Gaddafi killed?

[Fast_Eddie]

Originally Posted by piece-itpete

Kinda like decrying Bush for bombing countries that didn't attack us and congratulating Obama for Libya....

Pete

Good point Pete. And to be sure, there are a lot of folks guilty of exactly what you lay out.

I was okay with Afghanistan. Not crazy about the idea, but okay with it. I was afraid it would become a quagmire, but I understood why we were doing it. The "they didn't attack us" cry from the left with regard to Iraq is a little different, at least in my case (and that's all I can speak to). It was appropriate only because an effort was being made at the time to mislead our country into believing there was some link- a link that seemed dubious at the time and turned out to be completely fabricated. So you're leaving a good deal of context out when you put it that way.

Contrast that with Libya where there was an active public uprising against a brutal dictator who was guilty of terrorist attacks against us- A NATO mission at the request of the people of that country. A limited mission with a much, much (MUCH) smaller chance of becoming an extended mess.

I gotta tell you, I think it's all pretty disingenuous. I'm pretty sure if Obama had chosen to sit it out and let NATO go without us, he'd be getting hell for that too. He did get hell for a while from many on the right who said we weren't involved enough. If you recall, he got a load of hell from the right for not doing enough in Egypt (though I think we'll find, one day, that he did a lot more than we were aware of).

[piece-itpete]

I was wondering when someone would say that... So did Iraq

Eddie, sure, he's doing a great job. Lovely. Gorgeous.

I hope we're all in the spirit of comraderie. Politics can be so heated. We need a Society of Mutual Admiration. For everyone that thinks like us lmao! I'm only insulting in the Pickwickian sense

Pete

[piece-itpete]

Eddie I leave Libya to the President. His admin knows a darn site more about it that I do. And I'm glad the Libyans came through. I think.

Pete

[Krazygrrl]

Originally Posted by Fast_Eddie

Good point Pete. And to be sure, there are a lot of folks guilty of exactly what you lay out.

I was okay with Afghanistan. Not crazy about the idea, but okay with it. I was afraid it would become a quagmire, but I understood why we were doing it. The "they didn't attack us" cry from the left with regard to Iraq is a little different, at least in my case (and that's all I can speak to). It was appropriate only because an effort was being made at the time to mislead our country into believing there was some link- a link that seemed dubious at the time and turned out to be completely fabricated. So you're leaving a good deal of context out when you put it that way.

Hold on a second:

Concerning links and info - Not only American intelligence agencies said that there were probable links, but also European ones, the Russians and Chinese said it too. Egypt and Israel as well. Yet, according to some, like you, George Bush made everything up to "mislead" the American people. What a crock!

The same thing with WMD. Iraq used nerve gas during the Iran-Iraq war, both sides did actually. Nerve gas was recovered and destroyed in large quantities during the 1991 Gulf War. In 1993 and 1994, the Iraqi Air Force bombed Kurdish cities with nerve gas (VX). In late 2002, there was an accident at an Iraqi military base which killed scores of soldiers through nerve gas. Thousands of shells for chemical agents were found by the troops in Iraq. Intelligence services from around the world said that Iraq had lots of WMD. Yet, OMG... George Bush alone made everything up... More crock.

Originally Posted by Fast_Eddie

I gotta tell you, I think it's all pretty disingenuous. I'm pretty sure if Obama had chosen to sit it out and let NATO go without us, he'd be getting hell for that too. He did get hell for a while from many on the right who said we weren't involved enough. If you recall, he got a load of hell from the right for not doing enough in Egypt (though I think we'll find, one day, that he did a lot more than we were aware of).

And more excuses for Obama.... there are some that would not be happy had he said no (I would have been, and would have actually praised him for doing so). Some attacked him for not taking enough action. Ultimately, he grossly overstepped. He is a naive, dangerous man who honestly believes that the Arabs want "democracy". They do not - look what has happened in Egypt, Tunisia, Afghanistan... in Iran in 1979.. etc. Obama simply cannot learn and everything he has done shows that he is in way over his head.

[Fast_Eddie]

Originally Posted by piece-itpete

Eddie I leave Libya to the President. His admin knows a darn site more about it that I do. And I'm glad the Libyans came through. I think.

Pete

I'm with you there brother. We'll see soon enough, I guess.

By the way, I said the same thing about Gulf War I and Afghanistan- I figured those guys had a better idea what was going on than I did. It wasn't 'till the latest round of Iraq that I started to say "wait a minute". And that only because the snow job we were getting was feeling pretty thick.

[piece-itpete]

That's where it gets interesting imo. There's just to much, um, simplicity. The evidence was somewhat skimpy even without being 'cooked', if it indeed was.

I believe it was bipartisan from the word go. Hillary and the old centrist Dems (not far out of power!) worked behind the scenes for the invasion as well, I'd bet on it. Reading what they said in power and hugely between the lines Iraq had been a huge problem for us and our allies in the ME. They obviously wanted him gone.

I would love to be a fly on the wall during talks with our ME allies on Iraq, Libya, any of it. I bet they'd be eye-popping. We will never know the truth.

Pete

[Fast_Eddie]

Originally Posted by Krazygrrl

Hold on a second:

Concerning links and info - Not only American intelligence agencies said that there were links, but also European ones, the Russians and Chinese said it too. Egypt and Israel as well. Yet, according to some, like you, George Bush made everything up to "mislead" the American people. What a crock!

The same thing with WMD. Iraq used nerve gas during the Iran-Iraq war, both sides did actually. Nerve gas was recovered and destroyed in large quantities during the 1991 Gulf War. In 1993 and 1994, the Iraqi Air Force bombed Kurdish cities with nerve gas (VX). In late 2002, there was an accident at an Iraqi military base which killed scores of soldiers through nerve gas. Thousands of shells for chemical agents were found by the troops in Iraq. Intelligence services from around the world said that Iraq had lots of WMD. Yet, OMG... George Bush alone made everything up... More crock.

This may be a mistake. Other folks on here have shown an ability to have a discussion on a subject and listen to reasoned statements from people they don't agree with. You have not. So my instincts tell me I'm wasting my time. However...

I remember this pretty well. Bush made a lot of speeches about Iraq being an imminent threat to the U.S. He had all kinds of info about the link between Iraq and 9/11. Yeah, he wasn’t the only one. But the evidence we were given, even if it was true, was pretty thin. Some guy was in some city on some date. Some deal of some kind was made. Some kind of payment of suicide bombers who, near as I could tell, didn’t fly planes into the World Trade Center. Not a lot of detail. And none of it felt like “wow, those guys did it”. We knew who did it, and we knew the guy who did it thought Sadam was an infidel. There was also pretty good info that Bush and Co. had plans to invade Iraq before 9/11 happened. It all smelled pretty fishy. You talk about Obama overstepping his authority. Well, this felt like overstepping on a grand scale. All the Bush Doctrine (What do you mean? His view of the world?) stuff was scary too. There were more than just a couple of folks in the U.S. saying “hang on a minute”.

When we did, by the way, we were called un-American and told we could leave the country if we didn’t like it. My favorite was “What would you do about 9/11? Nothing?” As if any action at all was justified. Maybe we should have bombed Canada. You don’t want to bomb Canada? What you would do? Nothing?! But I digress…

As for WMDs, hell, I thought he had them. Didn’t we give them to him at some point? And he used them, to be sure. But he seemed a lot more concerned with killing folks over in his part of the world than killing any of us. And that was part of our official foreign policy. He let the UN inspectors in and they didn’t find anything. Yeah, he could have been hiding them. I sure didn’t know what was going on. But we had been there not that many years ago and no nerve gas was used on our troops. There was a lot to wonder about with him. But he didn’t do anything. He certainly didn’t do anything that justified invading the country. And the thinly veiled “liberation” deal didn’t ring true. Even less so in the light of what has happened in so many other countries over there.

He was a brutal dictator, to be sure, and killed many of his own people. But he hated Iran more than he hated the U.S. Or at least saw them as a far more actionable foe. And we exploited that for many years. Kinda messy, yeah, but it worked. Then we kind of upset the apple cart.

I think Bush did what he thought was right. It just didn't work out so well. No telling what we'll get now, like a lot of other situations over in that neck of the woods.

[Fast_Eddie]

Originally Posted by piece-itpete

That's where it gets interesting imo. There's just to much, um, simplicity. The evidence was somewhat skimpy even without being 'cooked', if it indeed was.

I believe it was bipartisan from the word go. Hillary and the old centrist Dems (not far out of power!) worked behind the scenes for the invasion as well, I'd bet on it. Reading what they said in power and hugely between the lines Iraq had been a huge problem for us and our allies in the ME. They obviously wanted him gone.

I would love to be a fly on the wall during talks with our ME allies on Iraq, Libya, any of it. I bet they'd be eye-popping. We will never know the truth.

Pete

Yeah, you could be right Pete. They all got in line and signed on. Well, most of them anyhow. But that much more reason to believe it had nothing to do with 9/11 other than opportunity.

[merrylander]

Wolfowitz had been itching to do a regime change in Iraq for years. I still remember the picture in the Post of the two of them leaving the WhiteHouse with ear to ear smiles. In very few days it was Shock and Awe. But still all bull crap.

General Franks could have buried OBL at Tora Bora but let him escape. We could have been in abd out of Afghanistan super fast.

[Fast_Eddie]

Originally Posted by Krazygrrl

And more excuses for Obama.... there are some that would not be happy had he said no (I would have been, and would have actually praised him for doing so). Some attacked him for not taking enough action. Ultimately, he grossly overstepped. He is a naive, dangerous man who honestly believes that the Arabs want "democracy". They do not - look what has happened in Egypt, Tunisia, Afghanistan... in Iran in 1979.. etc. Obama simply cannot learn and everything he has done shows that he is in way over his head.

God Damn you're a one note song.

No, I don't believe he has any misconception about Utopian democracy over there. That's why the Egypt thing was so difficult. They stood with ole Mubarak as long as they could. It was quite the dance. It's a much harder nut to crack now with all the "democracy" breaking out. But talk aobut a no win situation- we're all for democracy, and we're fighting a war in Iraq ostesibly to bring democracy to the region. But we don't want you guys to have democracy. I mean, we didn't engineer it. If you guys can vote for anyone you want, you might vote for folks we don't much like. It was a tough one. Once it was obvious taht Mubarak was going, they had to shift gears pretty quickly. Last thing we wanted to be was the gang trying to keep them from freedom. It would make it much harder for us to have any influence at all.

The Libya thing is similar. Say what you will, the folks who come to power in Libya have us to thank for it. I'd wager there's a good deal of back and forth going on taht we don't know about working to make it more friendly to us. And we have a leg to stand on since we helped out.

I'm not sure about Tunisa. That thing could go badly. Probably one of the factors that went into the decision making in Libya. If we see a shot at having a friendly in the area, sure will make things easier if some of the others break the wrong way.

And for the record, you wouldn't praise Obama if he single handedly ballanced the budget, brought about world peace and invented ice cream that makes you healthy.