quote:On March 19, 2003, U.S. forces began military operations in Iraq. Addressing the nation about the purpose of the war on the day the bombing began, President Bush stated: “The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.” One year later, many doubts have been raised regarding the Administration’s assertions about the threat posed by Iraq.
Prepared at the direction of Rep. Henry A. Waxman, the Iraq on the Record Database is a searchable collection of 237 specific misleading statements about the threat posed by Iraq made by the five Administration officials most responsible for providing public information and shaping public opinion on Iraq: President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Powell, and National Security Advisor Rice.The Iraq on the Record Report is a comprehensive examination of these statements.
quote:Prepared at the direction of Rep. Henry A. Waxman, the Iraq on the Record Database is a searchable collection of 237 specific misleading statements about the threat posed by Iraq made by the five Administration officials most responsible for providing public information and shaping public opinion on Iraq: President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Powell, and National Security Advisor Rice.
It's quite thorough. Explanations, context... A useful tool for whatever idiots remain convinced that Bush is a honest or non-corrupt man.
Posts: 641 | Registered: Mar 2001
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It would be even more amazing if this managed to sway the opinion of a single Bush supporter. Wanna bet?
Posts: 1045 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Oh, holy crap. If the American people had been on board for the other reasons for attacking Iraq (finishing an unfinished war, establishing an America-friendly democracy and a military presence right in the middle of the Arab world, intimidating potential enemies like Libya, etc), the administration wouldn't have felt the need to tack on the WMD reason and pitch it as the major one.
Unfortunately, America has apparently become suicidal, and has no interest in furthering its own survival, so it backed its administration into a corner. Either they had to come up with a lame-but-persuasive reason to attack Iraq, or they had to leave the war on terrorism unfinished with Afghanistan, a woeful underachievment.
But ultimately, this comes down to business. When I go to pitch my company to license-holders, I tell them the good stuff. The persuasive stuff. I point out our strengths and avoid discussing our weaknesses. Does this fool them into thinking we have no weaknesses? Of course not, everybody's got them. But by focusing on the positive, I give us a much better shot at really achieving something.
That's all our administration did here. They focused on what they felt were the more persuasive arguments for invading Iraq, and spent far less time on the reasons that were more important, but less attractive. That's politics. It's their job, it's what we pay them to do. It's what Richard Clarke was paid to do when he was part of the administration. If they didn't try to sell America's interests to the rest of the world, we'd throw them out of office.
This is the exact same crap that Democrats pulled on Bush Senior. His job is politics. So he compromises with Congress, which is his JOB. Taxes go up. They label him a liar and kick him out.
Now Bush Junior does his job, selling a war we need to win to an unwilling world. Democrats label him a liar and try to kick him out.
This isn't about the so-called "lies". It's about the fact that his opponents want him out of office, and will take advantage of anything that looks persuasive enough to get the job done. In other words, they're doing exactly what he did.
So off the high horse already. Let him be a politician, for crying out loud.
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Sounds like republicans on Clinton's case about his personal affairs...except they're spending taxpayer dollars and American lives. Satyagraha
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Geoff, I find THIS amazing, too. That you should think "finishing an unfinished war, establishing an America-friendly democracy and a military presence right in the middle of the Arab world, intimidating potential enemies like Libya" is a set of VALID reasons to start a war. Even more so considering that there actually wasn't much of a plan HOW to establish "an America-friendly democracy".
To me, what you describe is neocolonialism.
In order to "sell" the idea of it, you think it is okay to lie to the American people.
You put an interesting spin on it, too. You try to pretend (twice) that the administration was lying to the world in the interest of the American people, when in fact it was lying to the American people.
Finally, you imply that the American people elect their politicians merely so that these same politicians would tell them lies, because this is their job. I always thought the politicians were supposed to represent the American people.
Please, don't get carried away by your opinion about the person who started the thread. Sometimes there is valid information in such threads. Critical thinking and blind dismissal aren't really compatible.
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Oops. Sorry about the deleted post, Dog (yeah, I'm The Cow. I logged in with the wrong SN.)
The post that I deleted (and to which Dog was responding to) said: An America-friendly democracy right in the middle of the Arab world? That remains to be seen....
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I apologize for not being too clear, my point was that these people have a slightly better excuse to be pointing the finger, people are dying because of these lies...nobody died because Clinton lied about his affair.
My largest problem with going into Iraq isn't that Bush lied, or that people are dying because of it, but more of...why?
Saddam is getting rather old, once he dies, we could have stepped in while the change of power was shaky (with his generals fighting one another, as well has his family).
Financially, oil is a very bad reason to go into Iraq...to put it bluntly...we spent too much in there to get paid back in oil.
To install a pro-US government? That's rather shaky, too. At the moment...the rest of the world hates us...yes maybe we'll have a pro-US government in Iraq...but then we've got anti-american sentimate in the rest of the Arab world.
To liberate the people in Iraq? This seems rather hypocritical, not in the point where our government is hidiously repressive, but what about Saudi Arabia, Cambodia, Samolia --and in fact-- most of Africa? Why aren't we going in there? We went to Iraq to stop Iraqi funding of terrorist groups right? Why not go to Nigeria to stop export of Uranium so terrorists have a harder time getting their hands on it? Or North Korea? Maybe something closer to home, Cuba anyone? If nobody remember, Castro's still there, and he's crazy as ever...thank god he hasn't gotten any nukes yet...because heavens knows he wants to use them There seems to be a double standard here.
I'd like a little bit more accountability than "white lies," especially when we're risking lives and invading other countries, that's not how international law works. Satyagraha
quote: Either they had to come up with a lame-but-persuasive reason to attack Iraq, or they had to leave the war on terrorism unfinished with Afghanistan, a woeful underachievment.
I think we have to be careful saying things like this. The intelligence that we had before the invasion was nonexistent at best, and contradictory at worst, that would prove that an invasion of Iraq was needed for reasons to further the Wot. The intelligence that we have now shows that there was only peripheral collusion between the Iraqis and any terrorist group.
The best case that can be made for Iraq, in my opinion, is neither one involving the WoT, or WMD, as *primary* factors, though they are factors, but rather a new humanitarian policy of encouraging the spread of democracy and human rights based regimes in the world as a goal in and of itself.
I don't know what the end goal of the Bush administration is for sure. Don't vouch for'em. I, however, believe that democratic institutions with some kind of policy of open trade further peace and stability in the world of which the US is a part.
quote:a new humanitarian policy of encouraging the spread of democracy and human rights based regimes in the world as a goal in and of itself.
And yet again, I'd like to ask why the seeming double standard? Gernada, Somalia, -in fact- just put Africa on the whole on that list, China, North Korea, Cuba, our friends in Saudi Arabia... Satyagraha
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The administration's double standard, we go after Afganistan and Iraq, but not Saudi Arabia, or Israel...they aren't exactly giving Palistinians the vote. Satyagraha
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Without actually arguing about whether or not the war was necessary, I find Dog's logic extremely scary.
quote: They focused on what they felt were the more persuasive arguments for invading Iraq, and spent far less time on the reasons that were more important, but less attractive. That's politics. It's their job, it's what we pay them to do.
The purpose of the leaders of our government is to represent the people who elected them, and to pass laws and make decisions that the majority of Americans agree with. THAT'S what they are paid to do. If they present the facts and truth to the American people, and the majority of the American people choose a course of action that the administration doesn't agree with, then it's their JOB to make choices based on that, not to CONVINCE the people to change their minds. What do you think a democracy is? A government for the PEOPLE. The people should be allowed to make mistakes, if that's what you think would have happened.
There's an entirely different name for the sort of government that decides it's citizens are too incompentent to make choices for themselves, and lies or cheats to get the results they want...or just flat-out does whatever they want.
This has nothing to do with whether or not I agree with the war. I just don't like the way people keep "defining" democracy.
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quote: a new humanitarian policy of encouraging the spread of democracy and human rights based regimes in the world as a goal in and of itself.
The use of "Humanitarian policy" as a way to describe an invasion of a sovereign nation is illuminating. As the military folks always contend, the role of the armed forces is to "kill people and break things." How this can be in alignment with "humanitarian policy" is beyond me. The "encouraging democracy" bit is some old school, Cold War level of intervention. We "encouraged" democracy during the cold war whenever we ousted or openly attacked countries that were communist or potentially communist or in the pockets of the communists. Is "Arab" taking the place of "Communist" and woe to those who can fit that description? If so, democracy is coming your way at the end of a gun!
Democracy can only be encouraged through example. You can't impose democracy by holding a country hostage. In fact, Bush has that very problem now. We could leave in June as he said and it could be a "democracy" but what if they vote in extremist clerics who want Bush's head on a platter? They voted for it. It is democracy. So, do we let it stand or do we change our humanitary policy a bit to "encourage democracy that we like" to those in need.
quote:Geoff, I find THIS amazing, too. That you should think "finishing an unfinished war, establishing an America-friendly democracy and a military presence right in the middle of the Arab world, intimidating potential enemies like Libya" is a set of VALID reasons to start a war.
First of all, we were already at war with Iraq. We were shooting at each other practically every day. So we "started" nothing.
And yes, I support the idea of winning the war on terrorism. That will take more than punitive missile strikes, and it will take more than the Afghani campaign. Perhaps we merely disagree on what the next step should have been, but please don't tell me that you think there should have been NO next step. That Afghanistan was enough.
In order to be safe, we must destroy our enemies' ability to make war. Our problem is, our enemies are not nations. They are factions that take refuge within foreign countries who support them while denying that they support them.
Politically, this is a minefield. If you think invading iraq was a diplomatic disaster, imagine invading Iran or Syria, nations that are NOT currently shooting at our planes every day. THAT would have been a disaster.
Iraq was a country that (1) was already engaging us in battle regularly, (2) had a populace that would benefit from a regime change, (3) would give us a military advantage against our other targets, and (4) was believed to be a legitimate target itself because of its possession and potential distribution of weapons that at the time, everyone was pretty sure they had.
In other words, it was the ideal next step in the war on terrorism. The only drawback was some Americans' suicidal squeamishness. People who want to eat beef without hurting cows, who want to read books without cutting down trees, and who want to defeat our enemies without going to war. It sounds like a pretty world, but when you wake up, you still have to deal with this one.
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I agree with the take on the Bush Administration's (not Storm's! ) double standard. Using language like "we avenged those killed and saved potentially thousands more" is all well and dandy, but where do we stop? Why only countries where there is a military or oil need? Add to the list above lots of former Soviet republics and bits of eastern Eurore (so fast we forget "ethnic cleansing," so big in the 90's, as we live in the enlightened 21st century?). If we stop now, what message does this send to the rest of the world who where there is torture, murder and pillaging on a broad scale?
posted
Geoff's view is hardly new. He's saying that, because American's can't be trusted to decide things for themselves, we need to be ruled by an elite. To be honest, our founding fathers held this sort of elitist view. Early in the 20th century, John Dewey formulated this sort of idea of populism without humanism. To put it another way, political legitimacy derives from the masses, but the masses need to be manipulated by their betters so that they decide the right things.
It's ironic to me that one of the main obstensible reasons for this lying, manipulating rule by elites is so that we can spread democracy. If this is the definition of democracy we're using, I can understand why other people are so set against it.
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Storm, I support the spread of liberty and populist determination too, but I worry when we use this as an end that justifies whatever means we use. For example, we used to hold stopping communism as a means justifying end and we didn't have all that great a track record there. Accountability and proscriptions about the sort of things we can do in futherance of our goals are neccessary to cut down on the number of stupid/atrocious things that we do.
Also, I have problems with what seems to me the naive assumption that all we need to do to have a democracy spring up is knock over the current oppressive government and wait for all the people who are clamoring to live in a western-style democracy take it from there. I think that there are is a lot od soical and economic undegirding that has to be set in place and that we need to acknowledge that other people's take on democracy is going to be different than our own. In fact, as I consider my choices for the upcoming election, I pray that their takes are going to be different from ours.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:In order to "sell" the idea of it, you think it is okay to lie to the American people.
I generally support the idea that directness would have been a much better approach in this case. But what we're talking about isn't lying. It's spin, which is a different thing. When people use it to cover their own butts, it's disgusting. When they use it to promote one party's agenda in an election, it's annoying. But when people use it to further the interests of the nation, it's usually their job.
And unless you know about some secret underground network of information distribution within the States, it's impossible for our government to spin something to the rest of the world without also spinning it to us. And honestly, I'm surprised that Bush's opponents in this are so naive or imperceptive that they thought WMDs really were our major reason to go.
I am devoted to telling the absolute truth in my personal life. Except when it would pointlessly hurt someone else. And except when it would pointlessly hurt the company I work for. In those cases, I keep my mouth shut about the negatives, and focus on the positives. Not because I'm trying to cover my butt in some sort of selfish way. But because there are people out there who unfairly search for negative things in what a person says, particularly in business and politics. It's a sad thing that politicians and businessmen have to deal with, but if you DON'T watch what you say, you become an impotent leader, frozen by criticism by the other side, who seize on every weakness you expose.
If you want your leaders to tell you the absolute truth, don't be so eager to pounce on them for it. And I say this to both sides.
Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote: To put it another way, political legitimacy derives from the masses, but the masses need to be manipulated by their betters so that they decide the right things.
quote:Please, don't get carried away by your opinion about the person who started the thread.
Dude, apparently, I've really given the wrong impression lately. I don't even remember who started the thread. This is my opinion, I don't care specifically who it is that disagrees with me.
Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
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Eat meat without killing cows...nice touch. No, I don't think reasonable people are saying "stop the war on terrorism" as I don't hear a lot of folks saying Afganistan was a bad thing...but...the fact is, Bush has NOT made a clear connect with Iraq and terrorists. That IS the point. First off, we aren't "finished" in Afgahnistan. One thing at a time would be wiser when resources are thin. What is the test that would make you comfortable invading a country then, Dog? Having weapons of mass destruction (okay...not having them, but USED to have them or REALLY REALLY wants them) is obviously one of them. Possibly harboring terrorists is another. How about not liking the US very much? That being the case, who DON'T you invade??!! France? Spain? Russia? China? Korea? How long until we put all of the world in a basket against us? I mean, we go after Korea next...because, they have nukes or potential, hate us, like terrorists and they even have another thing you like, Dog...location, location, location. Think the Chinese will like that much? Us on their proverbial doorstep? How about the Arab world that you want to get a foothold in? Sure, maybe we do now (thin hold, at best...it isn't like sticking missle systems in allied countries like in Europe) but all we have done is make ALL Arab nations look at us suspiciously. How many do we roll through to get those darn terrorists? All of them? I mean, the Israeli goverment is possibly the BEST nation to look to for anti-terrorism expertise and they can't stop it. We could have troops in every country in the world but terrorists would still exist and would still find ways to kill people over, and over, and over.
So what is the next step? Finite military resources against a world of conflicting political ideas where people are willing to sacrifice their children to make a point. Tell me how a military solution works for this. It didn't work for the British. They had us with stupid odds, but tenacity and home field advantage helped our own terrorist efforts and the end of the 18th century.
The War on Terrorism is destined to be the unending war to replace or at least go along side of the War on Drugs. Using military force (guns) where it really won't be helpful. The history books show it. Why is a Cold War military (come on, Star Wars is still being pursued) going to succeed where generations of terrorists have existed in just about every nation...except ours, until recently and now we have put every target on us. Suicidal? You bet. But it isn't the folks who want to work for a safe world that are suicidal...just those that think they can stop it with more guns.
quote:Geoff's view is hardly new. He's saying that, because American's can't be trusted to decide things for themselves, we need to be ruled by an elite.
Whoah, HOLD ON. Please tell me where I said this.
What I believe is that America is a republic. We attempt to elect good leaders who will govern us and make our laws. Every few years, we have a chance to replace them with new ones if we don't like what they're doing.
But I also believe that while they are in office, our leaders should be allowed to do their jobs. I mean, lately, the political division in this country has been so severe that a standing elected official (particularly the president) cannot make a single move without being roasted for it by the opposing side. It SUCKS. I really would like to see the American people back off a bit from the people they chose and let them do the job they chose them for.
What's that? You didn't vote for the current president? Well, tough beans, padre. That's part of living in a Republic. About half the time, you lose the election. That's just the way it is. No point in crying about it. But don't worry — the other half of the time, you'll win it and get exactly what you asked for. When that time comes, I'll be a whole lot nicer to your guy than you've been to mine.
And it feels funny to call Bush "mine" ... I voted for him as the lesser of two evils. He's always come across to me as inarticulate and annoying. But as un-ideal a president as he may be, he'll be a whole lot less ideal if we stand in his way every moment of his presidency.
Look, we pay our CIA operatives to lie. We pay the pilots who drop leaflets on the enemy to bend the truth. We pay half the press to tell us what we want to hear. And we pay the administration to serve America's interests. Sometimes this leads them to spin their actions to make them more palatable to the world. Personally, I prefer a more direct approach whenever possible. But spinning the country's political moves does not add up to a scandal. It adds up to professional politics, nothing more.
Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
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It is almost always (and perhaps truly always) silly to talk about the reason or justification for going to war, as if there were only one allowed. I am tired of hearing people whine about WMD. They were one of the reasons/justifications, but were far from the only one. I am also tired of hearing people whine about oil. Some corporations and special interests may have jumped on the war bandwagon because of oil, but for most people who supported our countries actions oil had nothing to do with it, and that includes the politicians.
I hear the same stupid arguments about the U.S. Civil War, with people fighting about whether the war was fought because of slavery, or economics, or states' rights, or any of a number of other things. This view of war is not only simplistic, it is useless in teaching us anything about what to do when we are faced with the decision whether to go to war again.
Pretending that one's political opponents had only one reason for either supporting or opposing the war and then attacking that reason is just another way of saying that anyone who doesn't agree with you must either be stupid, uneducated or dishonest. It is an inexcusable position to take in any argument.
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"What's that? You didn't vote for the current president? Well, tough beans, padre. That's part of living in a Republic. About half the time, you lose the election."
Geoff, what if you sincerely believe that the current President is harming the country in alarming ways that may well take decades to undo, was elected under circumstances that completely revoke any idea of a partisan mandate, and is clearly taking steps to preserve political power for himself and his cronies at the expense of legal and ethical tradition?
Should you NOT complain about it?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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fil, the "why don't we attack everybody" argument has really been done to death, and I'm tired of it. The factions within Islam dedicated to the destruction of America pose a clear and immediate danger to our country, in the same way that an army at our borders might threaten us. Our government's job is to eliminate such threats. The invasion of Iraq was a means to that end.
We don't attack everybody because (1) we would lose, and (2) the benefits wouldn't be worth the cost. In Iraq, we're taking the first steps in the ongoing war by taking a strong position in the middle of the Arab world, while establishing the Arab world's first democracy, giving them a shot at catching up to the rest of the first world, a move which could, in the long run, reduce the shame and desperation that least to terrorist extremism.
We didn't invade Iraq for kicks, or because they checked off a bunch of bullet points on a list. We did it as part of a long-term strategy. If you can fit another country into that long-term strategy, then it may well be a future target. But you can't just rattle off all the countries we don't get along with and expect me to consider them equivalent to Iraq.
Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
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Sure, complain about the things he's doing wrong. What I'm seeing here in this thread is people seizing on an issue that always looks bad in the press and is difficult to counter ("Bush LIED! He's a LIAR!") and using it to try and oust Bush in the next election, not because the actions they cite are in themselves wrong, but because they don't think Bush should be president for unrelated reasons.
Basically, they're seizing on his use of spin and declaring it morally reprehensible in order to generate their own spin. It's hypocrisy. There is nothing I hate more than hypocrisy.
I think Bush has done things wrong. I don't think his use of spin here was the wisest move, either, and I think he's done a poor job of maintaining our diplomatic standing. I really wish I had a candidate to vote for who wasn't Bush, but whom I could trust to carry on his campaign against terrorism.
But if he goes down, I'd like it to be for his real mistakes, not for trumped-up moral indignation about how "HE LIED TO ME! [gasp] [faint]"
Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
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You know, I kind of hate to say it, seeing as how quickly you dismiss it, but I AM ticked that Bush lied to me about something as important as WMD. I'm equally ticked that Reagan lied about Iran-Contra. I was even mildly miffed that Clinton lied about his blowjob.
I'm not sure I accept your premise: that it's necessary to actually present falsehood to the public in order to get things done in Washington.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Geoff, As I stated, I believe your statements broke down into 1) Americans can't be trusted to make their own decisions, 2) so it's up to people who know better to manipulate them into doing the right thing. And then I said that this attitude is elitist.
I could quote all the cases where I think you exhibited this idea, but I feel that I'd end up more or less repeating your posts in full. Here's a breif snippet though:
quote:Unfortunately, America has apparently become suicidal, and has no interest in furthering its own survival, so it backed its administration into a corner. Either they had to come up with a lame-but-persuasive reason to attack Iraq, or they had to leave the war on terrorism unfinished with Afghanistan, a woeful underachievment.
My impression of your response is that you said that you're not an elitist because you're ssying it's the president's job to do what I described above. How does that address the fundamental idea that saying that because American's can't decide to do the right thing, it's their leaders' job to trick them into doing it for other misleading reasons?
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Sorry Geoff, I disagree with about everything you had to say.
quote:Oh, holy crap.
You make this sound as if your answer is going to be the most logical thing in the world. Nice debating tool, but it too is spin.
quote:If the American people had been on board for the other reasons for attacking Iraq
Big IF.
Why weren't we? Perhaps because the case for such was not made in lieu of going with a quick easy answer.
quote:(finishing an unfinished war,
Or, getting our expensive troops out of the middle east. President Bush had high on his election rhetoric of 2000 that we need to get out of foreign affairs. He broke off talks with Isreal and Palestien. He wanted to shrink the military into small, fast action groups, and save money. A quick and easy war in Iraq would free up the troops and expensive fly overs we had stationed around Iraq. However, budget cutting is not a good reason to go to war, nor did it work out for the costs of bringing peace to Iraq will be much higher than the costs of our no-fly zones.
quote: establishing an America-friendly democracy
There were stacks of military plans to cover all conceivable military aspects of the invasion of Iraq. How come, if our goal from the begining was to establish an American-Friendly democracy, we didn't do any planning on how to set that up?
Again, the 2000 campaign, President Bush said he was against Nation Building. Yet here you have him doing just that.
quote: and a military presence right in the middle of the Arab world,
Sounds much like colonialism to me. Besides, don't we have a military presence in Afghanistan? How about in Isreal? If we wanted one I'm sure they would give us space for it.
quote: intimidating potential enemies like Libya, etc)
The problem is we also intimidated potential allies into behaving like enemies. There is nothing scareyer for a small country than when a giant starts conquering other small countries, even if its for their own good. For every Libya that uses this as an excuse to step in line, there is a Spain or Poland who step back.
quote: the administration wouldn't have felt the need to tack on the WMD reason and pitch it as the major one.
You go on to talk about how, when you sell your services, you sell it on the most optimal, best sounding way. You don't talk about the problems, but about the advantages.
What ever became of Truth in Advertising? If Allegra made statements as spun as these, they would be sued or fined.
Here is my problem. Often President Bush has looked into the camera and said, "Trust me." How can I? He spun WMD. What else is all spin and no truth?
Further, his sincerity offers another fear. Did he just listen to people who told him what he wanted to hear? Did he ignore those who tried to tell him differently? That is what several of his critics have said.
Either he spun something to the point of being untrustworthy or he said something based on only information he wanted to believe, meaning his decisions are untrustworthy.
To place his entire campaign on his honesty and good leadership skills makes it impossible for me not to laugh at his campaign adds. Of course, that laughter is to keep me from crying.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:The purpose of the leaders of our government is to represent the people who elected them, and to pass laws and make decisions that the majority of Americans agree with.
While I agree that the purpose of our elected officals is to represent the people that elected them. The majority of Americans don't have to agree with anything, most of the time they do but that not the point. Our representives are elected to make the choices that need to be made, even if no one likes them. Most of the time the do make the choice that most americans agree with, simply because they won't get rellected if they don't.
Posts: 1458 | Registered: Feb 2001
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You know, if I had a son or daughter who had died in Iraq in service to our Commander-in-Chief, in a war that was sold to my family by the administration as SO URGENTLY VITAL TO OUR NATIONAL SECURITY THAT WE NEEDED TO INVADE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE EVEN AT THE EXPENSE OF THE GOODWILL OF ROUGHLY 3/4 OF THE REST OF THE WORLD, and then two years later it turns out that the need to occupy Iraq wasn't half so urgent as I'd been led to believe, I think that would piss me off enough to make a political issue out of it.
Ah, but now I'm playing politics with soldier's families and their suffering.
So let me be candid (unlike the administration): I am pissed off about the "spin" that took us into Iraq. Call me "suicidally squeamish" if you want to, Geoff, but I totally supported this President's decision to invade Iraq because I believed he was telling the truth about Iraq being an imminent threat to our national security. I would not have supported the invasion of Iraq for almost any other purpose.
I also eat beef and do not personally kill cows and I'm damn proud of it.
I did recognize at the time that invading Iraq could possibly accomplish several other objectives that could serve our interests. But I did not then and do not now agree that those were sufficient reasons to invade Iraq under the conditions that we invaded Iraq. They were, at the time, effects of the war. Not causes.
Posts: 4350 | Registered: Sep 2000
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quote: The factions within Islam dedicated to the destruction of America pose a clear and immediate danger to our country
If this was the case, then Bush should have went to war with an Islamic nation. Islam, being a religious moniker (isn't it?), doesn't describe Iraq in the least bit...but it will, now that Bush has deposed one of the few secular leaders in the Middle East. Saddam only took to the Islamic high road in the last couple of years and was for this reason despised by the very person Bush is so desperate to connect him to, the very religious (on the outside, at least) Osama Bin Laden. Only the "enemy of my enemy" theory puts Osama and Saddam in the same ball park.
That said, while Saddam is an evil man with an evil history (which we supported and supplied for many years, of course), Bush has done nothing to convince anyone anymore about the "Clear and present danger" Iraq posed to these shores. He was toothless after the first Gulf War. Some posited he has been disarmed for years but had to pose and make like he MIGHT be hiding weapons to keep the wolves off his back. Let's face it, Saddam wasn't the most popular boy on the block over there and plenty of people wanted a piece of the action if he were to fall. It wouldn't do to be disarmed and openly admit it when you are surrounded by your enemies. Just a theory, but one supported better by the fact that in one year of occupying Iraq, we have NOTHING to show for our search.
quote:We don't attack everybody because (1) we would lose, and (2) the benefits wouldn't be worth the cos
Yet this is what you are advocating by saying it is our job to weed out terrorists wherever they hide. You haven't given a clear picture of what "the end" is that is justified by attacking a country like Iraq. Conquering nations won't eliminate terrorism. Just ask the British. Did having police forces in and around Ireland prevent decades upon decades of terrorism from happening? Not at all. How will having an occupation force in Iraq help us get terrorists? So far, the military hasn't worked as a means to stop terrorism. The most effective stuff has happened behind the scenes...stings, intercepted communication, intelligence gathering. The military attack on Iraq doesn't help with any of these. In fact, it worsened them. Of the 500+ US soldiers killed and hundreds more wounded, how many would you rate as "terrorist attacks" and how many are "battle related attacks." If you say any of the recent ones are the latter, you are deluded. Our forces are being attacked by the very people we are there to save. Doubling and tripling our troops there won't stop it in the least bit. Again, ask Israel. How has their military campaign won their war on terrorism? How has their position in the middle east aided with the war on terror? They have what we might have in Iraq...a sideline view and easy access to allied targets. We just gave the terrorists more to shoot at, that's all. Until we get to the root of what terrorism is we will never beat it with military might.
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) double standard. Using language like "we avenged those killed and saved potentially thousands more" is all well and dandy, but where do we stop? Why only countries where there is a military or oil need? Add to the list above lots of former Soviet republics and bits of eastern Eurore (so fast we forget "ethnic cleansing," so big in the 90's, as we live in the enlightened 21st century?). If we stop now, what message does this send to the rest of the world who where there is torture, murder and pillaging on a broad scale?
