Here's a good article that explains that the attacking Iraq makes sense by focusing on "the big picture" Japan was dangerous, and we were fighting against Japan too. But Germany was the bigger danger. Once the US was in the war, we applied two thirds of our strength to the European theater. Pearl Harbor was what it took to get the US into the war, but once that happened America fought to remove all the major dangers facing it no matter where they were. And in fact, the original plan was to make the Pacific a holding action, and to only go on the offensive there once Germany had been defeated.
That's the same kind of thing which is happening here. To demand that our battle for Iraq be justified in terms of Iraqi involvement in the attacks against NYC and Washington is similar to demanding that the attack on Morocco be justified in terms of Morocco's involvement in the attack on Pearl Harbor. Obviously it wasn't involved, so obviously there's no justification for the Torch landings. But that argument is based on a fallacy: it assumes that we're only permitted to respond directly to actual provocations and must leave alone other dangers we face, no matter how serious they are, until and unless they too directly attack us.
One of the problems here is that a lot of opponents of the war are trying to deny the idea that this is even a big war. So let's make something extremely clear:
We are fighting World War IV. World War IV began on September 11, 2001. And like the other three world wars, this one will be fought everywhere on the planet2
That's the same kind of thing which is happening here. To demand that our battle for Iraq be justified in terms of Iraqi involvement in the attacks against NYC and Washington is similar to demanding that the attack on Morocco be justified in terms of Morocco's involvement in the attack on Pearl Harbor. Obviously it wasn't involved, so obviously there's no justification for the Torch landings. But that argument is based on a fallacy: it assumes that we're only permitted to respond directly to actual provocations and must leave alone other dangers we face, no matter how serious they are, until and unless they too directly attack us.
One of the problems here is that a lot of opponents of the war are trying to deny the idea that this is even a big war. So let's make something extremely clear:
We are fighting World War IV. World War IV began on September 11, 2001. And like the other three world wars, this one will be fought everywhere on the planet2
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