Bush said (today) that our invasion of Iraq was to protect th American People

[NEM]

WHAT A FRIGGIN JOKE

Yesterday, the U. S. Government OFFICIALLY gave up the hunt for WMD's in Iraq.

This was what Bush cited as the justification for overthrowing Saddam Hussein and invading Iraq.

Press Secretary Scott McClellan said that knowing what we know today, Bush would have taken the same action because "this is about protecting the American People."

What a crock of BS. How the hell this, in any way, about protecting the American People.

It is obvious that, by saying that, they expect the masses, as usual, to fallfor that garbage....because there is NO OTHER WAY they canjustify all of our men, and men, being killed inIraq for NO JUSTIFIABLE REASON, as well as thousands of innocent Irqis.

I am still waiting, for anyone here, to give me ONE JUSTIFIABLE reason WHY WE ARE IN IRAQ?

[Spinal Tap]

To steal all of the oil and impose a neo-conservative government on the innocent Iraqi people.

[spiderman]

Originally posted by Spinal Tap
To steal all of the oil and impose a neo-conservative government on the innocent Iraqi people.

If we just start ignoring him, maybe he'll get bored and go away.

Here's to hoping. :toast:

[NEM]

Originally posted by Spinal Tap
To steal all of the oil and impose a neo-conservative government on the innocent Iraqi people.

Judging from your comment, once again you just can't orovde a justifiable reason.

But, dont worry, I understand people like you. When you can't answer something youknow will harm your cause, you go on a personal attack....very typical.

It's Rovian, and becasue the American people, for the most part, are ignorant to the facts, it works.

But, I am still waiting for an answer, WHY ARE WE IN IRAQ AND WHY ARE AMERICANS BEING KILLED?

I guess you are kind of chicken hearted to attempt to give an answer.

[Undertaker #59]

Originally posted by NEM
Judging from your comment, once again you just can't orovde a justifiable reason.

But, dont worry, I understand people like you. When you can't answer something youknow will harm your cause, you go on a personal attack....very typical.

It's Rovian, and becasue the American people, for the most part, are ignorant to the facts, it works.

But, I am still waiting for an answer, WHY ARE WE IN IRAQ AND WHY ARE AMERICANS BEING KILLED?

I guess you are kind of chicken hearted to attempt to give an answer.

You know NEM, you were the first one to go on a personal attack in this thread. No where in his post did he say anything about you.

[NEM]

Originally posted by Undertaker #59
You know NEM, you were the first one to go on a personal attack in this thread. No where in his post did he say anything about you.

Excuse me? Suggesting I go away is not personal????

Wouldn't an answer to my question, for the purpose of debate, been something more appropriate. Apparently he, like others, have no answer that can be justified. So instead, a personal comment was made.

That's the point.

[Undertaker #59]

Originally posted by NEM
Excuse me? Suggesting I go away is not personal????


You quoted Spinal Tap in your reply where you mentioned personal attacks. That is the post I was referring to.

[spiderman]

Originally posted by NEM
Excuse me? Suggesting I go away is not personal????

Wouldn't an answer to my question, for the purpose of debate, been something more appropriate. Apparently he, like others, have no answer that can be justified. So instead, a personal comment was made.

That's the point.

I didn't suggest that you go away...It was just wishful thinking.

As far as your "question" I think that OPT, kez, freak, Flagg, Spinal, and others have done MORE then enough to address the issues you've put forth.

So for you to make a statement like...I am still waiting, for anyone here, to give me ONE JUSTIFIABLE reason WHY WE ARE IN IRAQ? ...is ridiculous.

Here's one,

Why did we overthrow Saddam Hussein's Regime?

In order to enforce UN resolution 1441.

Why are we still there?

We have an obligation to keep stability in the country since we were the ones to de-stabilize it in the first place.

[Spinal Tap]

Originally posted by Undertaker #59
You quoted Spinal Tap in your reply where you mentioned personal attacks. That is the post I was referring to.

It's OK UT. He's getting old and his mind is starting to deteriorate. He sometimes has a hard time keeping up with himself. I don't take any offense to it.

I'm just an ignorant, neo-conservative, nazi-lovin, Karl Rove lover that just can't hang with the likes of NEM. What can I do???

[dchester]

Originally posted by NEM
I am still waiting, for anyone here, to give me ONE JUSTIFIABLE reason WHY WE ARE IN IRAQ? Who gets to decide whether the submissions are justifiable? Should it be put to a vote, or did you want to have me be the sole arbiter.
________
digital scales (http://www.vaporshop.com/scales)

[NEM]

Originally posted by spiderman
[

Why did we overthrow Saddam Hussein's Regime?

In order to enforce UN resolution 1441.

[/B]

Esxuse me. But Bush cited the WMD's as the reason we need to overthrow Saddam. He even sent Colin Powell to the UN, if you remember, with all those satelite photos, and the films and all the documents sying that we needed to invade Iraq if Saddam didnt destroy them.

He then took it to the American people and said that by Saddam having WMD's, they were abig threat to the security of the United States, and the world.

No where was the point of turning Iraq into a Democracy was it ever mentioned....only until later...whenthe WMD issue was beginning to turn out to be a lie, or at the least, a deception by this administration to go to Iraq, something that they had on their drawing board BEFORE 9/11 ever happened.

Now Americans are dying, in large numbers, and for what? To fulfill Bush's personal agenda of getting Saddam.

They were NEVER a threat to our security, NEVER.

Al Quaida was NOT operating in Iraq.

They may have had their own internal problems, like Sunni and Shiite and Kurd problems, but that is NONE of our damned business.

There are evil dictators all around the world, killing and murderingtheir own citizens, but we do not invade their county, mainly becsue Bush has no vendetta against them.

There is NO justifiable reason for us to be in Iraq.

[spiderman]

Esxuse me. But Bush cited the WMD's as the reason we need to overthrow Saddam. He even sent Colin Powell to the UN, if you remember, with all those satelite photos, and the films and all the documents sying that we needed to invade Iraq if Saddam didnt destroy them.

He cited many reasons. But let's follow this logic. Saddam invades Kuwait, we free Kuwait and the conditions based around the end of the conflict involved him complying with weapons inspectors. He ousted these inspectors in 1998. We talked a good game for a few years, then 9/11 happened, and it was the Bush administrations decision that for the protection of America we could ill afford to wait around and see what he was going to happen next. It was time to take action. We had a obligation to enforce the UN sanctions and it logically followed that, in light of 9/11, once he failed to comply he forced our hand in the matter.

You can argue that we could have afforded to wait longer and try something else, and I would probably agree with you, but when you try to say we were deceived that's when you lose me. Our reasons for going into Iraq were straight forward.

He then took it to the American people and said that by Saddam having WMD's, they were abig threat to the security of the United States, and the world.

As I said, everyone was saying this...nobody was disputing that Iraq had WMD's, in fact in the beginning everyone was in favor of overthrowing Saddam, it wasn't until France & Germany (for economic reasons) decided to turn against us, that things began to go awry. Are you trying to say that Bush was the ONLY person saying that Iraq had WMDs?

No where was the point of turning Iraq into a Democracy was it ever mentioned....only until later...whenthe WMD issue was beginning to turn out to be a lie, or at the least, a deception by this administration to go to Iraq, something that they had on their drawing board BEFORE 9/11 ever happened.

I'm not really sure what you are saying here but I'll try:

Yes, I'm sure we had plans for a possible war with Iraq, but that is not unusual. We have plans for waging war against almost every country in the world. Not that we ever plan on waging war against Brazil, but I guarantee you there is a plan somewhere in the Pentagon should the need ever arise.

Yes, there were many political scientist who felt that the overthrow of Saddam was critical to the future of the middle east. Again, nothing unusual here either.

Yes, we went into Iraq for the purpose of dismantling the Saddam regime, but it then became our duty to re-build the country. And since we are a democracy, and believe it to be the best system, we tried to build one in Iraq. So this was a by-product of defeating Saddam's regime.

Now Americans are dying, in large numbers, and for what? To fulfill Bush's personal agenda of getting Saddam.

Large numbers? I'll just leave that one alone.

If GW had an agenda of getting Saddam, and we HAVE Saddam, then why are we still there? You are confusing your own argument.

They were NEVER a threat to our security, NEVER.

I'm not even going to respond to this. If you feel that way, more power to you, but a LOT of people with a LOT more information then you, including Bill Clinton acknowledge that they were a threat to our national security and the world.

Al Quaida was NOT operating in Iraq.

Once again, I laugh whenever people like you claim to know things like this. How do you know? Did you have spies on the ground in Iraq during the 90s? Did use your satellite? Or did some journalist who writes for the NY Times tell you this?

Also, GW has made it clear since day 1 that this is a war against TERROR not Al Quaeda.

They may have had their own internal problems, like Sunni and Shiite and Kurd problems, but that is NONE of our damned business.

That's fine, but when they waged war against Iran, invaded Kuwait, and started launching scud missiles into Israel, it became the worlds problem. We had no intentions of overthrowing Saddam ourselves, all we wanted was his full compliance with the UN and weapons inspectors. When he failed to do this, we were obligated to ensure the safety of our country and the world.

Keep in mind, he started this by trying to take over the middle east. We finished it, let's be very clear about this. HE STARTED THIS WAR!!!

There are evil dictators all around the world, killing and murderingtheir own citizens, but we do not invade their county, mainly becsue Bush has no vendetta against them.

Like I said before, we have Saddam, if Bush is Hitler and this is a personal vendetta, then why are we bothering to re-build their country? You're contradicting yourself. We HAVE Saddam Hussein.

There is NO justifiable reason for us to be in Iraq.

Saddam Hussein built a million man army. He invaded Kuwait, and had plans to invade Saudi Arabia. Eventually he would have controlled most of the Middle East. After his defeat he had an obligation to comply with the UN. He waged war against the world and was defeated. I don't know why you want to twist this around and act like he was just sitting at home minding his own business when all of the sudden GW decided to attack him because he looked at him funny.

[NEM]

Originally posted by spiderman
Esxuse me. But Bush cited the WMD's as the reason we need to overthrow Saddam. He even sent Colin Powell to the UN, if you remember, with all those satelite photos, and the films and all the documents sying that we needed to invade Iraq if Saddam didnt destroy them.

He cited many reasons. But let's follow this logic. Saddam invades Kuwait, we free Kuwait and the conditions based around the end of the conflict involved him complying with weapons inspectors. He ousted these inspectors in 1998. We talked a good game for a few years, then 9/11 happened, and it was the Bush administrations decision that for the protection of America we could ill afford to wait around and see what he was going to happen next. It was time to take action. We had a obligation to enforce the UN sanctions and it logically followed that, in light of 9/11, once he failed to comply he forced our hand in the matter.

You can argue that we could have afforded to wait longer and try something else, and I would probably agree with you, but when you try to say we were deceived that's when you lose me. Our reasons for going into Iraq were straight forward.

He then took it to the American people and said that by Saddam having WMD's, they were abig threat to the security of the United States, and the world.

As I said, everyone was saying this...nobody was disputing that Iraq had WMD's, in fact in the beginning everyone was in favor of overthrowing Saddam, it wasn't until France & Germany (for economic reasons) decided to turn against us, that things began to go awry. Are you trying to say that Bush was the ONLY person saying that Iraq had WMDs?

No where was the point of turning Iraq into a Democracy was it ever mentioned....only until later...whenthe WMD issue was beginning to turn out to be a lie, or at the least, a deception by this administration to go to Iraq, something that they had on their drawing board BEFORE 9/11 ever happened.

I'm not really sure what you are saying here but I'll try:

Yes, I'm sure we had plans for a possible war with Iraq, but that is not unusual. We have plans for waging war against almost every country in the world. Not that we ever plan on waging war against Brazil, but I guarantee you there is a plan somewhere in the Pentagon should the need ever arise.

Yes, there were many political scientist who felt that the overthrow of Saddam was critical to the future of the middle east. Again, nothing unusual here either.

Yes, we went into Iraq for the purpose of dismantling the Saddam regime, but it then became our duty to re-build the country. And since we are a democracy, and believe it to be the best system, we tried to build one in Iraq. So this was a by-product of defeating Saddam's regime.

Now Americans are dying, in large numbers, and for what? To fulfill Bush's personal agenda of getting Saddam.

Large numbers? I'll just leave that one alone.

If GW had an agenda of getting Saddam, and we HAVE Saddam, then why are we still there? You are confusing your own argument.

They were NEVER a threat to our security, NEVER.

I'm not even going to respond to this. If you feel that way, more power to you, but a LOT of people with a LOT more information then you, including Bill Clinton acknowledge that they were a threat to our national security and the world.

Al Quaida was NOT operating in Iraq.

Once again, I laugh whenever people like you claim to know things like this. How do you know? Did you have spies on the ground in Iraq during the 90s? Did use your satellite? Or did some journalist who writes for the NY Times tell you this?

Also, GW has made it clear since day 1 that this is a war against TERROR not Al Quaeda.

They may have had their own internal problems, like Sunni and Shiite and Kurd problems, but that is NONE of our damned business.

That's fine, but when they waged war against Iran, invaded Kuwait, and started launching scud missiles into Israel, it became the worlds problem. We had no intentions of overthrowing Saddam ourselves, all we wanted was his full compliance with the UN and weapons inspectors. When he failed to do this, we were obligated to ensure the safety of our country and the world.

Keep in mind, he started this by trying to take over the middle east. We finished it, let's be very clear about this. HE STARTED THIS WAR!!!

There are evil dictators all around the world, killing and murderingtheir own citizens, but we do not invade their county, mainly becsue Bush has no vendetta against them.

Like I said before, we have Saddam, if Bush is Hitler and this is a personal vendetta, then why are we bothering to re-build their country? You're contradicting yourself. We HAVE Saddam Hussein.

There is NO justifiable reason for us to be in Iraq.

Saddam Hussein built a million man army. He invaded Kuwait, and had plans to invade Saudi Arabia. Eventually he would have controlled most of the Middle East. After his defeat he had an obligation to comply with the UN. He waged war against the world and was defeated. I don't know why you want to twist this around and act like he was just sitting at home minding his own business when all of the sudden GW decided to attack him because he looked at him funny.

I just got home and read your post and first, and foremost, I want to thank you, sincerely, for your answers and for taking the time to write them. I was wondering if anyone would ever do it.

Now, I have read it and disagree with most of your comments, but I have things to do for a while, and wont be able to respond right now, I will print your response and write my counter comments later this evening...but I did want to thank you for your respons and your answers, and compliment you for the fine manner in which you did it.

[O_P_T]

Originally posted by NEM
I am still waiting, for anyone here, to give me ONE JUSTIFIABLE reason WHY WE ARE IN IRAQ?

Ok, I'll try a different tact.

Have you read the Duelfer Report?

The

Christian Science Monitor (http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1008/p08s03-comv.html) has a good summary of the pertinant sections.

The main finding of the top US arms inspector for Iraq, Charles Duelfer, was that his team couldn't find any major weapons stockpiles in Iraq and that Mr. Hussein had not kept an active capability to resume his chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons program.

The reason Hussein gave up his weapons program, the report concludes, is that the UN-sponsored embargo of oil exports denied him the billions and billions of dollars needed to keep them going. But in order to maintain prestige among Arabs and deter another war with Iran, Hussein kept secret for many years that he had abandoned the programs.

He also tried to undermine the sanctions by exploiting the UN's Oil for Food program. He bribed leading figures in the UN, France, China, Russia and elsewhere with oil-export contracts to earn more than $11 billon to keep his regime afloat.

In essence, the sanctions' purpose of forcing full inspections of Iraq was failing because Hussein used foreign commercial interests to get money. That explains why many Security Council members wanted to weaken them. The report says Hussein turned the embargo into "a paper tiger."

"It is ... grossly obvious how the sanctions perverted not just the [Iraqi] national system of finance and economics, but to some extent the international markets and organizations," it stated.

With sanctions greatly weakened and, as the report confirmed, Hussein seeking to resume chemical-weapons production once they were lifted, the US decided to oust his regime.

The key lesson in all this is that most major nations need to fully sign on to sanctions for them to succeed. Over the decades, sanctions have sometimes worked - with Libya and South Africa, for instance. Iraq is a case where sanctions had temporarily defanged a tyrant, but the tyrant didn't want to show they did.

Another lesson is that the rise of globalized markets makes sanctions even more difficult to impose.

As the US asks allies and friends to put more and more economic pressure on Iran and North Korea, these lessons are worth keeping in mind.

So yes, Saddam did not have stockpiles of WMD's at the time of invasion, however, he fully intended to reacquire them as soon as he could.

Therefore he did pose a threat.

[NEM]

Originally posted by O_P_T



So yes, Saddam did not have stockpiles of WMD's at the time of invasion, however, he fully intended to reacquire them as soon as he could.

Therefore he did pose a threat. [/B]

That being the case, if in fact there is validity to it, although it is merely speculation.....how come we are not invading North korea, or Iran...wouldn't you consider them a viable threat seeing as we know, for a fact, that they are either building nuclear weapons or already have them.

According to Bush, if you recall, it was Iraq, Iran AND North Korea that he called the Axis of Evil.

So, doesnt it seem strange to you that Bush does nothing about the other two. Is it , perhaps, that he has no PERSONAL vendetta against them, or else we would be invading them, two countries that DO pose a legitmate threat.

[dchester]

Originally posted by NEM
That being the case, if in fact there is validity to it, although it is merely speculation.....how come we are not invading North korea, or Iran...wouldn't you consider them a viable threat seeing as we know, for a fact, that they are either building nuclear weapons or already have them.

According to Bush, if you recall, it was Iraq, Iran AND North Korea that he called the Axis of Evil.

So, doesnt it seem strange to you that Bush does nothing about the other two. Is it , perhaps, that he has no PERSONAL vendetta against them, or else we would be invading them, two countries that DO pose a legitmate threat. I think that North Korea does not currently present the same level of threat, because their dictator very well understands that if he were to use a WMD against us, or one of our allies, he would not survive our response (similar to how the Soviet Union was dealt with). However, this type of deterance doesn't work with terrorists.

I also suspect that if we had a "reasonable" suspicion (not Proof) that they were trying to get a WMD to some terrorist group to use against us, we'd be boarding every ship coming out of Korea, or doing whatever was needed, to ensure it didn't make it to it's destination.

Now Iran and Syria, I am very concerned about. I just don't think there's support for going into either of those countries right now. One benefit is that if Bush were to threaten to go into one of those countries, it would not be taken as a bluff, which will help keep them in-line.

You may not agree with the message that Bush has sent to the Middle East (and that's fair enough), but basically what they've been told, is that if we even think you're helping someone to attack us, we'll come after you. They all now understand, it's not safe to attack us.
________
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[spiderman]

Originally posted by NEM
That being the case, if in fact there is validity to it, although it is merely speculation.....how come we are not invading North korea, or Iran...wouldn't you consider them a viable threat seeing as we know, for a fact, that they are either building nuclear weapons or already have them.

According to Bush, if you recall, it was Iraq, Iran AND North Korea that he called the Axis of Evil.

So, doesnt it seem strange to you that Bush does nothing about the other two. Is it , perhaps, that he has no PERSONAL vendetta against them, or else we would be invading them, two countries that DO pose a legitmate threat.

The difference is that North Korea didn't invade South Korea in 1990, same with Iran. You need to remember that while they are threats, it was Iraq that began building their Army in the 80s with the intentions of invading others countries. They began their campaign in 1990 by invading Kuwait. That's the difference. We had to go to war with Iraq and they needed to uphold their end of the bargain once it was over.

[Bruschi 3:16]

Bush is an absolute clown. As far as I'm concerned, the office of the President of the US is considered "vacant" until the 2008 election. What a joke this guy is.

[O_P_T]

Originally posted by NEM
That being the case, if in fact there is validity to it, although it is merely speculation.....how come we are not invading North korea, or Iran...wouldn't you consider them a viable threat seeing as we know, for a fact, that they are either building nuclear weapons or already have them.

According to Bush, if you recall, it was Iraq, Iran AND North Korea that he called the Axis of Evil.

So, doesnt it seem strange to you that Bush does nothing about the other two. Is it , perhaps, that he has no PERSONAL vendetta against them, or else we would be invading them, two countries that DO pose a legitmate threat.

Why must one use the exact same methods against all opponents?

During the Presidential campaign, many Kerry supporters critisized that GWB saw the world in black and white terms and that he didn't have a "nuanced" perspective on various issues.

Why is this now a negative that he has a different response to different countries?

There are differences between Iraq and North Korea and Iran.

We had tried the diplomatic effort for 12 years with Saddam, and it wasn't working and based on that experience its likely it never would work with Iraq.

Had we negotiated with Korea and Iran that long?

No.

Had we demonstrated that diplomacy would never work with these two countries?

No.

Iraq was and is a far easier nut to crack, militarily, than North Korea or Iran.

That's not to say there are no conditions underwhich we would go to war with either of the two countries, but the "degree of difficulty" certainly plays a role in deciding if you should go to war.

Consider the USSR under Stalin.

If there was ever a ruthless dictator that was a very real and direct threat to the US and the West, it was Stalin.

I think that if war had broken out between the west and the USSR under Stalin, most people in the West would agree that it was morally justified.

Yet, few in the West would advocate that we should start a war because it would have involved a nuclear exchange that would devistated the entire world.

The "degree of dificulty" was too high and so, we used a different approach to address that threat.

Finally, as I described in another thread, Iraq was Italy to North Korea and Iran's Germany.

By taking direct action against Iraq, we demonstrated that we were capable of taking such action.

US history since WWII, has made many in the world doubt that we still had the resolve to stand up and fight for an extended period of time.

If one wishes to negotiate to resolve the threat of NK and Iran, they must have some degree of aprehension on what we might do if pushed too far.

[spiderman]

Originally posted by NEM
I just got home and read your post and first, and foremost, I want to thank you, sincerely, for your answers and for taking the time to write them. I was wondering if anyone would ever do it.

Now, I have read it and disagree with most of your comments, but I have things to do for a while, and wont be able to respond right now, I will print your response and write my counter comments later this evening...but I did want to thank you for your respons and your answers, and compliment you for the fine manner in which you did it.

You see NEM, this is why everyone is so frustrated by what you are doing.

I've basically given you 1 week to respond, and you haven't written anything. Yet, you've continued to start NEW anti-Bush threads.

You see, you complain that noboby responds to you with any substance, but when we do, you simply glance over our responses and continue on with your anti-Bush agenda.

GIVE IT A REST!

You've demonstrated (like I said when you first posted), that you aren't really interested in engaging anyone, you just have some odd, sick need to vent about your dislike for the Bush administration.

We get it! You don't like Bush! I happen to love Bush :thumb:, and I also think that the President is doing an alright job too.

MOVE ON!

[freak]

Originally posted by spiderman
MOVE ON!

Umm, he and the likes of him have been relying on those guys. Shouldn't he try another organization? ;)