DudeMan

hmmmm, you say it is not the job of the worlds richest, and most powerful countries to do something about genocide, and tyrranical regiems, i disagree with you.

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The Queen
"Those who perpetrate these brutal acts against innocent people should know that they will not change our way of life,"
Atrocities such as these simply reinforce our sense of community

TheFeniX
"Guns don't kill people: effeminate men in green tunics do"

rs_al

Timeline people! Timeline!
You are all so eager to change history but it's not going to happen.

First, no department has doubted the authenticity of the Downing Street Memo. If you can't attack the memo, attack it's contents, that's what Bush is doing. I mean, by attacking the contents and the conclusions drawn from the memo, Bush has acknowledged the memo's authenticity.

Secondly, both of these memos are dated July 2002. What's significant about that? Congress didn't even grant bush the power to "invade if necessary" until October 2002. We're talking three months prior, and Bush is already preparing, making plans, setting dates. That's why he needed the facts fixed, he needed to get everyone else to jump on board so he could get his timeline right, and he did.

The whole "Why would bush invade if he knew there were no WMDs there and would get hammered for it later" - well that's BS. Obviously you AREN'T hammering him for it, you're defending him, and that was his plan. He thought there would be enough people, spreading generally untrue rumours as fact, to eventually wipe the whole WMD thing out of memory. And it worked. Look at this thread, so many people saying "WMDs didn't matter, Iraq is free!" and "WMDs were found! Chemicals or something!"- history is changing, the WMDs are being forgetton.

But he misunderestimated the people who are dedicated to the truth, people who don't believe that the end can justify any means.

verbose

I agree that those with the power to make the world a better place have a certain level of responsibility to try and do so. But, when playing world police, it's bad form to violate international agreements and thumb your nose at international bodies. If the local police said "bah, playing by the rules makes our job too hard. Screw the rules and the rulemakers. Yeah, we helped make the rules, but they're not convenient any more.", nobody would accept that. Policing the world is no different, and the US Government rightly deserves scorn for overstepping its bounds.

It's also wrong to lie to the world and your own nation. If a government is going to take military action on someone else's turf, and is justified in doing so, they should have no problem being completely open about their motivations. It's hard to cast blame on any nations who allied with the USA in military action against SH, because they very easily could have been as misled by the US Govt. as the general US populace was.

Yeah, removing SH from power is a good thing. The way in which it was done was not kosher though. We all know that the ends most definitely do not justify the means.

EDIT: al's post snuck in while I was composing. It appears we think alike.

And for fun:

"I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to mis-attribute this quote to Voltaire."
-- Avram Grumer, rec.arts.sf.written, May 2000
http://www.classroomtools.com/voltaire.htm

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"Hardly used" will not fetch a better price for your brain.

SmokingTarpan

Right. Toward the whole beginning of this mess, I laughed because of a quote from the US administration that was on CNN (I tried to find the article, but couldn't, sorry). The jist of it was that we said we would not stand for a violation of UN regulations and law by another country (Iraq). Yet here we went and violated the UN charter by invading Iraq without the okay of the Security Council. A tad hypocritical.

The US basically decided that the UN wasn't going to do what we wanted it to do, so we pulled the "Well who's going to stop me?" routine. Why are we in the UN again?

Buck Fush

Interesting. Thanks for the info. I originally heard a similar quote to this attributed to Patrick Henry, but when I went to research it(Something some posters in this thread should try before running their fingers.) I found it attributed to Voltaire. Strange my results didn't return the page you referenced.

USN_Squid

Honestly, if you don't understand contingency plans for likely targets we're not going to get very far. There's probably a contingency to invade Canada in some Generals file cabinet.

edit:
I understand it was more than a contingency plan, but your paraphrasing interpretation of what you believe does not produce "proof".

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USN_Squid

I haven't seen that. Where did you read that? I have seen that Bush and Blair denounced the memos contents as preposterous, and Blair produced further documents proving it.

Seriously bud, you're out of your league if you believe this. There are whole departments at the Pentagon that do nothing but sit and plan for potential conflicts all around the world. Are you saying that Bush would be a better leader by just jumping into a conflict without planning for it first? Isn't that one of the arguments that planning was insufficient? I'm confused.

Again, it is a FACT that some small amounts have been found and the mechanisms and intelligence to restart programs rapidly. As I've said numerous times, that tonage of weapons is irrelevant in my opinion. It doesn't take an 18 wheeler full of chemical agent to cause havok. Don't you remember the post 911 scare with Anthrax?

Al Qaeda is still actively searching for Chem/Bio weapons just as they did before 911. I'm not prepared to give anyone especially Saddam the benefit of the doubt.

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leejo

Just because the memo is authentic does not mean it's authoritative.


Congress did not give Bush the authority to invade Iraq. The American people did in the 2000 election. Congress can declare war, and has the power of the purse, but the President is the Commander In Chief and can order troops where he pleases without checking with or even notifying any other authority.

I'm having a conversation with a puppet. In November 2001 John Kerry and many others were calling Iraq the logical "next step" in the GWOT. If anyone's attempting to rewrite history, it's the liberals who call liar liar and retroactively establish criteria for the invasion that DIDN'T EXIST AT THE TIME.

USN_Squid

Why isn't anybody questioning the source of this document? Everyone here just seems to accept the memo as fact without considering that it came from one of the most anti-war, anti-Bush Politicians in Britain.

Hello...Dan Rather?

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Buck Fush

Benefit of the doubt is what we talk about before sending one person to prison. Proving beyond all doubt is what we should be talking about before invading a sovereign nation. Your president lied and you're still defending him. You sure are loyal.

USN_Squid

Okay, cool. See ya at the ballot box.

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rs_al

Neg in november 2001 everyone was like "Wtf does Iraq have to do with anything?". SH was glued on to september 11th months later.

I know. I was there. Don't bull**** me.

Apophis

Your BELIEF is that he lied. If you choose to believe Randi Rhodes or Al Franken I'm sure you can get all sorts of great dirt on the current administration. If you believe Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity you'll hear a whole different set of information.

If you are pre-disposed to dislike the Republican party, you will naturally believe what you hear that furthers your beliefs.

If you are pre-disposed to dislike the Democrat party, you will naturally believe what you hear that furthers your beliefs.

Personally, I'm just sitting back and waiting for the ACTUAL truth to come out. Not the political smearing, hate mongering, and conspiracy theorist BS. History will tell us what the truth is.

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Diplomacy is the art of saying "good doggie" while looking for a bigger stick.

Apophis

A few years ago I watched a Discovery Channel (Or maybe it was History Channel?) show that talked about military tactics and strategy. One of the key points I remember is that there are ALWAYS plans under development to attack just about any nation you can think of. Those plans are often reviewed and updated as the global political climate shifts.

It doesn't surprise me in the least that after 9/11 the US began updating and strategizing attacking Iraq. I bet the same was done for Iran, Syria, Egypt, and even Israel!

One thing I can't do is simply believe what the media tells me without getting all the "why's" and "wherefore's" out of the way first. There is a hell of a lot of information surrounding every single action this nation has ever taken. To single out any one action or event while ignoring these important facts is something I can't get myself to do.

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Diplomacy is the art of saying "good doggie" while looking for a bigger stick.

TheFeniX

Because, when invaded by the British, we stopped hitting military targets and focused on civilian ones... oh wait.

When military targets are intertwined into those civilian targets in the hopes that they won't bomb you into the stone age: TS. Your only other effective option is to move tanks and infantry in. That causes casualties. I don't know of one commander that values foreign civilian life over his men's lives. It's not right, it's just real life.

Now here's a good example. I don't really agree with the bombings, but I do understand why they were done.

Japan had lost the war, but just wouldn't admit it. Rather than expend the man-power to take Japan with troops, they wanted to show to end it then and their. Considering public opinion of the Japanesse was pretty low: no one really cared (which is probably the real tragedy). Well that and we had to show off for the Russians.

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