If you’ll check the vote records for the 1998 Iraqi Liberation Act, I suspect that you’ll find a number of GOP names. The Act passed both houses of Congress after all.
IMHO, the thrusts of their wet dreams are somewhat obscured by levels of deliberate and accidental obfuscation. YMMV
IIRC, a number of these fellows have been in and around the WH and Capitol Hill since the seventies. Rumsfeld, Cheney, Perle, Wolfowitz, John Dean said that there was even a comparatively unimportant and subsequently aborted investigation of Rove during the Watergate era.
I’d say that there’d never been such a convergence of goals until GWB took over the party.
I will repeat. I ask you for a definition of the “Iraq problem” and you answered that “We were patrolling Iraq for 11 years”.
My response was: “The things you listed are, in my opinion, annoyances and do not even come close to a such a ‘problem’ as to pose so imminent a threat to the US as to justify a preemptive war.” I also added, as a “by the way,” an opinion as to the legitimacy of your tender concern for the Iraqi populace.
You chose to respond to the “by the way” and never addresses whether or not our having patrolled Iraq for 11 years was a serious, straight up-and-down, honest-to-God reason to go to war. Was it? Was that the entire Iraqi “problem” that threatened the very existence of the United States of America?
A little less vindictive and a little more honest debate, if you please. There is no peanut gallery to play to here. We have seven months to go on this thing – and then, no matter how it turns out, four years of bitching and moaning before we get to do it all again. To have fallen into mockery this early in the process does not bode well for the next half year.
This thing started out as a hymn of praise for the whole invade and occupy program on the view that the people of Iraq could hardly restrain their enthusiasm for the removal of Sadam and his crew of thugs and their replacement by “collation” bayonets followed by a train of émigrés. Now we have armed mobs in the street, the beginnings of civil war and the specter of US troops and Marines surrounding and sweeping Iraqi cities. This is not a happy situation, but, I am required to say, hardly one that was not foreseeable when we started this thing.
We have all sorts of talk about the virtue of bringing democracy to the Middle East as the leading justification for the invasion and occupation. Apparently the people in charge no longer want to point at Iraq’s stockpiles of chemical and biological agents and impending nuclear capability, the danger that those weapons might be turned over to Jahadists as the cause and objective of the war. It was all to bring democracy to the Fertile Crescent, just like Cortez was looking to baptize Montezuma and bring his people the benefits of resurgent Roman Catholic Christianity. Montezuma, you will remember from your 8th grade history was baptized before he was strangled so that he could go to his maker absolved of his sins.
Others tell us that it wasn’t democracy at all. The invasion and occupation was because the US was going to lose its bases in Saudi Arabia and needed a new place in the region to use as military bases. Well fine. Bases to what purpose? A US presence in the area to what purpose? Bases to encourage the growth of democratic institutions perhaps? You don’t just have military bases in foreign countries just for the entertainment value they might provide, and the opportunity for foreign travel. Those bases must have a strategic purpose. What do you suppose might be the strategic purpose of bases in Iraq? Surely it’s not to keep the Soviets in line. What, Oh what, could it be?
Damn, I was right the last time I encountered you: there’s no point in carrying on a conversation with you.
You realize that’s totally meaningless, don’t you? If this is the beginning of Iraq’s descent into civil war, neither of us will share meaningfully in its trials and tribulations, unless you happen to live there, which I doubt.
“No plans. I just will. You too.” Ex cathedra from your bellybutton. No explanation, no substantiantion, no content. Just a vacuous statement, pretending to be, like, heavy, man. Wow.
Maybe after a few long hits of some really good weed, it will seem profound.
Of course the world is sordid. In some ways, it always has been.
Whose “fault” it is that “different despots,” (a subset of the “all sorts of power-hungry scumbags” you mentioned previously, yes?), “were there” is not essential to my poorly written point.
The lack of peaceful democratic avenues to effectively address and redress grievances is cited by some as a factor that aids the recruitment efforts of terrorist groups. This is especialy cited by some who see democractic reform of Iraq in particular, (and subsequently? the ME in general), as essential to the war on terrorism as a means of robbing terrorism of it’s appeal and thus new recruits.
[sidenote hijack]
Interestingly enough Islam Karimov’s has a pointedly complementary approach to terrorism involving the enforcement of brutal limits on democractic actors, actions and activities. The repressive policies are publicly rationalized by the invocation of the specter of Islamic fundamentalism, the civil strife that has plagued neighboring Tajikistan and Afghanistan, and possible opposition preparations for armed struggle. [/sidenote hijack]
Unjust and brutal conditions that threaten the life and limb of one’s neighbors, kith, kin, wife and children are ample grounds for honorable, patriotic men to take up arms against their oppressors.
Whoever offers the opposition to Karimov will be favored by the honorable and patriotic men of Uzbekistan.
The US, on the other hand, supports Karimov.
And just as those who harbor and finance terrorists earn a share of the guilt of the terrorists’ heinous deeds, so too does the US share some guilt in the heinous acts of Karimov’s regime.
We have a share in the guilt of torture, arbitrary execution, and other crimes against human liberty that’d lead honorable, patriotic men to side with those’d who do violence against the unjust government and its supporters.
Thus in addition to a share in the guilt of crimes, we abet the recruiting efforts of terrorists.
It’s an unfortunate direction this initiative has assumed.
Next time you really want to get an answer to a serious question, don’t string up unsupported personal insults at the end of it.
Commiting troops in the certain area for 11 years is a serious business. In fact, it was our most extensive military engagement through all the 90-s by far (Kosovo was more intense, but much shorter). It might have seemed as an “annoyance” to US public in general, because seemingly none of us were threatened by it, but it looked a lot different to many people in the rest of the world. Recollect all the hardships imposed on Iraqis. Recollect that al-Qaida was using this for anti-US propaganda all the time. Recollect that 9-11 was at least in part attributed to our over-involvement into the ME, such as US troops in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. Enforcement of sanctions against Saddam was certainly one of the biggest political and military problems in the World during the 90-s, with many poisonous outshoots, as we now know. Which problem was bigger?
We had three administrations in the past 12 years, from both parties and as different as we might have ever had. One decided to teach Saddam a lesson. Another one kept the sanctions going without any compromise for 8 years. Next one decided to take Saddam out. Which option was better? Were there other options? Might there be other options?
No, I don’t “recollect that al Qaeda was using [our enforcement of the no-fly zone] for anti US propaganda at the time.” As I recall the military action in Iraq was not to enforce sanctions but to enforce the no-fly zones in the north and south to prevent attacks on the Kurds and the Sunnis.
The US did not keep troops in Saudi Arabia to enforce the sanctions against Iraq. That wasn’t a military operation at all. In fact the sanctions were a UN thing, weren’t they? And those who violated the sanctions weren’t the Iraqis but the members of the UN who supplied them with contraband.
You are now trying to justify GW’s war because of Iraq’s violations of the armistice following the Gulf War. But that armistice was a UN thing and any action that the UN might have taken was foreclosed by the US invasion of Iraq. One option other than the one GW chose would be to chivvy the UN into a stronger enforcement of its Gulf War agreement with Iraq.
I do think that the Clinton administration and the UN were both remiss in not being stricter with Iraq on the weapons inspection thing. However, it seems to have turned out that Iraq did in fact get rid of the weapons and facilities that were a cause for concern because nothing in the way of weapons or facilities dating later than somewhere in the early 1990’s was found by GW’s handpicked inspector.
Man, you are still talking in nonsensical circles. You were called upon to explain your statement that the fact that the US patrolled Iraq for 11 years was part of the justification for the invasion of Iraq. Feel free to do this and make sure to recollect that we’d like you to make sense.
It was called at the time “maintaining our sphere of influence in the region,” which is the whole reason y’all have a hardon about controlling Iraq now. No one gave a flying damn about leaving troops in the region - we were all too happy using Saudi Arabia as a military base.
Well, I mean, except for the people who were saying, “but by doing this, we’re just pissing people off and causing them to hate us.” Yea, funny who was right, isn’t it?
Yep, a grand example of the US/NATO’s desire to fly in, bomb the hell out of someone, overthrow a regime, put a region into chaos, wipe their hands, and call it a good day.
Fair enough. So if having a slight military presence in the region caused Al Qaeda to grow and 9/11 to happen, how does invading countries and installing puppet regimes make it better?
Will you stop talking to the voices inside your head and start reading my posts carefully? Nowhere in this thread did I try “to justify GW’s war”. Nowhere in this thread did I say that Iraq invasion and occupation was absolutely right thing to do. I gave absolutely no arguments in favor of the war. I only said that I supported it. Can’t you see the difference? I was basically asking what other course of actions was possible and criticized someone for an irresponsible remark.
‘Mr. Svinlesha’ was bewailing the dearth of “good conservatives”. Well, let me bewail the dearth of “good” liberals. We have a few stellar examples of people on this board, who can make all the points ‘Mr. Svinlesha’ is making and then some, only a lot more reasonable and without losing their minds, with explanation of the practical alternatives they would prefer, and concluding with humble words like, “I really wish to be wrong, but I’m afraid I’m right”, instead of gleefully tossing the whole problem at the opposite camp. I really respect those people. Pity there are so few of them.