Sunday, June 3, 2012
Some thoughts on Bush and Hussein
The way that I see it, folks, Mr. Bush's biggest mistake wasn't getting rid of Saddam Hussein. Mr. Hussein was a homicidal maniac who literally tried to exterminate an entire frigging ethnic group (the Iraqi Kurds). Removing that individual from the face of the earth was in fact a noble thing. Where Mr. Bush rather screwed up, in my opinion, was in the deBa'athification of the Iraqi government. Mr. Hussein, as bad of a son of a bitch as he was, had essentially become our only buffer in that region against what was a burgeoning Shia crescent. If we had quickly been able to annihilate Mr. Hussein and then replaced him with somebody relatively sane like a Tariq Aziz, that, folks, might have been the optimum eventuality....Hindsight is 20/20, though.
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Unbelievable! Shortly after claiming that "I never supported Bush. I never supported the Iraq War", Will authors a post supporting the Iraq war!! Now his stance is bush just did it wrong (as with Afghanistan).
...and I'M the lunatic???!
Yes, you are a lunatic. Regime change had been the stated goal of the American government since 1998. And, while, yes, I still think that we had Mr. Hussein relatively well contained, I wouldn't have shed one iota of a tear if we had been able to take one of the biggest mass murderers in human history (the bastard made Mr. Gadaffi look like a piker and we certainly took that son of a bitch out) out with a missile or two. And if we had been able to accomplish that, there wouldn't have been a war. Do you simply not comprehend this?
Will: Do you simply not comprehend this?
I think you don't comprehend what you wrote in your post.
You said bush "screwed up... in the deBa'athification of the Iraqi government".
What you're describing took place after the initial invasion.
We could not have lobbed a missile or two in there, taken out Saddam, and then deBath or not deBath. One of his sons would probably have seized power. Whoever it was it would not have been someone of our choosing.
Perhaps the goal of the Iraq War was not to take out Hussein, but something else. Like you said, we probably could have taken him out with a well placed missile or two if that is what we wanted to do and avoid an invasion and occupation.
Actually Hussein, the as*h*le that he was actually was a stabilizing force in a otherwise lunatic middle east.
We should have left well enough alone.
The results speak for themselves.
You don't understand, wd. I was saying in place of the occupation, we simply take out Saddam Hussein (and his sons), covertly or with a missile, and try then to push forth a new Ba'athist regime that would hopefully be less bellicose and/or more cooperative. No mass invasion, no nation-building. Regime change via a much more targeted and/or covert approach.
I agree, RN.
I think that it would have been far more stable with Tariq Aziz....If we could have done it, I'm saying, antiseptically and in a manner that didn't strengthen Iran (yeah, I know, some pretty big ifs.)
Will: Are you so sure that the area would have been better off if Iraq had been still run by an aggressive terrorism-promoting regime?
The 2006 Lebanese invasion of Israel might have touched off a huge regional conflict, if the aggressors had the support of a rabidly anti-semitic pro-terrorist Iraq, just one country away.... and Iraq which was 3 years in the past.
Or do you think that this hypothetical post-Saddam "Tariq regime" would have been a lot less aggressive and benighted than Saddam's?
I think that Aziz would have been (at least) marginally less ruthless and aggressive than Hussein and we still would have retained the Sunni buffer against the Shia dominated Iran. If it didn't work out, we still could have retained the option for more agressive measures.
Gee, Will. That sounds a lot like the argument used to support the Afghans turning over bin laden. "If it didn't work out, we still could have retained the option for more agressive measures."
I agree with you, Jerry. You better watch your step though... if you wish to avoid being branded a lunatic by Will.
The Afghans were willing to turn bin Laden over to some kangaroo court and ONLY after we provided them with sensitive evidence. No sane leader of a country (including Mr. Gore had he been elected) would have ever conceded to those conditions.
Hey, John.
"The Afghans were willing to turn bin Laden over to some kangaroo court..."
Yes. A tribunal made up largely of the worst terrorist kingpins. who would judge Bin Laden strictly according to the dogma of a religion.
It's amazing that WD sees this as any solution. One would suppose, based on this, that domestic terrorists like Eric Rudolph, when caught, only be turned over to organizations like "Operation Rescue" for trial. And Tim McVeigh, only to a court made up of leaders from the different state militia groups.
I don't know where you're getting this "sensitive evidence" line from. They just wanted some proof he was guilty, who says it was necessarily "sensitive".
In any case, that was only at first. After that offer was rejected they said they'd turn him over without evidence.
And it wasn't a "Kangaroo Court", it was a moderate Islamic organization that would have convicted him... according to a historian specializing in US national security policy named Gareth Porter.
Gareth Porter also says that "Cheney and Rumsfeld dismissed the idea that al-Qaeda could threaten the United States because they weren't state sponsored but independant actors" (meaning al Qaeda and the Taliban were NOT in "lockstep").
Also, nobody on the "tribunal" was a terrorist kingpin.
I think a sane leader (one who hadn't already determined we were going to war no matter what) would have considered the offer.
dmarks: It's amazing that WD sees this as any solution. One would suppose, based on...
It isn't like that at all, because we caught those people, whereas bin Laden got away. So, that's the choice dmarks is really making. Catching him or letting him get away. dmarks argues that letting him get away was the right choice.
And don't forget that we didn't know (at the time) that, if we let him go, he wouldn't go on to finance/order another successful 9/11. So dmarks is really arguing that another 9/11 would have been an acceptable price to pay not to turn bin Laden over to the OIC (just because he doesn't understand that they're moderate).
I think bush should have been impeached for turning down this offer.
And, don't forget, if we did not like the results of the tribunal, we still had the option of invasion. It is not like we, ourselves, got bin Laden when we invaded. Remember, bush was not that concerned with where bin Laden was. It took a Democrat to catch him.
Just another example of republican talk, and Democratic action.
wd, how in the hell do you give these vulgarians "proof" without also disclosing sensitive security information? And, I'm sorry, but I consider any tribunal that associates with Muammar Gadaffi (tell the families of the victims of Pan Am flight 103 that Mr. Gadaffi "isn't a terrorist"), Hafez al Assad, Saddam Hussein, the Iranian Mullahs, Yasser Arafat, and the Saudi Royal family as a kangaroo court. I'm astonished that even you would disagree with that.
And, AGAIN, it wasn't just bin Laden who we needed to kill. We needed to hunt down and annihilate an entire network of thugs and terrorists and time was of the essence. Why is it that you simply do not understand this?......And, yes, I know, Bush screwed up. But, again, that isn't the issue.
Of course bush is the issue. He was commander in chief.
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