Bush, in describing Cindy Sheehan, stated, “She expressed her opinion. I disagree with it.”
This puts Cindy Sheehan in the company of military experts who told Bush things he didn’t want to hear prior to the attack on Iraq. Experts who turned out to be correct.
PAD
• 
Just who do you think DOES have the inside track? Right now the polls show that Republicans prefer, in order, Giuliani, McCain, Rice, Frist
Polls at this point are meaningless. The primaries are still three years away. People may say they like Giuliani now because outside of NYC, most of what they know about him stems from his performance on 9/11. That event actually resurrected his political career because before then, NYers were ready to toss him out. Giuliani is like Dean in one respect: the more people see of him, the less they like him. McCain I discount because I know Rove will be out in full force slandering him again just as he did in 2000. Plus, using recent history as a guide, the Senate is just about the worst place to launch a presidential race. Too many compromises. Frist faces that obstacle plus social conservatives have already pledged not to support him over stem cells, so he’s toast. Rice is one of those candidates that may look good if you want to make history, but she has the biggest obstacles: 1) She has no campaign experience whatsoever. She’s a policy wonk, not a campaigner. You can’t just go from the kiddie pool to the triathlon in one leap; 2) She’ll get hammered over and over again about the “Bin Laden determined to attack the US” memo. Maybe that isn’t fair, but that’s politics; and 3) She needs intensive lessons on smiling. Honestly, everytime I see her on TV, she looks like she just sucked down a lemon. Like it or not, a friendly public image is critical in a presidential race.
So, given those particulars, my bet is that both parties will look outside of the beltway and pit two governors against each other.
Of course, if the GOP wanted to really self-destruct, they could just let the social conservatives run roughshod over the party and nominate Santorum.
“3) She needs intensive lessons on smiling. Honestly, everytime I see her on TV, she looks like she just sucked down a lemon. Like it or not, a friendly public image is critical in a presidential race.”
as opposed to George Jr., who can’t seem to talk about how much he grieves for each and every soldier lost without grinning.
Haven’t seen the Clinton bumper sticker, but I have seen an “Iraq … the 51st state” one.
I’m in D.C.. Unfortunately, it’s the only place a training course on a new system we’ve purchased is being given, so …
I have to admit, I was aghast.
In Canada, we don’t have postcards with politicians on them. In Japan and Hong Kong, I never saw post cards with politicians on them.
In Washington? Post cards with Shrub … er, Bush Jr. on them. One had Cheney in the background.
Between those, and the uber-tacky t-shirts showing photos of the planes about to strike the towers/Pentagon, I’m going to be VERY glad when I get back home in a couple of days.
1 There seems to be three main arguments against the Iraqi War 1) The war was unjustified (faulty WMD info), 2) We should have let the U.N. handle the situation and 3) if we had to go to war, we should have done it better.
First off, the WMD’s were a judgement call. Saddam had a zillion dollars, an intense personal hatred of the U.S. and was obviously re-arming his military. Bush was wrong in the assumption, but the odds were in his favor.
And frankly, SO WHAT that they haven’t found WMD’s? What authorities have found are mass graves. Hundreds of thousands of people killed and dumped like garbage in a land-fill. Saddam would have killed thousands more and he had two homicidal sons ready to take over the reins.
That, in my view, more than justifies intervention.
No anti-war argument has ever really addressed that issue and if you wish to rebutt me, tell me how our dead are worth so much and thiers are worth so little.
The best response I’ve heard to that is that the U.S. should have let the U.N. handle it. (Point #2)
Which U.N.? The one that stood around with thier thumb up thier ášš while nearly a million got slaughtered in Rwanda? Or, the one that whørëd itself in the Food-For-Oil scandal?
Third and finally, I’m not a military guy, so I can’t tell you how the war should have been fought or how the occupation should be run. But, from a historical standpoint, things are not going badly. Take a look at how ugly Reconstruction went after our own Civil War.
Or, for a more recent example, World War Two. Japan surrendered in 1945, but we didn’t sign a peace accord with them until 1951, with troops maintaining an occupied presence until 1952.
I’m not a knee-jerk Bush supporter. I seriously disagree with him on the subjects of stem-cell research and his environmental policies. But, I can’t fault him on his position on the war in Iraq.
Posted by Robert Jung at August 24, 2005 06:08 PM.
But hey, this is a group that has no qualms about labeling a Vietnam vet who lost three limbs in combat as an anti-American supporter of terrorism, so nothing they do surprises me any more. Disgusts, yes; surprise, no.
nor correction from a Georgian who supports the man — Max Cleland’s injury was only marginally “in combat” — it was due to a grenade dropped by one of his fellow soldiers while exiting a helicopter.
For some time he believed that he himself had dropped the munition, but it was eventually determined it was someone else.
As to the “When Clinton lied, nobody died” bumper stickers — that was originally a button that Ohio union political organising committees were handing out before the election.
The “most likely” Democrat you didn’t name in your list, is Dean.
I thought Dean agreed not to run in exchange for getting the DNC chair.
Of course, if the GOP wanted to really self-destruct, they could just let the social conservatives run roughshod over the party and nominate Santorum.
Santorum won’t even be a senator by 2008. Wishful thinking on the part of Democrats.
I did leave out Mitt Romney but I think he’ll have a hard time overcoming the anti-Mormon attacks.
Given this administration’s penchant for carefully orchestrating every event where someone might ask the President a question, and making dámņ sure no one asks him anything that might be embarrassing or off-message, is it really all that surprising that he hasn’t encountered a lot of anti-war sentiment from the families he’s met with?
Sooooo…just how did Ms. Sheehan get that meeting with him? She has stated that she had every intention of asking him questions but decided that it wasn’t what casey would have wanted her to do. (obviously her assessment has changed.)
“Sooooo…just how did Ms. Sheehan get that meeting with him? She has stated that she had every intention of asking him questions but decided that it wasn’t what casey would have wanted her to do.”
Well, going back to that very first news piece from way back you see that she and her husband decided that. He may have made a bit of a dif in the thinking back then. Plus she has had about a year to stew on old things while new things came to light about Bush and the pre-war deals to change her mind about how she would want to act around Bush.
Plus, we still don’t really know who had the most pre-meeting contact with Bush’s people. Was it her or her more Bush friendly husband? Again, it would make a bit of a dif. I’ve never seen any news bits covering anything pre first meeting with Bush. If you have then, by all means, kick the link my way.
Santorum won’t even be a senator by 2008. Wishful thinking on the part of Democrats.
I pray for that every night.
Sooooo…just how did Ms. Sheehan get that meeting with him? She has stated that she had every intention of asking him questions but decided that it wasn’t what casey would have wanted her to do. (obviously her assessment has changed.)
Since I don’t have access to her innermost thoughts and neither do you, speculation as to why she changed her mind is pointless.
1) The war was unjustified (faulty WMD info),
And when you cherry pick your intelligence, it’s easy to prove anything you want.
2) We should have let the U.N. handle the situation and
I don’t agree with it. I think we should have kept the sanctions in place to contain him, but I would never expect the UN to overthrow the ruler of a nation, no matter how despicable he was.
3) if we had to go to war, we should have done it better.
That’s not an argument against the war, that’s just an indictment with the incompetence with which it was conducted. Remember, we were told that the Iraqis would greet our troops with “candy and flowers”; that the war would last “six monthgs, tops”; and that the oil revenue would pay for the whole thing. None of those turned out to be true.
The fact remains this administration went with no plan to deal with the situation after Saddam’s government had been toppled and no plan to get us out. I love how people keep invoking Japan and Germany like these situations have some kind of revelance. We had a plan to reconstruct Europe and Japan and the Emperor of Japan surrendered and stayed on as a figurehead to help ease the transition. Right now, we no plan, no real leaders in Iraq and the only thing the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds agree on is that they want us out ASAP.
Now, let’s look at the justifications for the war.
1) WMDs – bogus.
2) 9/11 – Also bogus. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.
3) Saddan harbors terrorists in general – Maybe so, but so do Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Pakistan. Yet somehow, these countries are considered our “friends.”
4) “We’re fightin’ ’em there so we don’ hafta fight ’em in Wichita.” Riiiiight. I’m sure the average Iraqi loves the fact that we chose their backyard as our staging area for the war on terror. Of course, recent information released shows that the vast majorit of insurgents are in fact native Iraqis. There are some foreigners coming in, but mostly we’re fighting people who us to leave their homeland. And even if Iraq has now become a terrorist paradise, that’s a direct result of the invasion.
5) We owe it to those who have already died. If we are going to justify every war based on how many people died in it, then every war becomes self-justifying and we’d still be in Vietnam.
I don’t think we should cut and run now. We broke it, so now we have to figure out how to put it together. But we never should have gone there in the first place and now we’re stuck trusting the people whose incompetence got us in this mess to fix it.
I’d say and we and the Iraqis are royally screwed.
Iraqis would greet our troops with “candy and flowers”; that the war would last “six monthgs, tops”; and that the oil revenue would pay for the whole thing.
I would like to see a single quote where any of these things were said, especially the last.
Because, we all know that going to war for the oil revenue would have been an idea embraced by the whole nation!
Yo, Dan.
First off, the sanctions were NOT containing Saddam or his regime. As I said, the Food-For-Oil scandals prove that they were a joke.
Secondly, you’re not addressing my biggest point. Specifically, the hundreds of thousands of people who were killed under Saddam’s regime.
Forget the WMD’s. I’m talking about the Iraqi mass graves. Doesn’t that justify armed intervention?
Forget the WMD’s. I’m talking about the Iraqi mass graves. Doesn’t that justify armed intervention?
Not unless you’re prepared to overthrow every mass-murdering dictator in the world.
I would like to see a single quote where any of these things were said, especially the last.
http://www.usatoday.com/educate/war28-article.htm
* Feb. 7, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, to U.S. troops in Aviano, Italy: “It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.”
http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/editorial/12346352.htm
“Iraq has oil,” U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Fortune magazine in 2002, discussing the potential cost of an Iraq invasion and how it would be met. “They have financial resources.”
Paul Wolfowitz, formerly Rumsfeld’s deputy, was bolder: “The oil revenues of that country could bring in between $50 (billion) and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years,” he told Congress as the war began. “We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction.”
Glad to oblige.
As for the sanctions, I was not referring to the scandal-ridden oil-for-food program. I was referring to the no-fly zones and other containment measures that the US and our allies (not the UN) were enforcing. They were what was keeping Saddam contained.
That, in my view, more than justifies intervention.
It also justifies intervention in a dozen other nations, including North Korea, China, and most of Africa.
But you don’t see Bush saying we’re going to invade those countries, do we?
This wasn’t a war for humanitarian reasons, in any way, shape or form.
Which U.N.? The one that stood around with thier thumb up thier ášš while nearly a million got slaughtered in Rwanda?
Just like the US did.
Or, the one that whørëd itself in the Food-For-Oil scandal?
Oh, please. The US whørëš itself every day to fanatical governments all over the world.
Or, for a more recent example, World War Two. Japan surrendered in 1945
I don’t recall our soldiers being murdered by angry Japanese after their surrender, either.
“Mission Accomplished” was declared awhile back, yet our soldiers are still dying.
I’d say the two situations don’t compare.
You’re conveniently forgetting that because of the Gulf War and existing broken sanctions we had a pretext to go into Iraq.
Anyone who thinks this is about oil and not about doing SOMETHING about the Middle East sitation is kidding themselves.
“Which U.N.? The one that stood around with thier thumb up thier ášš while nearly a million got slaughtered in Rwanda? Or, the one that whørëd itself in the Food-For-Oil scandal?”
hmm, how about leaving it up to the country whose navy turned a blind eye to the smuggling? or perhaps the country who has “lost” $8 billion of reconstruction money?
according to the CIA report, the bulk of illicit transactions were goverment to goverment outside of the OFF program. it should also be pointed out that the decision to do nothing about Iraq’s trading with Jordan (their largest source of income and one of America’s closest allies in the region) was made by the Security Council, on which the U.S. is the most influential member.
and yes, it is a positive that we’ve stopped the attrocities that Saddam committed with the weapons we gave him. unfortunately, we’ve turned the country into a warzone in the process. they’ve gone from brutal regime to perpetual war. it’s kind of like breaking a whole chicken farm to make an omelette.
Anyone who thinks this is about oil and not about doing SOMETHING about the Middle East sitation is kidding themselves.
The problem with that kind of thinking is that it assumes that doing something, *anything*, is better than sticking the rule of “first do no harm.” Now we’re stuck in another quagmire and our leaders have no clue of how to get us out. Iraq’s power and water infrastructure is still a shambles and our soldiers have become walking targets while the so-called leaders in Iraq are drafting a constitution that will inevitably lead to a new Iranian-style theocracy.
Yeah, that’s a lot better.
Or, as Ðìçk Cheney put it back in 1992 when he was still opposed to overthrowing Saddam: “I don’t know how we would have let go of that tar baby once we had grabbed hold of it.”
13 years later and he doesn’t know how we’re going to let go of it.
I don’t recall our soldiers being murdered by angry Japanese after their surrender, either.
Maybe not in Japan, but in post WW2 Germany, over 1000 Americans were killed by German terrorists (in the span of just over a year). The interim German government finally put a stop to it, but it was bloody and violent (no tribunals or trials). It was just “taken care of”, but the German army.
Japan was quite a bit smoother, but not sure if that was a culture thing or what.
Japan was quite a bit smoother, but not sure if that was a culture thing or what.
Most likely, it had to do with the detonation of nuclear devices!
“Secondly, you’re not addressing my biggest point. Specifically, the hundreds of thousands of people who were killed under Saddam’s regime.
Forget the WMD’s. I’m talking about the Iraqi mass graves. Doesn’t that justify armed intervention?”
No, it doesn’t.
I’m going to come off as a cold blooded bášŧárd here but truth is truth. That’s a part of the world where stealing gets hands chopped off, being gay can get you hung and a woman can be stoned to death just because her husband says that she had an affair. What do you think they do to you for treason against the state?
A number of those graves are in areas, from what I’ve seen on maps, that Saddam had more then just the odd few revolt problems. They were people he saw as enimies of his state who supported the concept of armed revolt to throw him out of power, hurt him or even kill him. Some with the aid of other countries.
Remember Gulf War 1? Remeber Bush the 1st telling all those people, men, women and children, that if they helped us to kick out Saddam then we would protect them and back their play? Remember us turning our backs on them and letting Saddam and his army round them up and take them away? What, you thought that they were all taken away to be treated to a nice dinner and ice cream? They were rounded up and killed for acts of treason against the state.
Forget the whole good leader, bad leader or evil leader or what is or isn’t a freedom fighter debates for a moment. If you go up against your own government with the idea that you and those who follow you are going to throw out the sitting government and kill the sitting leader then you are engaged in an act of treason in that government’s eyes. If you play and loose with stakes at those levels then you pay. Hard.
Try this….
Next week we round up 3000 people, all American born, who have outfitted themselves with weapons and have active plans to, one month from now, storm DC and remove Bush from power. They think that Bush is evil for what he’s done and they want to remove him by force of arms and out him to death for war crimes. But we stop them and arrest them.
How many backers of this war, of Bush himself, do you think would be out there screaming from every talk radio show, news paper, TV show and street corner that these people should be put to death for treason? How many Americans in general would feel that way as well? I think it would be a pretty big number.
Let us take it one more step. We do put them to death. How many countries out there, including our allies, tell us that the death penalty is wrong? If some of those countries decided to attack us to stop a mass grave of 3000 people now plus all the others that we would “murder” with the death penalty; would you back their side on that play?
A sitting government, whether you like them or not, has the right to put people to death for treason if that is the law of the land. And that was the law of the land under Saddam.
Are there innocent men, women and children in those graves? Yeah, I’m sure of it. But we’ve killed a whole lotta innocents as well since we stared this war. Saddam and Bush both claimed it was for the greater good of the country. Either way innocent people die.
And there is one other thing about many of those innocent people. Many of them (not all) hated us as much as they did Saddam at the time of their deaths. Study up on the tribes and peoples of those areas. A number of them looked at us as the big evil. Others hated us because we empowered and were buddy buddy with their #1 enemy, Saddam. Still others wanted to take Saddam out so that they could become the new Saddam themselves. They just wanted to kill different people in the country then he did. Then there were those that were just innocent.
Given the history of that country, the warlike nature of many its tribes and the beliefs held by many of its peoples….. I just can’t get behind the mass graves argument as reason to go in. There’s just too much garbage to filter through for me to declare that a country that isn’t a threat to us, hadn’t attacked us and has as messed up a history as Iraq was worth so much as one American life when we had the situation under control to begin with. Given that Bush lied his ášš off to get us there it makes me care even less for the mass grave argument.
Now let the hate posts begin.
The current vogue seems to be to compare the situation in Iraq to the reconstruction of Germany and Japan. I guess that was the instruction from Sean Hannity this month. There are a number of reasons why this comparison doesn’t hold up.
First and foremost is that we had the Marshall Plan for reconstructing Europe and MacArthur had a plan for occupying Japan. We had no plan for a post-Saddam Iraq. Well, we sort of had a plan, but the guy who we intended to install turned out to be an Iranian spy.
Second is that in Japan, the Emperor urged the people to accept the surrender while in Germany we were able to utilize the existing Germany authorities to help quell Operation: Wolfpack. Iraq, we dismantled the entire army and the Baathist government and have had to rebuild a security force from scratch. The result is a force of Iraqis who are ill-trained and not even close to ready to deal with the insurgents. A closer comparison is Nixon’s plan to “Vietnamize” the Vietman conflict and we know how well that turned out.
Third is the fact that the neighboring nations in Europe and East Asia had an incentive to help stabilize the situation in Germany and Japan. Iraq’s neighbors, particulary Iran and Syria, have nothing to lose and everything to gain by encouraging more insurgency and keeping out forces tied up in Iraq for the foreseeable future.
Hey, At least David Duke supports her.
http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=105139
You grieve girl! Its all about the grieving. Nothing else.
>Hey, At least David Duke supports her.
>http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=105139
>You grieve girl! Its all about the grieving. Nothing else.
Lousy attempt at the logical fallacy of Guilt by Association/Ad Hominem, Anthony.
Lame, as expected – but expected nevertheless.
Shall we just jump to the logical conclusion of this thread, and bring up Hitler being a Christian, since most Christians vehemently object to being associated with that devout Catholic – and get Godwin’s Law out of the way?
Let’s concentrate on Miss Sheehan, and not any of the sideshow that has popped up on either side.
“Hey, At least David Duke supports her.
“http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=105139”
The last time I looked……..
Didn’t David Duke win office as an R? Doesn’t Mr. Duke claim to promote Christian values? Why, don’t most of the members of the KKK claim that the Bible and God are the driving force behind why blacks and whites shouldn’t be together (as they say that the mark of Cain is black skin) and should never “breed” together? Aren’t most the KKK GOP voters? Yes.
Doesn’t mean a dámņëd thing though. Nor does Dipwad throwing his support behind Wingnut mean a dámņëd thing either.
All the good arguments against her and this is the kind of petty stuff that keeps getting thrown out there.
Sheesh……
Well, going back to that very first news piece from way back you see that she and her husband decided that. He may have made a bit of a dif in the thinking back then. Plus she has had about a year to stew on old things while new things came to light about Bush and the pre-war deals to change her mind about how she would want to act around Bush.
I understand that. My point was that, if it is true as you state that people who have any liklihood of publically disagreeing with Bush are refused access, then how did someone like the Sheehan’s, who were quite possibly going to do so, let in?
It’s possible that the husband made some kind of pre-meeting deal but there hasn’t been a single bit of evidence to support that. Might it not be possible that your assumption is incorrect?
Since I don’t have access to her innermost thoughts and neither do you, speculation as to why she changed her mind is pointless.
Um, ok, but that has nothing to do with what we were talking about. The issue was whether people who disagree with Bush and might ask him anything that might be embarrassing or off-message are allowed to meet with him.
Not unless you’re prepared to overthrow every mass-murdering dictator in the world.
Would that apply to other things–let’s not offer aid to the Tsunami victims unless we are willing to offer as much to every other victim of natural disasters around the world?
The issue was whether people who disagree with Bush and might ask him anything that might be embarrassing or off-message are allowed to meet with him.
They may be allowed to meet with him, just not when there are cameras present which could record him hearing something other than, “Thank God you’re our president”*
Would that apply to other things–let’s not offer aid to the Tsunami victims unless we are willing to offer as much to every other victim of natural disasters around the world?
Bogus comparison. We can offer aid without being the world’s police force. We can offer aid without having to decide which dictators are “bad enough” and need to be taken down. We can offer aid without killing thousands of people in the process.
*Actual “spontaneous” quote from an “ordinary” citizen at one of Bush’s fake townhall meetings.
First, the “America armed Saddam” argument is a proven fallacy. The majority of weapons provided to Iraq (70 percent) were from the French and the Russians. America provided less than one percent.
Second, Clinton (Not the current administration) stood by while the Rwanda massacre/ U.N. Boogdoggle occurred. Amazingly enough, Slick Willie did jack, looked sad for the cameras and everybody ate it up.
Third, and most important, are you fûçkìņg insane?
You throw away hundreds of thousands of people with the flimsy excuses of “treason against the state”?
I’m certain that the Nazis used that excuse a time or two as well. Murder is murder, whatever you choose to call it.
And one more thing, everybody says “Well, why don’t we intervene against other dictatorships?”
Saddam was a guy who violated a dozen aspects of the peace treaty from the first Gulf War. Notaby, the re-arming his military, using humanitarian aid for personal use and violations of the no-fly zones. Under the terms of that treaty, the invasion was perfectly legit.
And, G.W. still got a shower of šhìŧ because of it. Imagine what would happen if he intervened in Gabon or Zimbabwe.
“It’s possible that the husband made some kind of pre-meeting deal but there hasn’t been a single bit of evidence to support that. Might it not be possible that your assumption is incorrect?”
Maybe. But that’s not my assumption.
From everything that I’ve seen and read from her and about her I think that she may just not have been as outwardly anti-Bush and anti-war then as she is now. Throw in a husband who doesn’t agree with her and they may have, together, agreed to “not go there” back then.
I would also think that because of how Bush’s people have kept critics from getting near him at every other event that they’ve staged. People with bumper stickers on their cars that Bush’s handlers didn’t like have been asked to leave the area before Bush does a photo op speach. No other reason then that. They weren’t yelling, didn’t have protest signs and weren’t causing trouble. They just had a pro Kerry or bring the troops home type of bumper sticker on their car.
Add those things up and I don’t think that she would have gotten near him back then had she been acting the way she is now. And I think that is, from comments in The Reporter way back when, because she and her husband decided **together** not to start asking Bush or his people those types of questions. I mean, that is a quote from her in the Reporter piece. She wanted to ask those questions but her husband talked her out of it.
Not much of a stretch in logic there….
“Would that apply to other things–let’s not offer aid to the Tsunami victims unless we are willing to offer as much to every other victim of natural disasters around the world?”
I don’t know. How many soldiers died for a lie when America helped the Tsunami victims?
First, the “America armed Saddam” argument is a proven fallacy.
Umm, who was it that propped up his government against Iran?
It wasn’t the French or the Russians.
Amazingly enough, Slick Willie did jack, looked sad for the cameras and everybody ate it up.
And Bush smiles at the camera instead while the same thing continues to happen.
Murder is murder, whatever you choose to call it.
Yep, and Bush is just as guilty of the murder of thousands of innocent Iraqis.
Under the terms of that treaty, the invasion was perfectly legit.
Invasions are usually done for credible reasons. Like, you know the invader being an actual threat.
Iraq wasn’t a threat. Iraq was contained.
The only threat is Bush toward whoever is next on his list.
How many soldiers died for a lie when America helped the Tsunami victims?
Huh?
Here’s a better question: how many Republican presidents in recent memory didn’t sit on their “laurels” and continued to do something about the problems of the world?
How many Democrat presidents didn’t?
“Third, and most important, are you fûçkìņg insane?
You throw away hundreds of thousands of people with the flimsy excuses of “treason against the state”?
I’m certain that the Nazis used that excuse a time or two as well. Murder is murder, whatever you choose to call it.”
No, I’m not insane.
But when all the B.S. is removed you have to look at things as they are. An uprising against a government by its people, with or without outside help, is going to be seen by that government as an act of treason.
If another act of terror were to happen in london and by traced to 100 homegrown, born and breed in England terrorists with ties to Osama and they were caught and sentanced to death for treason…..
If 1000 home grown, born in America terrorists were to attack DC, be caught and sentanced to death for treason….
If 100 home grown Japanese, Irish, German, etc. were….
You get the idea….
Would you call that murder or justice? Why?
Saddam was a monster and evil as hëll. But we can not put him on trial for “crimes” if we or our allies do the same thing ourselves (yeah, I know we don’t really do that anymore now…)
Any government has the right to put to death any persons who try to commit treason or bring about a violent revolt against it. Good and evil don’t count until the history books are written or until after the battle is won.
Saddam, evil or not, won most of those fights. They lost. They died. Fact of life.
Was it wrong? Yeah, in the grand scheme of things and all that karma stuff. Would I have liked it to not have happened? Yeah. But I’m not going to call on American soldiers to die for them if there is no threat what so ever to this country because a revolt was squished. Plus there were other ways to do something about it that wouldn’t have us where we’re at now.
You wanna go save people for those reasons? Fine. Now tell me where you stop. How many countries and wars do we go through to stop the hundreds of Saddams and the thousands of Saddam wanna be rulers in the world today making all those other mass graves? Who chooses what people we let die and who we save? Are you going to go tell mother after mother after mother, in person yourself, that her child died fighting a war that means nothing to what happens in this country and means less then nothing to our safty and security? Have fun.
We are of finite resources. This isn’t a comic book, movie of the week or adventure novel. This is the real world. We make choices and have to live with them and they don’t always work out all sun shine in the end. We can not play world police (great movie by the by) and wage war in every country we don’t like or decide is run by someone who is evil and survive as a nation for too long.
You think we can clean up the world. Then by all means tell us the plan (leaving out the parts involving Superman, Thor and Batman.)
Hey, all of you anti-war guys just shut up! We’ve given the Iraqi people the gift of freedom and democracy! Well, ok, all of the non-female Iraqi people the gift of freedom. OK, all of the Islamic Iraqi people freedom. Um, all of the Shiite Iraqi people freedom… to obey the words of their imams. Yeah. So there.
“How many soldiers died for a lie when America helped the Tsunami victims?
Huh?”
Ok. I’ll help you out a bit. The answer is zero. That’s why using the Tsunami argument when talking about Iraq is bogus.
I’m guessing you missed the exchange above that went…
“”Not unless you’re prepared to overthrow every mass-murdering dictator in the world.”
Would that apply to other things–let’s not offer aid to the Tsunami victims unless we are willing to offer as much to every other victim of natural disasters around the world?”
Are you un”Huh?” yet?
“Second, Clinton (Not the current administration) stood by while the Rwanda massacre/ U.N. Boogdoggle occurred. Amazingly enough, Slick Willie did jack, looked sad for the cameras and everybody ate it up.”
And, when debating people who say we shouldn’t have gotten into a war…… That’s supposed to make sense how? Did I miss a post somewhere?
the thing here is the “Opinion” and we all the know that saying about opinions everybody has them. But the differnece is HERE in the USA we can have that without killing the other side. This all could be solved with a game of dodgeball..Who is with me…
“They may be allowed to meet with him, just not when there are cameras present which could record him hearing something other than, “Thank God you’re our president”*”
Maybe not video cameras. Still cameras are obviously allowed, as there was a photo on the Sheehan family webpage showing Bush giving Ms. Sheehan a kiss. It isn’t there now.
Bogus comparison. We can offer aid without being the world’s police force. We can offer aid without having to decide which dictators are “bad enough” and need to be taken down. We can offer aid without killing thousands of people in the process.
Ok, so it isn’t the hypocrisy of offing one dictator while allowing others that bothers you–it’s the nature of warefare itself. That’s ok, it’s a lot more defendable than the position implied by
Didn’t David Duke win office as an R?
Yeah, but to be completely accurate he can best be described as a longtime Democrat turned Republican turned Reform Party advocate. Any way you slice him, he’s still nuts. At any rate, the Republicans did everything they could to repudiate him–I’d no more tag them wth him than I would the Democrats over Fred Phelps.
Add those things up and I don’t think that she would have gotten near him back then had she been acting the way she is now.
Well, yeah, I would guess not. I was no Clinton fan but I wouldn’t expect anyone so hostile to him to have been allowed any where near.
Was it wrong? Yeah, in the grand scheme of things and all that karma stuff.
There’s nothing wrong with just saying it was an atrocity but not something we had to do something about. That’s fine. When you give this grudging “yeah, it’s wrong, in the grand scheme of things” you end up looking awful. And I don’t thionk you’re an awful guy at all.
It’s also counter productive–given a choice between someone who says “We will pay any price, we will bear any burden, we will meet any hardship, we will fight any enemy, we will support any friend, to assure the survival of liberty.” and one who essentially says “Yeah, it’s sort of too bad about all those dead folks but hey, whatcha gonna do?” I think many Americans will find themselves going for the idealist.
I’ll take a stab at this, Remo:
(1) the reason why it was still wrong to go to war with Iraq, despite the mass graves of Saddam, is simple: Bush crafted the entire case for war around the presence of WMDs in Iraq, and there were no WMDs in Iraq.
If you want to go to war with Iraq and stop Saddam from filling those mass graves, fine, I’m behind the idea 100%… but make THAT case before the American people! Make the case that Saddam is evil and needed to be deposed, on the strength of his genocide and his genocide alone! DON’T go before the people you ostensibly represent, before the people of the entire world, and tell them you’re sending those troops in there for WMDs when you’re really sending them in there to stop Saddam from being a genocidal šhìŧhëád!
If you’re going to send people to kill or to be killed, if you’re going to send America’s men and women into harm’s way, you’d better make dámņëd sure that the reason you’re sending them is (in the best case) worth it and (in the worst case) the only option you have left to you. Otherwise, you’re a liar. You’re knowingly sending people to their deaths for a cause that you have knowingly misrepresented. The very least you can do for someone whom you’re sending to their death is to be straight with them about what they’re dying for… that’s not a question of ‘the odds being in your favor’ of a tangental outcome, that’s just simple human decency, which this administration did not have and continues not to have in this regard.
In essence, don’t sell me a horse, then give me a camel instead, while saying “well, at least it’s got four legs, right?” That’s the fast one Bush pulled: the American people were promised a safer world without the threat of Saddam’s WMDs. Yes, the world may indeed be safer without Saddam, but -and let me say this in as clear terms as possible- THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WERE NOT MADE ANY SAFER FROM WMDs BY INVADING IRAQ! So, then, what was the point? The Bush administration has changed their reasons for invading so many times no that they have lost all credibility with me… they’ve cried wolf too many times.
(2) The UN sanctions were indeed ineffective. So what the US, with its open dominance of the UN, should have done was seek to enforce even more draconian sanctions upon Iraq. Hëll, if we really wanted to, we could take over the sanctioning ourselves to see that it was done right… you’re telling me that the US couldn’t make the UN dance to that tune? The US, which exerts the most control and dominance over the United Nations, was unable to enact stricter sanctions, and instead chose invasion as the better choice?
Not buying it.
(3) The war is going VERY badly. Field commanders are routinely turned down in their requests for more troops and more material, told to make do with what they’ve got. We have no clear exit strategy -something that should have, in a saner world, been developed BEFORE invading- and having no clear exit strategy all but guarantees that the occupation will continue to be mismanaged. Requests for better or safer equipment have been denied. Some units are already on their third tour of duty, when they were told they would barely be there long enough to serve one. The suicide and divorce rates of those who have served or are currently serving have spiked to record high numbers. We can’t even agree on how to properly total up the Iraqi civilian casualties, for God’s sake! How can anyone look at such a mismanaged quagmire and say “it’s really not that bad?”
No plan of attack, no plan of withdrawal, no realistic timetable of either… and while the Bush administration continues to pick their noses on the public dime, between dozens and hundreds of people a day (depending on who you believe) are dying over there in that hotbed of unrest! You want to win my approval, Dubya? Have your hotshot spin doctors spin up a plan that will get our troops home and get Iraqis a goverment that works!
Bottom line: If you’re going to go to war, if you’re going to spend money, material and lives, than you dámņëd well better make sure you’re going to do it right on your first and only try, because to do it any other way is an insult to those who serve, those at home, and those who you’re ostensibly ‘liberating.’
“Didn’t David Duke win office as an R?
Yeah, but to be completely accurate he can best be described as a longtime Democrat turned Republican turned Reform Party advocate. Any way you slice him, he’s still nuts. At any rate, the Republicans did everything they could to repudiate him–I’d no more tag them wth him than I would the Democrats over Fred Phelps.”
Yeah, I know. The post that you pulled that from was pointing out that it didn’t matter that he claimed he was an R (as every in office R up to Bush 1 slagged on the guy) or that any of the other stuff mattered as far as painting the entire party with that brush. No more then Duke siding with Sheehan means anything as far as her or her supporters (and one ‘o’ them I ain’t myself by the by.)
Of course, we D’s at the time had the good taste and class to not support the guy or get him elected when he ran for Prez as a D. We wouldn’t even support him enough to get 2% of the vote.
😉
“I think many Americans will find themselves going for the idealist.”
Maybe. But they’ll turn their backs on him after he shows that he has lots of good idealist talk but very little leadership skill. Or they’ll follow him and get stuck in a mess because he’s an idiot.
You ever read My Jihad (One American’s Journey Through the World of Usama Bin Laden–As a Covert Operative for the American Government)
by Aukai Collins? Have you ever seen him or others who did what he did speak? You know one thing that they talk about when the subject of all those freedom fighters and poor people come up? Many of them (not all but many), including the ones that we were supporting at the time we were supporting them, don’t like us. If we had brushed “our” enemies off the face of the Middle East then we would have many times been left with friends who would turn around and become the enemy we just helped them remove.
Usama Bin Laden was our friend. Saddam was our friend. Hëll, for a while Iran was our sorta friend while we helped back Saddam. Over half the people in Iraq that wanted Saddam dead would be or would support a leader that we would call as evil or as wrong as Saddam. They would support a leader or a system that would set up the next Saddam or the new Iran. And most of them would love to see us booted out of their lands.
And it’s not just guys who worked for the U.S. as long term agents in the Middle East who say this stuff. I know people who lived there and left to become a U.S. citizen who have said point blank that most the family they have back home feels like that. And that was before the war.
Most of what I’ve seen and read from there seems to show that they hated Saddam mostly because he wasn’t their type of evil bášŧárd rather then just because he was an evil bášŧárd. If Saddam and family had been killed in a coup 20 or 10 years ago I think we would have just had a different kind of problem there now. Iraq would just been more like Iran most likely. And Iran would be more of a threat for not having an enemy as a neighbor to waste resources on.
So, no I don’t quite see all the people Saddam killed as all sweet and innocent. And, yeah, I can just go the pure logic route and see how Saddam would feel he had the right to execute people he saw as enemies of his state the same as dámņëd near everybody in the U.S. would feel about people who would try or support those who did try and take down our Gov. or kill our leaders in the same fashion.
And, no, I don’t see the value in wasting the lives of U.S. soldiers to create a state in Iraq that, I believe, will just end up as a new Iran before the end of it and one day wind up on our enemies list again. Especially when we’re wasting those lives on a war based on lies, smoke and mirrors.
Sorry if that makes me a bad guy here.
Most of what I’ve seen and read from there seems to show that they hated Saddam mostly because he wasn’t their type of evil bášŧárd rather then just because he was an evil bášŧárd.
I just don’t see anything that would support the idea that Iraqis, seemingly alone among humanity, DESIRE evil leaders. Do you really think that whoever campaigns as the one most likely to return Iraq to the good old days is the one who will win?
Such a view reminds me of nothing more than the attitudes among many during the height of the cold war that the Russian people themselves were as bad as their leaders.
And, yeah, I can just go the pure logic route and see how Saddam would feel he had the right to execute people he saw as enemies of his state the same as dámņëd near everybody in the U.S. would feel about people who would try or support those who did try and take down our Gov. or kill our leaders in the same fashion.
If our leaders were filling mass graves with their political opponents “dámņëd near everybody” would not include me.
“I just don’t see anything that would support the idea that Iraqis, seemingly alone among humanity, DESIRE evil leaders. Do you really think that whoever campaigns as the one most likely to return Iraq to the good old days is the one who will win?”
No. But we have a slightly different idea of freedom then many in the Middle East. Sure, there is a segmant of the population that wants something kinda like what Jane and Joe Average in the U.S.A. would think of when you ask them to describe freedom. But there are many more that are quite happy with a theocracy that would be, in our eyes, extreme and unjust. Why, because that kind of leadership would keep them from becoming evil infidels like us with our “freedom” and all its sins. The definition of “freedom” is not, no matter how much Bush and crew wanna sing that song, the same in the hearts and minds of everybody on the planet.
Plus you have the “hate the infidels” factor. Remember when Iraq fell and Saddam was in hiding? Remember how many people came out of hiding, some who were given haven in Iran, that the people flocked to and spoke of as the next leader that gave the Bush Admin fits over and had them running to press mics to yell, “oh, hëll no!!!!”
They, the people of Iraq, wanted to embrace a number of people that we wouldn’t even let them put on the ballot because our government saw them as a big a future problem as Saddam had been. And people were flocking to them in droves. Can you not see the tiny problem with this concept?
There many are people in the Mid East that see as evil things that we don’t as well as the other way around. We will not get the promised “American” democracy and love of freedom over there any time soon or in the next two or three generations (if even then.)
There was a BBC News net feed report the other day about the new Constitution in Iraq. One of the things they were talking about was that the first line or a line in the first paragraph stated that nothing that followed that statement in that document could or would supersede or replace militant Islamic law (they named the one and discussed the major beliefs but I’m drawing ablank at the moment.) Most of what was discussed as what the laws would be and give the people as a framework for living is the exact opposite of what Bush and crew are crowing about giving Iraq and spilling U.S. blood for. Big victory there.
“If our leaders were filling mass graves with their political opponents “dámņëd near everybody” would not include me.”
So a bunch of people could arm themselves against our government or help a foreign government to try and overthrow our government and kill our leaders and you would be allfine and dandy with that and happy with just slapping the traitors on the wrist? No. I think you would back seeing them put on trial and executed. But maybe not.
Brak Yeller stated that:
—the reason why it was still wrong to go to war with Iraq, despite the mass graves of Saddam, is simple: Bush crafted the entire case for war around the presence of WMDs in Iraq, and there were no WMDs in Iraq.
Scipio’s Reply:
Bush crafted the entire case for war around the presence of WMDs in Iraq? Where was I three years ago when this happened. I remember a cause for war being that Saddam Hussein repeatedly violated the UN resolutions against him. I remember a cause for war being that Iraq was connected to Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups as evidenced by the Iraqi intelligence service officer meeting with Al Qaeda in Prague and the presence of Abu Nidal in Baghdad. I remember a cause being that Saddam Hussein refused to allow weapons inspectors into his country creating a very suspicious cloud over a possible banned weapons program. I remember a cause being that intelligence estimates stated that Saddam had an active WMD program and the French, Germans, Russians and British all signed off on that intelligence and believed it to be credible which is why they passed UN Resolution 1441 demanding unrestricted access by weapons inspectors to locate these banned weapons.
To back up these claims, the 9/11 Commission discovered that Saddam Hussein had dispatched agents to Afghanistan in 1998 to discuss developing ties to Osama Bin Laden.
Did Bush have it out for Saddam Hussein before he took office? Absolutely. The man tried to assasinate his father. Personally, I believe that any attack on a sitting or former President by another government is an act of war. Do I think President Bush declare war on Iraq just to settle a grudge? No. Presidents are above this kind of pettiness (except for a well known break-in at the Watergate hotel).
Bush sincerely believed, as even Clinton has stated, that Saddam Hussein represented a real and growing threat to the United States. Could he be contained? Not forever. The UN sanctions were failing miserably. The “Oil for Palaces” scheme has proved that sanctions were not working and Saddam was able to funnel millions of dollars into non-humanitarian programs. Did Bush play up the WMD case for an American public that was skittish about taking on a second war following the Afghanistan operation? Most assuredly. But he did not lie about this. He simply focused on what he knew could galavanize the people for war which was simply part of the reason to initiate regime change in Iraq. The intelligence stated Saddam had an active WMD program. Our allies agreed with these assesments. But now they are armchair quarterbacking the pre-war intelligence and pretending that they never saw or agreed with those assesments.
CRAIG J RIES: You said
First, the “America armed Saddam” argument is a proven fallacy.
Umm, who was it that propped up his government against Iran?
It wasn’t the French or the Russians.
I SAY: Yes it was. Add the Chinese as well. IN fact, Brazil and Poland armed Saddam to a higher level than the US.
The Stockholm International Peace Institute, you know Stockholm in Sweden- Right wing nutters the lot of them.
This info was from them.
Cliches versus facts. Facts always win.
Plllleeeeaasssse do the clicky and learn!
http://www.sipri.org/contents/armstrad/TIV_imp_IRQ_70-04.pdf
http://www.command-post.org/archives/002978.html
Check this out as well
“If our leaders were filling mass graves with their political opponents “dámņëd near everybody” would not include me.”
So a bunch of people could arm themselves against our government or help a foreign government to try and overthrow our government and kill our leaders and you would be allfine and dandy with that and happy with just slapping the traitors on the wrist? No. I think you would back seeing them put on trial and executed. But maybe not.
No. You are deliberately ignoring the important part. Was I too subtle?
If our leaders were filling mass graves with their political opponents not only would I welcome a bunch of people arming themselves against our government or helping a foreign government to try and overthrow our government and kill our leaders, I would hope that I would BE one of those people.
You do see the part about “filling mass graves with their political opponents”, right?
“First, the “America armed Saddam” argument is a proven fallacy. The majority of weapons provided to Iraq (70 percent) were from the French and the Russians. America provided less than one percent.”
apparently a great deal came from Germany and Britain as well.
however, according to the 1994 Senate banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Hearings we sold them Sarin, Soman, Tabun, VX, Lewisite, Cyanogen Chloride, Hydrogen Cyanide, blister agents and Mustard Gas. Some of the powerful biological agents sold included anthrax, Clostridium Botulinum, Histoplasma Capsulatum (causes a tuberculosis-like disease) , Brucella Melitensis, Clostridium Perfringens and Escherichia Coli.
we may be behind in quantity, but we did pretty well in quality.
“I think many Americans will find themselves going for the idealist.”
perhaps, but lets see how many of them enlist when we’re fighting simultaneous wars in Burma, Laos, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Zimbabwe, Chechnya, Haiti and China. the “we’re going to overthrow brutal regimes everywhere” doctrine will also be very bad for our national debt, i’d imagine.
i’m also worried about the potential abuses of such a doctrine. given the history of people we’ve allied ourselves with, i’d argue that maybe the U.S. isn’t a great judge of character.
unfortunately, there’s no easy answer to brutal regimes. ostensibly we’re trying to save the people. to wage war, we’re going to be killing a lot of those people.
sanctions have a tendency to hurt the poor rather than their leaders. they also allow the leader to scapegoat those imposing the sanctions.
Fareed Zakaria (hardly a left-wing extremist) wrote a very interesting column recently on the effectiveness of sanctions.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8272764/site/newsweek/
Regarding the David Duke comparison. Yeah that was a cheap shot and lazy.
And so is this!
White Nationalist nazi’s support Cindy!!!
http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php?p=2119672&posted=1
It seems to me that the people who promoted the war in Iraq misled the public with regards to WMD and the connection to terrorism. Beyond that they were also not very well prepared to the complexities involved in taking over Iraq and rebuilding a democracy.
But on the other hand, it seems that the opponents of war in the US, Europe, and the UN, have not been able to present a way to deal with four sometimes related problems: (1) How to deal with the grwing threat of terrorism, especially the possibility of chemical, biological or nuclear terrorism? (2) How to deal with bad dictators and the humanitarian crisises resulting from oppressive regimes? (3) How to deal with oppresive regimes when they oppose international pressure/decisions? (4) How to make sure that the judgement of states by the international community (or members of) is really fair and credible?
I think this was part of the reason why Kerry lost.
“Bush crafted the entire case for war around the presence of WMDs in Iraq? Where was I three years ago when this happened. I remember a cause for war being that Saddam Hussein repeatedly violated the UN resolutions against him. I remember a cause for war being that Iraq was connected to Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups as evidenced by the Iraqi intelligence service officer meeting with Al Qaeda in Prague and the presence of Abu Nidal in Baghdad. I remember a cause being that Saddam Hussein refused to allow weapons inspectors into his country creating a very suspicious cloud over a possible banned weapons program. I remember a cause being that intelligence estimates stated that Saddam had an active WMD program and the French, Germans, Russians and British all signed off on that intelligence and believed it to be credible which is why they passed UN Resolution 1441 demanding unrestricted access by weapons inspectors to locate these banned weapons.”
i would think that the fact that Saddam capitulated and let inspectors in goes a long way towards undermining these reasons. at the very least, we could have waited for them to do their job and in the meantime have checked out all the Iraq/Al Qaeda connections and found out they were dead ends. this would have saved us 1800 soldiers, $200 billion and the lives of around 25,000 Iraqi civilians (or 100,000 by another estimate).
Jerry C, you keep talking about the people in the mass graves as “people who revolted”, which conjures images of sleeper cells a la French Resistance.
Most of them were normal individuals who wanted the basics of human rights. And, one day, one of them said a little too much to the wrong person and dámņëd themselves and thier entire families.
And, most of them weren’t “revolting” in the sense that they had taken up arms and were rioting in the streets. They were going about
thier normal business when they got grabbed, in many cases brutally tortured and executed.
Normal people doing normal things and they got killed for it.
If that isn’t worth fighting for, then why the Hëll did we do the American Civil War?
Lincoln could probably prevented the secession by saying, “Fine, keep the slaves. By and large, they’re not treated too badly.”
Millions of soldiers died for what was an issue of morality.
And, by the way, how exactly do you mean Bush killed thousands of innocent Iraqis? Back it up with a credible source, please.
On the same note, here’s my source for Saddam’s mass graves.
http://web.amnesty.org/report2004/irq-summary-eng
That’s Amnesty International, which is both credible and can hardly be accused of being an administration mouthpiece.
If Clinton had started filling mass graves with Newt and the boys I would be with you on this point.
If Bush started filling mass graves with Ted and the boys I would be with you on this point.
Saddam and his mass grave are a whole other nut. I do feel sorry for those that he killed who were innocent. I feel sorry for the woman who were picked up off the streets for no reason and later dumped in some of those same graves (and women may not get much better treatment in the future Iraq if the Constitution and the political forces there keep heading the way they seem to be.) But a large number of Saddam’s political opponents held the same beliefs and world views as UBL and others like him. Am I sorry that they bit it and didn’t get to set up shop as the new tyrant in charge in Iraq. No. Am I sorry that Iran and Iraq spit on each other for years rather then Saddam getting dethroned by another dictator who may have been friendly to Iran (where many of Saddam’s enemies and political opponents went and found safe havens) so that they could have both worked toward the common goal of giving the west the bird? No.
Saddam was in many ways the lesser of two evils in that land. He was a secularist. He gave woman more rights then many of the surrounding Middle Eastern countries. He didn’t adhere or allow the type of extreme Islamic beliefs that are shared by the UBLs of the world and other Middle Eastern countries and peoples. A number of his political enemies did. Was Saddam evil? Yeah. Was Saddam more evil or dangerous then UBL or others that share his world views? It’s debatable but most would say no. If my choices are Saddam or a theocracy led by a UBL type of person propped up by a country of loyal followers and the faithful then I’ll take Saddam every time.
****
Look… If I’m coming off as a bášŧárd here and sounding angry it’s because I am (angry.) Every other day we get more and more proof that this war was started on bogus reasons by people who had no plan past “get Saddam” (see the recent papers that came from the State Dept about their pre-war concerns about the Bush Boondoggle.) Do most the Bush backers just come out and say something like, “hey, we got lied to and Bush got us into a mess. We know that now but we’re there and we have to do what we can to salvage the situation and repair the damage we did.” I could agree with that. We are in it and we can’t just pull out and cut and run (one reason I’m not a Cindy backer.) We have to get this situation as close to fixed as we can and Bush and crew ain’t showing anymore brains in that department then they did in any other (outside of coming up with good lies and propaganda that is.)
But what do we get? Lines full of bûllšhìŧ over and over and over about how we went there to spread freedom by taking out a tyrant who was ranked as a lower committer of crimes against humanity by most groups who keep up with that kind of thing then some of Bush’s friends and allies in that region. We get bûllšhìŧ over and over and over again from dittoheads about how all those people over there wanted us there, love us and just can’t wait to breath the sweet air of American style freedom. It’s bûllšhìŧ. They didn’t, don’t and can. If Iraq could stand on its own today and we could leave tomorrow; I guarantee that the people of Iraq would elect themselves into an extremist Islamic state in no time that would be modeled after all the things we hate about Iran and other countries in that area of the world. That is, if they didn’t turn around and kill each other in bloody tribe wars over religious beliefs and persecutions to the point that they couldn’t stand on their own and Iran just moved in and took the country from them.
Most of the people over there aren’t “us”. They don’t all want the same freedoms or types of freedoms we do. The Cold War analogy is off the mark because the Middle East has something that the old Soviet Union never had. They have some hardcore, and in some case extreme, religious beliefs and leaders. They have a doctrine on how to live and what’s right and wrong that is in many ways far more foreign and alien to what we believe then the differences that existed between the peoples of the U.S. and the old Soviet Union ever were. The Reagan fairy tale about the people of the two countries coming together in peace on the many common grounds and shared desires I could see as having a chance and could believe in back in the late 80’s. The Bush fairy tale is a joke. And an unfunny one at that.