of note was caught there after Saddam was toppled.

This would be a more accurate reading of the situation:

1. With Saddam in power, Iraq was secular and Western-leaning enough (if also totalitarian and Stalinist) to be incompatable with the goals and aims of al Qaeda.

2. In its current state of chaos, Iraq is drawing al Qaeda like flies.

And as for the argument about the Panama Canal:

We may have built the thing, but it's ownership was always questionable based on the way we acquired the Canal Zone.

The U.S. Senate voted to finance a canal through what is now Panama during the summer of 1902. The Roosevelt administration then set about trying to negotiate a concession from Colombia, but was rejected.

As a result, Roosevelt supported an "independence movement" in Panama, sending warships to both side of the Isthmus and troops to what is now the Colombian border. Panama declared its independence in November 1903 -- at which point the United States demanded the Canal Zone. The Panamian independence movement had little choice but to turn it over. The alternative was American troops and warships leaving the Isthmus -- and the independence movement to its doom at the hand of Colombian troops.

In light of that history -- and countless other later interventions into Central American affairs -- the canal has always been seen as thorn in the side of Latin America in general and Panama in particular. Many of the locals came to hate our guts for having what amounted to a colony that split their country in two.

So handing the canal over made diplomatic sense and it really isn't a national security issue.

I think -- although I'm not sure -- that the canal is too small for our largest warships.

Also, our Navy is still given preference in the canal to commercial ships. If one of our naval ships needs to get through, it can cut ahead of comercial freighters.

The treaty also guarantees that the canal be operated in a neutral manner.

Finally, if the canal situation ever remotely resembles a national security threat, all we have to do is send the Marines down.

Bitching about the canal is a red herring. Returning it to the Panamanians was the right thing to do, and hardly a national security issue.

A lot of good reading here:

<a href='http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1999/panama.canal/' target='_blank'>http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1999/panama.canal/</a>