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[PornoDoggy]

Originally Posted by JR

uhm... yeah. Bush lied. we are all dumb. had absolutely no information available to us other than what some claim was the "lie" that Bush spoon fed us all. i feel so stupid. and here i thought Iraq attacked kuwait, violated the terms of the cease fire for 10 years, refused to account for weapons stocks, refused to cooperate with weapons inspectors and so on and so on and so on and so on.

and congress was lied to. here i thought the senate intelligence committee and other government bodies had access to 95% or more of the same intelligence that bush had access to - yet they were ALL lied to. interesting.

i feel stupid.

damn you bush!

You may be right – you should very well feel stupid, if you believe the hogwash you just posted.

The oversight committees are given what the administration wants them to have.

The other governmental bodies that you speak of are all under the Executive Branch. Congress does not (and should not) have an independent intelligence agency.

Saddam was a bad guy. Nobody argues that he was other than a bad guy, but people (like you) keep dragging that into the conversation as if that proves something. He, like many of our current and former allies, did plenty of mean nasty things.

Some of those mean nasty things (like gassing Iranians) he probably did at our behest. After all, we could only "accidentally" shoot down so many airliners.

Some of the things he did against the Shia and the Kurds he did because we let him. In this, U.S. Administrations put United States conduct in the rarified company of the Soviet actions regarding the Warsaw uprising during World War II - they rose up with our encouragement, but failed to get the support they needed because of our ties to Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

None of that justifies what he did, but in the scale of things, there are lots of other mean nasty guys out there who probably warrant as much or more attention than Saddam. Are we going to remove them all?

It's hard to use his thumbing his nose at the international community when we weren't willing to wait an additional six months to allow the inspectors to do their job – the job he was finally letting them do. The list of requirements the U.S. put out to avoid an invasion were cut from the same cloth as the ones Austria handed Serbia in 1914, and like 1914, I suspect if they were met we'd have found another pretext to go to war.

I, for one, wish people would quit focusing on being lied to about the war. That's as traditional as Apple Pie. With the arguable exception of World War II, there have been lies told about every foreign conflict we've ever been in. The War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Hearst, er, Spanish American War, WWI, Korea, and Vietnam were all conflicts about which great lies were told to the American people.

Even in WWII, we had been effectively fighting on the Allied side for a year and a half in the Atlantic, and in 1941 imposed economic sanctions on the Japanese that most people knew would result in a conflict. It's despicable, reprehensible, and about as American as a hot dog and a beer at a baseball game.

By the Administration's own words - today, at least, now that the pretense of WMD can't even be sustained by a puppet like Cheney - we entered Iraq as a front on the war on terrorism.

Odd logic, that. Our bosom buddies the Saudis fund most jihaddists, and fund the mosques by which jihad is spread throughout the Western world. The nationality of most of the 9/11 hijackers wasn't Iraqi, was it? There is not and never has been a relationship between Iraq and the people who have attacked New York City, London, Madrid, Australia (via Indonesia) and other countries so far.

I wish people would quit focusing on being lied to, and start focusing on the fact that the U.S. has achieved the goals that Bush/Cheney/Rice/Powell/Rumsfeld/Blair/Howard set out for them when they started this war. The current situation in Iraq is not the results of a miscalcuation at all.

I do not for a minute believe that Bush/Cheney/Rice/Powell/Rumsfeld/Blair/Howard were stupid enough to believe that Americans would be greeted as liberators, at least not for long after the "Saddam is gone" euphoria to wear off. I believe they knew fully well what would happen if they invaded Iraq with approximately 1/3 the troops that Bush I had at his disposal – when he made the TACTICAL decision not to proceed.

So ... I think a reasonable argument could be made for delivering Bush/Cheney/Rice/Powell/Rumsfeld/Blair/Howard to the Hauge and put them on trial for crimes against humanity.

I think you could make the argument that the chaotic condition of Iraq today was the objective goal of the war plan. Terrorists are operating at will in Iraq today for one reason, and one reason only - we let them in. Actually, that's not completely correct - most of the terrorists operating in Iraq today are purely domestic.

Please note that I didn't say I believe that - I said you could make a reasonable argument for that.

It makes as much sense as anything else about this clusterfuck, and is every bit as reasonable as the smoke you're blowing.

[JR]

PD... i dont necessarily disagree with anything you said. I deeply resent the notion that Bush lied and thats why we went to war. I am sure he did lie about a lot of shit... but EVERYONE had an opinion about it before it came to that point. its not like we were all sitting here in a vacuum waiting for the final word for Dubya Bush, Our Lord and Savior before we formed an opinion on the matter. Neither was the rest of the government. He might have lied about a lot of things... but that does not change the fact that the case for war was there regardless.

THE SIMPLE FACT IS THIS... MOST Americans after 9/11 were ready to pull the trigger regardless. It had nothing to do with anything Bush said. The case was there, he was an asshole. He was a bad guy and people just wanted to lash out.

I dont remember forming any opinions about invading Iraq based on ANYTHING Bush said. I seriously doubt all the liberals all over the world that are complaining today were on the fence until that mean ole nasty Mr Bush lied to them and tricked them. Thats just bullshit and childish. Own up to it.

You were one of the first ones to admit that the case was there and that you were a bit apprehensive about timing, motives etc. Thats fine. I would not expect you to be saying today "Holy Shit.. Bush lied to me" - because you know as well as i do that your opinions were not formed around Bush's "lies" and you were not personally decieved in the slightest bit. I have almost no respect for anyone who would suggest they were, because it would signal to me that they have zero integrity as a person.

sure... pick on the lies. Thats all fine and well... point them out, post them, debate them etc etc etc... but I really hate to see people belittle themselves by suggesting or implying that Bush was responsible for their views on Iraq. Thats just fucking pathetic.


And for once, I would like to see Liberals make up their minds... Either Bush is a total retard... or he is a brilliant master of the universe bending everyone to his will. He can't be both.

[Dravyk]

Originally Posted by JR

And for once, I would like to see Liberals make up their minds... Either Bush is a total retard... or he is a brilliant master of the universe bending everyone to his will. He can't be both.

I and most liberals have always been consistent that Bush is a total retard.

[PornoDoggy]

Originally Posted by JR

PD... i dont necessarily disagree with anything you said. I deeply resent the notion that Bush lied and thats why we went to war. I am sure he did lie about a lot of shit... but EVERYONE had an opinion about it before it came to that point. its not like we were all sitting here in a vacuum waiting for the final word for Dubya Bush, Our Lord and Savior before we formed an opinion on the matter. Neither was the rest of the government. He might have lied about a lot of things... but that does not change the fact that the case for war was there regardless.

THE SIMPLE FACT IS THIS... MOST Americans after 9/11 were ready to pull the trigger regardless. It had nothing to do with anything Bush said. The case was there, he was an asshole. He was a bad guy and people just wanted to lash out.

I dont remember forming any opinions about invading Iraq based on ANYTHING Bush said. I seriously doubt all the liberals all over the world that are complaining today were on the fence until that mean ole nasty Mr Bush lied to them and tricked them. Thats just bullshit and childish. Own up to it.

You were one of the first ones to admit that the case was there and that you were a bit apprehensive about timing, motives etc. Thats fine. I would not expect you to be saying today "Holy Shit.. Bush lied to me" - because you know as well as i do that your opinions were not formed around Bush's "lies" and you were not personally decieved in the slightest bit. I have almost no respect for anyone who would suggest they were, because it would signal to me that they have zero integrity as a person.

sure... pick on the lies. Thats all fine and well... point them out, post them, debate them etc etc etc... but I really hate to see people belittle themselves by suggesting or implying that Bush was responsible for their views on Iraq. Thats just fucking pathetic.


And for once, I would like to see Liberals make up their minds... Either Bush is a total retard... or he is a brilliant master of the universe bending everyone to his will. He can't be both.

I meant what I said - I wish people would quit focusing on the fact that he lied about why we went to war, and look very hard at what he did when he got us there.

I was one of the people who - even though I should have been suspicious, since his lips were moving - originally accepted the President's assertions that Saddam had WMD.

You are right - the case for war appeared to have been made. When the U.S. government began to react to attempts to defuse the situation with responses that seemed straight out of Berlin, circa 1939, I became alarmed.

When Colin Powell went the U.N. and I was hoping for the case for war to be laid out with the fire and the factual foundation of Adli Stevenson during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and I got a second-rate salesman making a piss-poor pitch for a third-rate product, my heart sank.

When the battle plan became apparent, I began to realize that something really, really foul was up.

When the bobbleheads began talking about “liberation of the Iraqi people” followed by “new front in the war on terror” I knew that The Who had been wrong.

We did get fooled again.

Seven more Americans died yesterday in Iraq.

Those Americans died at the hands of an insurgency.

That insurgency developed for one of two reasons - George W. Bush and his lackeys are incompetent, or this is what they wanted. . I'm not trying to have it both ways - he's one or the other. I don’t think he’s incompetent.

I think that the attitude of this Administration toward the lives of Iraqis and toward the lives of American military personnel make Henry Kissinger look like a fucking bleeding-heart tree-hugging humanitarian.

I think they thought we could open up a front in the war on terror and draw Al Qaeda and/or “organized” Islamic terror into a confrontation in Iraq.

The problem is, Al Qaeda and/or “organized” Islamic terror is not who we are fighting in Iraq. What/who we are fighting in Iraq are people we wouldn’t have to be fighting at all if we weren’t there.

Al Qaeda may claim credit for some things in Iraq, but they are a bit player. Those Al Qaeda cocksuckers are out there and planning their next attack. It might be the U.S., it might be the U.K., it could be anywhere in Europe or Asia – but it’s coming.

I have been saying since before Saddam's statue fell that the way we were going about the war in Iraq was going to recreate the dissolution of Yugoslavia.

The battle lines between Sunni and Shia are being drawn, and the confrontations are moving way beyond skirmishes. The relationship of ethnicity/denomination to bombings and mass killings is greatly under-reported in the Western press, and even more so in the American press.

If the Kurds - fairly quiet up until now - get into the act, it could turn a clusterfuck into a real nightmare. And yes, Virginia – it could get worse.

I honestly believe it’s going to get worse – much worse – before it gets better.

The damage to American prestige if we cut and run now would be incalculable.

The problem is, there may be no point in staying. We may not be able to control the forces we have set loose.