THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, ELEVENTH THREAD

The inquiry started in London today. Have a little patience, and you can have the transcripts of the proceedings. I am assuming they will be of great interest to those with the capacity to understand them.

But, even if you don't favour The Guardian's line, there is enough information in the public domain already to show how Blair and Bush did a huge disservice to their countries, and brought about the needless loss of many thousands of innocent lives.

I note (I watch Jon Stewart's The Daily Show when I can, among other sources. I recommend it.) that the right-wing or republican movement does not even credit major American newspapers with impartiality or balance, ("liberal", "socialist", "elitist", "too intellectual", "anti-American"), far less foreign publications.
Is it becoming a crime to be well-informed in your country?

I see that Sarah Palin's book tour is keeping her away from the big cities, where informed opposition to her brand of wacky vacuousness could perhaps be expected.

Anyway, back to the war. Let us hope that Blair at least be made to answer for his deeds.

It will be interesting to follow how this plays out. The story is being covered here, albeit not extensively.
By the way, the left-wing or democrat movement also howls about media that is perceived as not being impartial.

I'm just wondering if Blair gets charged with war crimes, if that will transfer across the pond to charge Bush with war crimes?

Both Bush and Blair made several big mistakes in the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.

BUT, both Afghanistan--1996 - 2001--and Iraq--2001 - 2003--were used by al-Qaeda as sanctuaries.

America is used by IRA terrorists as a sanctuary and thus far, we have not attacked it.

Have the IRA terrorists allegedly using America as a sanctuary ever launched a single terrorist strike that mass murdered over 3,000 civilians in either Ireland or Britain?

oh, so it's the number that matters

pray tell what is the magic number

Ican, sometimes I can't decide whether you are being disingenuous and therefore dishonest, or merely stupid.

Is the number important to you ican?

In case you missed it, ican asked a stupid question of you after you made a stupid statement, to hopefully help you figure out your own confusion.

Obama is sending more troops to Afghanistan; the wrong decision after he spent so much time trying to figure out what best to do. We cannot beat the Taliban/al Qaida in that part of the world. All we do is lose more of our soldier's lives - and more of them are committing suicide. The end game hasn't been determined, and sending more troops is not a solution.

This seems unfortunately to be true. How can you "beat" a large, well-organised and well-motivated guerrilla force whose combatatants deem it an honour to die for their cause?

And all of this could have and should have been predicted at the beginning. And indeed was predicted, in some enlightened quarters.

That is why I want to see Blair and Bush answer for their acts.

Perhaps you will indulge me by being more specific.

When the president tries to make a sensible decision about war, it's wrong to depend on generals to provide the right kind of info to stop wars. They will always want more troops, because that's their mindset. They can't make rank or names for themselves during times of peace. Their importance fades away during peace time, and that's exactly what should be happening now; cease and detest in Afghanistan.

Obama doesn't seem to know the cost in soldiers lives and their families when he allows 30,000 to 40,000 more troops into a war zone. They come back with mental and physical wounds that never heals, or they come back in a casket. Many more are committing suicide after they return home. On top of all that, we spend billions on wars instead of healing our economy. Their priorities are all screwed up!

Comparing IRA terrorists to Al Qaeda indicates some confusion, don't ya think, McTag?

Yes, any number of murdered is important to me. The larger the number of murdered plus the support for their perpetrators at their base, the more important and the more justification for waging war against their perpetrators and their supporters.

Everything about the Chilcot Inquiry in one place (and without the hype)

http://www.iraqinquirydigest.org/

Your point of view on that depends to some extent whether it was any of your family who were killed by the terrorists. There's a lot of bereaved families in Ulster, British citizens, who are a lot more upset about the deeds of the IRA than by Al Qaida.

Mr Bush in one of his earlier speeches said he would attack terrorism wherever it occurred in the world, but he never attacked Boston or areas of New York where they were, quite close to home. Google Noraid, they funded the bombers. And it's not been possible for the British authorities to get any of them extradited to the UK.

McT, As you should know by now, okie's observations about different issues domestic and international are based on his own imagination without regards to facts and evidence.