Nothing We Haven't Heard Before
 

But the person saying it makes this worthy of our attention.

John

Hmmm. A public figure stating the obvious and telling the truth. It'll never happen here. The risk of doing so has to weighed against being called "weak, naïve, soft on terror, not supporting our troops, aiding and abetting the enemy, anti-Semitic ..."

Hell, John. The surge worked!!! All is good (and forgiven).

Don't you mean underwriting the ethnic cleansing of Iraq worked?

John

our own military had Iraq listed as "contained" even as Bushy was spooking the gun owners into supporting a war for corporate profit

Ethnic cleansing will occur over there with or without or support or involvement (unfortunately).

My "the surge worked" comment is intended as a slap at the common retort used by the right whenever anyone has the nerve to question the wisdom of Dubya's Iraq fiasco. The "fact" that the surge "worked" seems to be kind of a "get out of jail free" answer.

I can remember my dad being vehemently against going into Iraq at first but by the time Fox got through with him he was on board.
That network is a cancer to our country.

Thank you.

Pete

Originally Posted by finnbow
Ethnic cleansing will occur over there with or without or support or involvement (unfortunately).


That wasn't my point. It's why I said we underwrote it, not instigated it. To the extent that the surge worked, it was largely due to the US paying one side to kill the other instead of killing us.

John

In a fight, one side generally fights the other.

Before the surge, knees and elbows were being drilled out before the victim was killed.

Pete

Whatever that means. :confused:

John

I think Pete is referring to boring holes in peoples knees with an electric drill.

A favorite tactic of the IRA I once read.

Kind of gives me the willies just to think about it.

Now I could beat the piss out of someone to get some answers, or even shoot him in the head...if I thought it was necessary. It's not something I want to do, but I could, at least once or twice.

But there ain't no way I could bore holes in some poor slob with an electric drill.

Guess I'll never make a dentist, huh?

Chas

Give me the drill, and a one inch paddle bit. I'll put holes in the knees, holes in the noggin....................

There's something that has always puzzled me. After 9/11 the U.S.A. had to hit someone, but why Iraq?

True story.

The original code name for the invasion wasn't Operation Iraqi Freedom. It was Operation Iraqi Liberation.

The Neo-Cons who were furious with Bush Senior for not occupying Iraq after Operation Desert Storm ended up in Junior's administration.

Junior wanted to be seen as a "war president". He thought it would assure his place in history.

John

One of the main instigators in going into Iraq was Wolfowitz, he had a bee in his bonnet about Saddam, and he was aided and abetted by Rumsfeld. I still can see the picture of the two of them leaving the Whitehouse with big grins, seing as how they ddid not have anyone's lives at risk. There is a special corner of hell reserved for them.

I had heard some of the things stated in that article, but I hadn't realized the source. It's hard to imagine such an evil cynicism about war. I wonder how early they had written the Patriot Act. Maybe we have been giving Cheney too much credit for being a puppet master.

Regards,

D-Ray

I've thought so for a long time.

John

And I thought that that retarded little chimp was too big a fool for such Machiavellian behaviour. My bad.

There is intense politics at work on this one and it's hard to see the real reasons.

The reality is that Iraq has been a problem for us for a long time. Bill and Albright recognised it and stated it clearly on more than one occasion.

After 9-11 we had a choice. We could swat the fly (Afghanistan) or go after root causes.

This is not the Isreal/Palistine thing, Osama didn't even mention it in his early releases. His big thing was infidels in the Holy Land (US troops in Saudi Arabia). He also used the economic sanctions against us, using pictures of starving babies in Iraq in his propaganda. This quote has been widely circulated in the ME:

[Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.

--60 Minutes (5/12/96) ]

To prudently pull out we had to neutralize Saddam. Many argue he was already. Apparently firing on us daily, paying families of suicide bombers, helping train terrorists, etc, is 'neutralized'.

Besides, screamers aside, the Clinton administration (along with most of the rest of the world) believed he was seeking WMD:

"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."
--President Bill Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998

"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983."
--Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998

"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."
-Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998

"Hussein has ... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies."
-- Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999

Note the dates on those quotes. They blame Bush.

Plus add that appearances matter in international politics, and he was mocking, not just us, but the UN and western Europe at every turn, the kind of thing that leads some folks to believe we are weak and decadent, that we have no staying power, that we won't fight back but withdraw - in short that attacking us will achieve their goals.

I wish to point out that we would not have gone in without the backroom agreement of the key US allies in the ME. They considered Saddam a real problem too.

The US has been quite sucessful in foreign policy overall (not perfectly!) since ww2. Our foreign policy is remarkably bipartisan. Witness Obamas actual actions in Iraq and Afghanistan - the baloney during the campaign is for domestic reasons (that do indeed seem to work).

We are reshaping the ME for better or worse. With Iraq seemingly becoming stable it appears for the better. Time will tell.

Pete

And that was Iraq?

Really?

Someone better tell Shrub.

John

Letting Bin Laden escape at Tora Bora was going after the root cause?

Nowhere did I say Saddam was behind 9-11.

Pete

But that was the question Combwork posed. He asked why attacking Iraq was the appropriate response to 9/11. Your post certainly looked like an answer.

John

Ah I see. It certainly is.

Pete

Iraq is certainly LESS stable now then it ever was before. Chances are that Iraq will end up as three separate countries, likely with a nasty, ugly civil war somewhere along the way.

Saddam Hussein was a threat to no one after the first Gulf War. His army was mostly destroyed. His air force was all but gone. His "weapons of mass destruction" were basically WW1 vintage gasses, supplied to him by the West.

The one thing that Saddam was, however, was likely Osama Bin Laden worst enemy in the middle east. The invasion of Iraq was Osamas dream come true. Not only did it tie up the US forces in a war it cannot win and bleed the country dry economically, it also removed one of the strongest, secular governments in the middle east.

It almost makes one want to believe it Allah, all the presents that have been given to Bin Laden in the past decade.

You do have a strong argument.

Chas

gives a whole new meaning to "DRILL, BABY, DRILL!". :eek:


forgive me, couldn't resist it.

Awesome! lol.

On the instable/partitioned Iraq, that horse's been floating around for years now, long before the surge.

Pete

Our presence there, propping up a central government with over 100,000 soldiers and lord knows how many mercenaries (contractors), may be the only thing preventing this.

Don't you think?

John