08-21-2007, 01:03 PM | #51 | |||
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In other words, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi's have died, thousands of American troops have died, but the only response is "oops, we were wrong." Seriously? That's your arguement? Shouldn't that, at the very least, act as a preventive measure to make sure you're right before launching a goddamn war given what's at stake? I don't oppose war (and I supported the Iraqi war on the premise that getting rid of Saddam was a moral benefit to the world) - that's a foolhardy stance, given human nature. I do opposed ill-thought out wars with no planning ("Mission Accomplished?") and people like you who seem to think that a significant error requires no backtracking or understanding of what went wrong, and we should just get on with the next one (bomb Iran!). Last edited by Crapshoot : 08-21-2007 at 01:05 PM. |
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08-21-2007, 01:15 PM | #52 | ||||
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And Iraq had? Iraq had no WMD delivery systems that could reach the USA (or much past their borders, for that matter) in 2002. Unless you're arguing that Iraq could have sold WMD to terrorist groups, but the same was (and still is) true for NK. And it's probable that NK has enriched plutonium. Iraq didn't. Quote:
I find it surprising that you're willing to trust the House of Saud and Musharraf this much. |
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08-21-2007, 01:20 PM | #53 | |
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You won't believe my answer (for the record, it's that we didn't kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, nor did we start a civil war among them that did cause that), and I'm not here to debate. I stand by my original point earlier: you either believe 9/11 changed everything, or you don't. And that's a fundamental dividing line in America right now. As evidenced by the continuation of this thread. Everyone wants to argue whether I'm right or not that it changed everything. I stated what I believe, but I can't prove a negative. I can't prove that if we had hit Afghanistan only and left the Middle East quickly, we would have been hit again and harder. I believe it, you don't.
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08-21-2007, 01:24 PM | #54 | |
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I'm sorry I missed this earlier. You are focusing on 2002. I was focusing on the Clinton Administration and his quotes when he was in office. It's not like he felt Saddam was sufficiently tame to yank our military out back then when he could have. Before Bush was in office, the Dems felt he was a credible threat, and that he had WMDs. What changed once Bush got into office was 9/11, pure and simple. As I said, it changed everything. Yes, I believe Bush stays out of Iraq if 9/11 doesn't happen. But again, I can't prove a negative.
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08-21-2007, 01:48 PM | #55 | ||||
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It's also not as if Clinton felt he was enough of a credible threat to invade the country, either. After 1998, there remained the suspicion that he had WMDs, just that. This continued, clearly, through 2001, as evidenced by the quotes from Bush Administration officials below. Again, if you're suggesting that we're justified in attacking any country whom we suspect has WMDs, then we're going to be really, really busy. Anyway, what's more relevant, the situation in 1998 or the situation in 2002? How about 2001, for that matter? Quote:
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So, 9/11 changed everything. What's more likely: A) A bunch of guys, mostly from Saudi Arabia, crash planes into the Pentagon and the WTC and *poof* Iraq suddenly has the WMD and delivery capabilities the U.S. Government (and everyone else) felt certain it didn't have only a few months previously. B) Shocked by 9/11, and annoyed by Hussein's comments, Bush (and others) decide to do whatever it takes to teach the tinpot dictator a lesson. The answer is left as an exercise for the reader. Last edited by flere-imsaho : 08-21-2007 at 01:53 PM. |
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08-21-2007, 01:54 PM | #56 |
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The people that crafted our Iraq policy had been calling for regime change for years. Wolfowitz, Feith, Hayes, Rumsfeld, Perle, etc., didn't wake up to an Iraqi threat on 9/12, they believed that we should use military force to overthro Saddam at least ten years earlier.
9/11 changed everything, but not in the way Greg says. 9/11 finally gave these folks the political opportunity to do what they had been calling for years earlier. Remember, we know the WMD angle was only agreed on as the focus for, "marketing".
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08-21-2007, 02:36 PM | #57 | |
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The problem with this, is that even if you accept the idea that 9/11 changed the equation about whether we go to war with Iraq (which is a big assumption), it changed the benefit side (protecting ourselves from terrorism), not the cost side (involving ourselves in a quagmire). Cheney's statement from 1994 about the difficulty of invading Iraq were not in any respect altered by the events of 9/11. Yet when Cheney and the rest of the administration hit the interview circuit to promote the war they continuously asserted that it would be a cakewalk, in and out in a few months, paid for by oil revenue, flowering democracy in the Middle East and all that other now famous bullshit. If they really thought that 9/11 changed our evaluation of the threat level such that invading Iraq was worth the cost, when we didn't think it was worth the cost in 1994, then why didn't they make that case to the American people? Why did they have to lie about it? Jon Stewart got this exactly right in this interview last week with Cheney biographer Stephen Hayes, maybe the best interview I've seen Stewart do... If we could have had an honest discussion of what it would cost and whether that cost was justified, maybe we could have made the proper military preparations to succeed (if that was ever possible), and maybe the American people, having gone to war fully informed, would be more supportive of the time and effort required. Of course, if there had been an honest discussion maybe we would have concluded that this war would be counterproductive and it wouldn't have happened at all. That's what the administration was not willing to risk, and why Cheney pretended the things he said in 1994 never existed. And that's why we were lied to, and why we went into this war half-baked without any real chance of success from the first. |
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08-21-2007, 02:45 PM | #58 | |
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I don't understand how anybody misses this. The day Bush was elected most of his opponents wondered how long until we attacked Iraq and what the reasoning behind it would be. When we went to Afghanistan it was sort of assumed that once we finished the necessary job there that it's not too far to Iraq. The thing that is mind boggling is that we never bothered to finish Afghanistan off before committing ourselves to a second front, stretching ourselves way too thin. You either go do something right, or you don't do it at all. |
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08-21-2007, 02:49 PM | #59 | |
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Yep, that's exactly how I remember it, too. |
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08-21-2007, 06:02 PM | #60 | |
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I agree with this as well. Despite the gimmicks that were used, it should (and history will) view it as a continuation of the Gulf War. Too many criticisms for not "finishing the job". |
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08-21-2007, 06:03 PM | #61 |
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08-21-2007, 06:04 PM | #62 | |
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Iran and Pakistan are planning on nuking China or Russia? Where did you get that info from?
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08-21-2007, 08:50 PM | #63 |
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Everything else in the thread aside, I just love Meet the Press. That is all, carry on.
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08-22-2007, 08:43 AM | #64 |
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Al Gore predicts this thread will be locked.
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08-22-2007, 09:00 AM | #65 |
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If this gets locked before 14ers comes back for his medicine, I'll be pissed.
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