More evidence the study is highly problematic: http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/news/story/0,12976,1345443,00.html Commentators claimed it failed to acknowledge the part played by Iraqi insurgents in blowing up the country's infrastructure, which will inevitably have led to higher mortality rates. Nor, critics maintain, did it distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths, making the overall estimate meaningless. The report's authors admit it drew heavily on the rebel stronghold of Falluja, which has been plagued by fierce fighting. Strip out Falluja, as the study itself acknowledged, and the mor tality rate is reduced dramatically.
Here's a better idea. When he asks what we think about his plans to invade Kuwait we say something like "as soon as you cross the border we will bomb you into the stone age" as opposed to "the US doesn't get involved in border disputes". Something this basic could have prevented Gulf War I. You remember that Saddam was an ally when he was gassing the Iranians right?
He ignored the warnings about kuwait...( bet he wishes he could get a "do over" on that one.... Glad to see at least one of you admits that saddam was a very bad man...( where were all the bleeding hearts when he was murdering tens of thousands ?) At the time the iranians ( thanks to the mad mullahs and the hostage crisis) were considered a bigger boogey man than saddam...they still may be... ....what the f--k...we have an army over there...why not banjo them next...?
Did any of the things I mentioned not happen? Could you re-write this in english? In any case, my response was not a moral condemnation of the first invasion of Iraq, but one trying to add needed context to a post sadly devoid of any.
Asked the plastic England fan. It was French blood that helped win us our freedom from the British, you drip of anal leakage. Why do you hate America?
why do you get the idea I hate America ?...nothing could be further from the truth...the french yes...America no....As for the french "helping" in the first American civil war....if you knew anything about British -french relations you would know that the french would have sided with the martians had they been fighting the British.... love it when blokes like you have to resort to personal attacks...when your arguments are blown up in your faces... P.S.....if you stick another o between the L and the n in your monika...you will have it right....
This was not hindsight judgement on my part. I have a good friend who is a very astute republican and when we were debating if we should go to war or not I always said, "Saddam's a bad guy and we need to de-arm him so a war is ok. But I would like Bush to go to the brink of war, then agree to hold back if Saddam would agree to total inspections and to completely get rid of his WMD's. Then I would like him to say to the world that all countries trying to get WMD are fair game for invasion if they don't agree to disarm and let inspectors in. He could get many countries to echo this statement. I would like this to be "The Bush Doctrine".", believe me or not but I stayed up many a night talking and thinking about this before the war. If Saddam had kicked the weapons inspectors out I would be calling for invasion that night and the world would be much more behind us. I thought if Bush had done what I wanted him to do he could kill many birds with one stone, Iran, NoKo, Libya, Sirya. But he didn't and now we have Libya and Iraq but the other two, not so much.
And then, two sentences later: If you're going to resort to personal attacks, so do proudly. So why don't you stick an o right where the sun never sets? The French may have surrendered now and again, but not at Yorktown, sister. Oh, and you know who says "blokes"? That's right, nobody. You're in America now, learn to speak ********ing English.
Are you seriously comparing that to the threat posed by Hitler's armies and Japan's navy during WWII? There are some that believe there was never any real solid evidence of this plot. http://www.newyorker.com/archive/content/?020930fr_archive02 In any event....Clinton already retaliated for that. Don't you remember? His approval ratings went up because he was showing himself to be such a tough guy by lobbing some cruise missles into Iraq.
Bush must have been listening to you because, if you recall, he gave Saddam 72 hours after the US forces were poised to attack, to do basically what you described and step aside.
Actually, upon reflection, "drip of anal leakage" wasn't in keeping with the ideals of political debate. So I apologize. So, in this spirit, "you have your head up your ass" isn't a personal attack, but a diagnosis.
It wasn't supposed to be 72 hours but my direct line to the pres got cut off and he paniced. Bush had no intention of letting the inspectors do their job, if he had 100,000, or less, Iraq's wouldn't be dead. He gave lip service to multilateralism, he used brinksmanship but failed and actually started a war that could have been postponed. Machiavelli said, "There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed", and Bush could have postponed this war to the US's advantage. Not militarily but in the aftermath.
Meanwhile... http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041109/wl_mideast_afp/iraq_ramadi_seize_041109124120 is Ramadi going to become the next Fallujah?
Is it really a good idea to piss off sunnis? http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/special_packages/iraq/10131052.htm?1c http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,11335751%5E1702,00.html
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-11/08/content_2191504.htm Insurgents are claiming they've captured 35 US soldiers, which is probably bullshit.
pretty sad when of the only two french people you can name...one was burned at the stake....by the English.
Up to this point your arguments actually had some logic but now you blow it. Bush did exactly what you suggested he should do; give Saddam an untimatum. Now you say he had no intention of letting the inspectors do their job? Uh, excuse me, but I thought Bush was in Washington and Saddam was in Iraq. Now you are telling me that this all-powerful Mr. Bush was directly things in Iraq so the inspectors can't do their job thereby giving him an excuse to put 135,000 US military personnel in harms way? You Bush-haters need to come up with better stuff than that. You are embarassing your cause.
england...that's only cuz I can't remember the name of the French King when the 100 Years' War ended. Part of the UN agreement was that all member states cooperate. We did not share our intel with the inspectors. At the time, it was a big deal. In retrospect, our intel was all garbage anyway. So you can defend Bush from this charge if and only if you simultaneously argue that Bush knew the intel he used to get Congress to give him the authority to use force was false. Good luck with that.
You are better than that. I am sure you have read the reports of CIA Director George Tenet standing up in front of Bush, Powell and others, when questioned specifically by Bush and saying, "this is a slam dunk!" To recall, this was in response to a very specific question from Bush after hearing Tenet present the evidence initially as to whether Tenet was certain about the evidence of weapons systems. Sorry, there is no way you can claim Bush played a role in restricting inspector access in Iraq. That is silly.