Answer: Dick Cheney, 1991. Last paragraph. Do you think the administration will have a plan for these issues before going in this time?
What is so inconsistent about Cheney's statements? In 1991, the mission was to liberate Kuwait only, not to move on to Baghdad. Therefore, there was no need to formulate answers to these questions. I'm sure contingency plans are being made for regime change this time.
Re: Re: Leftist-style rantings against just running in and toppling Saddam I don't remember you bending over backwards to defend Gore's Iraq speech last month - and his speech had far less hypocrisy than Cheney is showing. Yeah, because the Afghanistan model is working so well. I think I can guess their super-secret plan: 1. Get All The Oil 2. See Step 1
Never said Cheney was inconsistent, but those are the questions that lots of people are getting ridiculed for asking in 2002. In the Bush administration, asking for prudence as these succession questions get answered has been called unpatriotic. Is asking these questions unpatriotic?
Absolutely not. By the same token, though, if there were serious, open discussions taking place on governance in post-war Iraq, you must admit that it would be used against the administration by the reflexive anti-Bush/anti-war crowd. "See! War is a foregone conclusion! The White House is already talking about post-war Iraq! Unilateralism!" yadda, yadda, yadda.
Re: Re: Re: Leftist-style rantings against just running in and toppling Saddam Yes, we could have reasonably expected a war torn shell of a nation to be all settled and stuff in less than a year.
Re: Re: Leftist-style rantings against just running in and toppling Saddam http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10717-2002Oct11.html
Re: Re: Re: Leftist-style rantings against just running in and toppling Saddam "Top officers in the military, which would be responsible for administering a battered, fractious country of 21 million inhabitants, have warned that Pentagon preparations for the aftermath have been insufficient."
You're probably right, but my momma always told me two wrongs don't make a right. Well, my momma and my deddy's belt. Seriously, tho, I can't see how anyone can honestly say that the Bushies are approaching the problem of post-war Iraq in a serious, thoughtful way.
And I don't see how you can say that the leftists on these boards are approaching the idea of the Middle East balance of power in a serious, thoughtful way.
Fortunately, the leftists on this board aren't commander in chief. But at least some of us know that playing balance of power games is a sure way to get blowback.
What is "serious and thoughtful" about doggedly blocking the will of the ENTIRE friggin world against the illegal occupation and settlement of foreign lands. I guess the leftists on this board (along with the combined political minds from Europe, Asia, South America, Africa, and the rest of North America) are all somehow missing the point that Ghost has figured out. Genius.
Another Cheney quote from 1996: f Saddam wasn't there, his successor probably wouldn't be notably friendlier to the United States than he is. I also look at that part of the world as of vital interest to the United States; for the next hundred years it's going to be the world's supply of oil. We've got a lot of friends in the region. We're always going to have to be involved there. Maybe it's part of our national character, you know, we like to have these problems nice and neatly wrapped up, put a ribbon around it. You deploy a force, you win the war, and the problem goes away, and it doesn't work that way in the Middle East; it never has and isn't likely to in my lifetime
Happy 3rd anniversary, America. Boy, was that early-90s Cheney prescient, or what? What happened to that guy?