Senator Kennedy & Iraqi War Opposition

Senator Edward kennedy (D-Mass) gave a speech today - critical of the President's Iraq War. It was a good speech. He has discovered (as I did) that President Bush is President Polk. Except, that President Polk said less obliquely what he would do ... and said he would not want another term. The Iraqi War is defensible as the partial international service of a Search Warrant - which produced other grevious wrongs - but no immediate WMD's. The Senator does not believe the war was necessary because Iraq posed no immnent threat -- this opinionist believes the war was compelling -but not the address of an imminent treat. It would have been better if the USA & allies had waited - but that would have required the political maintenance of a military/naval/air force regionally another year - risking Saddam's provocation or crack down on the Shi'ites. It would have also meant the continued basing in uneasy Saudi Arabia & the no-flight zone's maintenance. In the end Saddam would have won - - and the ghosts of Shi'ite Iraq would have languished - the war re-discovered them - the true victims. Modern nations don't make war in haste - except to survive or counter invasion. War as an option was rationally advocated ..legally advocated -- legally conducted. It has been won. Now comes the peace .. the normalcy. Let it be done. The dead are thankful ..their families including the professionals of war will see a new life and be remembered. The living will not have to wait and fear again and will soon govern themselves. The Senator's good opposition and concern for reality is noted -- and too, the costs of the Iraq War in lives which will never be forgotten. He reminds this pundit of the two Kennedy Senators who appeared at his college in 1968 - criticizing President Johnson's wartime 'search & destroy military missions' as excessively costly to US & civilan lives. His distinction and contibution are welcome -- but let us save and right lives and peoples while we share this earth - -in the best manner of good international civilizations. Let us make war less costly and efficient and call it a UN police action in the future -- and let us internationalize it. Our allies really did not know - the war maker's humane efficiency - nor did the world publics. Secretary Powell's integrity and scores of thousands of deceased Shi'ite & Kurdish dissidents who attempted rebellion for liberty and to topple Saddam in the mid-nineties deserevd their liberation. American lves and time are now proudly committed there. Let us finish the task .. well !