The US, UN & Iraq III

How about these?



1: Saddam Hussein was partly responsible for the September 11 attacks, so a good way to respond would be to invade his country and remove him from power.

WRONG: According to a just-released Congressional investigation, Saddam had nothing whatsoever to do with September 11.

2: Saddam was working closely with Osama bin Laden and supporting al-Qaeda, giving them weapons, money, bases and training, so launching a war against Iraq would be a good way to stop al-Qaeda from attacking us again.

WRONG: The US pulled significant intelligence resources out of Pakistan and Afghanistan to get ready for the rushed invasion of Iraq and that disrupted the search for Osama at a critical time. And the indifference we showed to the rest of the world's opinion undermined the global co-operation we need to win the war against terrorism.

3: Saddam was about to give terrorists poison gas and germ warfare which could be used to kill millions of Americans. Therefore commonsense alone dictated that we should send our military into Iraq to protect our loved ones and ourselves against a grave threat.

WRONG: The evidence now shows clearly that Saddam did not want to work with Osama bin Laden, much less give him weapons of mass destruction. So our invasion of Iraq had no effect on al-Qaeda except to boost recruiting.

LIES: George W. Bush

4: Saddam was on the verge of building nuclear weapons and giving them to terrorists. And since the only thing preventing him from acquiring a nuclear arsenal was access to enriched uranium, once our spies found out he had bought the technology he needed and was trying to buy uranium from Africa, we had very little time left.

WRONG: On the nuclear issue, it turned out those documents were forged.

5: Our GIs would be welcomed with open arms by Iraqis who would help them quickly establish public safety, free markets and democracy, so there wouldn't be that much risk that US soldiers would get bogged down in a guerrilla war.

WRONG: As for the cheering crowds, unfortunately that didn't pan out either, so now our troops are in an ugly and dangerous situation.

6: Even though the rest of the world was mostly opposed to the war, they would quickly fall in line after we won and then contribute lots of money and soldiers to help out, so there wouldn't be that much risk that US taxpayers would get stuck with a large bill.

WRONG: The rest of the world just isn't jumping in to help out very much in the way we expected, so US taxpayers are now having to spend a billion dollars a week.

"So why are you pretending to be ignorant?"

Possibly because it's comforting.
Possibly because it's what one's clan believes.
Possibly because it's hard to cave in to facts sometimes.
Possibly because we all have a lot of time on our hands, enough to go over the same ground over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

And we could be spending the same time working to get the nuts out of office, walking our dogs, looking at Mars through the binocs, and getting a life.

What say?

Dr Kelly didn't kill himself because of a BBC reporter, are you crazy? He was betrayed by our Defence Department.
Now his name is being besmirched by the same people.

And Timberland, it was a lie all right. Tony Blair is now standing at the top of a very slippery slope- watch the British news for a week or so. In my opinion he will be lucky to survive.

We are not entitled to go to war to effect a regime change. Iraq was weak before we attacked, and was no threat to us. We knew that. It was immoral as well as illegal to attack it.

I'm relatively certain that any evidence produced by Dr Kay will not make a dent in the protective cocoon of denial surrounding most Dems (liberals) but even Bob Novak gets it right some times.


Evidence of WMD coming soon

August 10, 2003

BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
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Former international weapons inspector David Kay, now seeking Iraqi weapons of mass destruction for the Pentagon, has privately reported successes that are planned to be revealed to the public in mid-September.

Kay has told his superiors he has found substantial evidence of biological weapons in Iraq, plus considerable missile development. He has been less successful in locating chemical weapons, and has not yet begun a substantial effort to locate progress toward nuclear arms.

Senior officials in the Bush administration believe Kay's weapons discoveries should have been revealed as they were made. However, a decision, approved by President Bush, was made to wait until more was discovered and then announce it--probably in September.

I'd have to read a report written by other than Robert Novak, for starters!

Absolutely no argument, Dyslexia ... much remains to be done. The result of a power vacuum naturally is chaos and disorder. A largely armed populace with deepseated ethnic, religious, and ideologic differences is expectedly a most intractable beast. Great effort and expense is currently being devoted to reconstructing not just a civil-controlled police force, but to establishing a civil-controlled, defensive-postured military. The promise was for a long, arduous, demanding struggle, as I recall. So far, that promise appears met.

perception

I could follow all reports and reactions about this in England, talked even privately with a Minister - you reaction isn't even shared by the UK government.

Well done, Walter (again!). I was too irritated to respond to that bit of conspiratorial fantasy.

Why don't they just wait until next October?

Didn't that authoritative source of data, Rush Limbaugh, already say they were cataloging the massive stockpiles a few weeks ago?

And could you please clarify what 'denial' you believe the 'Dem(liberals)' are operating under?

This logic is eluding me.

Wow the hated for GWB and Blair on this thread has reached a new level.

perception

Eh, it was a Minister in Blair's government, Labour is my "sister party" ... and how do you define "hate"?

Walter:

As for any minister in Blairs administration not wanting fire the 1st shot in an allout war with BBC---really can you blame them. It will be later whether or not Blair and his party decide the fate of the Taxpayer funded Public News regime. I predict that Blair not only will survive but will be in a stronger position to take on the BBC crowd later.

As for my definition of hate just go back about 10 pages on this thread and you will have no doubts about how I arrive at that conclusion.

No, I think you had better re-think that hatred. It's both not that and more than that. It's a sense of betrayal, of being lied to, of being ignored, of many things. And, unlike the previous bunch, who really carried hatred to an extreme, I have seen very little directed at Bush personally.

Why do we feel the way we do? For starters, take the way the "election" was won. If you honestly believe that election was honestly won, I think Tartarin may still have that bridge for sale.

The economy, briefly. Bush walked into a budget surplus. That doesn't happen often. But when the economy soured so quickly, and the budget became a deficit, your president immediately, as has become his pattern, started looking where he could lay off blame. You notice he now no longer talks about inheriting a deficit? Deficits don't start with budget surpluses. But for all the growing numbers of people who are unemployed, who can't find work, who find themselves in a bind - you think they regard Bush kindly. Tax cuts, the star of Bush's candidacy. Almost all polls, big and little, including many republican ones, showed that the majority of the American people did not want the tax cuts; they wanted the deficit drawn down. But we were ignored, passed over, treated as though we didn't exist. And what happened? Last week the Government Budget Office (a definitely non-partisan group) announced that the two major reasons for our sour economy are ---the tax cuts and the war.

Now, the war in Iraq. We wre lied to, cheated, sold a bill of goods like we were only some vast tv audience. Everything this administration spent millions of taxpayer dollars on to convince us of their justifcation has turned out to be not true. And the situation in Iraq, despite the rosy hopes, is apparently not getting better. It's not the bad people in the media saying this - it's Mr bremer. In today's new York Times, he cites an ominous threat over there, and says further that they can find no evidence of any ties with Al Queda.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/10/international/worldspecial/10MILI.html?hp

You think we feel good about all that? This is a president who hasn't even taken the time or trouble to get himself to Iraq. And yet, he finds time to take a month's vacation in Texas.

I don't hate George Bush. Too big an emotion to waste on a small man. But I don't like what's happening to my country under him. And I want it changed so that I am again proud of being American, of having American systems and ways of life that other countries would like to share.

As far as Tony Blair - I have more respect for him, although he's tarred wit the same brush.

But don't kid yourself about levels. We will never be able to descend to the level that was set before, nor do we want to. It was degrading, demeaning - how could anyone take pride in a party that raised to undreamed levels a debate about stains on a blue dress as being of world-shaking imporance? That was hatred.

I've only got a slight impression about what the average Englishman might think about this.
And my contacts with the Labour basis is reduced to having joined a meeting and spoken to some dozen party members and a couple of officials and councillors.

So you really might be right, considering that you must have better sources for predictions.

perc, actually, I think the "Hatred for Bush" is merely symptomatic ... an externalization of the the angst and frustration experienced by those seeking to shield themselves from the inevitability of The Decline of The Left. It is noteworthy The Left decries the status quo, yet offers no alternate solutions. Being against a thing is pretty futile if there is no viable alternative proposed. These things are cyclical, of course, and never exactly synchronous, witness the contretemps currently afflicting Christianity, but the Liberalism of the past generation recedes in the face of a growing Conservatism, brought on by a backlash against perceived Liberal Excesses, just as the Liberalism now waning was fostered in its turn by a backlash against the perceived Excesses of Conservatism, as by turns has been the case countless times in the past. To every thing there is a season, and the stormiest of times are at the changes of season.

You're projecting here, and there's still about twenty different examples to respond to relative to the different directions Bush's successor will head, but I will just pick a couple for now.

Global hegemony will not be a successful foreign policy for the United States. It's enough for the next administration to turn away from it.

And taxes are going to have to be raised in order to pull us out of these massive deficits. Again. If I were the Democratic nominee, I wouldn't mention that either.

That would be considerably less devious than lying in order to start a war, IMHO.

(edited to correct the spelling of 'hegemony')

This is particularly misunderstood. BTW, I'm always amused at the words you choose to capitalize in your posts.

There is a wonderful book (wonderful if you're not a Republican) called "The Emerging Democratic Majority" written by by John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira. To summarize:



Democrats out-voted Republicans in the last three Presidential elections.

It is a myth, widely and relentlessly sold by the media, and that you have apparently bought into, that Democrats, liberals, whatever label you choose to use, are in the minority.

The myth will be invalidated, again, in 2004.

http://www.emergingdemocraticmajority.com/edm/index.cfm

We shall see, PDiddie, we shall see. I have my "projections", you have yours.


I submit that what you perceive as hegemonistic aspirations on the part of The US is nothing of the kind. It is a shift in Realpolitic, necessitated by the emergence of Stateless Ideologic Antagonists. The reality is that no rational society can now afford to wait for the badguy to hit first. The risk posed by the existence of weaponry of horribleness unparallelled in history renders reactive policy madness and mandates proactive policy.

Increasing tax burden as a means of revitalizing an economy is a ludicrous proposition. Now, the current deficit, in present-day-dollar terms, is the largest it has ever been. However, in real terms, in perspective, it is a far lower percentage of GDP than any number of past deficits, including examples belonging to both parties. The fact of the matter is that only increased capital stimulates an economy, nothing else does. No better argument for deficit spending can be made than effort to ameliorate and reverse the effects of a faltering economy. Revenue enhancement brought on by the economic expansion occaisioned by tax reform will eliminate ther deficit. Nothing else will.

Sound, sage advice, perhaps. I'm not willing to bet, however, that it will not be raised as one of the Democratic Battle Banners.
There are differences of philosophy here, and plenty of room for contention either way. I do ponder the issues, and examine the various points of view. I do not necessarilly endorse the changes I see transpiring; I merely see them as implacably underway. As has been the steady erosion of Democratic Party control over Federal, State, and local offices since '98 at least, even '94 or '92, by some calculations.

Timber, I was in agreement with some earlier posts of yours. But the following I cannot go along with unless you put US in place of Iraq as far as 1-6. We do fit into No. 6, which refers to the fact that we have financed terroristic regimes if it suited our purpose. We could probably fit into No. 8, too.



And, obviously, since the new criterion for running the world is fire-power, we do not qualify for No. 10.

I read as much good stuff as I can find that is coming out of Iraq. I think the press prints what positive information it can find, as does Tom Friedman. I read the story about the Iran Shia cleric coming to Iraq quite a few days earlier than this post of Friedman's, and it is obvious that he will have trouble finding supporters for his push toward a secular democracy in Iraq. They do not know how to do this.

There was an interview on NPR last week, with a man who has written a book about how to create a secular society that is supportive of Islam. He is very positive that it can be done in Iraq. It is a matter of teaching and education.

I continue to believe that first of all we must establish order in Iraq, as well as basic security and service, education, jobs and pay. I read today that universities are holding classes again. We need many more people on the ground to maintain order. This is an issue because our troops are stretched thin, across the world. That may be true, but we got into this and we ought to pour major resources into doing the job in Iraq.