I heard on the ride in that 16 government intelligence services agree that the war in Iraq has increased terrorism. We are creating another generation of terrorists by occupying Iraq. I remember this idea being pooh-poohed when it was floated around a few years back as being a silly unsubstantiated theory (kinda like the Bush doctrine). Doesn’t this mean that we at least have to discuss withdrawal from Iraq instead of taking the we’ll leave when we feel like it approach (I know its not quite that simple but without any clear objectives for when we start pulling out, aren’t we basically saying we’ll leave when we feel like it?)?
Yeah. The local paper today had a story compiled from multiple sources (apparently the usual suspects: NY Times, Wash. Post) saying that “the concensus opinion of the enire federal intelligence network” in an April report (where has that been hiding??) is that the war in Iraq has made America less safe.
Interestingly, the paper also carried an AP story that begins:
:rolleyes: I certainly feel secure. . . .
While bugging out of Iraq would certainly help, the problem is deeper than that.
How would we know? What information can we glean that is not encrusted with somebody’s agenda? If the truth is favorable to the Bushiviks, we can be assured that they will rush to provide it. If it be otherwise, we will need to pry it from thier grasp.
If we take a rough cut on it, and make the assumption that increasing the number of our enemies increases the prospect of terror…well, that’s pretty much a “slam dunk”.
This is what Ted Kennedy argued would happen, was it not? Ah, but he’s just an ultra-liberal woman-killer, no reason to listen to him.
Why does it take intelligence agencies to figure this one out? If an invading force took over the US, and your children are blown into bloody chunks of hamburger, would you be more likely or less likely to become a terrorist against the country that invaded? Would assurances that your children were not specifically targeted, but simply had the bad luck to playing outside the restaurant the real target was eating at make a difference?
Well, you know that and I know that, but many of our Republican friends don’t seem to know that. It’s fine for us to guess this, but it is nice to have confirmation.
I heard the White House response on the radio: if you read the whole document, there is a different conclusion. Odd that none of the sources in the Times, who either read or participated in preparing the study, thought that.
Let’s think about this: who would “pooh-pooh” this idea? Probably the same people who thought invading Iraq was a good idea and that the administration’s plan would work. Doesn’t that tell you something right there?
The problem is that withdrawing from Iraq wouldn’t immediately fix this. The report just seems to acknowledge that the war itself has increased the threat.
Remember the First Rule of Holes : When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging ! Leaving won’t fix the problems we’ve made, but it’ll eliminate one way we are making them worse.
But couldn’t leaving also make it worse? If Iraq becomes a full-blown failed state, I can easily imagine us being blamed for that, too - and worse, a failed state would also benefit international terrorists.
Not at all. A dictator or religious fanatic might not give a damn about his people, but threaten his power and things change. First off Iraq had WMD’s. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, Saddam Hussein used poisons gas and killed tens of thousand of Kurds, and used Chemical weapons on Iran. So we know he had WMD’s. Iraq is one giant sand box the size of Texas. The weapons could be buried in non-detectable canisters, at the bottom of the Persian gulf, or in another country. And don’t; give me any crap we can’t find them. The Titanic was the size of a football field, and it took 50 years to locate it…
Getting back to my point, since the war, Libya has said they are out of the terrorist and arms business. Saudi Arabia is fighting Al Quedia from within. Pakistan is helping us round up radicals. Even Syria has toned their act down a bit. Many terrorists have been killed or detained. In addition their infrastructure, financial backings and communication liens had taken a severe blow.
Have insurgents increased? Perhaps, but I rather them fight see them fight the USA army then prey upon innocent citizens of the world. If we aren’t there, the same mad men will focus their efforts else where.
The true value of the Iraq war is on the back end. Millions will experience democracy. And with democracy comes truth, not hate instructed ignorance.
In addition the government of Iraq will look favorably upon us for oil contracts. If we cut and run, Russia, China or another country will fill in.
You spilled some Kool-Aid on your shirt, dude.
Your post is nothing but suppositions. There are WMD’s they’re just hiding. The war will create democracy in it’s wake. If they weren’t fighting us there, they’d be blowing up schools in Omaha. Do you have any evidence to support your assertions? Any at all?
Drink up dude. Hussein HAD WMD’s and Used them. This is fact. Finding buried items in a large area is very difficult thing do. Be logical here. Every nation in the world had the same intelligence. Iraq had WMD’s.
Saddam also sponsored terrorism by giving the families of suicide bombers $25,000.00
The man also killed thousands. Do not defend Hussien and do not suggest that he did not have WMD’s because we know he used them.
Yes, he had them. 15 years before we invaded. There is zero evidence that he had any WMD’s at the time of the invasion. The administration has acknowledged this repeatedly.
Your assertion that they exist and are buried has no more validity than if you were claiming unicorns exist in Atlantis. None whatsoever.
So now that we are where we are and if we come to the conclusion that being in Iraq is about as beneficial to the war on terror as private accounts are to the solvency of social security (the parallels there are to big to be ignored), then what do we do.
Is anyone REALLY supporting just cutting and running, just picking up stakes and getting out of there starting tomorrow as the only alternative to staying there indefinitely?
But we aren’t even seriously thikinng about how to get out of there, we seem to be focused on how to make our presence there look good to the rest of the world. I keep hearing that leaving Iraq is a defeatist attitude, that anyone that wants to leave Iraq is a coward who only encouraged and emboldens the terrorsits to commit more terror because we will be capitulating to their terrorist tactics (they usually manage to squeeze in a few more references to terrorism, cowardice and usually something that creates the image of little Johnny getting blown up at soccer practice in the middle of bumblefuck nowhere, despite the fact that little Johnny is more likly to get killed during the 15 minute carride to soccer practice than to terrorism during the 3 hour soccer game).
I am not at all convinced that having soldiers there is going to do anything other than delay the inevitable.
Of course he had WMDs at one point, heck, we probably sold them to him. And of course we all suspected he had WMDs even though we couldn’t find any because he was playing cat and mouse with the WMD inspectors and trying to be cute about letting them into facitlities and then telling them no. The fact of the matter is that almost all of the evidence we have today proves that he didn’t have WMDs.
Check your facts on Libya, Qaddafi pledged to fight Al Queda and open his weapons programs to international inspection during the Clinton Administration. No doubt the invasion of Iraq had some effect on his decision in 2003 to dismantle his WMD development programs but he was well on the way to doing that already and do you really think that invading Afghnistan was not enough of a show of force to bring some people in line or does the show of force have to be more meaningless to really scare people?
The change in attitude from those countries came after 9/11 and perhaps as a result of invading Afghanistan. That was when Saudi Arabia condemned Al Queda, that was when Syria started sending us get well cards, that was when Pakistan helped us track down terrorists. We are talking about IRAQ (AKA the biggest fuck up of the century and we were only three years in) not 9/11, not Afghanistan, not the war against terror generally, we are talking about Iraq.
We probably got some good done in Iraq but it has cost us over 300 billion dollars, over 100,000 Iraqi civilians and almost 3000 american soldiers and a country that is on the brink of the bloody civil war a la Rwanda and Kosovo. For 300 billion dollars you can vaccinate the entire unvaccinated world, provide sex and pre-natal education to the entire third world, provide up to 6th grade educations to all children who would not otherwise receive this information for the next 25 years, and provide food to the entire worlds starving population for the next 25 years but at least we got Saddam Hussein out of power.
The same mad men? When you talk about fighting terrorists in Iraq I assume you mean the people who are crossing borders to fight in Iraq right? I mean, very few if any of the homegrown terrorists were terrorists until we got there and scrood up their country right? The estimates I have seen number these terrorists in Iraq at a few hundred and most of them would never have had the means to come to America.
This is all conjecture and theory. Not exactly what you want to bet the national farm on.
Dude at this point Iraqis will hate us for at least a generation, maybe not North Korea levels of hatred but it will still be hate.
Besides the already made point that he did not have them at the time of the invasion, when he did have them he was not under any sanctions. Remember, we backed him in the war with Iran. Remember that his good buddy Rumsfeld came a calling.
Under that rule, anyone raising money for the children of a mass murderer killed by the cops is supporting mass murder. :rolleyes: Besides, Saddam was not the only person doing this. Any cites he was really supporting terrorism?
And a hundred Iraqis, mostly innocents, are dying every day thanks to this stupid invasion. Good job on our part.
You need to stop watching Fox News and tune into reality some day.
What makes you think it won’t if we stay ? I see no evidence we are doing anything but making things worse. There might have been a time when we could have helped, but we’ve blown all our moral and political capital and more. All we can do at this point is serve as an irritant; a rallying point for the fanatics, and a justification for violence against anyone who supports peace or what little government there is.
More than have been created ? More than who were innocent before we grabbed them ? How many now agree with Waleed Abdul Karim, “I will hate Americans for the rest of my life”, after we grabbed him and abused him ?
We’ve done our best to convince people who’ve never had it that “democracy” = "bloody anarchy ". We couldn’t have created a better propaganda victory for anti-democratic forces if we tried.
Besides the actual increase of terrorism threat, their is the decrease in willingness to help us. Bombers and armored divisions won’t help us, we need eyes and ears in the slums of Hamburg and the marketplace in Cairo. We offer multi-million dollar bounties on these people, and no one rats them out. That should tell us something, something we should have been listening for.
The dramatic increase, the obvious one, is the number of people who flat out hate us and ache to do us harm. Possibly worse, certainly as bad, is the indifference of ordinary people. The same people, you may recall in the dim recesses of your memory, that were briefly sympathetic to our cause. Hell, there were candlight vigils held by people who don’t even like us very much! The whole fuckin’ world was on our side, and The Leader pisses it all away playing tough guy.
It burns! The stupidity! It burns…
If there’s still a chance of Iraq having had WMDs at the time of invasion, why has Bush himself stated that there were not?
Here’s the speech (or maybe just one of them) where he admits there were no WMDs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDKepme2-2k
What possible gain would Bush have making such an admission if it were not true?
I’ve brought this up to at least two other people who think it’s still possible there were WMDs at the time of invasion. Please, be the first who doesn’t ignore the question and actually tell us why Bush would say such a thing if it weren’t true.
When he tells the truth, his nose grows?
Not a chance; he’d have a concave face and an inside out nose on the back of his head.