Iraqi Liberation

How many millions live in Iraq

Dozens, even if you include the dozens they know, don't provide much insight in a country of 7 million. Even worse, a stratified country where the Kurds don't mingle with the Sunni's or the Sunni's with the Shiites. If you ask the dozens who knew the 10's of thousands murdered by Saddam and his cronies, I would bet they would have a different opinion. In my circle of acquaintances there is a certain amount of similarity in their opinions on things. That is why I know them and they me. However, I do not think for a minute theirs is the only or even, always, the correct opinion.

I try to look at the whole Iraq thing from a big picture. Fact, Saddam was an international pariah who murdered thousands of fellow Iraqi's to keep himself and those like him in power. He impoverished his country to serve his own purposes. Most of his "palaces" were built during the embargo when he claimed thousands of children were dying due to lack of medicines. He warred on his neighbors and murdered the Shiites and Kurds with impunity. He had to go. The error was not in making him go away but in waiting so long to do it.

Bush wasn't really misinformed. That would imply that those who told him of the WMD lied. The fact is, EVERYONE thought he had it. The only disagreement prior to the invasion was with how to deal with Saddam. Not in whether or not he WMD. Even Blix, while claiming Saddam did not have stockpiles, did not rule out further attempts to get it if the inspections stopped.

Intelligence is not an exact science. It's not like you run around and pick up definitive clues lying around on the ground. There were/are thousands of clues and the trick is to decide which ones are right. The people castigating the CIA for reading too much into Iraq are the same ones slamming them for reading too little into the clues before 9/11. Monday morning quarterbacks always get it right and are the loudest in telling you about it.

In a riot you pick out the one who appears to be the instigator and remove him. For the most part, once the leader is gone the followers wil melt away. Removing Saddam was a case in point. It is remarkable how nice Sysria and Libya are these days. Hopefully, we won't have to make too many more examples before we get the point across. Personally, I am not so sure of that.

 

Anyone that truly believes that the Iraqi invasion took place to vindicate George Sr. is so grossly misinformed that it's simply alarming.

Where is Osama? I don't know. But we haven't stopped our serach. Don't you read the news? Last I checked were still had a force in Afganistan and we were still launching missions. In fact, I believe a new mission was recently announced for this spring, that will take us across the Pakistan border.

 

So pugbelly, do you think Osama will be captured on 9/11? What a campaign gift!! Do you think?

 

Well, that apparently is what Paul O'Neil, Bush's Secretary of the Treasury thought. O'Neil was nominated to his position by Bush, and he sat in on cabinet meetings where this was discussed.

How exactly do you have so much information that you can categorically state that someone who was actually at meetings with the President where this was discussed is "grossly misinformed."

 

Harry Truman had a sign above his desk that said, "The Buck Stops Here." The point of Truman's sign was that he was responsible for the executive branch, and when his subordinates screwed up, he should take the blame.

In Bush's case, it seems to be "The Buck Starts Here." Anytime someone in the administration screws up, they blame it on the subordinates and deny responsibility. (WMD, Valerie Plame, 9/11, Enron, Haliburton, etc.)

It's the President's responsibility to insure that he is getting good intelligence. And it's the President's responsibility to evaluate the reliability of the intelligence he is given, and to oversee the entire executive branch. If you can't (or choose not to) handle that responsibility, you shouldn't be President.

 

Why aren't those responsible for supplying the bad information held accountable? Why haven't heads rolled to show who is in control?
Maybe there wasn't bad intelligence only bad leadership!

 

Paul O'neill has since recanted almost everything he said

And what he said was that the Bush administration was focused on regime change. Duhh, who wasn't? Bill Clinton publicly stated it was our policy and so did the UN. O'Neill also stated that he saw the planning for it from the beginning of the administration. Duh, one of the last exercises I participated in in Germany in 1994 was for a proposed entry into Bosnia. When did we finally go? In 1998 under Clinton. The Military, the CIA, etc. are constantly planning for the next threat. It is one of the reasons they are so successful. O'Neill was an idiot on foreign policy who wasn't even a good Treasury Secretary. Couldn't keep his mouth shut at the apopropriate times. He should have taken some lessons from Greenspan.

Just how does a President ensure he gets good intelligence? Especially, when the intelligence community has been hamstrung by Congress. Do you realize it is illegal for the intelligence community to deal with a confidential source whom is believed to be criminal? I guess you have to ask the bad guys neighbors what they are up to. Not even the civil police in the USA are so constrained. How stupid is that!!! Too many monday morning quarterbacks here!!

 

Re: Paul O'neill has since recanted almost everything he said

I don't have the time to reply to your other points right now, but I just want to point out that when you feel that you must conclude your argument with a personal insult, it says a great deal about the strength of your previous points.

 

Iraq had chemical & biological weapons during the First Gulf War. There's no debating that, I saw them myself, and many Gulf veterans are suffering from GWS from the Al-Kamisiyah ammo dump destruction.

I find it very hard to believe that all of them were destroyed between 1991 and 2003. That country is the size of California, I can't imagine all of the potential hiding spots.

 

I have no idea why you have this impression. If fact, I just responded to someone whom I called a "true patriot" who is a Democrat and disagrees with me.

Joe Lieberman and Jimmy Carter disagree with me and I rank them as two of America's best statesmen and patriots. I was glad to see Carter receive the Nobel Peace Prize, albeit more than 20 years too late.

Your line sounds like typical left-winged jargon that the Republicans are racists, homophobes, etc., who label anyone unpatriotic who disagrees with them.

As far as CNN I think you meant to say FOX News. FOX has been charged with being right-winged and pro-Bush. This, however, is untrue.

Take care my patriotic friend.

 

Does any clear thinking, intelligent, rational, level-headed American really think Bush lied about WMD's?

Here is a man in his first term, ready to campaign for a second term, whose political life was at stake knowing full well any lies, especially one of this magnitude, told would surely be exposed.

Sometimes cynicism becomes absurd!

 

Does any clear thinking, intelligent, rational, level-headed American really think Bush lied about WMD's?

Here is a man in his first term, ready to campaign for a second term, whose political life was at stake knowing full well any lies, especially one of this magnitude, told would surely be exposed.

Sometimes cynicism borders on absurdity!

 

Excuse me...

but does anyone on this board have access to the information Bush and Blair used to make a decision on invading Iraq. I doubt it. So for us to insult their ethics is the worst kind of monday morning quarterbacking. It is one thing to disagree, that is our duty as citizens, but what is going on now goes way beyond that. Bush and Blair have been called liars, a deserter, a war mongerer, chicken hawk, you name it. All of this by people no more informed than I. Apparently, we should feel free to insult 3rd parties not on this board but then get indignant if it appears we ourselves are being criticised. And lest you use this argument against me, I have made 2 statements here. First, that what we do know about Saddam was ample reason to get rid of him. Second, before we criticize the intelligence community we need to understand the circumstances within they work. Any arguments there??

It is becoming common in our society for the do nothings to howl and point at the doers. 10% of our society does 90% of the work to make it a better place for all of us. The rest just take care of themselves. Then, a good chunk of them sit around an complain about how things are being run. And it really burns me when people buttress their arguments with such things as "he should have known". How? Should he have put on a turban and gone around the desert himself? Leaders have to rely on their subordinates and subordinates sometimes fail or make mistakes. That is how it is, nobody is perfect. We can argue "woulda, coulda, shoulda" all day long and not accomplish a thing. It is no more viable an argument than "because".

Remember my statement is an insult only if it is not a truth. If it is a truth it is a FACT. In this case, my fact that there are a lot of monday morning quarterbacks out there has no negative impact on my arguments whatsoever.

 

Re: Excuse me...

I thought that you were insulting people by calling them "Monday Morning Quarterbacks." Perhaps I didn't understand what you mean. You see, I don't view the world in terms of sports analogies.

But I can understand that if you do view the world in terms of sports analogies, you might view those analogies as "facts" rather than the analogies that they are, that it might be hard to comprehend international politics on anything but a jingoistic level.

 

Monday Morning Quarterback...

is an analogy (if it is) which has been in our language for many years and is commonly used for many things besides sports. As I recall it even hit the dictionary many years back and is commonly used as a noun. My use of the analogy to refer to the large number of uninformed second guessers out there is correct and is not an insult but a fact.

I view the world in many terms as I have experienced a whole lot of it. That makes me neither jingoistic nor uninformed on international politics. If you want to play word games (another analogy ?) make sure you play them correctly.

From the Yahoo Reference dictionary:
Monday morning quarterback
NOUN: Informal One who criticizes or passes judgment from a position of hindsight.

 

Jimmy,

Thank you for the compliment. It was me. My best friend is a Republican. I love him like a brother. He feels the same way about me. We have had these views( Liberal vs Conservative) since 1979, so.....

 

Re: Monday Morning Quarterback...

Now I guess we have the French, Germans and Russians saying "We told ya to wait, you wouldn't listen, you bullheaded Americans, think you are always right. You created a mess now its going to cost you Billions and Billions of dollars to fix and in the end most Iraqi's will hate you". I guess that would make the French, Germans and the Russians clairvoyant. This is a case of READY,FIRE,AIM......Whoops.

 

Re: Monday Morning Quarterback...

OK, fair enough. Even though this term started out as a sports analogy, it has apparently now entered common use, and thus Chris' usage does not necessarily imply anything about his worldview. I apologize for suggesting otherwise.

 

To those that believe Bush lied and we're going to capture Osama on 9/11:

Do you people really give the government that much credit? Do you really believe that our government is so efficient that we can keep things of this importance under wraps until the time has come for the great reveal? Do you have any concept of how many people would have to be in on such a conspiracy? This is the same government that this forum continually blasts as being inept, the same government that this forum continually says should stay out of the accreditation business because of their ineptitude. Wow. It's almost laughable. Almost.

 

In the end...

most Iaqi's will not hate us. See aforementioned poll. It is the same in Europe. Some people just hate winners, especially those who have been supplanted in the winners circle. Ask Tireman to give a lesson on the history of the people we are talking about. He could go on about how each of these countries had an empire and lost it. Russia used to be a superpower and now they can't even pay their pensioners. France is left struggling over foreign language signs on their streets. Heck, California wines kick their butt all the time in competitions. Britain don't let it bother them so much because they view us a little paternalistically anyway. The Arabs not only had an empire but when Europe was a sea of barbarism they were the beacon of science and culture. What's worse, the Arab's have had their butts kicked about 5-6 times over the past 60 years by little ole Israel and they hate that too. For a very macho society like Islam, that just eats at some of them every day. They will hate us no matter what. Not all but you won't hear from the vast majority that like us just the American hating zealots. This happens every day on a small scale. How many times have you heard someone bad mouth the local businessman for their success. It's human nature. Iran tossed us out 25 years ago but a recent poll of Iranian youth revealed that while they don't agree with our position on Israel, neither do they agree with their governement. They want a society more like ours and less like theirs. I bet that goes down well with the mullahs. Personally, I take pride in the quality of some of our enemies. I would hate to be known as their friend.