Shouldn’t George W. Bush wait till after the midterm elections before seriously talking about war with Iraq? His father did just that 10 years ago. And while we’re at it, why Iraq? The Middle East is a very volatile region, with many, many dictators in it. Is Iraq really our only concern over there? And–I realize this is covered on a another thread–but what happens after Hussein? Instant democracy? Really?
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No, he didn’t. The UN said October of 1990 that military action would be legitimate if sanctions failed. By November 1, there were over 200,000 troops in the region, a little less than half the total which amassed there.
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Iraq is by far the worst of the lot. Don’t worry, they’re not last – just next.
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Dunno yet. So far, the administration hasn’t done too good a job getting the various anti-Saddam factions to talk to each other.
Well, I have to say one thing about George Bush, Sr. And I am saying this as a liberal and a Democrat, understand. George Bush, Sr. was a much better president that his son. He was intelligent, he had wisdom and judgement, and he was a man of great integrity. And when he finally had to break his word–to raise taxes–he did it for the right reasons. Really, it took strength to break his word and then be defeated to Bill Clinton parially as a result.
I like to think that George Bush, Sr. is a man I like to admire from afar.
Since we live in a democracy the people should have a say in where and when the country goes to war. By talking about the war before the election Bush makes it an issue. When the people go to the polls in November they will have their say as to their preferences on the issue. I can see no reason on why the people should no have a say on the most important issue facing America today.
Jim B I am sure he appreciates that.
Spoken as a liberal here, by the way:
You know, I kind of liked GBSr too. But the thing that scares me is this – I don’t thing GWBJr is stupid. I really don’t. I think he’s certainly aphasic, but so was his dad, and I believe aphasia is hereditary. He could definitely use a speech therapist, but apart from that…apart from that, looking at his actions and trying to understand him, I think he’s deadly cunning and clever. If he were just a dupe, he’d be pretty completely controlled by his cabinet and his advisors. His handlers would be in control. W doesn’t do the Reagan and ask his cabinet officials what the truth is during his speeches (I may be wrong about that, but I’ve never seen it happen). No, I think he probably knows just what he’s doing. Remember – he turned his father’s campaign around when he was running for Prez and helped win that first election. The thought that he might be insanely clever, though (and emphasis on the insane, IMHO) keeps me up at night.
Sometimes, though, he reminds me of the Messiah in Preacher. “I’m the President, humperdido.”
Here’s the thing. What would you be saying if Bush was postponing the vote until after the election? You’d be saying that Bush is delaying the vote to keep the issue in the public eye and distract attention from the corporate scandals.
I think it is completely appropriate to ask the current legislature to go on record either supporting or opposing the war. Put up or shut up. If you are against the war, then start opposing the war. Don’t just say that the nation needs to debate the issue. Start the debate! A debate requires two sides. If one side tries to make the case for war, and the other side sits there and demands that somebody else make the case against the war, who are you going to blame for the lack of debate?
This is not strictly true. As much as I would blame this administration for a lot of things, I do not believe the administration failed to initiate dialogue with and between the various factions. The problem lies with the fractious nature of the anti-Saddam groups, insofar as they reflect very different military, tribal, religious, and linguistic-nationalistic interests.
The Iraqi National Congress (INC) is the pro-America umbrella group that barely manages to hold together about half of the major opposition groups. Composed of Shi’ites and Sunnis, Arabs and Kurds, Arabic speakers and minority language speakers, and royalists and Ba’athists, it comes as no surprise that INC isn’t exactly a united front.
I completely agree with puddleglum. Yes, I think GWB & Co. have manipulated the timing of the war issue to serve partisan interests. But if the President is planning to do something major, he should get it into play as an issue at a time when it can be a factor in the vote. So bringing up the possibility of war with Iraq before the midterms is infinitely preferable to after.
manny, my recollection is that, regardless of what the UN said, GHWB first raised the possibility of using our troops to go on the offensive against the Iraqis in Kuwait two days after the 1990 midterm elections. (I was pretty incensed about it at the time.) Up until that point, our announced goals had strictly been containment and embargo, as suggested by the military operation’s name: Desert Shield.
Needless to say, I think the American public in 1990 deserved the chance to wrap their views on the war question into their decision on who to vote for. And even though it’s almost certainly going to work against the party I usually side with, I think it’s just as essential now.
November 8 was when he announced he was doubling the troop commitment. I’m not going to go searching for cites, but like I said, there were a quarter million troops in the theater on election day, there was a UN permission, and diplomats were working hard on appeasing Russia and convincing Israel to shut up and take it (whatever it turned out to be). Anyone who walked into the polls doubting a war was coming was either not paying attention or (more likely) still had hopes the sanctions would work. That we were going to war if the sanctions didn’t work was pretty obvious.
I do agree with the bigger point, though, which is that it is preferable to have a war discussion before an election than after it. Unfortunately, enemies are rarely so cooperative.
Yeah, I said that poorly. They’ve done an OK job getting them to talk to each other, but so far haven’t got them to come together. As you correctly point out, that’s not exactly an easy job.
Also, I don’t think they’ve done a particularly good job yet of assessing the strengths (potential military and otherwise) of the various factions. Knowing the administration’s penchant for secrecy, however, they may have done a fantastic job at this and just aren’t telling anyone yet.
I’d like to see a little more about Iraq’s future before the bombing starts. But in fairness to Bush, he’s gotta get everyone on the same page about the war first. And there’s some time in here – January is about the earliest we can reasonably expect to get under way.
Didn’t GBSr lose the next election after launching a war post-midterm? Perhaps GWB’s trying to get the war in before the midterms to see if that works.
The number of troops wasn’t widely publicized at the time, if it was publicly known at all. The Defense Department had spent the preceding months doing their best to make sure Saddam Hussein didn’t have a clear idea of just how many troops he was looking at, which necessarily involved withholding that sort of information from the American public.
And the troops were officially (and logically) justified by the need to protect the Saudi oilfields from Saddam (an explanation that made sense then and makes sense today), and enforce the UN embargo.
Aside from Grenada, which doesn’t exactly count, we hadn’t sent our troops into combat against another country since Vietnam, and my recollection of the time is that hardly anybody was expecting it then, even if they were reading the paper every day.
We were certainly threatening war if the sanctions didn’t work - but the timeframe for economic sanctions to ‘work’ is that of years, not months. Bush’s post-midterm decision was to just go to war, and not wait for sanctions to work or fail.
If our approach is going to be one of pre-emption, then it will be the norm, as with Iraq this time, for wars to be fought on our timetable. Which is why the timetable is a legitimate issue in this case.
Some of the intelligence is already pretty well-known. Both the northern and the southern Kurdish regions field about 100,000 fighters total, trained in mountain guerilla warfare. They have been very public about opening the floodgates as soon as the US attacks. They plan to acquire as much territory as possible in order to shore up their boundary bargaining position.
This creates complications of several orders of magnitude. I cannot evaluate whether or not they can actually do this, but I have every reason to take them at their word.
A lot of these other anti-Saddam groups are largely based and funded overseas, so their military usefulness in Iraq is dubious.