USN_Squid

Originally Posted by leejo:
From what I've seen, EVERYONE thought SH had WMDs and no-one has really contested that.

Then what was the final resolution for? To proclaim Saddam weapon free? Nope.

Originally Posted by leejo:
I think the world is a much better place for SH being in jail. Some may not see it (and probably won't) but a lot of us do.

I thought Bush had made terrorism worse by removing Saddam?! And you may want to ask a few Iraqis if things are better or worse without him. (before you go looking, the majority say it is better).

Originally Posted by The FeniX:
Meanwhile, a democrat gets BJs from interns and takes a dump on US foreign policy and it's "E for fraggin' effort."

I think it could be argued that Clinton did not do all he could to stop terrorism (understatement) and maybe if he wasn't so distracted......

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_Ender_

If the UN was so convinced he had weapons, then why didnt they and the rest of the world support us going in? The fact is they may of thought he had weapons, but they couldnt prove it.

Now did I say that?

For 1, there is no link between terrorism and Saddam. Our own intelligence has said that.

2) Saddam has been quiet for quite some time before Bush told him to leave his country and started this stupid pointless war.

As for the Iraqis, their freedom is meaningless to me. All thats going to happen is instead of one Bin Laden, we're going to be dealing with hundreds.

And Bush has done better? He's looking for Bin Laden so what does he do, invade Iraq..

The only time Bush cared about terrorism was after 9\11. And the only reason why he cared is because he dropped the ball on it.

Both administrations dropped the ball on terrorism, they're both equally guility.

leejo

Why didn't the UN support our going into Iraq? Well the truth seems to be leaking out about the $10B Oil For Food corruption. Seems that a lot of them have something to hide.

Our own intelligence flatly does NOT say that there was no link between Saddam Hussein and terrorism. It has said that there has been no link made between SH and 9/11, but he paid families of suicide bombers in Israel, Abu Nidal was living in Iraq, etc etc. Our intelligence strongly asserts that SH's regime was closely linked to terrorist groups.

You clearly just do not or will not accept the good reasons - directly related to the war on terror - for going into Iraq. I'm not trying to argue that with you and am coming to the conclusion that there's nuance here that some get and some do not. Winning a free and stable Iraq is a five or ten year down the road grand slam, and in the meantime we have lots and lots of troops right next to Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia. We have planes flying around with downward-looking radars and sensing equipment all over the place.

Every leader in the region knows that we can drop a special ops team through his bedroom window within an hour of making the decision to go. They may scream bloody murder about this, but it affects their BEHAVIOR. Who wants to be the head of state giving safe harbor to Al Quada right now? Maybe without our presence in Iraq, Syria might.

Etc.

I can imagine how someone can claim with a straight face that planting 200,000 troops smack in the heart of the Middle East has no relationship to the war on terror if and only if they don't draw the connection between terrorism and state sponsorship. If you think terrorism is a bunch of angry young men, then fine. I see terrorism more as a strategic effort.

USN_Squid

Short answer is the UN is non-commital and has a very poor record on doing anything right.

Terrorism and Saddam, yes. Payment for hamas homicide-bombers for one example, and there are many more. Ties between Al-qaeda and Saddam have not been proven as far as I know.

The point of this war is long term and many people can't see that far out. How do you end terrorism? By giving these people something to live for. With a democratic representative government smack dab in the center of the middle east (along with Afghanistan) they will enjoy a real economy and have hope for the future. THAT will stop terrorism, and THAT was the point of this stupid war.

I don't understand this logic. So, they weren't mad at us before 9/11, but now they're really pissed huh?

We never stopped looking for Bin Laden in Afghanistan. Just ask the families of the servicemen that are still there.

Bush had seven months, what did Clinton have?

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Fait_Maker

Please.. While I'm no friend to Clinton and ironically perhaps nor Bush, I think us guys can all agree that most of us have had a blowjob or two in our time and that we were perfectly fine doing our jobs and they did not cause us a distraction. Would you have made the same comment if it had been his wife he was having sex with? You do believe that most Presidents still have sex with their wives.. right? Well maybe they don't.... But you understand what I'm saying. We are adults and we have diversions but we get the job done. Maybe he didn't, but I doubt it was Monica that was the problem.

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RandomGuy

Thank you for elaborating on this. You alluded to this position before but I was not satisfied until you spelled it out here.

I think what you're saying about occupied Iraq providing a threat to hostile neighbours and a staging ground for ops makes sense and is logical but I'm not exactly convinced it will pay off. There is a lot of speculation involved regarding how other middle eastern countries and "groups" will responsd so it can be expected that two people won't agree about that. Consider Israel: they have all the latest and greatest military tech to observe, intimidate and obliterate their terrorist threats, who live right next door. Yet Israel is still the target of many (successful) terrorist attacks.

What I can argue with, however, is motivation. While you have outlined a reasonable case for invading Iraq, I sincerely doubt that this was Bush's plan. Reports are now saying that almost immediately after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 Bush was trying to justify invading Iraq. Do you truly believe that Iraq was chosen because of its strategic value? If so, you give Bush more credit than I... and even then why not simply state his true intentions?

Also, following your reasons, the USA should maintain a large military presence in Iraq after power is returned to Iraqis (but if American forces are still there, then who really has the power?). How long can such a US presence be maintained in Iraq in order to 'police' the middle east?

leejo

From what I've read, the instant the planes slammed into the WTC, George Tenet was asking himself if Iraq were behind it. What does he know to make him think that?

Again, from what I've read, there was serious debate at the Camp David meeting asking if we "had" to go into Iraq immediately or if it could wait. Bush et. al. decided that Iraq could wait for a bit while Afghanistan was handled. Is this indicative of a conspiracy? Not in my mind. Saddam Hussein chose the company he kept, not us.

You won't get an argument from me that our going into Iraq was a foregone conclusion after 9/11. What I will argue with is the notion that Bush concocted the reasons for going in or that it was motived by oil profits, as some people have suggested.

Was going into Iraq the correct play? I don't know. You don't either. Different people have different opinions on it. We'll just have to see who is correct by waiting a few years.

How long can the US maintain a presence in Iraq and have the world consider it a free democracy? A pretty long time judging from Germany and Japan, where our troops remain. Nobody doubts Germany's sovereignty, do they? We have, what, 250,000 troops based in Germany?

Was the UN an honest broker in this affair? It is beginning to look like they weren't, and that in fact many were on the take, so I don't really care that we "failed" to get UN support. What makes anyone assume that the UN in aggregate want the US to be strong, or that what the UN wants is better?

CingularDuality

Yes, it's interesting that EVERY SINGLE MEMBER of the UN security council had thier individual intelligence agencies telling them the same thing: that Iraq had WMDs as well as the capability to produce them.

Whether or not this intel was good is a different issue. Intel is never 100% accurate. It's been suggested that much of Iraq's WMD program was a sham intended to placate Saddam and that even though Saddam himself thought he had WMDs, he really just had an elaborate fake WMD program intended merely to fool him. Time will tell, I suppose. Also interesting and something that is very relevent, is that it took weeks for coalition forces to notice that they were sitting on top of a bunch of MiG fighters that had been buried in the sand. If we can't find some jets that are literally right under our nose, can you imagine how difficult it could be to find a single tractor-trailer chemical lab? Or a small (relative to a bunch of jets) nuclear missile? Or any number of other things that are even smaller (how about a dozen two-liter bottles of Anthrax)?

Bottom line, to get back on topic, is that President Bush's joke did not kill anyone. It was merely making light of a serious problem. I don't think that the joke indicates that the President isn't taking this seriously, and if any of you do, well... I think you're overreacting.

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USN_Squid

That may be true if it were you or I, but it wasn't. It's a side point really, and not very signifiant in the big picture of fighting terrorism, but he had to deal with keepig it secret, keeping his wife happy after she found out, and a major investigation (one of several) that went on a long time. It probably took a little more time and effort than if it had been you or I.

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phyllis

Howard Stern being offensive has led to this ?

Wowza...I think this one holds the record for off-topic

TheFeniX

He had an opportunity to do some good with the momentum of the victory in Afganistan to do what the American public would not let his dad do, and what Clinton backed down from.

BS, Bush/Clinton/Bush Sr. all knew Saddam needed to go. They just couldn't justify doing it because he hadn't done anything massively blatant since Desert Storm. The American public didn't want American boys and girls dying for the problems of another country.

After 9/11, people realized the same thing as they did during WW2/Pearl Harbor. You can talk all you want about not getting involved until such time as the powers that be decide to MAKE you involved.

Clinton had 8 years to do something....anything about the festering problem in the Middle East. He did nothing and a president less than a year into his term had to deal with the consequences (although, it was not all Clinton's fault).

I still don't know why Bush didn't just get on TV and say "Hey, look. We just curb stomped AQ for 9/11. Now we've got Saddam over here, denying UN inspectors access to sites for almost 10 years. His son's run rape-camps for girls as young as 9-year-old and he'll pay anyone to take a stab at his enemies, including America. So what's say he take our boys who just wiped out Afganistan's entire military in under 2 months (which analysts said it'd take years (HAHAHAHA!!!)) and kick his sorry but back to kingdom come."

Instead they concocted a half-truth of direct linkage btw AQ and Saddam. They didn't need to and now they're paying for it.

My only regret about Iraq is that American's (allied forces as well) had to sacrifice thier lives for another country's freedom.

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_Ender_

Then let the Iraqis do something about him instead of us. He's not our problem until he does something to us.


Afganistan didnt have a military, they had a bunch of brain washed religious nuts with ak-47's.

tycho

That there is a pretty crappy attitude, man. So you are saying that ( this is a made-up situation ) we have to let him nuke us before we do anything? Isnt it already too late?

All it takes for evil to win is for a good man to do nothing.

RandomGuy

Amen to that. If that had been the word from the get go I would have been all for it.

Unfortunately that wasn't the case and now we can't tell if that was indeed the Bush government's thinking. Anyone's belief of the Bush government's motivation for invading Iraq is thus just a reflection of what you already think of the Bush government, and around and around it goes.

CingularDuality

Indeed. Liberals (frijole, included) are quick to point out that President Bush labeled Saddam Hussein an "imminent threat", when in actuality he said that we needed to remove the regime before it became an imminent threat.

There comes a time when it's better to be proactive than reactive...

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