Um, kiddo, none of us here are running for office. I talk about the war because I am interested in it. You seem to be under the megalomaniacal assumption that something more is going on here. It ain't.
Arf ... you pitifully naive little chap. Of course there's room for people such as he in this world you're helping to build. They just have to be playing for the right side ... ... or, of course, not politically useful as bogeymen to the current US administration.
Saying that this war is unjust is not the same as being a Saddam apoligist. The reason that the article suggests that the war was unjust is that the main reason the US and Britain told they were going the war, namely the imminent WMD threat, was a false one and that several high ranking officials knew about this when they were making the case for war.
Much as I admire your pluck, BG, I can't understand why anyone is still trying to make this point to the terminally blinkered amongst us like manny. Bottom line is that no American or Brit, least of all the belligerent true right of the political spectrum, would have supported a war in which American and British soldiers would die just for the sake of "liberating the Iraqi people". Bush wanted this war for other reasons, sold it using other reasons and the lower end of the IQ scale bought it for different reasons. But that is no longer a reality they can afford to admit into their fusty little minds.
Megadittos on this. We now have Powell saying that there were no weapons in Iraq a full two years before the war, Wolfowitz saying that the WMD issue was a compromise issue used to justify the war, and both the President and Rumsfeld saying that Saddam was not involved with the WTC & Pentagon attacks. So this leaves three possible reasons why we did this: -- Saddam was killing his own people and we wanted to liberate Iraq. While that is noble, it's also politically stupid. Aung San Suu Kyi and the Dalai Lama are waiting for their American liberators as we speak. -- Saddam presented a general threat to the region. This is why we fought and won in 1991, and other than his financial assistance for Palestinian suicide bombers (which is a totally different issue that has virtually nothing to do with the USA) he has not played a significant role in international aggression since then. He's also not a religious person -- the hard-line Islamofascists (a term coined not by Axis Alex, but by leftist commentator Dave Emery) are the greatest threat to US security right now and they hated him. -- We just had a jones to do it. And let's face it, there are few facts to dispute this. When you look at what has been reported from that Sept 12th meeting at Camp David, you have to conclude that there's something to this.
Precisely. There's 2 important things about that date. First, it was before 9/11, and on 9/11 our tolerance for terrorist regimes dropped dramatically. As Ben said, what we might have overlooked in February 2001, we could not afford to overlook in February 2003. Second, this was just after Bush took office and most of hte intel Powell was going on was Clinton-era. By the time Bush ordered us to open the front in Iraq, he'd had 2 years of his own intel to go on.
If a story has legs, it has legs. His claim has been independently verified by someone on BigSoccer. It can easily be verified by an investigative reporter, should they want to. What is your point? If Rummy and Cheney had been on record with similar comments, I'd say they should get the sack too. Look, this is an administration with motive (PNAC), opportunity (9/11), and now we have PROOF they lied about it. It's unbelievable to me that Pennsylvania Ave has been able to skate on this for half as long as they have, while evidence is piling up, while Clinton getting head from a chubby intern was a *#*#*#*#ing national crisis. Our priorities are seriously out-of-whack.
No to mention Morgan Tsvangirai, Mamoun Al-Hosmi and others. It remains true, of course, that you can act in one place without automatically positioning yourself as the ultimate solution in other troubled areas of the world. It is, however, disingenious at best to claim a moral imperative in the case of Iraq when a) you have no actual pressing imperative to be particuarly exercised by their plight (nor history of being anything of the sort) and b) simple humanitarianism would not put Iraq top of your list of troubled spots to sort out. Especially when you already have Afghanistan on your books. ** At worst, however, it is a flimsy, cynical pretext for action motivated by entirely unrelated interests. (**And no, the “how can you be so callous about the plight of the Iraqi people?” is not a credible comeback. Not one of the pro-war nutjobs gave two shIts about the Iraqi people until it became expedient to pretend to do so because none of their other “reasons” for war were making the vaguest bit of sense). And, just to tie this back into the current thread’s focus, no one at the top of the US administration considered him to be any such thing either. Add to that, just by-the-by, the latest from the Hutton enquiry – British intelligence given to the PM and his cabinet whilst they were making the case for war which clearly states that Saddam Hussein posed NO threat to us or our interests and that an act of aggressioon against Saddam made it MORE likely that we will be the target of terrorism, rather than less. http://www.channel4.com/news/2003/09/week_2/11_hutton.html
1. I'm curious about the word "overlook." Curious, as in calling bulls*** on you. Powell didn't say anything about "overlooking." He said Iraq didn't have anything. You're a liar. 2. Your "2 years" is bulls*** too. For one thing, it was the day of 9/11 when Rummy put his famous note on a briefing paper. For another, the Axis of Evil speech came less than a year later. For a third, there are voluminous later quotes from Bushies citing intel from the 90s. What was that statement you made early on in this thread, about what if this turns out to be true? "If the video does exist and I do see it...well then, let's just say that the fact that President Bush is technically my boss would prevent me from saying what I would want to say."
I agree (mostly) with Ben. However, I've met History, my family knows History, I'm good friends with History. You, sir, are not History.
Why are you yelling Manny? Is it becuase you've realized you were lied to? Or becuase you've looked like a fool defending the multitude of lies?
I'm yelling because what you are saying has gone beyond politking. You have crossed the line. You have attacked this war so hard for so long on little or no evidence. When it comes right down to it, you wish Saddam was still in power. There is a difference between being mad at how we went about it and being mad because we did it. Even the French were only mad about the way we did it. You are mad we took down Saddam Hussein. i don't care what the pretext was. The end result was that saddam is gone, his sons are dead and Iraq is free for the first time in ages. Sure it might not be a Jeffersonian democracy, but sure as hell is better than Ba'athist rule. Nothing can make me say that eliminating that regime was a bad thing. You hate Bush so much that you are missing the point. You hate Bush so much that you have unwillingly become a Saddam apologist.
I think you will be hard pressed to find anyone, liberal or conservative, wishing Saddam Hussein back into power. Even those who vehemently opposed the war recognized that one of the positive consequences would be the end of Saddam's regime. However, that was one of the few positives weighing against the many negatives that those who opposed the war saw. Was Saddam Hussein's ouster worth the 100's of billions we will spend? the strained international relations we are now experiencing? the loss of focus on Osama Bin-Laden, the man responsible for 9/11 and still at large? the loss of human life both on our side and the enemies? the lack of international credibility we now have as a result of finding no significant WMD threat? are we really safer now that Hussein is gone? Do the math. The negatives far outweigh the positives. The Bush Administration gambled that somehow they could beat the odds. Right now, looks like it came up snake eyes for them.
For someone who just a few weeks ago said he was interested in real intellectual debate, this post makes you look like a shrill ignorant doofus.
Don't you understand? If you don't fall in lock-step with this regime, er, adminstration, you are giving aid and comfort to our enemies. Why do you hate America, Malaga? Why?
Coming from you SoFla, that means very very little. Let me know when you want to debate the actual positves and negatives of the action we took, because I'm really tired of the 24/7 Bush Crucifiction Show. Everyone here knows i speak a measure of truth when i say there is a difference between being mad at how we went about it and being mad because we did it. You have gone so far beyond being mad at how we did it that you have now become angry that we did it at all.
Crucifiction ain't no fiction. So-called chosen? Frozen. Apology made to whoever pleases. Still they got me like Jesus.. -Chuck D.
Show me the line. Do you know how to read the paper? Or is all the knowledge in your head spoon fed through FOX NEWS CHANNEL. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62681-2003Sep11.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59917-2003Sep11.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57908-2003Sep10.html Are you a Vulcan? If so I didn't know you could Mind Meld over the web! Wow. Since you can read my mind over the web, which one is it? Yet you still accuse them of being in cahoots with Saddam. Again, your ears must be pointy. So let's invade Zimbabwe, Liberia, China, Burma, I could go on, but I don't want you to have to get out your globe. The point is that Bush lied, my friend died. It's not how the war was fought, or even that the war was fought, it's the *#*#*#*# that was fed to the American public. The point is, he and his entire administration can't be trusted. Because we all know if you're not with him you're against him. Get real. The world is not as black-and-white as those old Bugs Bunny cartoons you watch.
I'd rather sing, bring, reminisce. Every brother ain't a brother 'cause a brother just as easy backstab another.
I normally don't do spelling smack, unless it's this kind of delicious Freudian slip. Hey, man, we're all tired of the Bush CruciFiction Show.
Yes, it's very clear that you're interested in it. Actually, the word "obsession" comes to mind. I'm under the assumption that the Democratic candidate BEST KNOWN for being anti-war is currently leading the pack.