Are You Watching Any Of The Inauguration?

I think the spirit of the argument is that this group of people had plans, ie. intentions, to invade. The argument is not that we should or should not have had military plans to do it. It is that the desire, the intentions, were there before they were acknowledged. I think you can probably see that.



I missed where somebody made that claim. But I will again assert that invasion and/or assasination have not traditionally been methods to enforce UN resolutions.



For the record, I was against all aggression toward Iraq and Yugoslavia. That's because I don't believe that violence begets anything but more violence. The basic fact, on Iraq, and what cinches it to me, is that Iraq was not a threat to the US. Period. You can make yourself blue talking about the legalities and the fine print and the sanctions and the resolutions, but the simple fact is that they were not a threat to us, and they probably were not a threat to their neighbors. Our adventure there is not for humanitarian reasons, so any blathering about how many people Saddam killed is just post-war rationalizing. We are not in the business of using our military to solve human rights problems. Iraq was a mistake. A very big mistake. A preventable and predictable mistake. It was the wrong tool for that problem. It was not in the best interests of the US. My only guess is that Clinton and Bush I were able to see this. Bush II might have seen it, but chose to do it anyway, for reasons that I'm sure will make themselves known eventually. Maybe they were good reasons. Maybe the end will justify the means. I remain skeptical in that respect.

I already know what your position is on this. I have no interest in converting you to mine. But it seems I need to state it as clearly as I possibly can so that you can save your straw.

This is a fair opinion and explains your inconsistency and inability or unwillingness to recognize facts. You should stop here, if that's all you have… and are unwilling to link your opinions in some factual way…
But since you chose to lash out instead…

This is as insulting as anything I've said to you. By claiming concern for the murdered millions you obviously care nothing for, is just post-war blathering you accuse me of lying, and belittle a heinous atrocity that we interrupted while it was ongoing. While I can understand legal arguments and arguments that more harm will eventually come from this, belittling the murder of millions is deplorable beyond words. Save your "I care too speech" because you obviously don't... and where you get off suggesting I don't either is beyond me.

Deny U.S. humanitarian efforts to some ignorant fool who'll believes that unsupportable Anti-American BS. Who do you think provides the majority of peacekeepers for UN peacekeeping? Perhaps you also choose not to be aware of the billions in Military equipment, thousands of soldiers at the cost of millions per day we currently have deployed for humanitarian reasons... but don't think you can sell that to me. I choose to know better.

This paragraph was totally unnecessary. You had already made clear you thought the war was wrong but had no idea why. Repeating the sentiment adds nothing to your argument or credibility.

Since your position is founded on an idealistic theory with no reliance on facts, and you do possess a fine mind, I thought perhaps facts would mean something to you. I see I was wrong. Millions murdered doesn't matter, and is just blathering, if they're not Americans. Got it.

no problem, bill. i laughed at that first time around. it was some of the other parts that just hit me wrong. still, i am sure that i've read posts here, though not by you that i recall, that absolutely refute the plan/intention to take iraq prior to election or 9/11.

just trying to keep that in the running record. why? because, for me, it is really of great importance that, no matter what our country does, whether it is seen as right or wrong by other countries, we must be honest with ourselves about what it truly is and truthfully why we are doing it.

for instance; i know for certain that there are some who don't give a fig about saddam or torture or starving iraqi children. they simply want "payback" for 9/11. i have heard some of these people express this in no uncertain terms.

wanna real jolt ? the words that came out of my mouth after 9/11 and going into afghanistan ? "screw 'em! turn the whole region to glass."

do you know what that phrase means, bill? a clue is that it invokes a military action utilising a technology that some pronounce "nuke -yoo-lur".

but the point is; i had a desire to kick some major arab ass. any arab ass. real hard. i wanted payback.

once i was honest with myself about those feelings, i got over that knee jerk response pretty quick. some didn't.

so when all of the talk about iraq came up and one assertion after another kept getting debunked, before the first shot was fired, i had to wonder and look deeper into what was driving the admin to go after a country that, though totally f***ed, had nothing to do with 9/11.

the pnac group is one of the places i wound up. the cli is another (and btw, their website and most links to it have vaporized), the defense policy board etc.

so bottom line for me, bill, is that taking iraq is an issue, but the bigger issue is that it was done using falsity to gain acceptance from the congress, media and citizenry.



i held that view for a very long time. remember how it was played that it was the u.n.'s fault ? "butros ghali wouldn't let us!"

we now know from his own words that bush sr. predicted the entanglements that we are currently wading through in iraq. he was smarter about that than i ever gave him credit for.

now for the important question... "occom" ? like the town in northern california ?

:wink:

O'Bill, I almost replied, line by line, to that last post. But then I got distracted looking for an emoticon that beats its head against a wall.

Dennis Miller is one of my favorites and his favorite metaphor for a while was heat and sand make glass and when we're done the whole place should look like Superman's dad's apartment.

I wanted some a$$ but was none too sure who's. When it was established that it was Bin Ladin, for sure, and that he was in the Tora Bora Mountain Range; my thought was to bust out one of the really big H bombs, like a 50 mega-ton variety (1,000 times more powerful than Hiroshima or Nagasaki ), make sure we had a ton of cameras on it and vaporize an entire mountain into a valley (literally). I thought that message would be heard around the world and whoever we threatened next would take our word for our seriousness. So, I feel ya.

Mine wasn't kneejerk, and I didn't get over it. I still think the net loss of life created by that display would have saved many times that number of lives in future conflicts.

As I've already indicated; I understand that complaint and even agree with it... but IMO it doesn't overshadow the need to have done the work in the first place. More in a minute. :wink:

Bush chose to pull back to stay in agreement with the UN... so while ultimately it was Bush's call... blaming the UN isn't totally wrong either. He was doing the work under there name, after all.

Yes, he accurately accessed the enormity of the problems we'd face if we removed the mass murderer which made avoiding the problems seem like the better plan. There was hope, I suppose, that after such a swift kick in the a$$ Saddam would realize the futility of further criminal behavior and resistance. But, alas, it wasn't to be. We can't know what the cost in human lives would have been to finish the job then… but we can assume it would have been hefty. But, we can't deny what the cost of not finishing the job was, can we? Millions of Iraqis paid the ultimate price for the delay between Bush and Bush. Millions. Since Sr. had encouraged an uprising only to turn his back on those who listened I can only assume the task of winning hearts and minds is more daunting today… But; do you know what would have changed if we hadn't gone back?
Nothing.
And that, only if we were lucky and Saddam didn't resume attempting to obtain WMD once the sanctions were lifted. Its no stretch to imagine that he would or that he'd use them if he could.

So, not wanting to deal with the "quagmire" or whatever name you want to put on the current situation is the legitimate, understandable, reason that neither Bush Sr. nor Clinton addressed Saddam's defiance, in any meaningful way. Some think the price of Millions of Iraqis Murdered was a fair price to pay to avoid this seemingly hopeless to some problem. I do not.

I agree wholeheartedly that the shoddy sales techniques were deplorable and will not argue with that. However, if, in the days following 9-11, Bush had delivered a message like he did on inauguration day about freeing the oppressed masses to prevent their wanting to become terrorists, explained Saddam's true crimes, and announced that Iraq would be his next target if he didn't accept exile… I truly believe the speech would have been met with a sea of applause. Everyone wanted to hear that we'd make no distinction between the countries that harbor terrorists and the terrorists themselves, remember? He could have easily slipped mass-murdering despots into that equation and no one would have batted an eye, IMHO.

This means he did a lousy job of selling his objective. NOT that the objective was unjust. The millions of murdered Iraqis since 1991 are just as dead.

I've ranted long enough here; but I'd also like to mention that I read today that Kim Jong IL has cut the food to the already starving masses in half. :sad: Sanctions and not interfering there like the military had planned out in the early 90's has resulted in millions of dead there too. At least 2 and some say as many as 10 million people, a third of the population may have already been systematically starved to death despite being the on of the largest recipients of international aid.

This "wait em out" approach is only enriching the monsters, who're only becoming more dangerous with first world comforts and weapons at the price of the masses and it makes me sick that people think the blind eye is more humane. Come on back to the hawk stance, my friend; it's not about pride or stupidity or bloodlust… it's about people.

Nope, like William of Occam but I'm a lousy speller. :wink:
(I've seen it spelled half a dozen ways, but seemingly chose one of rarest.)

This I understand. :wink: