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Author Topic: Blair's new tack: WMDs invisible  (Read 15728 times)
Mesozoic
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on: July 06, 2004, 05:58:30 AM

Blair says that the WMD were definitely there, but may never be found.

Well thats convenient.  I was wondering how the Hawks would reconcile their pre-war assertions to the post-invasion reality.  He's even willing to accept that they may have been destroyed.  Now the invasion was OK because "the plain fact is that he was in breach of United Nations resolutions"

Hmm, I guess I would have thought that the UN would have decided whether or not to take action against a UN violation.   Oh, thats right, they decided not to.

...any religion that rejects coffee worships a false god.
-Numtini
eldaec
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Reply #1 on: July 06, 2004, 06:02:48 AM

The true situation can be surmised thus:

No one gives a crap about WMDs.

Possible Outcome 1 : Iraq becomes a relatively stable democracy, or at least has an arrangement less evil than the surrounding and previous arrangements. Blair and Bush win.

Possible Outcome 2 : The above does not happen. Blair and Bush lose.

No one gives a crap about WMDs.

"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular ­assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson
"Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
Mesozoic
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Reply #2 on: July 06, 2004, 06:09:09 AM

Quote from: eldaec

No one gives a crap about WMDs.


Wildly inaccurate.  Lots of people care.  It was the primary justification for war.  He was going to attack us, remember?  The invasion was a pre-emptive action.

...any religion that rejects coffee worships a false god.
-Numtini
UD_Delt
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Reply #3 on: July 06, 2004, 06:13:16 AM

Just to add more confusion:

This article states we've found at least some WMD. Sure they may be from '91 but they still exist and were not declared:

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=5568967


The you have the Tony Blair saying nothing was found articles that don't even pay lip service to the WMD that were found:

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/188/world/Blair_says_Iraqi_WMD_may_never:.shtml
Dark Vengeance
Delinquents
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Reply #4 on: July 06, 2004, 08:04:47 AM

Hmm...didn't Putin advise Bush of a potential Iraqi terrorist plot against the US? Indeed, he did....at least that's what the AP reported on 6/18/04.

Quote
ASTANA, Kazakhstan (AP) - Russia gave the Bush administration intelligence that suggested Saddam Hussein's regime was preparing attacks against the United States and its interests abroad before the Iraq war, President Vladimir Putin said Friday.

Putin said he couldn't comment on how critical the Russians' information was in U.S. decision to invade Iraq. However, he said the intelligence didn't cause Russia to waver from its firm opposition to the war.

"Indeed, after Sept. 11, 2001, and before the start of the military operation in Iraq, the Russian special services ... received information that officials from Saddam's regime were preparing terrorist attacks in the United States and outside it against the U.S. military and other interests," Putin said.

"Despite that information about terrorist attacks being prepared by Saddam's regime, Russia's position on Iraq remains unchanged," Putin said.

Putin said Russia didn't have any information that Saddam's regime had actually been behind any terrorist acts.


I pulled the text of the article here, but originally read it on CNN.com....though I can't seem to find it there now. Here is a link to it on abcnews.com though.

This, IMO, indicates that the President was led to believe there was a real threat to national security and the American people. Especially given the games Hussein was playing with weapons inspectors, and the intel being provided about WMDs, I can't say I blame him for making the push for a pre-emptive strike.

With one breath people criticize him for not doing enough to prevent 9/11, and with the next they criticize the pre-emptive strike against Iraq as war-mongering. And to top it all off, the implication is always that Bush had these nefarious ulterior motives for doing so....dismissing completely that the guy may have been trying to do the right thing.

Until people can even acknowledge the possibility that the administration acted with good intentions based on the info they had, this debate is silly.

Bring the noise.
Cheers............
HaemishM
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Reply #5 on: July 06, 2004, 09:18:16 AM

Quote from: eldaec
No one gives a crap about WMDs.


Wrong. I do, because as an American citizen, I was told repeatedly that we had to dismantle the Iraqi regime BECAUSE he had WMD's and was planning to use them on us.

He didn't have them. Whether he was planning to use them on us or not, he could not have used what he did not have. One major part of the argument made to justify going to war was patently false, and there is enough evidence to suggest that not only was it false, members of our administration KNEW it was false or at least had many reasons to doubt the validity of the intelligence. Which means the American public was deliberately misled.

The Bush administration DID one something right in regards to the "War on Terror," they dismantled the Taliban in Afghanistan, and did so with the full backing of most nations in the world. THAT was a good thing.

Then they immediately fucked it all up by attacking Iraq for dubious reasons, a move that almost everyone who is not a Bush apologist perceives as an imperialist act of aggression as opposed to a defensive necessity. Meanwhile, we've mostly ignored the problems in Afghanistan in favor of tossing money down the pit that is Iraq.

If the administration acted with good intentions in Iraq, I DO NOT SEE IT. I see a lot of hemming and hawing, a lot of blame shifting, but I do not see anyone in the administration taking the piss for the things they did wrong. And now that we've gotten ourselves immersed in Iraq, we have no choice but to stay and pour more money and lives down that hole simply to fix the fuckup.

Mesozoic
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Reply #6 on: July 06, 2004, 09:30:06 AM

Quote
With one breath people criticize him for not doing enough to prevent 9/11, and with the next they criticize the pre-emptive strike against Iraq as war-mongering.


I really don't blame Bush for 9/11.   I'm gonna go ahead and give him that one.  I'll assume that the warnings about Al Queda were buried in a sea of similar, equally credible Presidential concerns and that he was ill-served by the intelligence agencies in place.

I do blame him for starting the Iraq side-show.  The man who killed 3,000+ Americans is still out there hiding, and we have 11,000 troops looking for him while insurgents run back and forth out of Afghanistan at will.  Having another, say, 130,000 troops to help out would be great, but they're in Iraq getting shot at to find Weapons of Mass...err, find intent to make WM...err...promote Democra...uhhh..well lets get them some running water and call it a campaign.

...any religion that rejects coffee worships a false god.
-Numtini
HaemishM
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Reply #7 on: July 06, 2004, 09:32:55 AM

For clarification, I don't blame Bush for 9/11, I blame the fucking Immigration Department for issuing visas to people on the "DO NOT ISSUE VISAS TO THESE RAGHEADED SUICIDE BOMBERS" list.

Alluvian
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Reply #8 on: July 06, 2004, 11:33:47 AM

INS sucks ass.  Well, the did.  They don't really exist anymore.  Prior to 9/11 they were basically rubber stamping everything.  Now that they are supposed to look more closely they can't really function.  My wife has been in immigration limbo for over 3 years now.  No estimated date at all.  And in the meantime she cannot leave the country.  Making her miss her sisters wedding and her son's graduation.  It sucks.  I am not taking it out on Bush though unless the other guy has something to say that indicates he has a plan to fix it.  And I have not heard a peep about it.  INS as a service to would be citizens is currently broken.  Everyone in it is now working on homeland security related tasks.

As far as WMD's, I have heard all sorts of things.  I have even heard a story that supposedly came from AP about yellowcake being found inside pipes in a syrian garbage dump.  The shipments apparently came from Iraq a few months before the war.  I have not found any information at all about the story even from the supposed source.   I heard it on an FM news short where they were listing brief world news.  Not some republican station, but one of the two 'crappy rock' stations we have in orlando.  The source of that information is still a mystery to me, but it was reported as news.  I can't believe it until I find out more about it (probably never).

The sheer volume of news being shoved around now invalidates most of it.  It is so easy to bury stories or make non-stories prominent on little or no evidence.  Every page of the papers is essentially editorial now.  Both in what they choose to say and where (front page vs buried in the back) and in how they say it.  Television broadcasts are worse.
eldaec
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Reply #9 on: July 06, 2004, 02:25:48 PM

OK, I'm willing to go as far as, nobody is going to change their vote on the basis of WMD.

Because how the hell do you make running out of WMD if democracy in Iraq appears to be working.

And guess what, by the time Blair has to face an election (which could be as late as 2006), we'll have a pretty good idea which way iraq is going to go.

Quote

I see a lot of hemming and hawing, a lot of blame shifting, but I do not see anyone in the administration taking the piss for the things they did wrong. And now that we've gotten ourselves immersed in Iraq, we have no choice but to stay and pour more money and lives down that hole simply to fix the fuckup.


I agree with you here, but the important hemming and hawwing and so on which most independent observers give a crap about all applies to the effort to turn iraq into a functional country.

If Bush/Blair fuck up the country good and proper they will lose a lot of capital. They won't lose jack for *only* turning a nutjob totalitarian state that did not have WMD into a democracy.

I'm certainly no Bush or Blair apologist, and I'll vote against both at every opportunity (though who the hell I'd vote *for* if I was an American has me beat). But  if I were to judge them on this, it would only be on the grounds of whether they've come out with a better iraq than they went in with.

And so far. They're up on the day.

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schild
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Reply #10 on: July 06, 2004, 02:44:30 PM

Quote from: HaemishM
For clarification, I don't blame Bush for 9/11, I blame the fucking Immigration Department for issuing visas to people on the "DO NOT ISSUE VISAS TO THESE RAGHEADED SUICIDE BOMBERS" list.


<3
Righ
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Reply #11 on: July 06, 2004, 04:53:08 PM

Quote from: eldaec
If Bush/Blair fuck up the country good and proper they will lose a lot of capital.


For Bush alone, that's $128 BILLION and counting.

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SirBruce
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Reply #12 on: July 06, 2004, 06:45:12 PM

Mesozoic, your post doesn't make any sense.  As you know, some WMD and WMD programs *were* found, the UN *did* vote that Iraq was in breach of UN resolutions and that serious consequences would result (they just didn't vote again to lead a UN-authorized invasion because France at the time wouldn't go for it), and after the war the UN voted *again* this June affirming the presence of US troops in Iraq and legitimizing the new government.

Bruce
Riggswolfe
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Reply #13 on: July 06, 2004, 09:21:17 PM

The UN voted as they did for very obvious reasons. Bush invaded without their approval and faced little international repurcussions beyond hand wringing. The UN voted to make it all legit to save face. Pure and simple.

The blunt truth is that American and Britains were lied to about Iraq. You can make whatever claims you want but we were. I'll be sickened if Bush is reelected becuase it will only confirm my fears that the American people are a bunch of sheep these days.

"We live in a country, where John Lennon takes six bullets in the chest, Yoko Ono was standing right next to him and not one fucking bullet! Explain that to me! Explain that to me, God! Explain it to me, God!" - Denis Leary summing up my feelings about the nature of the universe.
Alkiera
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Reply #14 on: July 06, 2004, 10:08:15 PM

Quote from: Riggswolfe
The UN voted as they did for very obvious reasons.


This much is true.  They voted against any action against IRAQ because France was getting mad cash from exploiting the Oil For Food program, several other countries were buying oil from Iraq under the table, and many of the rest are tinpot dictators just like Saddam who were afraid of being next in line if intervention became the 'in' thing to do.

With France being on the security council, with the ability to just say 'No' to anything, nothing to interrupt the flow of cash to France was gonna happen from the UN's point.  Once Baghdad had fallen, and Saddam captured, there was no reason to fight for the big players, as the 'agreements' they were getting money from were not going to be upheld under the new government, in all likelyhood.

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Tebonas
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Reply #15 on: July 06, 2004, 10:45:24 PM

You overestimate the influence of France over the UN by a wide margin...

I agree that it might have been the reason the french voted against it, though.
SirBruce
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Reply #16 on: July 07, 2004, 12:38:31 AM

Quote from: Riggswolfe
The UN voted as they did for very obvious reasons. Bush invaded without their approval and faced little international repurcussions beyond hand wringing. The UN voted to make it all legit to save face. Pure and simple.


But Bush didn't NEED their approval, and he already had it in the first place, to boot.  And they voted it legit retroactively, so... stop saying the UN didn't support it, eh?

Quote

The blunt truth is that American and Britains were lied to about Iraq. You can make whatever claims you want but we were. I'll be sickened if Bush is reelected becuase it will only confirm my fears that the American people are a bunch of sheep these days.


Yeah, we don't want citizens to be sheep to their country's leaders!  We want the country's leaders to be sheep to the UN!

Bruce
Tebonas
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Reply #17 on: July 07, 2004, 01:49:52 AM

Well, don't know about you but I want neither of those two Bruce. What has politicians lying to their citizens to do with the UN anyway? Care to elaborate?

Two possible wrongs making one right?
Mesozoic
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Reply #18 on: July 07, 2004, 03:57:59 AM

Quote from: SirBruce
Mesozoic, your post doesn't make any sense.  As you know, some WMD and WMD programs *were* found, the UN *did* vote that Iraq was in breach of UN resolutions and that serious consequences would result (they just didn't vote again to lead a UN-authorized invasion because France at the time wouldn't go for it), and after the war the UN voted *again* this June affirming the presence of US troops in Iraq and legitimizing the new government.

Bruce


Iraq was supposed to be able to attack us.  With what?  A handful of decrepit chemical shells from pre-Desert Storm?  Clearly the massive facilities actively manufacturing WMDs  - the ones that Powell showed the UN - did not exist.  

The UN agreed that Iraq was in violation, but they didn't vote to invade.   The difference between the UN and Bush is that the UN said Iraq was in violation for not permitting inspections, while Bush said that they actually had the weapons and planned to us them, on us, in the near future.  Wildly different positions.  The UN inspectors, remember, said that they didn't think there were any WMD to be found.

Bush wanted them to invade, but they wouldn't.   So he did it himself, and now its perfectly clear that Iraq was in no position to attack the US, and on top of all this we're responsible for this huge insurgency / humanitarian problem.  

A problem that Bush now wants the UN to help with.  Now how is the UN going to do that?  By declaring the new government "stupid'?  Of course not.  They call it good so that they can move in and save Bush's ass and hopefully stabilize this thing.  And now you're going to hold that against them?  Classy.

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SirBruce
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Reply #19 on: July 07, 2004, 05:02:44 AM

Quote from: Tebonas
Well, don't know about you but I want neither of those two Bruce. What has politicians lying to their citizens to do with the UN anyway? Care to elaborate?

Two possible wrongs making one right?


Where did I say politicians lying to their citizens had anything to do with the UN in this context?  Sorry, if you want me to elaborate, you have to be more specific.  I don't see what the general issue of politicians lying has to do with this, but it certainly happens in the UN as well as other places.  Anyway, we were talking about people acting like sheep before you interjected; feel free to comment on that if you like.

Bruce
eldaec
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Reply #20 on: July 07, 2004, 05:07:34 AM

Quote from: Mesozoic
Bush wanted them to invade, but they wouldn't.   So he did it himself, and now its perfectly clear that Iraq was in no position to attack the US, and on top of all this we're responsible for this huge insurgency / humanitarian problem.  


All true, but it's equally reasonable to suggest that the West is also responsible for Hussien being there in the first place.

And at a current score somewhere north of eleven million dead people, it's somewhat difficult to play a moral responsibility card in favour of not doing something about it.

If you want to lay into the US and UK government for the manner of the invasion and the possibly cack handed aftermath, then be my guest (so long as you have an alternative). But the fact of the intervention I don't see any moral/humanitarian downside to. A small number of middle class english speakers in Baghdad being blown up as opposed to a larger number of kurds and other rural poor people being killed certainly isn't ideal, and certainly should leave us open to alternative strategies. But the only alternative so far proposed, that of 'doing fuck all' doesn't have any moral advantage that I see.

"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular ­assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson
"Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
SirBruce
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Reply #21 on: July 07, 2004, 05:16:29 AM

Quote from: Mesozoic

Iraq was supposed to be able to attack us.  With what?  A handful of decrepit chemical shells from pre-Desert Storm?  Clearly the massive facilities actively manufacturing WMDs  - the ones that Powell showed the UN - did not exist.  


Er, Iraq was attacking us nearly every day in the no-fly zones, and had they been able to get ahold of something that they could have attacked our mainland with, they would have.  Not to mention Israel.  And they were funding terrorists.  And trying to assassinate our political leaders... er, what more do you want?  Aside from hiding weapons from us, regardless of "decrepit" age, and not documenting their destruction, as required as part of the cease fire agreements?

Quote

The UN agreed that Iraq was in violation, but they didn't vote to invade.


International lawyers disagree with your interpretation of UN resolutions, specifically 1441.  You can dance around this issue all you like.  Whether or not the UN "voted to invade" is a red herring... we don't require their vote to invade anyway, 1441 or not.  The UN legitimized the action post-invasion.

Quote

The difference between the UN and Bush is that the UN said Iraq was in violation for not permitting inspections, while Bush said that they actually had the weapons and planned to us them, on us, in the near future.  Wildly different positions.  The UN inspectors, remember, said that they didn't think there were any WMD to be found.


This statement simply is false both ways.  Previous UN reports said indeed that it thought Iraq HAD such weapons, and current reports could not verify their current status.  Bush's case for war was never exclusively that they HAD such weapons and were about to use them, but rather that the fact they were trying to get such weapons and were WILLING to use them against us was sufficient alone.

Quote

Bush wanted them to invade, but they wouldn't.   So he did it himself, and now its perfectly clear that Iraq was in no position to attack the US, and on top of all this we're responsible for this huge insurgency / humanitarian problem.


Actually, Bush wanted UN approval to invade, and thought he got it with 1441.  It was Tony Blair, not the US, which urged an attempt to get yet another resolution afterwards, and when Frace said they would veto it, it fell apart.  So Bush did it with the UK and a dozen+ other nations, and on top of all this we made the world safer and liberated a lot of people from a brutal dictatorship, which is all the reason we really needed to invade in the first place.
 
Quote

A problem that Bush now wants the UN to help with.  Now how is the UN going to do that?  By declaring the new government "stupid'?  Of course not.  They call it good so that they can move in and save Bush's ass and hopefully stabilize this thing.  And now you're going to hold that against them?  Classy.


Who is holding that against them?  Not me.  You're the one holding their previous non-vote against them as somehow a sign that the US invasion was illegitimate in the eyes of the UN, when in fact they have since voted that it is, indeed, legitimate.

All of which is another red herring anyway.  By trying to say the UN didn't support it, one is trying to imply that the US didn't have international support for its actions, when in fact it did.  It just didn't have unanimous international support for its actions, and that's hardly surprising.

Bruce
Tebonas
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Reply #22 on: July 07, 2004, 05:36:09 AM

Quote

The blunt truth is that American and Britains were lied to about Iraq. You can make whatever claims you want but we were. I'll be sickened if Bush is reelected becuase it will only confirm my fears that the American people are a bunch of sheep these days.


Quote

Yeah, we don't want citizens to be sheep to their country's leaders! We want the country's leaders to be sheep to the UN!


If that context was not one you wanted to create, I'm fine with that and of course I wouldn't ask you to elaborate then. But I am certain you understand how that connection could have been made.

Usually politicians in international politics don't act like sheep. They have their own agendas, and search for temporal allies to further those agendas. They may further the agendas of others if that can give them advantages for future goals.

The "Common People" on the other hand (regardless of country) are more easily swayed to act like sheep. Here we have a word for those people, the uneducated masses that are more easily swayed by populism than by arguments. "Stimmvieh", which roughly would translate as "Voting Animals".
Mesozoic
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Reply #23 on: July 07, 2004, 05:48:04 AM

Quote
had they been able to get ahold of something that they could have attacked our mainland with, they would have.


But THEY DIDN'T HAVE THEM.  Thank you.  And...gosh, a country that hates us?  Is that the criteria now?  I'm starting to hate us.

And post-invasion approval of an invasion is simply paperwork.  I don't know if you've noticed, but we're the 800 lb gorilla here and the UN knows that.  Our invasion has made the US, and by extension the whole of the First World, responsible for every Iraqi without running water or electricity.  Now people get to blame the "Crusader Christians" for all their ills.  So now the UN is going to try to dig us out of this hole, in the common interest of everyone.  To do that they have to address the whole "illegitimate invasion" problem.  

And when they do, you point to that as evidence that the whole thing was justified.  I guess the UN opinion counts when they agree with us.

Bush only knows one tool.  The hammer.   He has confused every other option as a half-measure.  

And please...terrorism?  Find either bin Laden or WMD first pls kthx.  We said Iraq was a threat.  Others disagreed.  We invaded anyway.  Now we see no evidence of a threat, and we want those who didn't want an invasion to help us.  How sad for us.  And how sad for those of us still unable to grasp the magnitude of the mistake.

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-Numtini
UD_Delt
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Reply #24 on: July 07, 2004, 05:51:09 AM

Quote
Iraq was supposed to be able to attack us. With what?


How about the off the shelf missile program they were purchasing from Kim Jong Il. Maybe you would have preferred if we waited until the missiles were in the air and on the way?

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60813F93B5E0C728CDDAB0994DB404482
UD_Delt
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Reply #25 on: July 07, 2004, 05:54:20 AM

Quote
We said Iraq was a threat. Others disagreed.


Who disagreed? I'm pretty sure everyone saw Iraq as a threat. Even the French pres said Saddam was a threat to the US. The issue with the UN was that those voting against invasion had ulterior motives as was mentioned above...

Edit: I was mistaken it wasn't the french pres but this guy:

Here's the exact quote for you:

Quote
As French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin stated on November 12, 2002, "The security of the United States is under threat from people like Saddam Hussein who are capable of using chemical and biological weapons."
Mesozoic
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Reply #26 on: July 07, 2004, 06:27:33 AM

A threat worth invading?  No.  Clearly the French disagreed.  As did the Germans.  No one wanted to invite Saddam to their kid's birthday party, but that doesn't mean that smashing him was the answer.  You're making the same mistake Bush did.  Its all or nothing for some reason.  

Iraq used to have this singular face, Saddam.  He had conventional forces.  He could be dealt with through no-fly zones and conventional attacks.  He hated us but could only sit and brood over it.  He never did attack the US, and we now know that he wasn't close to developing the ability to do so.  Others tried to tell us this, but we had to charge in and find out for ourselves.  Now there is no Iraq.  Theres just 10,000 "militias" roving around with vengeance on their minds.  And oh, look.  130,000 men and women to focus that rage on.   Now the enemy wears civilian clothes and mixes with the locals and attacks you when you're trying to get the electricity up.  Much better, right?  Remember that your attackers are terrorists but the casualties are not the result of terrorism.  Its a White House bookkeeping thing, don't ask.

Meanwhile bin Laden is somewhere hiding.  I HOPE that the forces there looking for him are enough to keep him off-balance and running.  I'm not sure.  I know that another 100,000+ troops sure would help, but they're not available.  They're busy making more terrorists in Iraq, and instituting an Iraqi government that the people hate by definition, because we made it.  

Meanwhile North Korea is tossing WMD around and doing everything they can to prove that they have it.   Yes, we see that you're a crazy motherfucker with the ability to create nuclear weapons, Kim.   We know that you starve your own people and throw them in death/work camps and blame us for everything.  Keep rattling the saber.  Maybe threaten Japan.  Until Bush develops a personal hatred for you we can't really promise anything, but maybe we can set something up for late 2005 or 06.  That might be too late, but we have this time-consuming middle-eastern hobby going on.

Meanwhile the raping and the pillaging goes on in the Sudan and elsewhere.  Thats so far down the list of priorities, FOX could produce a Sudanese Reality Show of hacked-off arms and genocide without rousing Bush from sleep.

If this isn't failure, then I have to wonder just what Republicans think failure looks like.

This has been fun, but its time for me to get to work now.

...any religion that rejects coffee worships a false god.
-Numtini
Murgos
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Reply #27 on: July 07, 2004, 06:48:10 AM

Quote from: Mesozoic
A threat worth invading?  No.  Clearly the French disagreed.  As did the Germans.


I'm just curious on why you seem to think that French and German approval is a neccessary requirement to an action?

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daveNYC
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Reply #28 on: July 07, 2004, 07:11:20 AM

Quote from: Murgos
Quote from: Mesozoic
A threat worth invading?  No.  Clearly the French disagreed.  As did the Germans.


I'm just curious on why you seem to think that French and German approval is a neccessary requirement to an action?

He doesn't.  Germany and France come up when talking about whether or not Iraq was a threat that required force to deal with.  Germany and France didn't think it was, we did.  Of course they had major business dealings with the old Iraqi regime.  It's just horrible when business dealings dictate political direction.
eldaec
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Reply #29 on: July 07, 2004, 07:15:20 AM

Quote from: Mesozoic
A threat worth invading?  No.  Clearly the French disagreed.  As did the Germans.  No one wanted to invite Saddam to their kid's birthday party, but that doesn't mean that smashing him was the answer.  You're making the same mistake Bush did.  Its all or nothing for some reason.  


More correctly, "nothing" or "14 years of starving Saddams opponents followed by all".

If other options that weren't either 'do nothing' or 'starve more iraqi children to death' were on the table....

"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular ­assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson
"Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
eldaec
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Reply #30 on: July 07, 2004, 07:18:42 AM

Quote from: Mesozoic
Meanwhile the raping and the pillaging goes on in the Sudan and elsewhere.  Thats so far down the list of priorities, FOX could produce a Sudanese Reality Show of hacked-off arms and genocide without rousing Bush from sleep.


If anyone can summon the military and political resources to do something about Sudan, they'd get my support.

Problem is, the world has shown pretty conclusively over iraq, that not many nations are much interested in actually doing something about any such problems when they could be scoring cheap points.

"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular ­assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson
"Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
daveNYC
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Reply #31 on: July 07, 2004, 07:29:51 AM

I think the events of the last hundred years have proven that people don't care about genocide, just as long as it's not happening to them.  And no one has ever given a rat's ass about Africa.

The thing that really burns me up about the African genocides is how little it would take to stop them.  No one cares though.  Shit, Sudan has oil and no one cares.  Probably because the people doing the killing are the ones pumping the oil.
UD_Delt
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WWW
Reply #32 on: July 07, 2004, 07:36:15 AM

Quote
He never did attack the US


Huh? Maybe he never attacked the US mainland but he certainly attacked the US. His soldiers regulary fired on US/UN aircraft that patrolled the no fly zone. He also harbored and funded terrorists resonsible for killing American citizens.

I'm really not sure what you consider an attack. Maybe because he never tossed a grenade into YOUR living room? Why don't you pull your head outside of the insular little shell you call your asshole and actually use it.
Mesozoic
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Reply #33 on: July 07, 2004, 07:51:53 AM

Quote from: eldaec
Quote from: Mesozoic
A threat worth invading?  No.  Clearly the French disagreed.  As did the Germans.  No one wanted to invite Saddam to their kid's birthday party, but that doesn't mean that smashing him was the answer.  You're making the same mistake Bush did.  Its all or nothing for some reason.  


More correctly, "nothing" or "14 years of starving Saddams opponents followed by all".

If other options that weren't either 'do nothing' or 'starve more iraqi children to death' were on the table....


Early lunch! w00t.

Are you sure there was nothing inbetween "sit on ass" and "take over country"?  Like airstrikes on military targets?  Expansion of the no-fly zone?  Special forces raids?  Arming, training, and support of the Kurds?  Military humanitarian missions to the oppressed inside Iraq?  Propaganda campaigns against Saddam?  

Quote
Huh? Maybe he never attacked the US mainland but he certainly attacked the US. His soldiers regulary fired on US/UN aircraft that patrolled the no fly zone. He also harbored and funded terrorists resonsible for killing American citizens.


Good job then, because now they've killed almost 900 US troops, wounded around 5,000 more, and the whole country is an active recruiting ground for terrorists and a perfect example of "evil American imperialism" for all other terrorists around the world.   Also, we've lost huge amounts of stock with The Rest Of The World, which might have been nice to have during the execution of an actual War on Terrorism.  Lets give the new gov't about six months to set up some military targets and then re-invade, perhaps.

At any rate the point of this post was that Blair's statement is yet another step towards getting people to forget about the WMDs that were supposed to be the reason for the invasion in the first place.  That way the reason for war can be re-cast after the fact as some other justification.  Probably something abstract like "freedom."  That way they can tell some human interest piece about a happy Iraqi they found somewhere, and call anti-war people and governments unfeeling.

...any religion that rejects coffee worships a false god.
-Numtini
eldaec
Terracotta Army
Posts: 11838


Reply #34 on: July 07, 2004, 08:08:52 AM

Quote from: Mesozoic
Are you sure there was nothing inbetween "sit on ass" and "take over country"?  Like airstrikes on military targets?  


Tried. Did nothing.

Quote from: Mesozoic
Expansion of the no-fly zone?


Tried, did nothing, except various dictatorships and presumably France bitched about how it was unfair at the UN.

Quote from: Mesozoic
Special forces raids?


Well, I guess they tried, though I imagine such things stay secret.

Quote from: Mesozoic
 Arming, training, and support of the Kurds?


Tried. And to be fair, had some success turning Kurdish iraq into a nicer place.

Quote from: Mesozoic
Military humanitarian missions to the oppressed inside Iraq?


Saddam had largely banned them. Though the less American looking ones were still getting in - didn't seem to achieving much except treading water.

Quote from: Mesozoic
Propaganda campaigns against Saddam?


Like the one in 1991? The one where we rather embarrassingly didn't follow through and thousands upon thousands of Saddam's opponents got massacred?

I remember exactly zero alternative suggestions being offered before the war. My point was really that if there was some obvious coaliation of opinion around some muddled third way, it must have passed me by completely.

"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular ­assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson
"Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
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