What ftg (et al) said.
I personally oppose any form of violence.
So Saddam was captured. BFD. The fact that this has happened will not have any real impact on most Americans. Some people will make some money on the upswing of the market. Other than that, what? My day to day existence will not change one iota. Will yours?
I’m not a liberal but I play one better than I play conservative on this kind of issue.
If I may borrow from a post I already created:
I don’t think there’s any possibility of making that one come out a net positive. Even if we rebuild the place and make it a bastion of freedom and equality and economic might and remove every faction that is geared towards terrorist activities and get a formal accord signed between Iraq and Israel, Iraq and Kuwait, and Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and cause Iraq to be ranked high by Amnesty International and other such groups for its excellent treatment of its citizens and its adherence to the most civilized of due process procedures in its police and criminal justice activities, we’ve still thrown down a gauntlet to the whole fucking world that says if we, the United States, think your government sucks and is up to bad shit it shouldn’t oughta be, we will invade your country and depose your villainous leader and rebuild the place to our satisfaction.
And that puts us in the Darth Vader column no matter what else we accomplish over there.
Steve Chapman has (IMO) a good op ed in this a.m.'s Chicago Trib. Some lines that I think fit this thread pretty well:
“It’s easy to forget that we had Hussein pretty well confined before he ducked into a hole in the ground last weekend, trying to evade the American net. In the years leading up to Gulf War II, he hadn’t invaded anyone, hadn’t threatened to invade anyone, hadn’t carried out attacks on American targets, and hadn’t acquired the means to do so.
…
If we could have eliminated him without going to war, it would have been worth doing. In reality, getting rid of him required us to bog ourselves down in a costly and bloody occupation of a country we can’t begin to understand. How on earth is it better for the American people than the low-cost, low-risk containment we had successfully practiced for 12 years?”
Just after 9/11 the US had the best international standing since Pearl Harbor. Less than two years later only one government stood with us, and that was over the strenuous objections of the people of that country.
Losing that good will so completely, and in such a short time has got to stand in the annals of international relations as the single biggest bone-headed screwup of all time. I cannot imaging anyone, even someone who was deliberately trying to scew up, doing a worse job of managing US foreign policy in the last 3 years.
It is mind boggling to me that conservatives are not crying for Bush’s head in the streets. No liberal president could so completely ignore so many basic conservative principles in such a short time. He starts a provocitive foreign war, something that no conservative has ever even endorsed before. He raises the deficit to pay for his foreign adventures, another thing that no true conservative would ever condone. On top of all that he cuts taxes while increasing spending, another thing that no true conservative would allow.
If I were a conservative who contributed to GWB’s campaign I would be asking for my money back.
I dunno, Reagan did it in the '80s without much grief from the GOP, IIRC.
But then, they could blame the Democrats, who controlled the House. (The GOP controlled the Senate for a short while, but overall the GOP and conservative southern Dems. pushed thru everything Ronnie’s handlers asked for.) This time, they don’t have that illogical excuse.
It really does seem that true conservatives are starting to realize that the Bush-Reagan folk have taken over the Republican party and gone off in an entirely weird direction. Remember, Goldwater-types hated the Reagan-types years ago. These aren’t conservatives running the country.
I keep seeing “spend and borrow Republicans” more and more.
Back to the OP:
More strange stuff seen in the media.
I still see French/German bashing based on how they sold materials for WMD to Iraq in recent years. Wake up! You can’t bash countries for alledgedly selling stuff to build things that don’t exist! There was no WMD program to sell to.
It keeps those Germans away from the Mesopotamian oil fields and pumps that oil into His Majesty’s army. Hear, hear.
Oh. 21st century American liberal. Not 20th century British Liberal. Sorry.
You liberals are terrible terrible people…Marcus
The Bush Administration has utterly failed to convince me that Iraq posed a threat to the U.S. All the pretty speeches in the world wouldn’t, and didn’t, convince me because the Bush Administration proved itself to be a farce long before last March. The runaround it’s fed it citizens since last March just clinches that opinion. Bush et al’s claims to have had proof have no meaning. Let’s see this proof.
What? There is none? They were lying? No! The deuce you say!
My objections to the war:
1- The international consensus was not there. George HW Bush did a masterful job in building consensus and legitimizing the first Gulf War, too bad his son didn’t learn frm this. Had he given the inspectors a chance and had something been found to justify the use of force, nobody would have had a problem with an invasion.
2- Saddam was a despot and will not be missed by anyone. However, there are many other terrible governments that have terrorized their own people. Cuba, China, and North Korea come to mind. It seems odd that of the four I mention, the one least able to threaten the US is the one that is attacked.
3- It appears GWB would have been well served to have some more critical thought and devil’s advocates in his inner circle. The notion that once the war was over, that the people would be throwing flowers at the troops and spontaneously set up a Jeffersonian democracy was ridiculously optimistic.
4- Before getting in, you have to know what the way out is. The biggest mistake made was thinking that the situation was understood. Anytime westerners think they understand how the Islamic world works, they’re asking for trouble. The dream of a unified Iraqi democracy may be unattainable, a better solution might be three new nations- Sunni Iraq, Shiite Iraq, and Kurdish Iraq.
5- Of course, the main justification for the war, the WMD, has proven to be a figment of faulty intelligence. Giving inspectors time to do their jobs could have precluded all this continuing bloodshed.
6- Bush has exploited this war for political gain. Polls show that a majority of Americans believe there was an Iraq-9/11 connection even though there is no evidence of such. Bush does not dispel this notion because it benefits him politically.
7- The profiteering by Haliburton is shameful, particularly in view that this was Cheney’s company.
8- The lack of diplomatic skill and disregard for our international friends is disturbing. Our Canadian neighbors have historically been close allies, they have deployed troops in Afghanistan and some were killed by US friendly fire. This apparently counts for nothing to this administration. Bush is punishing other countries because of his incompetence in building international consensus. Ugly Americanism is alive and well.
Some new evidence of this may have been suggested this morning with the release of details regarding an attack on a convoy carrying Paul Bremer on Dec. 6. This incident happened the same day Sec. Rumsfeld was touring Iraq, and according to the radio report I heard the attack (which resulted in no deaths) was soft-pedaled, not just to the press, but also internally among the administration, so as not to undercut the optimistic security reports Rumsfeld was soliciting. Compare that with the experience of Gen. Eric Shinseki, who was forced to resign as Army chief of staff when he contradicted Rumsfeld’s assessment of troop requirements, and Army secretary Thomas E. White, fired by Rumsfeld for defending Shinseki. I’m looking for a linkable print report to corroborate the radio analysis, but if it’s accurate, then there’s no wonder the effort is going so badly, given how administration officials are actively blocking any internal criticisms that contradict their rose-colored fantasy.