[QUOTE=jshore]
You know, there isn’t some global conservation law on the number of terrorists in the world. In fact, while zero Iraqis were terrorists involved in 9/11, we now have plenty of Iraqi terrorists attacking us in Iraq. Those are terrorists that we have created.
The Bush policy seems to be to try to create new terrorists faster than they can be destroyed. And, it is working admirably.
[/QUOTE]
How many are Iraqi Aq agents? Where do you get this information?
[QUOTE=ManiacMan]
Why didn’t Clinton get OBL? He had the oppurtunity didn’t he???
[/QUOTE]
One man’s failure to do something is not an excuse for another to fail - or stop trying, which I believe is now your government’s position.
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
But AFGHANISTAN IS WHERE OUR ENEMIES WERE ! Focusing on Iraq let them get away ! By that logic, we should have tried to beat Hitler by invading Iowa.
So attack our damned enemies then. And do it in a way that might work. Not attack a third party, and in a way guaranteed to be disastrous.
[/QUOTE]
That’s right we wiped out most of AQ/Taliban. They fled the country like the Nazis did when they realized too that the game was over.
Oh, yeah, that would have worked. Clinton proposes to invade a foreign country, spend a few hundred billion dollars to get some guy nobody has heard of in order to pre-empt a potential threat. Yeah, the Pubbies would have roundly cheered and voted unanimously to shit-can all that “impeach” crapola and stand firmly behind the leader.
I say this in my capacity as Queen of Rumania and Primate of Athens…
[QUOTE=ManiacMan]
How do you know that there weren’t any AQ in Iraq before we invaded it? For me that sounds much more unreasonable than assuming that there was for some reason…
[/quote]
I think the “for some reason” is that it’s inconvenient to you. It’s been pretty well established that Saddam and Al Qaeda were not only not linked, but in opposition to each other. He was secular and a nominal socialist; to say the least Al Qaeda hates that stuff. The little evidence I have seen indicates that if there was any Al Qaeda presence in Iraq, it was in the northern part of the country, which his government did not control.
There are strong ties and are linked in Afghanistan, but they’re not the same.
What battle field? There was no battle against Al Qaeda in Iraq until the invasion allowed Al Qaeda to get into Iraq. And they do seem to be fighting in both countries to this day.
Gee, a Nazi reference, what a surprise. You also seemed to have missed the point of his comment, again, which was that invading Iraq made that escape easier.
[QUOTE=ManiacMan]
Why didn’t Clinton get OBL? He had the oppurtunity didn’t he???
[/QUOTE]
No, he didn’t. Because OBL was in hiding. And one of Bush’s first acts upon getting in office was to call off the hunt for OBL.
[QUOTE=ManiacMan]
How do you know that there weren’t any AQ in Iraq before we invaded it? For me that sounds much more unreasonable than assuming that there was for some reason…
[/quote]
The “reason” is that Saddam tended to kill them when he could. Except when we protected them.
[QUOTE=ManiacMan]
Didn’t the coalition completely kick the shit out of AQ and the Taliban? Its almost like Afganistan ran out of AQ agents…by the time they realized what hit them and finished licking their wounds to figure out a strategy the battle field had changed to Iraq.
[/QUOTE]
The Taliban is still strong. And they didn’t “run out of agents”, they just left. It’s not like we seriously tried to stop them.
[QUOTE=ManiacMan]
That’s right we wiped out most of AQ/Taliban. They fled the country like the Nazis did when they realized too that the game was over.
[/QUOTE]
We did not, and they did not. And the “game” isn’t over; the Taliban is still powerful, and AQ has been made much stronger by us. And they have the historic victory of Iraq under their belts.
[QUOTE=Sophistry and Illusion]
This is one of the most morally monstrous posts I have ever read in GD. Do you realize what you are saying? By conservative estimates, 600,000+ Iraqi civilians have died as a direct result of our invasion. But what the hell–war sucks. After all, what’s a million or so Iraqis vs. a few thousand American civilians? They’re only sand niggers, after all–it must take several hundred of them to equal one American life, surely!
[/QUOTE]
How exactly does on estimate the death toll? Is there something better to go by then actually counting the dead?
It’s an ESTIMATE.
And please don’t be racist…
[QUOTE=ManiacMan]
How many are Iraqi Aq agents? Where do you get this information?
[/QUOTE]
Well, you are the one who is talking about how Iraq is attracting all sorts of terrorists. My point is that most of the people who are killing U.S. soldiers in Iraq are Iraqis. Whether you want to call them terrorists or insurgents or freedom-fighters is more or less irrelevant. And, by all accounts there is a much stronger presence of AQ in Iraq than there was before our invasion; I think it is unlikely to believe that all of these are foreigners who have come in…Many are presumably Iraqis who have been recruited to the cause.
And then, of course, there are the other places in the world where the anger that we have inflamed by invading Iraq has presumably made the recruitment job for AQ and other terrorist groups much easier. I believe our intelligence community has pretty much admitted this.
[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
One man’s failure to do something is not an excuse for another to fail - or stop trying, which I believe is now your government’s position.
[/QUOTE]
I am quite positive that our various agencies are still hunting the man.
[QUOTE=Marley23]
I think the “for some reason” is that it’s inconvenient to you. It’s been pretty well established that Saddam and Al Qaeda were not only not linked, but in opposition to each other. He was secular and a nominal socialist; to say the least Al Qaeda hates that stuff. The little evidence I have seen indicates that if there was any Al Qaeda presence in Iraq, it was in the northern part of the country, which his government did not control.
There are strong ties and are linked in Afghanistan, but they’re not the same.
What battle field? There was no battle against Al Qaeda in Iraq until the invasion allowed Al Qaeda to get into Iraq. And they do seem to be fighting in both countries to this day.
Gee, a Nazi reference, what a surprise. You also seemed to have missed the point of his comment, again, which was that invading Iraq made that escape easier.
[/QUOTE]
“Established” by people trying to capitalize on a rotten situation to get political favor…
I elaborated on the Nazi referance to something Der Thriz posted…calm down, dude.
[QUOTE=ManiacMan]
Why didn’t Clinton get OBL? He had the oppurtunity didn’t he???
[/QUOTE]
Well, at least Clinton tried and made dealing with the problem of OBL a priority at a time when it was pretty much off the radar screen of most Americans and even many political and intelligence folks.
How many meetings did Bush hold in the nearly 8 months of his Presidency before 9/11 to even discuss the problems posed by OBL and al Qaeda? (Hint: Read Richard Clarke’s book.)
[QUOTE=ManiacMan]
I am quite positive that our various agencies are still hunting the man.
[/QUOTE]
I’m sure if an opportunity to catch the guy came up, said agencies would indeed give it a go. But actively hunting him specifically? It would seem not. My cite is the White House and the President..
I’m not sure what the point is in bringing-up cites for ManiacMan as he’s clearly part of the group that makes its own reality.
I mean unless they are being used to educate the readers of this thread, surely all of you realize what a futile endeavor this is?
I’ll just leave it at that.
[QUOTE=ManiacMan]
How exactly does on estimate the death toll? Is there something better to go by then actually counting the dead?
It’s an ESTIMATE.
And please don’t be racist…
[/QUOTE]
Yes, there is a better way than by counting bodies. The death toll is not just the people who died as a direct result of combat–it is also the people who died of disease because of destroyed hospitals; or because of contaminated water supplies, where before the war they had access to clean water; or because of malnutrition where before they had access to food; etc., etc. The Lancet did all of this and estimated, over a year ago, that the estimated ‘excess’ death toll for the war was 655,000. They used commonly-accepted demographic tools and methods.
And I’m not the one posting racist posts. Pop quiz: who posted the following:
I spent 6 years living in the Arab world, and happen to think that a few thousand American lives are not worth 600,000 Arab lives. But hey, to each his own, right?
[QUOTE=Chouan]
The US provided Saddam with WMDs in the first place!
A. We supplied military aid only during the Iran-Iraq war, at which time Saddam was the lesser of two evils. We didn’t know he would abuse those weapons and use them on civilians.
[/quote]
[QUOTE=Chouan]
The US has alienated its allies and its reputation is irredeemably ruined.
A. The coalition of the willing was originally composed of 49 nations. And of these nations, we have the undying support of the UK. Even if you take away the other 48 allies in the coalition, we’d still have the British as our allies.
[/quote]
The depth of your ignorance is astounding. 
Tony Blair refused to pick up his Congressional Medal of Honour (the highest honour the US could award him) because the Iraq war was so unpopular here.
There is a TV program tomorrow which illustrates precisely what the UK think of the Iraq debacle:
**43% of Britons would like to see Tony Blair join infamous leaders such as ex-Yugoslav leader Slobadan Milosovic and ex-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein by standing trial for war crimes. **
And this is what you call undying support? :smack:
Please have the grace to apologise for your remarks.
[QUOTE=ManiacMan]
“Established” by people trying to capitalize on a rotten situation to get political favor…
[/quote]
Oh, please. If you took the time to read up on the subject at the time, it was clear in 2002 that there was no link between Iraq and Al Qaeda, before there was any “rotten situation.” And look at Squink’s post from this afternoon, because that sure didn’t come from people trying to capitalize on the current political climate.
I’m calm, so please, don’t patronize me.
[QUOTE=ManiacMan]
That’s right we wiped out most of AQ/Taliban. They fled the country like the Nazis did when they realized too that the game was over.
[/QUOTE]
As I understand it, most of them got away, which I’m sure could have been prevented with better planning.
Hey Chouan–But when Saddam did use chemical weapons, we made sure that he wouldn’t suffer for it at the hands of the UN or anything. Remember Rumsfeld’s infamous trip to Iraq to assure Saddam that we wouldn’t raise a fuss about any small issues like his using chemical weapons. Just go to google images and google rumsfeld saddam hussein. We provided him the political cover to use WMDs to commit war crimes. And then we use his WMDs (no longer existing, by that point) as a pretext for saying he was a bad guy. Why wasn’t he a bad guy when Rumsfeld was shaking his hand with a shit-eating grin on his face?
Whatever. Arguing with you is an exercise in futility. Please don’t join the board as a regular member.
[QUOTE=ManiacMan]
Last I heard the surge was working…something that dems howled against (because they feared it would work). NOW the dems want ‘political’ progress tied to the war funding because our men and women are kicking ass. You guys actually think that if the dems get the white house we will pull out of Iraw lickety split? Before the job is done and the government there is able to lay the smack down on AQ? It would be political suicide…it doesn’t matter who is in the White House…we are in Iraq until the job is done.
[/QUOTE]
Why don’t you look up the original goals of the surge. Hint: they were political. The surge was designed to give the Iraqi government time to deal with the oil issue and come to an agreement between the factions. How has that worked out?
That the surge would temporarily repress attacks and lead to greater US casualties was expected before it began. When all the troops sitting on the Iraqis leave, then we’ll see how it worked in truly restoring order. The insurgents live there, remember. They can easily wait us out.
As for the danger of Saddam attacking us: I think we should go after the Duchy of Grand Fenwick next. You never know where these invasions will come from, you know.