Nevada Hoya
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Aug 9, 2008 13:41:59 GMT -5
Don't you recall the "slam dunk" quote from Tenet? Or does it just not fit into your view of the runup to the war? Also, your recall of the views of the other nations is not correct. All were saying Saddam had WMDs, as was, I might add, Bill Clinton, and almost everyone else in this country. I actually never thought they had the WMD. I guess I was naive - I believed the international committee that searched the country and couldn't find them. On the other had if you take the other view, if they did have them, I think caution about invading Iraq was called for. As it turns out, if the US did in fact know that Iraq did not have WMD, then, hey, it would have been easy to invade the country. Guess what! |
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Post by jerseyhoya34 on Aug 9, 2008 21:04:19 GMT -5
It is easy to go about an exercise of nation-counting when most, if not all, of the nations were receiving the same intelligence from us, with the result that you had a snowball effect. It is especially entertaining when this exercise involves hiding behind the French. In any event, being empirically wrong is not excused just because others were wrong. In other words, there is not a "curve" with issues of war and peace just as ignorance of the law rarely plays well as a defense.
I think it is reasonable to argue that the WH did not believe that there were WMD at the time of the war. A couple of things point to this -
1. The lack of manpower in our WMD-search unit and the corresponding lack of ability to cover all suspected WMD sites during the war when the danger of such WMD was described as being potentially catastrophic to the Midle East and United States.
2. The fundamental lack of crisis-mode during the war when the WMD were not found. In a loose nukes in the Middle East situation (or loose bio/chemical weapons situation), one would expect public pressure directly from the WH to pressure regimes to cooperate. This simply was not there, and there was no corresponding adjustment in our war plan. Our soldiers only put on chemical masks within a short radius of Baghdad, when the weapons could have been anywhere in the region.
There are probably others, but this simply does not add up in the context of the battle plan.
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on Aug 9, 2008 22:11:32 GMT -5
Don't you recall the "slam dunk" quote from Tenet? Or does it just not fit into your view of the runup to the war? Also, your recall of the views of the other nations is not correct. All were saying Saddam had WMDs, as was, I might add, Bill Clinton, and almost everyone else in this country. What was being debated pre-war was not whether there were WMDs but rather did their existence necessitate war. Too many people dislike Bush so much they are willing to assign to him every ulterior motive possible and choose to ignore the possibility he was acting out of what he thought was the best interests of the country; and, he was acting based on the best intelligence information provided to him. No doubt, there was evidence of WMD. Heck, half the scientists in Iraq were trying to convince Saddam that there were WMD to save their own tails. But the evidence wasn't conclusive, and it wouldn't have stood up to critical analysis. That's basically what the Europeans were saying - that there was WMD evidence, but that evidence wasn't enough. That's why they pushed for more inspections. I'm not trying to say that Bush was the only one twisting things around with the war for political reasons. A lot of Democrats were among those who should have known better, but went along with the WMD line because back then everybody thought that an anti-war stance would be political suicide. I'm also not trying to say that all the mistakes were because of Bush. He was really just a front man for the whole war party. But in the end, he's the President, the final go/no go decision came down to him, and he has to be the one to take the blame if that decision was a flawed one. |
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SFHoya99
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Post by SFHoya99 on Aug 11, 2008 14:01:51 GMT -5
My point is once again there is a double standard and it probably still comes down to the liberal prominence in the media. Not to dredge up old news, but the Swift Boat Veterans were a perfect example. These guys had at least as much credibility as other people/groups etc... Yet they were treated like ignorant yahoos with an agenda instead of the legitimately critical vocal group that they were. Someone comes up with some criticism of Obama -- his long standing relationship with Wright for example -- and they are treated like some biased right winger with an agenda, rather than a concerned party with a legitimate interest in investigating a unusual relationship at the least. Someone comes out with some claim of indiscretion of someone on the right -- in this case Bush -- and people immediately flock to the message as if it was gospel. That is my point. Not that this particular story is true or false, just that there is a difference in how the sides are presented and treated. There's no double standard. There's tons of people who are out there attacking Obama and other Democrats on tons of things. Does Swift Boat ring a bell? How about the massive campaign to paint Obama as a Muslim? You think there is a double standard because you believe the one side and you don't the other. ----- Given the facts that have come out now, as well as all the reliable sources that have pointed towards it, it is a very realistic possibility (and in my mind, a probability) that the Bush administration wanted to attack Iraq long before Sept 11th and used those attacks to accomplish their goals. Anyone who denies that possibility is deluding themselves. Just like anyone who thinks their party is never guilty of corruption or abuse of power is delusional. |
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Aug 11, 2008 14:11:52 GMT -5
To what "massive campaign" are you referring?
Give me one prominent Republican who has come out and said that they believe Obama is a Muslim.
(and no, you can't say Hillary Clinton)
Some scurrilous e-mails do not constitute a massive campaign. There are people out there saying that John McCain was a traitor in Vietnam and that he caused the Forrestal fire. They have zero credibility. I would say the same for the "secret Muslim" propagandists.
I think Obama people are making a mistake by giving any attention to that at all.
There are definitely people out there digging at his character and making very aggressive attacks about ideology and his associations with some less than ideal people, but I know no one of any worth whatsoever who is making that particular claim.
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SFHoya99
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Post by SFHoya99 on Aug 11, 2008 14:19:27 GMT -5
I didn't say it was a McCain campaign -- but tell me why there are a ton of emails and misinformation out there on it. Tell me why certain news sources stress his middle name so much?
My point is simple -- you're biased based on your side. Hifi says the Swift Boat folks were viewed as ignorant yahoos? Are you kidding? They had a huge effect on the election and many conservatives viewed them as absolutely 100% accurate. And many liberals viewed it as a crock of crap.
Now turn that on Bush and Iraq and you have the exact opposite. My point is simply that hifi -- like all of us -- thinks the "other side" lies more because we tend to think of our sides' lies as truth.
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kchoya
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Post by kchoya on Aug 11, 2008 14:36:59 GMT -5
To what "massive campaign" are you referring? I didn't say it was a McCain campaign -- but tell me why there are a ton of emails and misinformation out there on it. Tell me why certain news sources stress his middle name so much? I don't think the question was really answered. Where's the evidence of this massive campaign? Also, I had to stop and try to remember his middle name (Hussein?). Whatever you're opinion on McCain's stepped up campaign and broadsides against Obama, it's hard to ignore the potential danger for Obama (who's on vacation) in failing to hit back. From this week's Time: "It's too early to know if McCain's new heat can cut Obama down to size. But if history is any guide, his timing may prove auspicious. It was in August in 1988 and 2004 that the gop and its allies' stealth attacks on Michael Dukakis (regarding his record on crime) and John Kerry (about his patriotism) really gathered steam. Both assaults were witheringly effective in part because neither Democrat took the threat seriously. Both Dukakis and Kerry declined to respond in kind--and neither ever recovered." |
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SFHoya99
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Post by SFHoya99 on Aug 11, 2008 14:59:54 GMT -5
I don't think the question was really answered. Where's the evidence of this massive campaign? Also, I had to stop and try to remember his middle name (Hussein?). I'm not going to quibble on semantics (massive). Here's some evidence of the emails: www.snopes.com/politics/obama/obama.aspFeel free to troll through the immense amounts of disinformation that people put out there. There's a few on McCain as well (including a very disturbing lie) but not nearly the volume. And I can't seriously think you didn't know Barack's middle name. I don't watch Fox News much but I was in an airport a month ago and I'd say about 50% of the time the announcers took the chance to say "Hussein" as if it was necessary to disinguish. I agree with you here. I'm sure what McCain is doing will be effective. These guys are good at their job and negative advertising works. The sad thing for me is that there was a time when I very much respected McCain and despite our differences on some issues would have very possibly voted for him (like, say, over Kerry) simply on character. His recent ads are just one of a series of actions by him that scream "sell-out" to me. This has become a very classless campaign (during the Olympics in CA there's a pro-Obama ad and an anti-Obama ad but no pro-McCain ad) and I just didn't see that from McCain. It makes me wonder who's in charge. |
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on Aug 11, 2008 16:37:00 GMT -5
The irony is that a lot of the slanderous lies about McCain originally came from Republicans (mostly the Bush campaign) in the 2000 primaries.
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Aug 12, 2008 8:58:55 GMT -5
The irony is that a lot of the slanderous lies about McCain originally came from Republicans (mostly the Bush campaign) in the 2000 primaries. And a lot of the slanderous lies about Obama can be traced back to the Clinton campaign. See: Penn, Mark. |
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kchoya
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Post by kchoya on Aug 12, 2008 12:09:30 GMT -5
And I can't seriously think you didn't know Barack's middle name. I don't watch Fox News much but I was in an airport a month ago and I'd say about 50% of the time the announcers took the chance to say "Hussein" as if it was necessary to disinguish. If I watched Fox News, maybe I would have remembered it sooner. The guys on PTI don't usually talk about Obama. |
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Nevada Hoya
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Aug 12, 2008 15:21:01 GMT -5
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Post by Coast2CoastHoya on Aug 12, 2008 16:09:47 GMT -5
Thank you Nevada.
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SirSaxa
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Post by SirSaxa on Aug 12, 2008 17:08:22 GMT -5
"Based on other pieces of evidence that have come out about the evidence surrounding the Iraq war, it's very clear that, at the very least, some people who should have known better ignored facts and skewed evidence for political reasons." It's the last part of this quote that has always bothered me, that people (meaning Bush) skewed evidence for political reasons. Since the CIA and the intelligence agencies in England, France, Germany, etc. and the UN all thought Saddam had WMDs, isn't it reasonable to assume that Bush also thought it to be true? Did he get some evidence saying there were not WMDs? Probably so. But the preponderance of evidence was just the opposite and, to use a phrase from other threads, there was a strong consensus that Saddam had WMDs. This has been discussed before, but use of the term WMD is very misleading which is exactly why the Bush team uses it exclusively. Why? because no one would care if Saddam had a few old containers of mustard gas and failed biological weapons samples. Biological weapons have never been used effectively. And mustard and similar gasses -- horrible as they may be -- are no worse than burning towns, villages, countryside with napalm. Nuclear Weapons were the issue. Remember the "smoking gun/mushroom cloud" line? Other than the USA and Britain (and they later took it back) who claimed Iraq had Nuclear weapons or were close? Would the Bush team have been able to scare Americans into supporting a war on Iraq without the "nuclear threat"? Therefore, it was to their advantage to use only the term WMD. That way they could claim any country that believed Saddam probably had a few old flasks and drums of bio and chemical weapons supported the Bush claim that Iraq had "WMD". A great deal has been written about the Bush team wanting to invade Iraq right from the beginning and skewing the "facts" to support that. In addition to the authors cited by C2C, add long time Republican and Bush's first Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill, the first insider to blow the whistle. Not to mention the Downing Street memo. Ron Suskind wrote for the WSJ -- well-known as a highly conservative, Republican supporting publication. Why should we dismiss him? Can any of us validate his claims? Of course not. But the essence of his comments is consistent with what so many others insiders have written -- and with the Cheney/Rove/Libby smear campaign on Joe Wilson for exposing their phony claims regarding Nigerian uranium. And that is without addressing the strategic disaster of abandoning the real mission of going after Bin Laden, Al Qaeda and the Taliban, to start a totally unnecessary (and very costly) war on a country that had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11 or the "war on terror". |
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Nevada Hoya
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Aug 12, 2008 21:16:24 GMT -5
" And that is without addressing the strategic disaster of abandoning the real mission of going after Bin Laden, Al Qaeda and the Taliban, to start a totally unnecessary (and very costly) war on a country that had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11 or the "war on terror". Exactly, SirSaxa. Taking care of business would have meant finishing off what we started in Afghanistan. |
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EasyEd
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Post by EasyEd on Aug 13, 2008 6:15:04 GMT -5
" And that is without addressing the strategic disaster of abandoning the real mission of going after Bin Laden, Al Qaeda and the Taliban, to start a totally unnecessary (and very costly) war on a country that had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11 or the "war on terror". Exactly, SirSaxa. Taking care of business would have meant finishing off what we started in Afghanistan. We're often called upon to define what victory in Iraq is. How about defining what victory in Afghanistan is? |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 13, 2008 8:43:26 GMT -5
I'm pretty sure at one point, it was to get Bin Laden "dead or alive".
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Post by strummer8526 on Aug 13, 2008 9:34:01 GMT -5
Exactly, SirSaxa. Taking care of business would have meant finishing off what we started in Afghanistan. We're often called upon to define what victory in Iraq is. How about defining what victory in Afghanistan is? Well considering Afghanistan actually had something to do with 9/11, victory is much easier to define: dismantle the government and systems within that country that raised and supported the terrorists who actually attacked the United States. This would include finding Bin Laden rather than finding Sadam, who actually had nothing to do with 9/11. |
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Aug 13, 2008 11:23:38 GMT -5
Based on my conversations with friends who have been to Afghanistan (and no, I don't say that to innoculate my opinion against rebuttal, just to point out that I am sharing an opinion that has been shared with me by people who have some firsthand knowledge), the whole idea that we can't prosecute the war in Afghanistan because of the war in Iraq is fundamentally wrong.
We had enough resources to capture bin Laden. We were able to cut off escape routes. But we missed him. It happens. And now he is in a place where we would be hard pressed to get him no matter how many troops were in country. The whole "outsourcing the war" nonsense was just that. From the beginning of that operation, we were working closely with Northern Alliance and other local forces. That was always part of the plan. It was not done because we "didn't have enough forces to do the job ourselves."
We had enough troops to overthrow and defeat the Taliban and help to establish a new government. We have done that. Yes, the Taliban was not wiped out completely, but again, we probably couldn't have done that anyway.
The Taliban and al Qaeda have been resurging for some time now and we need more troops to fight them and defend the government we helped to establish there. Well, we have been doing that too. I'm not sure if the message has gotten through to the politicians, but we have been sending more military units to Afghanistan. Many NATO countries ahve been unwilling to send more forces too, and that is a problem, but I don't think it's one that's caused by Iraq.
Would having 150,000 troops in Afghanistan since 2001 have eliminated the problems were are experiencing there now? That is open for debate, but the people I talk to tell me no.
I do think people are overestimating the ability of the Taliban or al Qaeda to reverse what we have accomplished there. They are able to attack and cause damage, but they are not able to hold any ground when they do. There is very little evidence that they are receiving any significant support from Afghans. In fact, many of their attacks are retaliations for cooperation with coalition forces. They can cause problems, but while our and NATO forces are there, they have not been able to and will not be able to overthrow the government.
But unless anyone knows a reasonable way in which we can invade northern Pakistan, we are going to be fighting in Afghanistan for a very long time -- almost certainly much longer than we will be in Iraq -- and we'll be doing it no matter how many troops we had, have or will have in country.
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Post by strummer8526 on Aug 13, 2008 12:18:45 GMT -5
Boz--I can't argue with a lot of what you say. The one thing that stood out to me, though, was, "We had enough resources to capture bin Laden. We were able to cut off escape routes. But we missed him. It happens." I can't help but wonder if more resources might have allowed us to cut off just one more escape route: the one he obviously used.
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