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bettyd
Citizen
Username: Badjtdso
Post Number: 162
Registered: 12-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 3:33 pm: | 
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On what intelligence was resolution 1441 based? Did the US provide it, or a good portion of it? Wasn't it the same intelligence used to justify the war? |
dave23
Citizen
Username: Dave23
Post Number: 1539
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 3:34 pm: |
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Guy,
I understand what you are saying. |
tulip
Citizen
Username: Braveheart
Post Number: 3369
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 3:35 pm: |
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RL:
Just O'Reilly's security guard. |
Innisowen
Citizen
Username: Innisowen
Post Number: 1754
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 3:37 pm: |
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Guy: Your quote from above.
"Iraq was a state sponsor of terror that was not directly involved in 9-11. That is the Bush admin position."
The quote is accurate in one sense only: that there is a Bush admin position, and it is "over a barrel."
Your comment above: "state sponsor of terror that was not directly involved in 9-11" is the 94th flavor of the reasons given by the administration for going to war in Iraq.
The 95th will doubtless be to protect UT's Longhorns from foreign athletes. |
kendalbill
Citizen
Username: Kendalbill
Post Number: 167
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 3:40 pm: |
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Guy, I also think the administration was artful in how they never actually said there was a direct tie between Iraq and 9/11- but it's hard to deny that they tried to link them. I have this image of Rove and Hadley et al giggling as they prepared Cheney's remarks so as not to actually say there was a link but fill in all the dots along the way. And they call Clinton slick?
And in terms of Iraq being the primary threat post 9/11, it sure seems like commiting our military to an open ended conflict there now looks wrong. To take the WWII analogy that Bushies are so eager to use these days, it is like we watched the gathering storm in the 1930s and invaded Italy.
And can someone 'splain to me why its so damned important to know whether there is now a civil war? Does it matter? Do some additional benefits kick in? It is what it is- a mess and it unlikely and probably immoral to vacate at this point. Powell was right- we break it we own it. |
thoughtful
Citizen
Username: Thoughtful
Post Number: 181
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 3:42 pm: |
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Cheney also said this on Face the Nation on Sunday:
"But we learned on 9/11 that in fact what's going on 10,000 miles away in a place like Afghanistan or Iraq can have a direct impact here in the United States when we lost 3,000 people that morning."
But he's not making any connection between 9/11 and Iraq, of course
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Innisowen
Citizen
Username: Innisowen
Post Number: 1755
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 3:44 pm: |
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The only reason for determining whether what is happening is a civil war is to call it that, and to call our administration out on its obfuscating, hiding the truth from the citizenry, and waging a losing battle because it never planned to wage a winning one.
It's to call our losers in the White House exactly what they are--- losers |
ae35unit
Citizen
Username: Ae35unit
Post Number: 26
Registered: 2-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 4:03 pm: |
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I've got to say it simply, if you don't think the administration, including the President, Vice President and just about everybody else with a voice has connected, either directly or by implication, Iraq and 9/11, you're grossly misinformed or lying or delusional. It's not debatable.
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Innisowen
Citizen
Username: Innisowen
Post Number: 1756
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 4:08 pm: |
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ae35unit:
It's debatable if you're a blind supporter, defender, or originator of policies that are going nowhere and because you obtain your talking points from liars and people afraid to speak the truth.
Other than that, it's not debatable, as you say. |
Robert Livingston
Citizen
Username: Rob_livingston
Post Number: 1809
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 4:10 pm: |
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I think it's also hard for people to admit they were wrong, or to accept they were manipulated, or that they backed the wrong horse. |
Guy
Supporter
Username: Vandalay
Post Number: 1680
Registered: 8-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 4:13 pm: |
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One more time with feeling. The Admin public statements concerning 9-11 and Iraq were to justify pre-emptive action. It was not to say that Saddam was responsible for 9-11.
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dave23
Citizen
Username: Dave23
Post Number: 1542
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 4:17 pm: |
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Deliberate insinuations be damned! |
tulip
Citizen
Username: Braveheart
Post Number: 3370
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 4:19 pm: |
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Why did GW want to oust Saddam? GW's famous statement about Saddam, "He tried to kill my Daddy," might have something to do with it. |
Robert Livingston
Citizen
Username: Rob_livingston
Post Number: 1811
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 4:21 pm: |
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"Why did GW want to oust Saddam?"
Helen Thomas asked Bush this question point blank today. His rambling, incoherent, stuttering response epitomized Bush as a statesman and a leader. |
Guy
Supporter
Username: Vandalay
Post Number: 1681
Registered: 8-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 4:23 pm: |
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Actually tulip that one of the 23 reasons listed in the Senate Resolution. I think they used words like assassinate and ex president. |
tulip
Citizen
Username: Braveheart
Post Number: 3371
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 4:28 pm: |
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OK. Well, there's a great reason to go kill thousands of Iraqis. Yup!!
Oh, excuse me, not Iraqis, terrorists. |
kendalbill
Citizen
Username: Kendalbill
Post Number: 168
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 5:04 pm: |
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Inniswoven, this whole civil war word game is a real distraction. If the most important thing we have to do at this point is play gotcha, we are all missing the point.
Civil war or not, there are real divisions that have emerged in the vacuum left by Saddams fall. That is a cold hard fact. The name changes nothing.
And I will admit it: in the early days I assumed there was a link between Iraq and 9/11. When we started in Afghanistan and moved toward Iraq, I thought it was the right thing to do (although not on the timeframe Bush wanted). I bought Powell's speech in front of the UN. And we were lied to and I was wrong.
I would argue the point with my family and friends (most of whom are liberals) and I cringe when I remember how many times I relied on "well the President wouldn't lie about that". Or how about "they must know something we don't know". Now I know what a crock it all was. I was a chump. I can't believe I swallowed the whole deal. |
tulip
Citizen
Username: Braveheart
Post Number: 3372
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 5:51 pm: |
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kendallbill: How good of you, seriously, to realize the error before it's too late.
Question for everyone or anyone:
Isn't it irresponsible for the president to have said that another president will have to resolve the situation in Iraq? It's like saying that someone else will have to clean up this mess.
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cjc
Citizen
Username: Cjc
Post Number: 5403
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 7:58 pm: |
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Boogie -- so 75% of the population lives in areas other than Baghdad. Meaning, since that part of the country is comparatively quiet, it's a civil war is the thinking?
Tal Afar is not a small story. Neither is the rest of Western Iraq, a Sunni area bordering Syria. You've got a nice, tight little area in Baghdad and some suburbs where you can run and throw a camera on a bombing and translate that to "the country is in a civil war."
If the rest of the country erupts, will it then be "really a civil war"?
And tulip -- as I've said before, Bush said early on, possibly as far back as Afghanistan, that the war on terror would last past his presidency. You obviously don't buy Iraq as part of the war on terror, but Iraq obviously is in the context of what Bush meant at the time.
And it's hardly unusual. FDR didn't finish WW2, Johnson didn't finish Viet Nam (and JFK wouldn't have either), and no one is going to solve Social Security until it just becomes bankrupt.
And while we're on misleading statements, how did it get to the point that fools in this country actually think there's money in the Social Security system that has their name on it and is waiting for them? Who gave them that impression? |
Innisowen
Citizen
Username: Innisowen
Post Number: 1757
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 8:07 pm: |
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In fact, Guy, you have succeeded in what I thought to be impossible: blind, senseless, imbecilic creation of more reasons for the Iraq war than even the numbnuts current administration was able to fabricate.
Congratulations on your yarn-spinning ability.
It doesn't say much for the administration. It says even less for you. |
Innisowen
Citizen
Username: Innisowen
Post Number: 1758
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 8:16 pm: |
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Kendallbill
The reason that the term civil war is so important for the administration to avoid is that any number of critics of the Bush war, including Colin Powell, in the 3 breaths of criticism he dared to voice, warned Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld of the high level risk of ethnic divisiveness in Iraq that would lead to civil war.
And they were warned by the Brits, who have decades more experience in the middle east than the US ever had.
The administration refused to heed the warnings and thumbed their noses at the high risk level. So now they can't afford to have people call a spade a spade. They'd look like even bigger fools than they are. |
tulip
Citizen
Username: Braveheart
Post Number: 3373
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 8:38 pm: |
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cjc: Pray tell, how did my comments about Bush passing on the Iraq situation to the next president become a matter of expecting money from the social security system?
Sometimes, I daresay, I can't quite understand you, cjc. It could be my problem, I admit. |
cjc
Citizen
Username: Cjc
Post Number: 5405
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 8:39 pm: |
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Were those critics as prescient with the Balkans, with Madaline Albright promising that Kosovo wouldn't be a separate state? Maybe that's why the Brits and Europe as a whole stayed away from it. After all, the US was re-inventing war during that campaign, so why bother. |
tulip
Citizen
Username: Braveheart
Post Number: 3374
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 8:46 pm: |
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cjc: As is so frequently stated these days, a "war on terror" is like a "war on hatred" or a "war on poverty." Terror is a tactic, not a sovereign nation. So as far as that goes, no, I don't think the invasion of Iraq is a really good way to attack "terror" if terror can indeed be "attacked." It's like trying to stop communism or fascism with a cannon or a bomb. Once the evil is out of Pandora's box, it can't be put neatly back in with invasions, bombs or threats. You have to attack the source of the terrorism. For that, you might read all sorts of social scientists who are weighing in on this question nowadays. I think Tom Friedman might be writing about this, or others. |
cjc
Citizen
Username: Cjc
Post Number: 5407
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 8:53 pm: |
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I couldn't disagree more. And I don't care how frequently it's stated. But you already knew that.
And as for my SS System comment, it was a tangential aside to illustrate how false preconceptions can take hold without anyone stating one.
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Dr. Winston O'Boogie
Citizen
Username: Casey
Post Number: 2001
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 9:29 pm: |
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Where the people live in Iraq:
You will notice that in the West of Iraq, almost no one lives. The blue areas are also Kurdish, and safe, but only a minority of the population lives in those areas. It isn't just Baghdad, most of the Iraqi people live in places that are to some degree in turmoil. The recent violence that required strict curfews included Salahiddin, Diyala and Babil provinces in addition to Baghdad.
If you want to call it "sectarian violence" and not "civil war" that's fine, but it doesn't make those 1000 or 1500 people who die each month any less dead. If the country wasn't going to blow up if our troops left, then we could bring them home. Obviously we aren't doing that, because the country would indeed erupt if we left.
By no definition is that a good thing. |
kendalbill
Citizen
Username: Kendalbill
Post Number: 169
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 9:44 pm: |
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Hey, tulip, it is too late. Too many people stood by and misplaced our trust.
Innisowen: my point is that it is obviously a bad situation and Bush was obviously warned about the possibility of unrest if we toppled Saddam. Maybe his dad mentioned something about it. The name by which we call the thing seems irrelevant. But, hey, I might be wrong. |
Innisowen
Citizen
Username: Innisowen
Post Number: 1764
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 9:54 pm: |
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CJC:
"Were those critics as prescient with the Balkans, with Madaline Albright promising that Kosovo wouldn't be a separate state? Maybe that's why the Brits and Europe as a whole stayed away from it. After all, the US was re-inventing war during that campaign, so why bother."
I believe I am dealing with another of your non-sequiturs here. Do me the favor of explaining. |
ae35unit
Citizen
Username: Ae35unit
Post Number: 27
Registered: 2-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 10:08 pm: |
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cjc-
"Were those critics as prescient with the Balkans, with Madaline Albright promising that Kosovo wouldn't be a separate state? Maybe that's why the Brits and Europe as a whole stayed away from it. After all, the US was re-inventing war during that campaign, so why bother."
Are you Sean Hannity?
You can be honest. It's you, right, Sean?
Have you ever heard of NATO? |
Nohero
Supporter
Username: Nohero
Post Number: 5209
Registered: 10-1999
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 10:13 pm: |
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The bottom line - today the President told us that, while he got us into Iraq, as far as he is concerned it is someone else's problem to get us out.
His supporters apparently see nothing wrong with that.
And they make fun of Democrats ... sheesh! |
Dr. Winston O'Boogie
Citizen
Username: Casey
Post Number: 2003
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 10:17 pm: |
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it must be tough to be a Republican tool and keep up with the changing rationales. Some of them are continuing to say that the Iraqi forces are standing up so the U.S. can stand down, even though just yesterday Bush said the troops will still be in Iraq when the next president takes office.
apparently they sometimes forget to throw last week's talking points down the memory hole. |
ae35unit
Citizen
Username: Ae35unit
Post Number: 28
Registered: 2-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 10:29 pm: |
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Everybody should rent Doctor Strangelove, especially if you've never seen it, and read 1984 by George Orwell. Strangelove's amazing and not that long, and you can read 1984 in a few hours. cjc- it might take longer to read 1984 if you move your lips while reading, so I can't give you an honest answer as to how long it will take you and Southerner to read it. Maybe you can take turns. |
tjohn
Supporter
Username: Tjohn
Post Number: 4153
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 22, 2006 - 5:59 am: |
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Innisowen,
There is no accounting for CJC's obsession with the Balkans. Presumably, he is pursuing one of two possible lines of reasoning.
The first is that since the Balkans is and was a messy affair with few good options, then Bush was right to have a much messier affair with even fewer good options on a much larger scale in Iraq. This first argument is along the lines of two wrongs make a right.
The second option is that since some people are inconsistent and supported military action in the Balkans, but not Iraq, Bush is therefore correct in invading Iraq. This second argument represents some of the refreshing new thinking we have come to expect from Bush supporters - making two somewhat unrelated statments and saying that one leads to the other.
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kendalbill
Citizen
Username: Kendalbill
Post Number: 170
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 22, 2006 - 8:28 am: |
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tjohn: well said.
Other distinctions:
Destabilization did not happen on Clinton's watch vs. Bush created destabilization by removing Saddam.
The Balkans provoked a multilateral response vs. Iraq????
I'm no fan of tortured analogies. Iraq is not another Vietnam, Somalia, Balkans, etc. it is it's own unique mess. Bush and Rumsfeld are truly writing new "stratergy".
Look, if Rumsfeld's goal was to transform the military and fight the war in a new way, and Iraq is his laboratory, I think he invites analysis.
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