Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Some Thoughts on the Second Iraq War
I was against the second Iraq War (I was actually against the first one, too, but that's another story). I feared that it would destabilize the region and possibly pull us into another quagmire. I also didn't think that it was necessary (I thought that we had Hussein pretty boxed up and he would have never given his WMD to terrorists anyway). And, while I still don't think that it was a good idea (or that it was properly executed), time in fact does heal/allows for some perspective; a) Saddam Hussein was one of the top 5-10 worst mass murderers of the 20th Century. He brutalized his people and actually attempted genocide on the Iraqi Kurds.............b) A strong case could have been made for deposing this asshole on humanitarian grounds alone. That was the rationale for taking out Gadaffi and Hussein was infinitely worse.............c) Perhaps a better course would have been to simply take out Hussein and his two despicable offspring and then try a negotiated settlement with some of the saner elements of the Ba'athist party.............d) There was going to be a civil war in Iraq eventually anyway (Hussein being toppled and the Shia looking for revenge). Is it not at least possible that the American presence there made it less of a bloodbath?............e) There was at least SOME ambiguity regarding WMD; Scott Ritter prior to his "epiphany", George Tenet calling it a slam-dunk, most of the European countries assuming that Saddam possessed them, etc.. And, besides, Saddam Hussein was a bald-faced liar. It isn't beyond the realm of possibility that the son of a bitch could have had something squirreled away and after 9/11 Bush probably figured, why risk it (his malfunction being that he evidently thought that it would all be a cakewalk)?............Look, like I said, I was against it and continue to think that it was boneheaded. But if we're going to give FDR and Churchill slack for purposefully incinerating infants and the elderly, maybe we can give some slack to W, too.
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Will: But if we're going to give FDR and Churchill slack for purposefully incinerating infants and the elderly, maybe we can give some slack to W, too.
Absolutely not. FDR/Churchill didn't start WWII let alone lie us into it, unlike bush. And bush most assuredly lied.
And there were many other things that could have been done short of invading. Like going to the international community and getting sales of chemical weapons stopped.
We sold him chemical weapons. We loaned him money. I think it would have been a better idea to not do any of that. What's extremely odd, is that despite you saying over and over that you opposed this war, you continue to write post after post defending bush... in this one wanting to "cut him some slack"!!!
The a-hole should be tried for war crimes then executed after being found guilty.
Will: Saddam Hussein was one of the top 5-10 worst mass murderers...
With help from the rest of the world including the United States.
Will: A strong case could have been made for deposing this asshole on humanitarian grounds alone. That was the rationale for taking out Gadaffi...
No ground troops were comitted in removing Gadaffi. That conflict was a lot shorter.
Will: Is it not at least possible that the American presence there made it less of a bloodbath?
No.
Will: There was at least SOME ambiguity regarding WMD...
There was not.
Will: It isn't beyond the realm of possibility that the son of a bitch could have had something squirreled away and after 9/11 Bush probably figured, why risk it...
bush figured no such thing. He lied.
Will: ...his malfunction being that he evidently thought that it would all be a Cakewalk?
Yes, he thought he'd gain a lot of political capital and win a second term with an easy war, which is why he lied about WMD.
1) There is NOTHING in the Geneva Conventions of 1864 which states that war criminality is allowed if the other side starts the war. And, as Professor Grayling has so eloquently stated, these war crimes did virtually NOTHING to end the war prematurely. If anything, they rallied the opposition to more solidarity.......2)There certainly WAS ambiguity. Your own CIA director (a holdover from the Clinton administration) says that it was a slam dunk and that isn't ambiguity?......3) And you've given me absolutely ZERO hard data that President Bush lied. No documentation, no inconsistent statements (just something from O'Neill that has been thoroughly discredited by a REAL reporter, Thomas Ricks), nothing.......4) And your mind-reading of Mr. Bush and his motives is purely speculation (a specialty of yours).......5) Yeah, the Libya campaign was a lot shorter. But nobody knew that going in and it is more than conceivable that that could have backfired, too. Like I said, I now think that we should have blown to smithereens Hussein and worked with the Ba'athists but Bush didn't choose that. And, yeah, that's on him.......6) And, yeah, we tilted toward Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war. The U.S. government apparently didn't want a Shia crescent going all the way to Jordan.
And what about all of the people that Saddam Hussein brutalized and killed in his torture chambers prior to the war?......And I find it absolutely astonishing that you have ZERO problems with the needless incineration of hundreds of thousands of infants, children, and the elderly and spin for these actions simply because the perpetrator of these actions has a D after his name.
I added "less needless civilian casualties" to the "Case for Gary Johnson". Happy (Obama sextupling the drone attacks in Northern Pakistan, etc.)?
Bush told the truth, WD. You are joking again.
Will: WD's attitude about Bush is not one of speculation but of pure imagination. Like his idea that the man who lost the election in 2000 should have been annointed the winner even though when the votes were counted again and again and again: Gore lost.
bush lied. This is a fact which has absolutely nothing to do with "pure imagination". And Gore won FL. A recount was done after the "election" and he won no matter how the ballots were counted.
George Tenet said he was taken out of context and that the "slam dunk" comment "was made pursuant to a discussion about how to convince the American people to support invading Iraq".
In other words, fool the American people into thinking Iraq has WMD and is a threat and they'll support an invasion. Which supports my assertion that bush lied.
Here is an article detailing the bush administration's lies regarding Iraq's (non-existant) WMD program. The article is titled, "Can the 'Bush Lied' Deniers Handle the Truth?". Clearly when it comes to Will and dmarks we know the answer is "no".
The article details the US intelligence reports that bush and company ignored or didn't read (because they contradicted the claims they were making), as well as the reports they fabricated. Several times bush cited reports that DIDN'T EXIST to "prove" Iraq was pursing/already had major stockpiles of WMD.
There is absolutely no fu*cking way you can tell me that bush didn't lie. He lied, and he lied HARD.
Will: And I find it absolutely astonishing that you have ZERO problems with the needless incineration of... [blah, blah, blah].
What I find "absoltely astonishing" is that you've concluded I have "ZERO problems" with this when I've never said anything of the sort. I simply do not think you can compare a war in which we had no choice (to enter) to a war of choice we were lied into. No comparrison at all.
Will: ...these war crimes did virtually NOTHING to end the war prematurely.
So, then it's your contention that these actions were taken just for fun? Based on what? Where's YOUR proof that FDR and Churchill were sadistic homicidal madmen?
Will: No documentation, no inconsistent statements...
Check out the article I linked to for examples of numerous "inconsistent statements".
Will: And your mind-reading of Mr. Bush and his motives is purely speculation (a specialty of yours)...
I don't "mind read". I've never claimed to "mind read"... unlike you. Clearly mind reading is your speciality. Or saying you can mind read, at least... seeing as you think you know every last intimate detail of my life.
WD, is it possible in your world that Bush was simply wrong? In this context, wrong does not equal lying.
The facts say no.
David Corn. LOL!!!!!! I read Thomas Ricks's book, "Fiasco", and sections of Richard Haas's book, too. The truth is a hell of a lot more shaded than what you and this Corn asshole are contending.......And NOW you're taking George Tenet's word, the same George Tenet who said that torture worked and that it got valuable information? Ya sure?......As for Mr.s FDR and Churchill, what they did was sadistic, vengeful, and completely unnecessary. And I find it disgusting that you would go, blah, blah in response to such monumental war crimes (bald-faced violations of the Geneva Conventions of 1864).
And how 'bout a little mind-reading of Mr. Obama (the man who Noam Comsky now says is in many ways WORSE than Bush). Was his knuckledraggingly moronic surge in Afghanistan also a "political" move?
And there's nothing in that Corn piece which proves that Bush lied, just that he damned cherry-picked AND WE ALREADY KNEW THAT. There's a little something called group-think (you should be aware of that, you do it all the time with your 100% progressive agenda), wd. Maybe Bush did do it for political reasons but maybe he didn't.......And it would have been nice if Mr. Corn had also included in his piece that it wasn't just Mr. Bush who didn't read the NIE, that it was also the 29 Democratic Senators who ignored it. That might have made a difference, too, no?
WD: None of your "Facts" are true. Use some veracity, man.
Will said: "And there's nothing in that Corn piece which proves that Bush lied, just that he damned cherry-picked AND WE ALREADY KNEW THAT."
The Corn piece itself is an example of "cherry picking". Not real journalism, but "opinion journalism". And you gave an example of this by pointing out important facts which Corn left out in order to deceive.
Will asked: "And what about all of the people that Saddam Hussein brutalized and killed in his torture chambers prior to the war?."
And the death rate under Saddam's 'peace' was much higher than under Bush's war.
He's giving a free pass to Saddam. Not sure why. Maybe it is because Saddam funneled a few hundred thousand dollars to a child molester WD really admires a lot.
Will: And NOW you're taking George Tenet's word, the same George Tenet who said that torture worked and that it got valuable information? Ya sure?
George Tenet is a liar like bush.
Will: As for Mr.s FDR and Churchill, what they did was sadistic, vengeful, and completely unnecessary.
Yea, I'm sure those were their reasons. I'll take your word regarding this post-mortem mind-reading you've done. Because, unlike me, Will does not need any stinking proof. And my proof he just ignores while attacking the messenger.
Will: I find it disgusting that you would go, blah, blah in response to [blah, blah, blah].
And I find it disgusting that you defend bush lying us into an unnecessary war that killed thousands of American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis while going after two other presidents just because they have "D"s after their names.
Will: Was his... surge in Afghanistan also a "political" move?
No. I think it hurt him because the unpopularity of the war.
Will: And there's nothing in that Corn piece which proves that Bush lied...
There is, and you would know there is if you had read it instead of seeing the name "David Corn" and immediatly discounting anything he might have written based only on your dislike of Mr. Corn.
Will: There's a little something called group-think.
So "groupthink" causes you to fabricate reports that don't exist?
dmarks: The Corn piece itself is an example of "cherry picking".
But in this case "cherry picking" is pointing out facts you don't like.
dmarks: And you gave an example of this by pointing out important facts which Corn left out in order to deceive.
I left nothing out to "deceive". If so you'd have said what these "important facts" are. You're blowing hot air.
dmarks: He's giving a free pass to Saddam. Not sure why. Maybe it is because Saddam funneled a few hundred thousand dollars to a child molester WD really admires a lot.
dmarks is giving a free pass to the war criminal bush. Not sure why. Maybe it's because bush funneled a few hundred million dollars to some of the wealthy elites who ripped us off "rebuilding" Iraq after the illegal invasion? In addition to the war crimes, bush put his crony capitalism on steroids... yet I bet dmarks will deny it happened at all. Most likely because some of the wealthy elites dmarks worships benefited greatly.
As for the "child molester" who was bribed by Saddam that dmarks continually refers to... this person simply does not exist. If he did I sure as hell wouldn't "admire" him. Sounds like someone dmarks would admire, as he fully supports workers being raped by the plutocrats.
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