OMG...The WMD were looted!

Great Debates
41

Since I don’t know where this “elsewhere” is, I hope you can clarify something for me:

Are you saying that since we haven’t found any WMDs in Iraq, that we should just shrug and move on? I’d think you’d be incredibly concerned, because if you believe that tons of them were there, as the government claimed, and they’re not there now, as is increasingly likely as time goes on without a trace of them, then they’re in the hands of terrorists right now, waiting for a chance to use them against U.S. interests. I would think that you’d care a LOT.

42

I like the updates as well. Cant be too difficult to pass over them if uninterested I would think.

43

Airman Doors
I suppose I can sympathize. What it sounds like to me is that by and large, you find the debate topics interesting but find Reeder’s OPs irritating. Correct me if I’m wrong, I don’t mean to assume.

At some level, all of these topics are worthy of GD and/or Pit threads. Bush misleads about WMD, the Niger documents were middle-school forgeries, the touted drones were actually one R/C plane with the wings duct-taped on, Bush calls critics “revisionist historians” yadayadayada. Each of them can inspire large, multipage debates, and they should. But it seems that a new one happens every single freakin’ day with this administration. Every time Bush opens his mouth, he provides ample reason for debate and flaming. Perhaps this is why the OPs and the threads are so disappointing: it seems like there is a tidal wave of things to complain about.

44

I enjoy the updates, with all the different excuses coming from the White House i miss a few until i see them here

45

Speaking of “revisionist history”. Sure, the Bush Administration had their “reason of the week” regarding Iraq. But the fact is that the underlying reason and the one that was used as a “legal” justification in the international law sense was the WMD issue. In the end, Bush consistently went back on the argument that the U.S. had the legal right to defend itself against the “threat” posed to it by the Iraqi regime and/or that it had the right to enforce U.N. resolutions regarding the disarmament of Iraq (whether or not the U.N. thought it had that right).

46

Brutus, YOU may not care that the President lied, and put American and British lives in harm’s way on the basis of that lie, but I sure as hell do.

Did he HONESTLY not know this? I mean, what did the Bush administration expect they would do, if they didn’t find WMD? How can they expect to just weasel out of it?

I don’t appreciate being lied to on something so serious-especially when people are put in jeopardy. If he wanted to oust Saddam Hussein on the basis of human rights, then he should have said so. He didn’t-he said the main reason was Weapons of Mass DestructionTM.

And he was wrong. He’s made us the joke of the international community, seriously undermining our integrity.

It’s not about hating America, or Bush, or being unpatriotic. It’s because I love my country that I hate it when shit like this happens.

47

I like these updates. Leave if you don’t. Keep postin’ em baby!

48

I wish Airman Doors and Brutus were right that no more threads on what Bush said were needed: I’d love to ignore whatever the guy has to say in his speeches. But unfortunately it’s the same guy that invades other countries when he’s done talking, so ignoring him, because there are too many threads about him already, seems like a bad idea, really :stuck_out_tongue:

49

Now there’s your WMD.

50

Exactly - this is why many of us feared jumping the gun on this issue. Saddam could either be contained (and was cooperating with unrestricted access to the UN inspectors), or we could invade, possibly dispersing the WMD to who know’s where. I believe the CIA even issued a report claiming that this was a good possibility.

Which is more deadly to the world? A limited, if any, supply of WMD in the hands of a contained dictator who has bad blood with the al-Queda network and is unlikely to share them (again, the CIA’s own assessment), or the WMD floating around the Middle East in the aftermath of a poorly planned invasion?

A few weeks ago, Rumsfeld was asked about the possibly of the latter. He replied that it would be an “unfortunate” situation. Screw him - the Bush administration caused it by ignoring their own damn intelligence agencies

Anyone who think that the Bush administration has made the world a safer place is a moron.

51

Don’t mind Airman Doors. He is blowing off a little steam in response to the way that the Bush administration has betrayed him and some of his military colleagues and made them look like chumps.

Anyone remember this thread?

and

and

and

When you’ve spent so much energy standing up for the integrity of US intelligence, it must be a little depressing to find that what you were being told might have been half-truths or lies all along.

52

Zap, mhendo!

53

To be honest, if I were Airman Doors, by now I’d be totally steamed that the Commander-in-Chief endangered my life over a lie.

54

At least Airman Doors is around.

Funny, you don’t see much of Bluesman anymore. Or maybe he’s just avoiding the relevant threads. I sure as hell would.

55

Bingo. Earlier in this thread I stated inequivocally that I hated being lied to.

By George, I think you’re on to something.

Incidentally, I am legally not allowed to say what I REALLY think, since that would violate the UCMJ. But even so, these constant updates are kinda silly.

56

While I am sorry to continue this hijack, I do feel the need to jump in here. First, I do 100% get why you feel this way, but must respectfully disagree. While it is true that we could just have on 15-page long “Bush lies” sticky thread, the fact is that very few people would take the time to read it.

Simply put, this is a big deal and I think that every nuance of it deserves to be explored. I want this issue up in everyone’s face. I want it to be impossible to enter a single forum here without seeing at least one thread that is asking just where the actual stockpiles of WMD that we were told were a threat to the USA and her allies is.

And I know that this is probably pissing off some of the more moderate folks that supported this war, and I know that a lot of the folks that are starting these threads are some of my (as a Liberal leaning guy) more shrill compatriots. For that I am sorry.

To put this in some perspective, I guess that you may want to look at this as the shoe being on the other foot. We lived through the merciless BS surrounding Clinton’s blowjob etc. as well as some pretty triumphant and repugnant pro-war threads (to say nothing of the “Shut up you sore looser threads” when Bush 2.0 assumed the Presidency). So, to some degree, it is just your turn (meaning the generalized you, as in my esteemed Dopers who are of the more Conservative persuasion).

All of that said, I will say this: Now would be a good time for those of us that were against this war all along and who may be starting to feel a little smug to step back and have a little perspective. Assuming that we are right (and I am willing to wait a bit more before I state that as a fact) and that there never were WMD, I would ask that we remember that the folks with whom we debate are our fellow citizens and (much more importantly) fellow Dopers. We are all divided enough, so please show some tack and decorum.

57

What just about everone is missing is far more important than the lies.

The lies are there to justify a war, bad enough, but actually it is so much worse than that.

Lies are just an attempt to conceal a truth, and the truth is that Bush has embarked on a certain type of foreign policy which the US has actively opposed and denounced when practiced by other nations.

It my not suit the old labels of imperialism, or colonialism and perhaps we need a new name, this policy is not far differant though.

The US has taken control of Iraqi oil resources ‘for the people of Iraq’, I’m sure that the disgraceful British invasion of the Orange Free State in South Africa was to ‘secure mineral wealth for the people of Africa’ but in the end it was just naked greed.

The US now has a moreorless overt policy of ignoring international policymaking bodies, and going against the recommendations of the UN in order to pursue its own interests, and in the way the US has carved up the rebuilding contracts cake this is an exclusive policy.

Yes it is good to see the end of the Iraqi regime, but I personally think the US voter, and perhaps the rest of the world should have been far better informed of US foreign policy objectives, rather than have them covered up by systematic lying.

Bush at the moment shoud be seen as a shadow over any third world nation that has anything that the US desires.
The US is now trying to extend its power by using threats, by hinting that other errant nations need to be dealt with, the US is attempting not to be above international law, but in fact to become international law.

This could be a long long road, lots will die, lots have already died, is this the trip the US voters so unanimously endorsed in those infamous elections.

58

Nations as powerful as America make international law; following it is a distant second. Some day, America will no longer be the world’s preeminent power. That day, we will dutifully follow international law. Until then, we will dutifully do whatever is in the best interests of America.

If Bush had to say ‘WMD WMD WMD WMD WMD WMD WMD’ to get what he felt was in the best interests of America, huzzah! for him. Hey, for such a stupid guy, he sure does seem to get what he wants. The Presidency, tax cuts (twice!), Iraq…

But to go into broken-record mode: I don’t care about WMD from Iraq. There were plenty of other great reasons to attack Iraq; If GW said that he wanted to take Iraq so that he may use Saddam’s Transmogrifier, I would say ,“GW is a goofy SOB, but at least the end-result will be good.” Ends justifying means, and all that.

59

Here’s the next snippet on the broken record;

WoMD were the reason we were given as to why the war couldn’t wait- why we couldn’t wait, as many other members of the UNSC wished, for UN inspectors to finish their job.

While other reasons including the egregious horrors of the Hussein regime were mentioned, the reason that Iraq posed a serious threat to the US was the threat of the distribution of WoMD to terrorists. W/o this part the whole idea of a threat to the US falls apart. W/o a threat to the US the war on Iraq becomes an elective war to change a regime that we don’t like, ( for reason of its horrendous atrocities).

If you look at the
AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF MILITARY
FORCE AGAINST IRAQ RESOLUTION OF 2002 PUBLIC LAW 107–243—OCT. 16, 2002
it clearly states that:

These two things are what Bush was authorized to use force for. The reason that we couldn’t wait for the UN to enforce its own resolutions (2) was because of (1) the threat to the US.
How did Iraq pose a threat to the US?

Despite there being other objections to Iraq’s behaviors and other reasons for going to war with Iraq, and despite you personal willingness to send members of our armed forces into harms way,(and to die), for fictitious and ridiculous reasons,:rolleyes: (to use Hussein’s tranmogrifier), this war was sold on the threat that Hussein’s WoMd posed to the US.
Congress authorized the president to use the nation’s military to achieve two goals.
What ever various post hoc rationalizations for the invasion that are made are NOT what we went to war for.

In short the war actually and indeed was sold on Hussein’s WoMD.

I can’t believe you said it was okay with you if American soldiers get killed so Bush can indulge a delusional, psychotic fantasy of using Hussein’s transmogrifier. Do you hate America and our soldiers that much?

(Besides, everyone knows it’s Calvin’s transmogrifier.)

60

Finally we have a winner.

America thinks it is above the law, the law is what America says it is, see anything wrong with that ?

Not wishing to invoke Godwins principle, all I will say is that despots, tryrants and dictators the ages through have such justification.

The US sell itself as something differant, which it is now doing convincingly well to disprove.

My country right or wrong.

God help us all, the idiots also have more WMD Hussain could ever dream about.

England had to have centuries of unrest and turmoil, where the principles enshrined in Magna Carta (which started the idea off that the law was above even kings) and peaked at the English civil war, before it finally dawned on rulers that the law had to be independant and pre-eminent and a force to which the most mighty were subject.

They only had cannon and pikes to fight with then, the US has WMD.

Your policymakers are beyond stupid, they are proper dangerous.