Ouch, the Democrats were very concerned with Saddam's threat to the Mid East region and to the USA. In fact, John (I'm George Bush now) Kerry said:
"Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real..." - Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003
"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force -- if necessary -- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security." - Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002 |
And some who agreed with Kerry:
"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country." - Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002 |
"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction." - Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002
"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program." - President Bill Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998
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However, I'd like to know whether or not the other Democrats quoted had based their opinions on inaccurate information given to them by the White House. If so, it's kinda hard to use their opinions against them now. If the information had been true, that's one thing. But an opinion based on lies being given to you by the President and/or his people, shouldn't really be held against you by those same people. Should it?
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
A lot of Democrats voted to go to war, yes. Does that make it right? PS - this was a long time ago.
Speaking of old news, anyone know why the story about the evacuation of the Bin Laden family is making the rounds again? Maybe it has something to do with the Moore movie.
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posted
So Bill Clinton was getting innacurate information from the Bush White House in 1998? Must be one of those time warp things.
As for Kerry, this week he's totally 100% pro Bush on the war issue. Now next week he might not be -- depends on the phase of the moon I guess.
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posted
Same here. And the sad thing is, I haven't seen anything from michaele8 to suggest that he posts on any other topic. So while I'm trying to abide by Scott's request not to "rip anybody a new one," I find that it's actually impossible to reply to the newbie. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
As i haven't seen what request of Scott's Tom is referring to i'm going to go ahead and be snide, as i had intended to be. My lack of patience is rooted in the obvious fact that michael is being purposefully dense.
Michael:
Excuse me but, before posting on such a belabored subject, did you by chance even bother to observe any news media in the past 12 months? The 9-11 commission perhaps? The variety of incindeary books pointed in the Bush Administration's general direction?
My hypothesis is no, you havent. Because if you had, you would have realized that what the Bush administration thought when they came into office, was very much what the Clinton administration thought as they were leaving office, and there is in fact, no testamony to the contrary. I know this may be a stunningly revelation, given that they were being fed the same information from the same intellegence agencies.
So please, stop being a jackass.
The difference is that the Bush administration started listening to people like Ahmed Chalabi, and giving a disproportionally large amount of policy influence to the hawks in the pentagon. This is clear because of plethora of cases where there were conflicts of intellegence between the State Dept, the Dept of Defence, and the CIA, and the bush admin, usually took the DoD intellegence to act upon. Which, as we discovered, was an egregious mistake.
Finally, the Kerry flip-flop thing is so over-blown. The Bush admin and RNC have tried to corner Kerry into such an image, and the only people they've convinced so far are their own constituents. Who like you, will buy it hook line and sinker, and then go spouting off to others, who a) don't care, or b) really dislike political rhetoric.
So just to recap:
You're trying to raise contraversy over non-issues. And you're doing it poorly.
You've probably got a brain. Use it rather than regurgitating other peoples bad arguments. There are actual issues in the world that are far more pressing and interesting.
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posted
michael, it's time for that intro thread. You've just got one note at the moment. Do you have any others? Introduce yourself!
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"He went on: "I am deeply convinced that President Bush's political adversaries have no moral right to attack him over Iraq because they did exactly the same.
"It suffices to recall Yugoslavia. Now look at them. They don't like what President Bush is doing in Iraq."
Russia was adamantly opposed to the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, as it has been to the U.S.-led military operation Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).
At the same time, Putin forged a strong friendship with Bush by offering immediate support in the global fight against terrorism. Both men go out of their way now to avoid criticizing each other publicly."
I've always admired the Russians -- maybe that's why I love going to Russia so often. They say what's on their minds and when one is your friend, you know you have someone who is genuine. Bush is lucky to have Putin on his side -- doubt if Putin and Kerry would have a very good relationship.
Posts: 232 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:Bush is lucky to have Putin on his side -- doubt if Putin and Kerry would have a very good relationship.
yeah, and thank god for that "strong relationship" bush forged the leaders of france and germany. but they they're just a bunch of "old-europe" wussies anyway...
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posted
France, with their German mascot, were the ones who actively opposed the US in Iraq -- no wonder considering all the money they stood to lose if Saddam was put into peril.
Opposition is one thing, the tone the French took was a totally different matter.
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But then again, I didn't burst onto the scene with so many controversial or inflammatory topics, either.
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posted
UofUlawguy, it's hard to find a good place to debate -- so I compliment the people here. So many web site forums are either conservatives patting themselves on the back or liberals patting themselves on the back. You put up a post on a subject and you get one liners that are either love fests or curses.
I really think there's some high IQ people here and so take my participation here as a compliment to you all.
PS, I don't consider any of my posts insulting or inflamatory.
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posted
Pod, the difference between between the Bush administration and the Clinton administration isn't that Bush paid more attention to certain people, but that while they both saw inevitable threats Bush chose to act while Clinton chose to sit on his hands as was characteristic of his entire presidency.
The Kerry flip-flop thing isn't overblown considering he has done that on seemingly every single issue and its pretty hard to elect someone based on the issues when he's liable to have different stances on all of them at some point in his potential presidency.
This entire thing obviously isn't a non-issue because Kerry has no right to criticize Bush on Iraq when he, assuming he would actually take action toward a threat, would have done the same thing.
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posted
"I've always admired the Russians -- maybe that's why I love going to Russia so often. They say what's on their minds and when one is your friend, you know you have someone who is genuine."
Yeah. The Russians are absolutely FAMOUS for, y'know, sticking by their friends and never, like, turning on them or anything. And they always speak their minds; that's why all those political observers stationed in the area can't find anything to do, because Russian politicians just come out and say what they're really thinking.
*rolls eyes*
And it's really, really a great thing that Bush is all chummy with a guy who's taken some really impressive steps to silence his political opposition while pretending to fight terror and corporate malfeasance; they could share notes, perhaps.
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posted
well ivan the terrible most certainly could have been misrepresented in our modern day textbooks. after all, terrible in french actually means exciting or fabulous! i'm sure the real story was lost in translation....
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posted
We've worked pretty hard at ornery the last while to raise the standards of what is good conversation, and except for the Spahtan22 and Bill Gallagher episodes, we've been devoid of mindless chatter.
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quote:"Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real..." - Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003
"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force -- if necessary -- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security." - Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002 |
And some who agreed with Kerry:
"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country." - Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002 |
"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction." - Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002
"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program." - President Bill Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998
I think it's seemingly reasonable to go back and forth on our perceived need to go war. The problem with the Bush Administration's approach was the recklessness with which they did it. Once it was clear that Iraq did not pose a clear and immediate threat, the administration could have more thoroughly established an agenda, priorities, and an exit strategy before getting all Ramboed up, ousting a government, with 10 to 12 thousand Iraqies dead and tens of thousands more injured, and up rooting the lives of many Americans.
I do believe there is a difference between Congress permitting a leader to go to war and promoting a leader to go to war, but it's these fine distinctions that this administration doesn't seem to be bothered with.
Clinton's statement in particular was a hypothetical, and we don't know if the first condition was filled: "If Saddaam rejects peace and we have to use force," the case has not been made that we had to use force, especially considering there wasn't an imminent threat, rather an immanent threat in Rice's head.
There is a difference between destroying WMDs and destroying a WMD program, there is a difference in declaring an Iraqi revolution-- promoting the rights of the Iraqies-- and declaring a war to rid a the government of a perceived threat, there is a difference in waging a reluctant and well-planned war and reconstruction versus. an ad hoc invasion, and all of these differences are manifest between individuals in the two parties, and every single one of them should have been publically addresed by this administration before they committed us to war, instead, the White House said, "trust us, Iraq is bad and we know what we are doing," and result that the wrong person is doing the wrong job every where in Iraq, and people are dying and suffering as a consequence. Eventually, everything will turn out. Before the sun burns out, I'm sure that Iraq will be a stable democracy, or maybe it will turn out like all of those ex-russian stans or with a popular moral which could rival Hungary for the most depressed, but it doesn't excuse the brazen disregard for the world community, dialog, and equity, which are essential elements for democracy, in the name of promoting democracy. I feel as though the White House as ignored our own ideals in the name of war, and that the entire world, even the state of school playgrounds, is the worse for it.
_______________
I haven't been around as much, but is this guy really that bad. Sure, I think he is wrong, and I'm not convinced he's thought of as many sides of the argument as he could have if he put his mind to it, but he is more of the brand of partisan I don't like than troll that should be caged.
posted
At what cost are you willing to do a "good thing." It's the equivalent of saying: "If you shoot a drug dealer in the head, there is one less drug dealer in the world, have you done a good thing?"
In the case of Saddam:
For all those people who would have been alive and are now dead, yes it would have. For that vast swath of people who were living comfortably under the radar of the Iraqi goverrnment, but not of our missiles, I imagine it would be. I just don't think that one can so casually relegate to the periphery the individual atrocities that occur after you have declared a War in the name of the "greater good." Nor can one so readily give up democracy, especially in promoting democracy.
An Iraq without Saddam is better than an Iraq with Saddam, but at what cost, in lawlessness, looting, and suffering, and the responsibility of causing such a tramatic endeavor is no small weight. In the name of ousting Saddam, the administration has put a doctrine of pre-emptive war on the table, instead of bolstering and promoting the virtues of cooperation and democracy, and to that extent, the administration belies our national ideals. It was casual about war, and the effects of our moral ease with imposing violence as a means is not a good thing. ________
The article is talking about a war of ideology, and that's only partially won through tanks and bigger guns, though he seems to only address the tanks and guns aspect.
posted
Actually, ClaudiaTherese, this isn't as trollish as the typical neoconservative hit piece: michaele8 linked to where he got the quotes. And the site links to at least some of the context out of which the misleading quotes were snipped.
I recognised "We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction." from the Senate debate in which Kennedy opposed the authorization of war. (What can I say I'm a politics wonk). And sure enough, what I remembered was either Kennedy's direct quotation or a paraphrasing of his official statement in which he began with "I...oppose...authorizing the use of force... America should not go to war against Iraq unless and until all other reasonable alternatives are exhausted." and ended with "...we may reach the point where our only choice is conflict – with like-minded allies at our side... But we are not there yet. The stakes are too high if we do the wrong thing."
The lesson being, michaele8, that one should be very wary of soundbites chosen to push an electioneering agenda. What was actually meant is often quite different from the implication of the chosen snippet. The need for caution is especially true of reading from or listening to neoconservatives, who normally are more interested in creating ignorance than in saying anything vaguely approaching any truth.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Speaking of misleading, Pod, "...the Bush administration...[gave]...a disproportionally large...policy influence to the hawks in the Pentagon...took the DoD intelligence to act upon." is actually the disinformative spin that the WhiteHouse put on events. For most people, "the Pentagon" connotes military, which is a false implication in this case.
Dubya's appointee Undersecretary of Defense PaulWolfowitz selected a couple of other civilians (at least one of whom, I believe, was also a Dubya appointee) to head up a work group separate from normal DepartmentofDefenseIntelligence services. The two heads were assigned the task of synopsizing DoDIntel papers into a case for war. While there may have been some DoDIntel military officers passing along information, and some civilian DoDIntel clerks and analysts pre-screening those papers, results-wise it was essentially a two-man operation to select "soundbite"s favorable to the case for war while removing the intelligence/context in which they should have been judged. An example of what Dubya's operatives did is similar to reducing "We have reports from British intelligence that Iraq is trying to obtain information, technology, and matériel with which to make nuclear weapons. Looking at their report, it looks like the Brits picked up our disinformation* and passed it back to us." into something like "Iraq has obtained or is nearing nuclear weapons-building capability."
*Part of any spy agency's functions is to "leak" information and disinformation for political and intelligence-gathering purposes.
eg For geopolitical reasons, the US couldn't officially know that Israel possessed nuclear weapons during the time of the Egyptian-Israeli War. However, it was in the US interest to warn the Soviets that their threat of intervention if carried out could trigger consequences for which they hadn't planned: whatever "rational response" -- ie self-limitation in military countermeasures -- from the US that they might expect, Israeli military response would be a 'wildcard in the deck' for which the Soviets couldn't be prepared. Now think of the what if consequences if Israel had nuked a Soviet city in response to Soviet intervention in the MiddleEast war. If the Soviets were unaware that Israel had the capability, the most probable suspect would have been the UnitedStates. As it was, President Nixon put the US into a nuclear war status nearly on par with the CubanMissileCrisis. And so unofficial "leak"s -- of what the US actually knew (vs "officially knows") about Israel's military capabilities, with just enough extras so that the Soviets could confirm that the Israeli wildcard wasn't "leak"ed as a US bluff -- to try to stabilize a situation which was rapidly devolving toward the possibility of TotalChaos.
eg Disinformation could be "leak"ed (hiding US involvement) in an intelligence fishing expedition in hopes that the chum will lure in some real information. Naturally, the intelligence services would put markers on their own disinformation so that they could distinguish the what was sent out and therefore dismissable from the new data gathered and needing to be processed. USintelligence chumming is the probable origin of the "Niger-uranium-Iraq" memorandum played up by the DubyaAdministration; at least according to public statements by currently-detached USintelligence analysts from their readings of the memo.
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I'm a politics wonk). 
