How Do We Win in Iraq?

Brandon is afraid of Saddam's WMDs that doesn't exist, so what can we expect? Maybe he should tell president Bush. LOL

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kelticwizard wrote:

It's pretty clear that Bush invaded because the inspectors seemed to be about to show that there were no WMD's in Iraq, and Bush could not take the chance of having the momentum toward invasion be broken by the facts.

Do you have any evidence for this interpretation of Bush's behavior?

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cicerone imposter wrote:

Brandon is afraid of Saddam's WMDs that doesn't exist, so what can we expect? Maybe he should tell president Bush. LOL

Anyone who isn't afraid of what WMD can do is merely foolish. I am not concerned about WMD that have been shown not to exist. I maintain that it was reasonable to be concerned about them before they were shown not to exist. I've said this a lot of times, but you don't seem to grasp it.

To accurately state my position and then argue it is one thing, but to repeatedly misunderstand it and then argue against a position I do not take is rather pathetic.

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Brandon9000 wrote:

kelticwizard wrote:

It's pretty clear that Bush invaded because the inspectors seemed to be about to show that there were no WMD's in Iraq, and Bush could not take the chance of having the momentum toward invasion be broken by the facts.

Do you have any evidence for this interpretation of Bush's behavior?

Do you have any evidence that this was not the reason for Bush's behaviour? Why did he order the inspectors out, when in fact the inspections were successful?

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old europe wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:
kelticwizard wrote:

It's pretty clear that Bush invaded because the inspectors seemed to be about to show that there were no WMD's in Iraq, and Bush could not take the chance of having the momentum toward invasion be broken by the facts.

Do you have any evidence for this interpretation of Bush's behavior?

Do you have any evidence that this was not the reason for Bush's behaviour? Why did he order the inspectors out, when in fact the inspections were successful?

You cannot verify a particular motivation for Bush or anyone by presenting the absence of evidence against it. You know that.

Separately, he ordered the inspectors out because he didn't want them hurt by the invasion, and probably ordered the invasion because he believed there might be a finite time window before Hussein succeeded in amassing enough WMD to either destroy a city or else do what North Korea is doing now (ordering oponents to stand down or take the consequences).

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"Separately, he ordered the inspectors out because he didn't want them hurt by the invasion, and probably ordered the invasion because he believed there might be a finite time window before Hussein succeeded in amassing enough WMD to either destroy a city or else do what North Korea is doing now (ordering opponents to stand down or take the consequences)."

What ever happened to solid evidence rather than "he believed..." Belief is such a weak justification to start a war on, especially where it concerns the killing of innocent lives in a preemptive attack on a sovereign country - that by some estimates now put the number at 100,000.

To take action of war on "belief" rather than solid evidence is a crime against humanity.

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Brandon9000 wrote:

... and probably ordered the invasion because he believed there might be a finite time window before Hussein succeeded in amassing enough WMD to either destroy a city or else do what North Korea is doing now ....

Why did he believe that Hussein was amassing WMD when all the reports of the inspectors on the ground in Iraq where saying exactly the opposite: That there where no WMD and no WMD programs? That Iraq was finally cooperating, especially since the end of January 2003?

What was the reason to order an invasion? What was Bush's proof for an Iraqi WMD program that would have warranted an invasion? And if the Bush administration had proof of where the WMD were (as e.g. Rumsfeld claimed), why didn't they simply point them out to the UNMOVIC inspectors on the ground? There was no reason for speculation, every hint could have been immediately verified. Why wasn't that done?

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Slaughter and destruction were initiated because the Bush Administration doubted the absence of WMD.

Talk about violent extremism.

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InfraBlue wrote:

Slaughter and destruction were initiated because the Bush Administration doubted the absence of WMD.

Talk about violent extremism.

I don't think they doubted the absence of WMD. Having the facts fixed around your claims is not exactly hinting at doubts.

It's a pity that Powell regretted this only after leaving office. He should have spoken out when giving his presentation at the UN, saying "This is what Donnie and Condi and the other guys want me to say, but frankly, I don't even believe in it myself, because I know we don't have any reliable information, and everything points to the opposite, but here we go...."

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Yeah, I know their doubt about the absence of WMD was a pretext.

He had misgivings about his speech even before he gave it. Now he says it's intelligence's fault that he's a patsy. He knew from the get go that the info stunk like a stuck skunk. What a spineless weasel.

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englishmajor wrote:

You don't point a gun at someone and shoot them because you 'think' they might shoot you, especially when they have demonstrated that they have no gun. You don't hit someone first because you 'think' they might hit you. That is bully behaviour.

However, you do invade a country that promised in a surrender treaty to verifiably disarm, and has been caught hiding weapons and lying. Furthermore, if one gunman shoots you, one person can die, but if a WMD goes off in a city, some types could kill hundreds of thousands of people, and it is reasonable to invade to determine that a madman won't be in charge of doomsday weapons.

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Brandon9000 wrote:

englishmajor wrote:
You don't point a gun at someone and shoot them because you 'think' they might shoot you, especially when they have demonstrated that they have no gun. You don't hit someone first because you 'think' they might hit you. That is bully behaviour.

However, you do invade a country that promised in a surrender treaty to verifiably disarm, and has been caught hiding weapons and lying.[...]

The reason to invade in March 2003 was because Iraq has been caught hiding WMD?

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cicerone imposter wrote:

"Separately, he ordered the inspectors out because he didn't want them hurt by the invasion, and probably ordered the invasion because he believed there might be a finite time window before Hussein succeeded in amassing enough WMD to either destroy a city or else do what North Korea is doing now (ordering opponents to stand down or take the consequences)."

What ever happened to solid evidence rather than "he believed..." Belief is such a weak justification to start a war on, especially where it concerns the killing of innocent lives in a preemptive attack on a sovereign country - that by some estimates now put the number at 100,000.

To take action of war on "belief" rather than solid evidence is a crime against humanity.

If you wait for certainty to see if a madman has made good on his treaty promise to destroy WMD, you may obtain proof in the form of a mushroom cloud rising over what had been one of your cities. Your insistence that 100% certainty is required regardless of the size of the potential threat is wrong. It's not as though we weren't sure that he had had WMD. We simply weren't sure that he had destroyed them.

As for stating that this was immoral because of the invasion of a "sovereign country," that is kind of unintelligent. The usual reason why it is considered immoral to invade a sovereign counytry is because it takes away the right of the inhabitants to self-determination, but the inhabitants of Iraq had no such right under Hussein and his thugs.

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old europe wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:
englishmajor wrote:
You don't point a gun at someone and shoot them because you 'think' they might shoot you, especially when they have demonstrated that they have no gun. You don't hit someone first because you 'think' they might hit you. That is bully behaviour.

However, you do invade a country that promised in a surrender treaty to verifiably disarm, and has been caught hiding weapons and lying.[...]

The reason to invade in March 2003 was because Iraq has been caught hiding WMD?

We had played with Hussein for 12 years. That was more than enough time to wait, and Bush quite properly finally ended it by the use of force.

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Sorry, OE, for the colloquialisms in the last post. I know I have a hard time understanding some of the colloquialisms from the Brits and Aussies here.

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InfraBlue wrote:

Yeah, I know their doubt about the absence of WMD was a pretext.

He had misgivings about his speech even before he gave it. Now he says it's intelligence's fault that he's a patsy. He knew from the get go that the info stunk like a stuck skunk. What a spineless weasel.

Even just the fact that Hussein had hidden the weapons and lied about them provided sufficient chance that he was still doing so to warrant invasion. Imagine what WW2 would have been like if Hitler had had nukes and bioweapons. You think that the world would be much better off if Hussein had enough WMD to tell us to take a hike?

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Brandon9000 wrote:

old europe wrote:
Brandon9000 wrote:
englishmajor wrote:
You don't point a gun at someone and shoot them because you 'think' they might shoot you, especially when they have demonstrated that they have no gun. You don't hit someone first because you 'think' they might hit you. That is bully behaviour.

However, you do invade a country that promised in a surrender treaty to verifiably disarm, and has been caught hiding weapons and lying.[...]

The reason to invade in March 2003 was because Iraq has been caught hiding WMD?

We had played with Hussein for 12 years. That was more than enough time to wait, and Bush quite properly finally ended it by the use of force.

How had the States been "playing" with Hussein for 12 years when the UNMOVIC inspections only started in December 2002?

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Brandon9000 wrote:

If you wait for certainty to see if a madman has made good on his treaty promise to destroy WMD, you may obtain proof in the form of a mushroom cloud rising over what had been one of your cities.

Are you saying that Saddam, at one point, had had nuclear weapons, then promised to destroy them, and because there was no certainty the US invaded?

I didn't know that!

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Brandon" wrote:

We had played with Hussein for 12 years. That was more than enough time to wait, and Bush quite properly finally ended it by the use of force.

So then, it wasn't because "he had been caught hiding weapons and lying;" it's because Bush got tired of waiting. Waiting for what?

Brandon wrote:

Even just the fact that Hussein had hidden the weapons and lied about them provided sufficient chance that he was still doing so to warrant invasion.

Hussein wasn't hiding weapons.

Your argumentation is getting circular here, Brandon.

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