I do, in fact, blame the Dem leadership in some degree for caving in. I also understand it. Pounding the war drum always works. Always. If the Democrat leadership had firmly stood against the war with Iraq, they would have been clobbered far worse. But at least it would have been a fight worth having.
Anth, aren’t you the least bit suspicious? Even the tiniest bit? After 11 years of Saddam bin Laden sitting on his hands while being slapped around by the US, suddenly just before the election he becomes an unbearable threat? A terrifying threat that he wasn’t two years ago? One year ago?
You do recall hearing that line about “bringing out a new product line in August”, don’t you? You do remember Mr. Rove’s exhortation to push the war at every opportunity? And what became of “Priority Number One”, Osama…Osama Ben…oh, whats his face, you know the guy, that Bush was relentlessly committed to getting, nothing else was gonna get in the way?
How does this square with your demand for “intellectual honesty”?
Yeah, a lot of folks are like psycho-fans for some sports team. Kinda reminds me of when I used to go to baseball games; every time a call went against my team we’d chant “Bullshit bullshit.” Of course our team could do absolutely no wrong at all.
(And to be fair, some Republicans have this attitude too.)
Sorry to keep butting in, but let’s face reality: Every leader is always looking for a nice little war to get involved in. Keep in mind that all these presidents are fairly corrupt and Machiavellian. (well, maybe not Jimmy Carter.)
Anyway, I hope that you’re just as suspicious of Bill Clinton’s little adventures.
For what it’s worth, I think that military action against Iraq is probably a good idea at this point.
But one other tiny little thing… the Dems would never have come up with this bullshit on their own. They were just doing their usual nauseating little submissive crap.
The point where Koko has been pounding on it for so long you are tired of hearing about it, so what the fuck let’s go to war?
What has changed, luc? Can you define that clearly for me, because I ain’t seen it yet. “This point” is no different that “that point” 2 years ago. Or 4. Or 8.
Wait… Except for one thing. A couple of planes slammed into the World Trade Center (and the Pentagon, everyone always forgets the Pentagon) and 3000 people died. That’s the difference between “this point” and “that point”.
Too bad it had less than nothing to do with Iraq or Iraq’s leadership.
But hey, so what? He’s a bad guy, we’ll just work out our angst on him. (and get our hands on the second biggest oil reserves on earth in the bargain. You know, this idea’s looking better all the time!)
It’s interesting that you kinda ignored the main point I made on focused on a “by the way” statement. But yeah, it probably would have been a good idea to take action against Iraq 8 years ago, 4 years ago, whenever.
And the trade center attacks are not insigificant. They made Americans painfully aware of our vulnerability to terrorism.
Let’s face reality: If Iraq’s leadership could launch a successful terrorist attack against the United States, there’s a decent chance they would, sooner or later.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that Bush doesn’t have ulterior motives in pushing for war against Iraq.
Anyway, I hope that you are just as suspicioius of Clinton’s little adventures.
The biggest difference between now and 2 years ago is that Two years ago is in the past. We can’t go back in time and disarm Iraq in 2000. We can disarm them them now.
I agree with you that 9/11 is probably unconnected with Iraq. However, 9/11 was a horrible reminder that unthinkable things could happen, and that the risk of inaction may be greater than the risk of action.
Seems to me, most every time I hear the experssion “let’s face reality” it means “let’s you agree with me”. This would appear to be no exception.
By what source of divination do you peer into Saddam’s mind? Scrying by entrails? Miss Cleo? Let’s face reality, you don’t know what he’s going to do any more than I do. I’ve got a neighbor, kind of suspicious looking, could be harboring all manner of dark and evil thoughts. Got bumper stickers on his car that express completely wrong headed opinions. Maybe I ought to shoot him before he does something to me. Well, no, he hasn’t done anything to me. But he might.
Well, it means that in my humble opinion, there’s really no room for reasonable people to disagree.
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I’m making reasonable guesses about what Iraq’s leadership might do by looking at what Iraq has done in the past under the same leadership.
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I don’t know for sure, which is why I said “decent chance” in my last post.
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To complete the analogy, lets suppose your neighbor has raped the woman living across the street; murdered the guy living next to him on the other side; and burned down the house behind him.
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Nope, but so what? If Iraq were an individual living openly in the United States, treating his neighbors (and family) the way Iraq has treated its neighbors (and residents), there’d be no need for any individual to pre-emptively shoot him. The authorities would have long since imprisoned and possibly executed him, as they should.
Actually, I think that’s not such a great analogy.
Better to say he’s the guy next door who beats on his wife and kids, kicked the neigbors dog, got smacked down by the police and has confined himself to beating up on his wife and kids ever since, as cowards are wont to do.
It is not at all reasonable to assume he’ll come after us. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Has he ever come after us before? No. He went after Kuwait, we smacked him down, he’s had his tail between his legs ever since.
Besides, no one has yet told me…WHY? WHY? What would be his goal? Getting our attention so we can hand his ass to him on a plate? And he would want this why? He’s got his life right where he likes it. Plenty of money, comfort, and power, and an endless supply of people to abuse and mistreat right in his own backyard. There is NO gain for him in coming after us on ANY level, and the charge that he is going to is…pardon me I need to yell right now nothing personal…
FULL OF SHIT
Ahem. Sorry. Just had a moment.
Now, where was I?
Oh yes… so, am I to understand that the American Way is now to crush under our bootheel anyone who doesn’t like us much who might possibly, could maybe, it’s not entirely unlikely try to hurt us in some manner sometime at some point in the future?
Okay, Luc… I’ll bite. Tell us your issues with Bill and what you call his “little adventures”
And to answer your question: no, I don’t think Israel has a damn thing to worry about from Iraq. Again…why? He lobbed missiles at them while we were bombing him… he aint’ done squat since, and Iraq has no real beef with Israel. Especially since she could kick his ass aorunf the block.
And you didn’t answer my question, “decent chance” why? Evidence, man, evidence. Not suspicion, show me something that tells you he is going to come after the US. Having weapons is evidence of nothing. Where he uses them tells us everything, and so far, he’s pretty much used them on his own people. And while that is evil and horrible, if we are going to make it our mission to go after every evil dictator who hurts his own people, we better put a hustle on it because we have our work cut out for us.
Let’s say you have a neighbor who’s really nuts. He’s violent. He beats his childen and wife. Then one day, he starts building a big mother of a flamethrower in his backyard. When its done, suddenly he declares war on his other neighbor, and burns his house down with his flamethrower. The other neighbor fights back, and pushes the guy back into his yard, and destroys his flamethrower.
Undaunted, the neighbor builds another flamethrower. When its done, he attacks another one of his neighbors, and burns down his house. This time, the whole neighborhood gets together, pushes him back into his yard, and forces him to dismantle his flamethrower. Not only that, but they post lookouts to make sure he won’t build another one.
But the guy goes down into his basement, and you hear construction sounds. Occasionally, a delivery man appears with some boxes that say, “Flamethrower parts” on the side.
In the meantime, this neighbor starts acting belligerant towards you. He routinely walks up to the fence line separating the two of you, and glares at you while stroking a pistol. He pays people who try to kill your friends. He’s radicalizing the neighborhood, and stirring up trouble all over the place. And he’s still building something in his basement, and you can’t see what it is. But there’s a lot of evidence that it’s another damned flamethrower. So, you go to the neighborhood and say, “Hey, we’ve got to force this guy to let us see what he’s building in that basement, or else we’re going to have to force him out of the neighborhood.”
That’s a more accurate assessment of the problem, if you want to continue the ‘neighbor’ analogy.