Not to nitpick, but what did Bill do again to fight terrorism? Firing missiles from ships while he was firing missiles into Monica.
Just to punish you, I'm going to make you read Al Franken's book to find out. Shorthand answer: More than any president in your lifetime.
And what were the Republicans doing? Focusing all their energy, and much of the nation's, on impeaching the US president for getting a blow job from his intern. But then again, that was far more important than chasing Bin Laden, something the Bushies show they're actually not very interested in or good at anyway. After it, the war on terror is not really a military affair. It requires clever diplomacy, coordination with other nations and their police forces and the goodwill of others. Bush has none of that. Not suprisingly, he doesn't have OBL either.
I'm getting tired of this crap. Why didn't they just say they wanted to go to war for the real reasons: political, geographical, economical and even personal. Political/geographical. They could've said that they wanted to have direct control over a country that's situated right in the middle of the most volatile region of the world. Come on, Iraq's between Saudi Arabia and Iran, it's perfect. Economical. That they wanted direct control over the world's second largest oil reserve. Hell, I live in the States too, I don't want to pay 2,50 per gallon or a 250 dollars power bill. Perfect. I'm sold. Personal. Ok, this is kind of a strecht. W wanted to off they guy who wanted to off his daddy. If I had the power, I'd probably do the same. Don't give me the humanitarian reasons (to free the Iraqi people) because no one believes that. Then why, WHY, WHY in the world did they have to lie so blatantly? They had a pretty good case before the lying. At this point is so clear that Saddam didn't have WMD's and that he didn't represent a "clear and present" danger to USA's security, it's not even funny. But -you'd say- Bush couldn't go to the world with this reasoning. Hey, he told the world's leaders to go fu ck themselves anyway so, who cares? I've been antiwar since day one, but if they would've given the real reasons, I would've given it a thought, really.
That's an honest attempt at a relevant counter-factual. But c'mon. Those bases are not sufficiently persuasive, for many reasons. Which is exactly why the administration fabricated "credible imminent threat" and Saddam =9/11.
I'm beginning to wonder why they didn't just go with the humanitarian justification strong and hard from day one. While I don't think a war in this instance would have been justified on humanitarian grounds, clearly, lots of Americans do. World opinion is irrelevant, as Bush was determined to act without it. Had they sold the war solely on humanitarian grounds, they wouldn't be stuck in the mess their in now.
typical republicon reply - translation: i have no defense for that lying sack of garbage bush - just face it people: W is the fred in that mystery machine - you'll feel better if you just admit he's a waste of oxygen
That's a bit like asking what John Adams did to fight communism. Besides, Bush and his supporters are hardly in a position to complain that it was Clinton's actions that led to 9/11, when the Bush administration recieved pretty specific warnings in the weeks prior to 9/11 that terrorists were planning on hijacking planes and using them as missiles to strike important American symbols. I'm not saying Bush is necessarily culpable for 9/11, just that America in general was more laissez-faire regarding terrorism before 9/11.
You could make an argument on humanitarian grounds, but this administration still would have needed to lie in order to do so. This was never its intent. So they thought, correctly, it’s much easier to get people to swallow lies with a healthy dose of fear than with feigned altruism. I just don't think humanitariansism would have sold. When the issue is framed purely in terms of self-sacrifice, (particularly so on the socio-political level) the first thing folks ask is "how much?" I honestly believe Bush would have had little or no success asking the American people to commit hundreds of billions of dollars and an indeterminate amount of American blood for purely humanitarian purposes. Even IF the action were morally justifiable, it would not have been politically effective. Which is why the administration lied.
Huh? We had terrorist activity in NYC, Africa & the Middle East against American interests and we missed every single opportunity to do something (anything really) against Al Qaeda before they increased the scope & potency of their attacks. Clinton was supposed to have such foresight & intelligence and all the while A.Q. was taking sh!t after sh!t on the White House doorstep and Bill was simply wiping off his shoes. Despicable.
Tonight on CBS news, they had Bush saying that 9/11 changed the way he looked at threats such as Saddam, that it wasn't new intel that caused him to act. But Condi Rice was shown saying that it was new intel that caused the Bushies to act. So I'd say this story has some legs. I dunno about that. Yeah, there would have been alot of pluses to that approach. But my goodness, you think people are upset now about the (what is it exactly?) $162B pricetag for this. Imagine if that was the cost to free 24M Iraqis. That'd be over $7000 per freed Iraqi. Plus 300 dead Americans and counting. People are balking at the cost when they're being told it's part of the war against terror. They'd be completely freaking out if they thought it was a humanitarian mission.
It made the front page, right-hand column of yesterday's Post and Times, after which Powell and Bush were grilled on it by reporters, as well as McClellan at the White House. You bet it's got legs. Reporters at the White were digging hard into McClellan in a way that FleischBug never would have tolerated. Their line of questioning: How is it possible that Bush can say 'Saddam can no longer pass on weapons of mass destruction to terrorists' if we don't even know where Saddam or his alleged weapons are? McClellan's answer: 'We toppled Saddam and it's just a matter of time before we find him.' Obviously, if you believe Saddam had WMD and still do, you'd have to conclude that the war has only put America in even greater danger.
This is one of the threads that should be bookmarked for when new conservatives come in here and ask, why aren't there more conservatives? Because when you make posts like these, it's something you can't come back from.