THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, TENTH THREAD.

What does that tell us?

The same thing as others have told us; i.e., Iraq had been decided upon as a "soft spot" with which to start with the neocons' plans to restructure the region to US interests. Whether it was oil or not is not really relevant to this fact.

We were back to being imperialists. Well before, WELL BEFORE, 9/11. That provided a convenient opportunity and schemata.

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From think progress a quick look at some past statements from Bush in comparison to the memos

Quote:

Public statement:

Bush: "I've not made up our mind about military action. Hopefully, this can be done peacefully." [3/6/03]

Private statement

"The start date for the military campaign was now penciled in for 10 March," Mr. Manning wrote, paraphrasing the president. "This was when the bombing would begin." [Bush/Blair meeting, 1/31/03]

Public statement:

Bush: "We are doing everything we can to avoid war in Iraq." [3/8/03]

Private statement:

"The U.S. was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in U.N. colours," the memo says, attributing the idea to Mr. Bush. "If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach." [Bush/Blair meeting, 1/31/03]

Public statement:

Bush: "Should Saddam Hussein choose confrontation, the American people can know that every measure has been taken to avoid war, and every measure will be taken to win it." [3/17/03]

Private statement:

"But [Bush] had to say that if we ultimately failed [to get a second U.N. resolution], military action would follow anyway." [Bush/Blair meeting, 1/31/03]

To verify statements at thesource

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Magginkat wrote:

...
Ican, have you ever read anything in your life other than Faux Spews sound bytes?
I never ever read any sound byte much less one from "Faux Spews" or Fox News.

I did read Cycloptichorn's posted answers to my questions: see,
http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1946129#1946129

And I did post my response to Cycloptichorn's posted answers: see,
http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1946325#1946325

Do a Google on PNAC and read for yourself the answers to your questions. For starters Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle & Jeb Bush were signers of PNAC ..... Hell they posted the entire thing including recent letters written to your idiot king telling him what they wanted done.
No need! My questions were directed to Cycloptichorn so that I might learn why Cycloptichorn thinks what he thinks. Cycloptichorn subsequently helped me learn why he thinks what he thinks.

Who do you think is my "idiot king?" Why do you think that person is my king? Why do you think that person is an idiot?

By the way, in my post
http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1946325#1946325
I provided my evidence for why I think what I think about President Bush's intentions in ordering the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

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Ican, the 9/11 report that you quoted does not address the issue at all. It merely reports, according to Bush and his crew, what happened after 9/11.

This is immaterial to the question of the PNAC, their strategic goals, and what happened before 9/11. It doesn't speak at all of how Rove and Cheney recruited Bush to run for office, nor the fact that a huge number of the members of the PNAC are now highly-placed governmental officials who are doing exactly what they had called for back in 1997.

You call it Guilt by Association, but it isn't; that is a false representation of the argument. When a group of politicians sits around and says 'if we controlled things, we would attack Iraq,' recruits a president, wins an election, and then procedes to do exactly that, it isn't guilt by association. It is a group who made their intentions clear, and then set about to making those intentions happen.

The problem is that they lied, continuously, to you and I and the American public and the world. Attacking Iraq had little to nothing to do with Al Qaeda. We would have attacked Iran or Pakistan (or Saudi Arabia) if we really wanted to go after nations hiding and collabarating with Al Qaeda, because they are far more guilty than Iraq was of doing so.

I don't appreciate being lied to; and you, because the lies matched up with your preferred course of action, namely, war, don't seem to mind too much. But it is my bet that voters and others do mind being lied to; and the overall War on Terror will be harmed by the waste that we are seeing now, both of our forces, our time, our money, and our political captial worldwide.

Cycloptichorn

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Excellent post, Cyclo, very much to the point.

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While I won't go into the tired "lied" accusations here; I did want to take this rare opportunity to agree with Cyclops... somewhat. The PNAC did predict much of what's going on now... and did conclude that what's going on now would be beneficial to America, the West and the World in general.

In dissent; this in no way proves any "lies" or even wrong doing. No shortage of Americans predicted that Hitler would need to be stopped, before we ever developed any intention of assisting in doing so. PNAC strategy is certainly debatable, but blanket demonization based on Bush's parallel actions are as narrow minded as they are thought defeating.

I would also take a closer look at the signatories on the PNAC plan. Not quite the Bush-faithful Cyclops makes them to be.

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Founding members of the Project for a New American century include, not being limited to, Richard Perle, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz (forget his first name, which doesn't matter to me). Quite a pantheon of Bush-faithful right there.

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Statement of Principles of the Project for a New American Century (which includes a list of signatories)

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

.

The problem is that they lied, continuously, to you and I and the American public and the world. Attacking Iraq had little to nothing to do with Al Qaeda. We would have attacked Iran or Pakistan (or Saudi Arabia) if we really wanted to go after nations hiding and collabarating with Al Qaeda, because they are far more guilty than Iraq was of doing so.

I don't appreciate being lied to; and you, because the lies matched up with your preferred course of action, namely, war, don't seem to mind too much. But it is my bet that voters and others do mind being lied to; and the overall War on Terror will be harmed by the waste that we are seeing now, both of our forces, our time, our money, and our political captial worldwide.

Cycloptichorn

Others felt the same way about Clinton's lies and equivocations.

The arguments for the intervention in Iraq given at the time by the Administration went far beyond dealing with a known link with al Qaeda. Your characterization of them is grossly incomplete, self-serving, and deceptive.

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The lie is/was Bush claiming he didn't want war, when he and other members of the PNAC desired exactly that.

The lie was hyping up the WMD threat when that wasn't the true reason for war. The Downing Street memos clearly show that Bush was determined to invade no matter whether the UN got on board, or the weapons inspectors found WMD, or what.

The lie was selling Saddam as an immediate threat to the American people, one that couldn't be dealt with with diplomacy or containment.

The lie was saying that catching Osama Bin Laden was the gov'ts #1 priority. It never was. For Bush, 9/11 was a conveinent event that allowed his and his handlers' policy objectives to come into the fore.

There isn't anything wrong with the PNAC plan per se (other than the pre-emptive war bit, but that's my personal opinion, so..); what is wrong is implementing these plans in the name of fighting the War on Terror. What's wrong is lying about implementing these plans.

The American public, without 9/11, would not have supported the implementation of the PNAC plan, and even with 9/11, had to be lied to in order to support the plan. This is good governance? What hubris! One constantly hears top gov't officials parroting the PNAC line - that democratizing the middle east will have long-term benefits for America. If you look closely, you can actually see visions of post-war Japan and Germany dancing in their eyes.

They had no idea what they were getting into in Iraq. Now, the situation could hardly be summed up better than by Shakespeare:

Quote:

I am in blood
Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er. (3.4.136)

Cycloptichorn

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The US wanted Iraq to become a "democracy," so now that Iraq established their government through the "democratic" process, Bush wants the PM to be replaced.

March 28, 2006
Shiites Say U.S. Is Pressuring Iraqi Leader to Step Aside "How can they do this?" said Haider al-Ubady, the spokesman. "An ambassador telling a sovereign country what to do is unacceptable."

"The perception is very strong among certain Shia parties that the U.S., led by Khalilzad, is trying to unseat Jaafari," he added.

Tensions between Shiite leaders and the American government, which had been rising for months, have reached a crisis point following an assault Sunday night by American and Iraqi forces on a Shiite mosque in northern Baghdad. Shiite leaders say at least 17 civilians were killed in the battle, mostly political party members, while American commanders say those killed were insurgents.

The embassy spokeswoman, Elizabeth Colton, confirmed that Ambassador Khalilzad and Mr. Hakim had met on Saturday, as they regularly do to discuss Iraq's precarious political situation.

"The decisions about the choice of the prime minister are entirely up to the Iraqis," she said. "This will be an Iraqi decision."

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Quote:

The arguments for the intervention in Iraq given at the time by the Administration went far beyond dealing with a known link with al Qaeda. Your characterization of them is grossly incomplete, self-serving, and deceptive.

Sure, the arguments went along the lines of 'Saddam has a ton of WMD and will use them to attack the US and Israel.' This was, of course a li-- wait, I'd better keep you from getting your panties in a bunch -- an 'inaccuracy.'

Cycloptichorn

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CI, regarding your article, (read about it this morning) it will be interesting to see if it works or backfires. The Shiites are already aggravated over the raid.

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george wrote:
Others felt the same way about Clinton's lies and equivocations.

Why do you need to keep bringing up Clinton? His impeachment has been dismissed by the Senate. This discussion centers around this administration and their intentions to go to war with Iraq much earlier than Bush's "war is the last option" rhetoric we've heard so often. Evidence now shows all their suppositions about Saddam's WMDs and connections to Al Qaeda were lies and innuendos.

These same lies ended up killing thousands of innocent Iraqis, and our country sacrificed the lives of over 2,300 of our military men and women, and costing some one billion dollars every week.

Can't you see the difference between a personal sexual weakness vs lies that ended up costing so much in lives and treasure?

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Quote:

costing so much in lives and treasure?

We had to pawn the candelabra and the pieces o' eight to finance the war, yarrr.

Cycloptichorn

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cicerone imposter wrote:

The US wanted Iraq to become a "democracy," so now that Iraq established their government through the "democratic" process, Bush wants the PM to be replaced.

March 28, 2006
Shiites Say U.S. Is Pressuring Iraqi Leader to Step Aside "How can they do this?" said Haider al-Ubady, the spokesman. "An ambassador telling a sovereign country what to do is unacceptable."

"The perception is very strong among certain Shia parties that the U.S., led by Khalilzad, is trying to unseat Jaafari," he added.

Tensions between Shiite leaders and the American government, which had been rising for months, have reached a crisis point following an assault Sunday night by American and Iraqi forces on a Shiite mosque in northern Baghdad. Shiite leaders say at least 17 civilians were killed in the battle, mostly political party members, while American commanders say those killed were insurgents.

The embassy spokeswoman, Elizabeth Colton, confirmed that Ambassador Khalilzad and Mr. Hakim had met on Saturday, as they regularly do to discuss Iraq's precarious political situation.

"The decisions about the choice of the prime minister are entirely up to the Iraqis," she said. "This will be an Iraqi decision."

Isn't it intresting that this very biased article fails to mention that both the Sunni and Kurd delegations have been demanding the Shia replace Jaafari for some time? It seems that the US has stepped in to get the ball rolling in the continued formation of the Iraqi government. It's a better story when you know the entire thing instead of the single biased side.

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Such as the single biased side which suggests that a "democratic" government in Iraq not be dominated by the Shi'ites, who are merely the overwhelming majority of the population. So much for bringing "democracy" to the middle east . . .

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I don't believe that to be the case. They are not asking the shia to give up the PMing, just to choose someone more tolerable to everyone. It doesn't surprise me to see you give up so easily on democracy in Iraq though.

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McG, Do you know anything about civil wars?

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I'm not the one who necessarily gives up on the idea of democracy in Iraq, when, after all, democracy in Iraq means the Shi'ites prevail--they outnumber the Kurds and the Sunni Arabs combined. If the situation is truly democratic, then who gives a rat's ass whether or not a Shi'ite appointee is acceptable to the minority? Unless, of course, the object is not to really create democracy so much as it is to create a puppet government accpetable to the PNAC.

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THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, TENTH THREAD.

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