You may be right, time will tell.
The timing of the announcement is interesting.
What really took place in the "secret" negotiations?
Does it matter?
I think one of the main differences, at least from what I have seen from the left and the right, is that the left is questioning the principles of how the "war on terrorism" is being waged, and the possibility that the current administration is engaged in deceptive and misleading practices, if not outright lying, in order to achieve their goals and agenda.
The right wing seems to take the position that if the end is good, the means are justified de facto.
The danger I see however is while such an approach may breed fear in the enemy as they see a supreme militaristic authority act without need for due process, act with a vision of moral righteousness and a sense of impunity as a result of that self-righteousness, this behavior does not yield itself to trust or lasting relationships.
If in fact the administration did knowingly and willingly lie to the American people about WMD in order to gain support for the war with Iraq, I have a problem with that on principle, and the end does not justify the means in my opinion.
The mere fact that the administration wants to gloss over and minimize their means, tell us that it doesn't matter if we ever find WMD (or really if there ever were the WMD we were led to believe existed) and focus on the ever changing end (WMD/Liberation of Iraq/Justice for Saddam, etc.) is disturbing.
Those with a sense of history who have seen this type of behavior before know the dangers when a government is not held accountable by its people for playing by the rules. When the people look the other way because of results, the message sent to leadership is that they are free to play the game by whatever means they deem necessary----as long as the end is justified.
In the beginning, or when afraid, people are willing to look the other way as long as things improve. The problem is that when an authority is given this type of license, we no longer have the appropriate checks and balance system functional and in place to control the corruption that has eternally followed power of this magnitude to act without concern for the rules or the need for transparency.
This retro-active behavior by the Bush administration, reminiscent of previous administrations who applied secrecy in the name of "security" and what is best for America, is a very slippery slope.
Quote from TriPack:
Keep spinning. Just because he turns over WMD doesn't mean that implicitly we are now trusting him or are gullible as you imply. Eliminating / accounting for some WMD is better than eliminating no WMD, a point that I think even you would not disagree with. And I think some of the WMD may be traceable, like the anthrax as to its possible origins so we may find out more once we actually get the stuff. The real test will be how he reacts to UN WMD inspectors.
As is the case with Saudi Arabia, a sneaky cooperative government is better than a sneaky uncooperative/defiant one.
