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Iraq invaded Kuwait and was given many chances to withdraw or face military consequences. Saddam opted to not withdraw. Desert Storm happened.
That ended only in a cease-fire, NOT a peace treaty.
In a cease-fire agreement, you agree to stop warring only on the contingency that you keep honouring the terms of that cease-fire.
Iraq violated the cease-fire in multiple ways.
Therefore, the other party to that cease-fire may choose to resume hostilities at a time of their choosing.
Under those terms, Bush didn't even need to consult with Congress...but he did. Congress gave him the authority...with a large majority of Democrats voting Yea I might add.
Ok. Fine. I'll accept this (although it's a bulls**t reason for an invasion).
However, why didn't Bush just say that instead of coming up with all that WMD nonsense? Especially seeing as how you seem to think that this justification would've went over better with the American people. It wouldn't have went over well with me, but then, i know better. But the other sheep would've probably bought it and his legacy wouldn't be in the shape it is now.
Uh...sure, they had something to do with oil and the stability of the region. But there are lots of countries in that region that have something to do with one or both of those things. So what?
Well, fast forward to post-911 America.....
Everyone agreed that Saddam was a threat to Israel (which would touch off a complete Middle Eastern War) and the USA because of his WMD. I'll bet if you are honest, you even listened to all the Democrats that swore Saddam possessed them and figured he did too. France, Italy, and GB also agreed. There were Saudi, Jordanian, and Iraq ex-pats who were telling us the same thing.
We still don't know where the Anthrax came from.
Iraq was the only one in the region which possessed that perceived threat.
Oil had nothing to do with it....
Iraqi oil was embargoed at the time and gasoline prices in the USA were low. So we were getting along just fine without.
I could list pages of quotes of DEMOCRATS swearing that Saddam had WMD.
Bill Clinton even went on Larry King Live and said he had them.
Did you see the latest poll showing that (without any campaigning) Bush would only lose to Obama if there were a vote today by 4 points? 44-48
Both points are here nor there. The Dems were fools and they believed Bush and went along with him. That's not my fault. Still, they aren't the commander-in-chief, and they aren't accountable ultimately. And, they weren't responsible for coming up with reasons to invade, the president was.
I'm simply asking you why didn't the president lay out the case you just made instead of that poppycock about WMD. That's all i want to know. I don't think my question is unreasonable seeing as how you didn't mention WMD in your post....which means that you think it was a load of bull too.
As to some poll about Bush vs Obama....please. Why is that even significant? That's File 13 stuff.
Musings On Iraq: 2010 Iraq Budget Passed
Lets see they have 21 billion plus for infrastructure and the gvt only needs to borrow 19 billion to cover their deficit. Sounds like they are in better fiscal shape then we are. I say they are in good enough shape to do some lifting let them fix Baghdad.
Iraq was already crippled by years of embargo. It was kicked further down the ladder when it was invaded. While these numbers are impressive on the surface, do they really cover the damage done? Can we really expect a crippled society to take over reconstruction?
I'm not implying anything, I don't have the numbers...just asking questions. But if we were on the ground, we might have a totally different perspective and buzzwords like freedom and democracy probably don't mean much in day to day life when sewage is running down the street.
I'm not saying your argument has no value, but from their POV, can you really blame them?
Both points are here nor there. The Dems were fools and they believed Bush and went along with him. That's not my fault. Still, they aren't the commander-in-chief, and they aren't accountable ultimately. And, they weren't responsible for coming up with reasons to invade, the president was.
Not true.
All members of Congress were invited to several top intelligence briefings to hear the exact same intelligence that Bush had.
Hillary Clinton even went further and said she talked to former intelligence people who served under her Husband and they told her Saddam had the WMDs.
Now you mean ONLY Bush came up with reasons to invade?.....
"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force -- if necessary -- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security." -- Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002
Quote:
I'm simply asking you why didn't the president lay out the case you just made instead of that poppycock about WMD. That's all i want to know. I don't think my question is unreasonable seeing as how you didn't mention WMD in your post....which means that you think it was a load of bull too.
No, I don't think the WMD thing was a load of bull. Personally, I think Saddam moved them to Syria. Even still, 300 Tons of yellowcake uranium was found and the USA moved it to Canada.
As to why he didn't say that....well, you have to consider that in the post 911 era, that really was the main reason.
As to some poll about Bush vs Obama....please. Why is that even significant? That's File 13 stuff.[/quote]
All members of Congress were invited to several top intelligence briefings to hear the exact same intelligence that Bush had.
Hillary Clinton even went further and said she talked to former intelligence people who served under her Husband and they told her Saddam had the WMDs.
Now you mean ONLY Bush came up with reasons to invade?.....
"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force -- if necessary -- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security." -- Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002
No, I don't think the WMD thing was a load of bull. Personally, I think Saddam moved them to Syria. Even still, 300 Tons of yellowcake uranium was found and the USA moved it to Canada.
As to why he didn't say that....well, you have to consider that in the post 911 era, that really was the main reason.
As to some poll about Bush vs Obama....please. Why is that even significant? That's File 13 stuff.
[/quote]
You're trying to completely disregard the fact that the buck stops at President Bush, not at the Congress. Only Bush can send the troops to war in that scenario. And it's his responsibility to make sure that the reasons for losing thousands of troops is valid. Yes, i know that the Dems went along with him, and many believed his justifications. But they were HIS justifications at the end of the day. So you simply can't exonerate the President in that whole episode. In fact, he gets total blame. Goes with the office.
As to your WMD assertions....well, ok. If you still buy that at this point when even the architects of that whole scheme don't buy it, then you can't be helped.
Yes, I "buy that" because there is evidence and testimony saying he moved them to Syria.
Even more important was the Iraq Survey Group conclusions said that what they found was perhaps even worse than actually finding his rather small amount of WMD. They found actual documents showing that Saddam only had his programs in moth balls until the sanctions were lifted. And if you recall just about the time we were preparing to invade, France and other countries were pressing the UN to lift those sanctions.
Yes, the buck stops at the President. But keeping in mind the post-911 America which had just had an Anthrax attack and all things considered, I believe he was acting in what he thought were the Country's best interests. When you couple all that with the 4 Congressional Investigations showing that the intelligence was flawed and that there was no coercion involved in altering that intelligence, it's hard to blame him for following the best intelligence estimates he had at the time.
The only thing I fault in what you said above is that it was all Bush's call. The President doesn't have that authority...only Congress can authorize it.
As we are all aware of the trillion dollars that we have spent spreading democracy in freedom in Iraq and Afghanistan this is the thanks that we get:
There you go, thanks for giving us democracy and freedom now pay for the damages so we do not have to do any of the lifting.Sad part is our brain dead leaders will probally give it to them.
The Iraq people never asked for the United States to liberate them or bring them democracy or any damn thing. The United States took it upon itself to shove a gun in their face and say here is your damned democracy, by the way, sorry we have displaced several million people over the past two decades.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Swingblade
That is a solid point, but on the other hand their have been other stories about how unhappy the Iraqi people are. Yes, their country is a mess but the U S has handed them money for schools,hospitals and infrastructure.
Granted the article is old, I tried to find recent info with no luck. My point is, we have gave them money and they have revenue. With all the blood and treasure we have spent,don't you think we have done enough?
The point is, we gave them something they didn't want nor ask for then we have the gall to be upset because they are ungrateful?
This is called hubris and ego at a level beyond most human comprehension
Should we not say sorry for every baby that tried to suckle from the teat of its bloated dead mother because, whoops, sorry collateral damage, why are you ungrateful?
Should they be grateful that those schools being built are also the ones we blew up, often with people inside them? Should we say sorry, we let your national treasures get looted and pillaged because we found it more important to guard an oil well than thousand year old priceless treasures.
Should they be grateful for little children without arms or legs who were playing outside when a bomb that said, "Made in the U.S.A." landed a block away, wiping out entire families and were then handed a bottle of water?
Would you be grateful if I came to your house and beat your family nearly to death, threw a hundred dollar bill on the table and say, "be grateful I'm so damn generous", would you be?
The people who should be more grateful in this world is the 99.5% of Americans who can sit on the massive backsides in big fat comfy chairs behind 1000 dollar computers with highspeed internet and judge the rest of humanity from this ivory tower while the .5% of people who actually fight these wars, do.
Telling the Iraqi's they should be grateful is like telling a rape victim that she really wanted it, because when a girl says no, we all know that means yes yes yes big boy.
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. Why is that even significant? That's File 13 stuff.
