I was passed a link to an interesting website yesterday, entitled "Reconsidering the War in Iraq: Conservative Reflections, Reservations & Dissent". Nice to know there actually some republicans out there that are capable of thinking and not blinding following the chimp in chief. It's actually sobering to realise that the majority (well ok it used to be a majority) of americans support the war, not through any moral conviction, but because they trust what their president says. As someone whose blog I read would call 'em - sheeple!
They write:
"Prominent among the myths regarding the war in Iraq is the proposition that the pro-war interventionist position is universally supported by pro-American conservatives, and that opposition to the war is a left-wing position."
Here are some quotes from the site
“With the benefit of minute hindsight, Saddam Hussein wasn't the kind of extra-territorial menace that was assumed by the administration one year ago. If I knew then what I know now about what kind of situation we would be in, I would have opposed the war.”
William F. Buckley, June 29, 2004
“Being steadfast in defense of carefully considered convictions is a virtue. Being blankly incapable of distinguishing cherished hopes from disappointing facts, or of reassessing comforting doctrines in face of contrary evidence, is a crippling political vice.”
George Will, "Time for Bush to See the Realities of Iraq", May 4, 2004
"I think it’s a total nightmare and disaster, and I’m ashamed that I went against my own instincts in supporting it…..It’s something I’ll never do again. Never…… I want things to work out, but I’m enraged by it, actually."
Tucker Carlson, conservative (“On the Right”) co-host, CNN Crossfire
and finally
"It would be foolish, not to say ruinously arrogant, to believe that we can determine the future of Iraq.....All of our energies, all of our talents, cannot substitute for the Iraqi people's assumption of responsibility for their own fate. However convinced we may be of our fate to do so, we cannot reinvent their country for them.....Let us understand what is possible. We have already dramatically altered their universe of choices by providing them with the opportunity to choose their own government and their country's future path. But, foolish or not, the choice is theirs."
Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Illinois), Chairman, House International Relations Committee
You might also find this page of interest:
"Rhetoric & Reality: Origins & Goals of the Bush National Security Strategy and the War in Iraq"
which is located at:
http://www.geocities.com/reconsideringiraq/rhetoric.html
The stark CONTRAST between candidate George W. Bush's RHETORIC of limited government and non-intervention, no nation-building foreign policy and the REALITY of his large government, empire-building, civil liberties eroding policy is documented in detail with a multitude of LINKS to speeches, policies, analyses, and results.