# What would YOU have done? \[Bush and Iraq\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 11, 2003, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-have-done-bush-and-iraq/181157 "2003-06-11T17:41:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2003, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-have-done-bush-and-iraq/181157/21 "2003-06-12T04:27:32Z")
> [@](#): > > Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all…In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated…Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; _ **at other times it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives.** _ The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations, has been the victim. from George Washington’s Farewell Address Try thinking about the first principles this country was founded on. The solution then would have been simple: treat Iraq like any other nation. And note how prescient the Father of Our Nation was about people like Dubya & Co, and how easily they could lead us to war. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2003, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-have-done-bush-and-iraq/181157/22 "2003-06-12T07:35:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by quixotic78 \* > I’ll disagree with what **rjung** , a fellow anti-War guy, said – I think we _should_ be the world’s policeman. Under ideal circumstances, I’d agree with you. Unfortunately, the current state of the United States are far from ideal, both politically and economically, and I believe that being the world’s policeman _at this time_ is just going to make things worse here at home. We should clean up our own house before we go cleaning up others’, is all I’m saying. ---
**Author:** ![MegaDave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/db5fbb/32.png) [@MegaDave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MegaDave)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2003, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-have-done-bush-and-iraq/181157/23 "2003-06-12T12:37:03Z")
To quixotic I say this: Yes, when Bush and Co. came on the old boob tube and said that SH had WMD’s, and he said that they could potentially create a direct threat against US citizens on US soil, I at first believed him. I mean after all, the guy has one of the greatest intlligence gathering machines ever known at his disposal, and unlike others, I had no reason not to believe him. However, that is not to say that there are not consequences for lying, if that is truly what he did. If no WMD’s are found, then I think at least he can assume he won’t be getting elected again, and at most, he may face censure or impeachment (even with a GOP controlled congree, it happened to Nixon). I am not some doey eyed sycophant of Bush, hell, I’m not even a republican. I am not a war monger either. I just beleive that we should at least give the POTUS the benefit of the doubt, espically after the way he handled 9-11. BTW to MrTuffPaws, the op was not “Dreamed up to practice my defending my views”, as my views change with the increase in avaliable information. I simply wanted to open up an honest debate on a facet that I don’t see discussed in many other threads (or forums for that matter), that being, what would/should have been actually done different. Everyone has there opinions on how it was handled, but few have offered them as to what they personally would have done differently, and I think that is intriguing. I realize that there is no one correct answer, and that foreign policy is not something that the average citizen has any clue about. However, I don’t think that many of the people on this board could be classified as average citizens. Most here are rational thinking people, and I value the opinions of many of them. My opinion on the whole fiasco is that it was so poorly handled that the Democrats could very well use this to win the '04 election if they try hard enough. I don’t think there was malicious intent on the part of the POTUS (although it is not impossible), but that there may have been some serious incompetencies in the intelligence industry, and that Bush may have been getting some really bad advice from certain people (Wolf Blitzer for one). That doesn’t excuse him though, and there will still be hell to pay if no WMD’s are ever found. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2003, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-have-done-bush-and-iraq/181157/24 "2003-06-12T19:23:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MegaDave \* > \*\* I don’t think there was malicious intent on the part of the POTUS (although it is not impossible), but that there may have been some serious incompetencies in the intelligence industry, and that Bush may have been getting some really bad advice from certain people (Wolf Blitzer for one). That doesn’t excuse him though, and there will still be hell to pay if no WMD’s are ever found. \*\* Just out of curiousity, how do you define _malicious intent_? It was obvious to me, at least, that Bush wanted to go to war. If this was because of bad advice, or bad intelligence, or influence is another matter - but he is the president, and he is responsible. Attacking Afghanistan after 9/11, OTOH, is not what I would consider a case of malicious intent, since there is a good argument that there were no other reasonable options. ---
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2003, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-have-done-bush-and-iraq/181157/25 "2003-06-12T20:05:42Z")
GREAT quote pantom. Someone ought to send that to the Bush administration. ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2003, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-have-done-bush-and-iraq/181157/26 "2003-06-12T21:02:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by pantom \* > \*\*from George Washington’s Farewell Address > > Try thinking about the first principles this country was founded on. The solution then would have been simple: treat Iraq like any other nation. And note how prescient the Father of Our Nation was about people like Dubya & Co, and how easily they could lead us to war. \*\* I like your quote, but George Washington’s Farewell Address is not an appropriate guide for the 21st century. E.g., it says, > [@](#): > > It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it So, Washington would have had us not be members of the UN, NATO, NAFTA, etc. More importantly, it’s quite clear that the US cannot safely ignore any part of the world. Before 9/11, many of us would have thought that the US needn’t pay attention to internal conditions in poor, far-off Afghanistan. We know better now. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Ryan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7feea3/32.png) [@The\_Ryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Ryan)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2003, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-have-done-bush-and-iraq/181157/27 "2003-06-12T23:10:40Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MrTuffPaws \* > Anyway, about the UN, how do you expect that the UN would have any power in the situation being that its most powerful member (the US) basically bailed on them? Not only bailed on them, but blatantly ignored them. Wow, that’s certainly quite an amazing rewriting of history. With regards to Iraq, the UN made a habit of regularly bailing on the US, not the other way around. What’s next, are you going to claim that during WWII the Jews tried to wipe out the Germans? > [@](#): > > The reason why the UN did not work in the Iraq situation is because we (the US) did not want it to work That’s ridiculous. We tried for over a decade to get it to work. SimonX > [@](#): > > I might have waited the few extra months for the rest of the UNSC to get on board. I mean, they offered. What exactly was it that they offered? BTW, quixotic78, it’s Kim Jong Il, not Kim Jong II. Took me a while to notice the difference too. ---
**Author:** ![quixotic78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/3ab097/32.png) [@quixotic78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quixotic78)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2003, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-have-done-bush-and-iraq/181157/28 "2003-06-12T23:13:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by The Ryan \* > \*\*BTW, quixotic78, it’s Kim Jong Il, not Kim Jong II. Took me a while to notice the difference too. \*\* Thanks for the correction, **The Ryan** ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-have-done-bush-and-iraq/181157/29 "2003-06-13T00:31:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by The Ryan \* > \*\* > SimonX > > What exactly was it that they offered? > \*\* To advocate the use of military force to disarm Hussein’s regime of its illicit weapons and illicit weapons programs. ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-have-done-bush-and-iraq/181157/30 "2003-06-13T01:05:49Z")
**december** : where in heaven’s name do you get the idea that this means we should ignore the rest of the world? All the man is saying is to treat every other nation equally, and show no favoritism or unprovoked malice. As for the three examples you cited, only NATO is an alliance, and I reserve judgement for the time being on whether we should continue to be a part of that alliance now that the USSR is gone. NAFTA is a free trade agreement, which fits very nicely into what GW was saying. The UN is an association of just about every single nation on the planet, so how that could be called an alliance, which after all implies an enemy outside the alliance, is beyond me. Try to keep that knee from jerking. The quote is on target for describing precisely what happened here, IMO. Here’s a civics lesson for you, in advance of a thread I have brewing: take a look at this clause from the Constitution: : “To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years”. It has to do with Congressional powers. Three numbers of The Federalist were devoted to justifying this now obscure clause. See if you can figure out why. ---
**Author:** ![Age\_Quod\_Agis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d07c76/32.png) [@Age\_Quod\_Agis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Age_Quod_Agis)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-have-done-bush-and-iraq/181157/31 "2003-06-13T01:21:33Z")
> [@](#): > > _rjung:_ > Because I certainly don’t remember the Bushistas gnashing their teeth and wailing about the atrocities in Iraq two years ago, five years ago, or ten years ago. So Bush needed to be talking about the atrocities in Iraq before he was governor of Texas? That’s a pretty tough standard, isn’t it? But they’ve been talking about Saddam’s atrocities for plenty of time. [Here’s a State Dept. article](http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/19675.htm) on the atrocities published before we went into Iraq. Here’s one from our Tokyo Embassy, talking about an [April 4, 2003 White House release](http://usembassy.state.gov/tokyo/wwwh20030407a3.html) on Saddam’s atrocities. Here’s a [Wall Street Journal Article](http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB1016762854868646000,00.html) from March 2002. I think you can argue that the primary reason that we went into Iraq was WMD. But to say that it was the _only_ reason, or to say that supporters of the war _never_ said it could be justified on human rights grounds, is just false. It’s also false to say that the war was only justified on the grounds that Saddam already had WMD. Bush & Co. were arguing that war was justified because Saddam might have had WMD, and if he didn’t have them, he was almost certainly trying his darndest to get them. Again, you can argue that’s a bogus reason, but to say they never made it is false. > [@](#): > > _rjung:_ > Heck, I don’t see any of those folks gnashing their teeth and wailing about the atrocities that are currently going on in other nations around the world, either. Then you’re not looking. [Here](http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-mccain061103.asp), as just one example, is John McCain on Rangoon. If you are sincerely interested, I’d suggest you do a google search. There are lots of them out there. > [@](#): > > _rjung:_ > it’d look damn hypocritical to be wailing about Iraq while ignoring all the other repressive nations out there. There is nothing hypocritical about treating the invasion of different countries differently. “Hypocritical” means saying one thing and doing another. It means not applying your rules for others to yourself. Applying those rules to one regime that should be overthrown but not to another might be inconsistent (that’s up for debate, considering that each regime should be dealt with according to its own situation), but it’s not hypocritical. And shouldn’t the decision of whether to overthrow countries be done on a case-by-case basis? And even if we can’t overthrow all bad countries (because of practical or political reasons), shouldn’t we do some good if we can, rather than be paralyzed by the fear that we’ll be labelled [gasp!] _inconsistent_? I, for one, would much rather do what I think is right occasionally and be thought inconsistent, than never do what I think is right and be consistent about it. > [@](#): > > _rjung:_ > we don’t call 'em “POWs” because that way we can avoid treating them fairly, as POWs are required to be treated No, we don’t call 'em POWs because they aren’t POWs under the Geneva Conventions, a fact acknowledged by Human Rights Watch. > [@](#): > > _rjung:_ > All this blustering over “those po’ Iraqis” only started popping up when those stockpiles if WMDs didn’t. This is a [small excerpt from Bush’s address to the UN](http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/09/20020912-1.html) before the invasion of Iraq: > [@](#): > > Last year, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights found that Iraq continues to commit extremely grave violations of human rights, and that the regime’s repression is all pervasive. Tens of thousands of political opponents and ordinary citizens have been subjected to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, summary execution, and torture by beating and burning, electric shock, starvation, mutilation, and rape. Wives are tortured in front of their husbands, children in the presence of their parents – and all of these horrors concealed from the world by the apparatus of a totalitarian state. > > In 1991, the U.N. Security Council, through Resolutions 686 and 687, demanded that Iraq return all prisoners from Kuwait and other lands. Iraq’s regime agreed. It broke its promise. Last year the Secretary General’s high-level coordinator for this issue reported that Kuwait, Saudi, Indian, Syrian, Lebanese, Iranian, Egyptian, Bahraini, and Omani nationals remain unaccounted for – more than 600 people. One American pilot is among them. [This is from Bush’s Feb. 27th speech to the nation](http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/02/27/sprj.irq.bush.speech/): > [@](#): > > “Bringing stability and unity to a free Iraq will not be easy. Yet, that is no excuse to leave the Iraqi regime’s torture chambers and poison labs in operation,” Bush said. > > “Any future the Iraqi people choose for themselves will be better than the nightmare world that Saddam Hussein has chosen for them,” he said, adding “we will ensure that one brutal dictator is not replaced by another.” Incidentally, I thought this was a [rather revealing quote](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=168541&highlight=Saddam) from a source close to our hearts. > [@](#): > > _rjung:_ (March 11, 2003): > I don’t think the question is whether or not Saddam has WMDs – odds are good he has something, if only for self-defense against hostile neighbors (e.g., Iran). > > The questions are (a) How many WMDs does Saddam have? And (b) can he be disarmed through non-violent means? > > George W. Bush is saying “lots” and “no!” Hans Blix is saying “dunno” and “maybe.” France and Russia are saying “maybe” and “yes.” And therein lies the dispute. If Bush was lying when he said Iraq had WMD, what were you doing? ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-have-done-bush-and-iraq/181157/32 "2003-06-13T01:30:23Z")
I’m still trying to find the imminent danger that Hussein posed to the US. ---
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-have-done-bush-and-iraq/181157/33 "2003-06-13T01:40:36Z")
Hey, guess what **rjung**? The bastards conned me too. I mean, they kept telling us they had all that great intelligence and stuff, and I was stupid enough to believe them. **AQA** : It is not a defense to being a lying sack of excrement that the listener believed the lie. Also, it’s a fun little experiment to run a search on [CNN.com](http://CNN.com) for the phrase “last chance.” Lots of stories about Saddam’s “last chance” to disarm, no stories whatsoever about his “last chance” to quit with the mass graves and torture and stuff. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-have-done-bush-and-iraq/181157/34 "2003-06-13T02:08:24Z")
That Hussein had Chemical and biological weapons wasn’t based solely on Bush admin reports. [Don’t kid yourself](http://www.rightwingnews.com/archives/week_2003_06_08.PHP#001026). I’m shocked and amazed that they haven’t been found YET. The 75th Exploitation Task Force, (the group directing all known U.S. search efforts for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq), is due to leave this month. We are sending a new group over, but IIRC, they are more of an analytical team to sift through documents and interrogation transcripts, not a search team. It’s a steaming load to try to pass off the invasion of Iraq as some altruistic humanitarian endeavor. **mintygreen** , “Marge, it takes two to lie. One to lie and one to listen.” —_H. J. Simpson_ ---
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-have-done-bush-and-iraq/181157/35 "2003-06-13T02:11:24Z")
Yes, SimonX, it is a close contest between Homer Simpson and George W. Bush as to who is the smartest and most ethical. ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-have-done-bush-and-iraq/181157/36 "2003-06-13T02:28:23Z")
I don’t get this. What, we’re supposed to assume that the Prez is lying about stuff he says in justification of sending us into war? Really, this is just stupid. Yes, a lot of us actually believed that he was at least approximating the truth, because, after all, he gets to see all the top secret stuff & we don’t. But we’re supposed to have prior knowledge that the President is either lying or grossly misinformed, or we don’t get to complain about it. Man oh man. This just gets better and better. No contest, btw. Homer Simpson, going away. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-have-done-bush-and-iraq/181157/37 "2003-06-13T02:39:41Z")
The given reason as to why we couldn’t wait for France and Germany and other members of the UNSC to be ready to use military force and why we couldn’t wait for the inspection regimen to play itself out was the myth of “imminent danger” posed by Iraq to the US. W/o the admin propounding this myth, how far would the general American populous would’ve been willing to go toward war on the other side of the globe? W/o the mythical Hussein-bin Laden connection how worked up would the average American have gotten over sending our young soldiers to die? I suspect that the Bush admin thought the answer to these questions would be “not very far and not very much.” Otherwise, they would’ve done the responsible thing and told the unspun truth about what they wanted to do why they wanted to do it. I believe they rightly harbored a fear that their “why and what” wasn’t the will of the American people. They used various “misrepresentations” to foment consent. No matter what their motivations, the Bush admin has demonstrated that they are not trustworthy. If not liars, then they’re either incapable of distinguishing truth from fiction, or merely unwilling to do so. **Equal Time:** “More seldom than not, the movies gives us exquisite sex and wholesome violence, that underscores our values. Every two child did. I will.” —_G.W. Bush_ ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-have-done-bush-and-iraq/181157/38 "2003-06-13T02:50:55Z")
I can’t help but wonder if the delay in finding the CBW is a Rovian tactic to get the loyal opposition to play its cards prematurely. If the Dems and various anti-Iraq invasion people get gleeful giddy and tout the lack of hard evidence until all of the US realizes it and Bush et al look like the skies are darkening for them and then voila: The Hard Evidence arrives. Bush says, “I telled you so, too.” Americans say, “I guess he was right about everything all along. Evil, nasty anti-war hippies, slackers, bad-actors and Democrats. Pheh!” Bush the legacy pledge gets a substantial majority of the popular vote as well as the electoral college. ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-have-done-bush-and-iraq/181157/39 "2003-06-13T03:53:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by minty green \* > \*\*Yes, SimonX, it is a close contest between Homer Simpson and George W. Bush as to who is the smartest and most ethical. \*\* who is the _smarter_ and _more_ ethical. I wouldn’t normally run down someone’s usage, but when a post calls someone else stupid… ---
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-have-done-bush-and-iraq/181157/40 "2003-06-13T04:02:07Z")
Eh? While the comparative _-er_ would be perfectly acceptable, there is no rule of grammar stating that the superlative _-est_ cannot be used when only two items are under consideration. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-have-done-bush-and-iraq/181157.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-have-done-bush-and-iraq/181157.md?page=3)