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Originally posted by rue:
This is just a chance for everyone to try to get acknowledgement for 'being right'.

My entry:

There were no WMDs.

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Originally posted by brooklynbrowncoat:
i think this war was less about wmd's and more about putting as many of the enemy in front of our weapons as possible. think about it- we do a b/s war to re-kick saddam's ass? not likely. But if all these insurgents, foreign fighters like saudis and syrians and iranians, can be wiped out over there before getting a chance to come over here, that's a good thing.
I wonder why we haven't nuked these people already- i mean, did Reagan use all our nukes somewhere without telling us? did we run out of bombs? no? so what are we waiting for? these people want to meet allah, we should be helping them by dropping 100 megaton greeting cards all over the mid east. i have to be careful; such strong opinions may land me in the troll room again- it seems the alliance that runs this site doesn't like dissencion........

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i think this war was less about wmd's and more about putting as many of the enemy in front of our weapons as possible

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edited to add: Just to add a little detail on my use of the word genocide. Genocide, amazingly, is really too weak a word. There are approximately 290 million people living in what is considered the Middle East (190 million if you ignore Sudan and Egypt). It takes a pretty sick puppy to get off on the idea of killing 190 million people. It would be the single worst atrocity committed in the history of the world. Is that how you want your country to be remembered?

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Originally posted by SignyM:
Do you want Browncoats to be remembered as baby-killing mass murderers? Or... is broooklynbrowncoat REALLY an Alliance Operative?? Hmmm. Placed in that frame, his (or her) statements make more sense....



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Don't piss in my face and tell me it's raining.

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Originally posted by SignyM:
So are you saying Bush lied? Because you seem to be saying that "we" would never invade Iraq if we knew the "real" reason, so Bush had to phony one up to stampede "us" in that direction. Right?

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Originally posted by Hero:

1) That Iraq was in material breach of the ceasefire terms presented under the terms of Resolution 687. Iraq's breaches related not only to WMDs, but also the known construction of prohibited types of missiles, the purchase and import of prohibited armaments, and the continuing refusal of Iraq to compensate Kuwait for the widespread looting conducted by its troops in 1991.



And poor Kuwait still awaiting money for damages and the return of several thousand prisoners taken north in late 1990. We know they were alive in 1991, they never returned and no trace was found in 2003 (except a mass grave near the prison).

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Originally posted by Hero:

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Originally posted by SignyM:
So are you saying Bush lied? Because you seem to be saying that "we" would never invade Iraq if we knew the "real" reason, so Bush had to phony one up to stampede "us" in that direction. Right?

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Who ever said the Iraq War was about WMDs and only WMDs.

Resolution 1441 specifically stated:

1) That Iraq was in material breach of the ceasefire terms presented under the terms of Resolution 687. Iraq's breaches related not only to WMDs, but also the known construction of prohibited types of missiles, the purchase and import of prohibited armaments, and the continuing refusal of Iraq to compensate Kuwait for the widespread looting conducted by its troops in 1991.

Thanks to Wikipedia for the above.

The US found hundreds of prohibited chemical munitions...thats a "stockpile". You say they don't count because they were found in caches around the country. I'm sure that Saddam, idiot that he is, wanted to keep all his weapons in one big warehouse where UN inspectors or US missiles could find them. But for some reason he dispersed them around the country.

We also found a number of missiles whose range was greater then that allowed. If you recall several where launched at US bases in allied countries during invasion. (I'm sure some of you noted with surprise that many on the left are suggesting the US strike North Korea for having a long range missile. I think they are only saying this because the President has indicated that we will not strike the missile. If he'd said or done otherwise, they'd be against it. The difference here is North Korea, unlike Iraq, is under no treaty obligation not to develop such a weapon, thus the strike would be a warrantless act of war. However if they fire the missile over Japan, then we can respond as needed up to and including a military strike or invasion.)

We also know they bought prohibited weapons from both France and Germany using money from the 'Oil for Food' Program and an extensive series of bribes to high ranking government officials in those countries. Officials who later obstructed US efforts to establish a larger international coalition that could have forced a peaceful capitualtion of Saddam in the face of a unified world.

And poor Kuwait still awaiting money for damages and the return of several thousand prisoners taken north in late 1990. We know they were alive in 1991, they never returned and no trace was found in 2003 (except a mass grave near the prison).

We know Iraq refused to cooperate with Weapons Inspectors. Iraq also made numerous attacks on coalition aircraft in the UN sponsored 'no fly' zones. Iraq was a haven for terrorists including a man named Al Zarqawi who arrived in Iraq in 2002 and began efforts to coordinate Al Quada training and support against Kurdish insurgents in the north. And for the hindsight 20/20 crowd, turns out that Saddam was systematically raping, torchering, and murdering his own people by the tens of thousands...

There, all nice and wrapped up in a pink bow (for the ladies and more sensitive fellas on the left) and minus the emotional ranting that we have all gone in for and I'm sure some of you can't help but respond with.

H

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Originally posted by SoupCatcher:

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Originally posted by brooklynbrowncoat:
i think this war was less about wmd's and more about putting as many of the enemy in front of our weapons as possible. think about it- we do a b/s war to re-kick saddam's ass? not likely. But if all these insurgents, foreign fighters like saudis and syrians and iranians, can be wiped out over there before getting a chance to come over here, that's a good thing.
I wonder why we haven't nuked these people already- i mean, did Reagan use all our nukes somewhere without telling us? did we run out of bombs? no? so what are we waiting for? these people want to meet allah, we should be helping them by dropping 100 megaton greeting cards all over the mid east. i have to be careful; such strong opinions may land me in the troll room again- it seems the alliance that runs this site doesn't like dissencion........

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What you are conveniently forgetting is how the war was sold to the American people - that it was necessary because Saddam a) had WMD b) had ties to al Qaeda c) would give the WMD to al Qaeda who would attack us. This was billed as a necessary war.

[* edited to add: I recommend you read, "The One Percent Doctrine" by Ron Suskind (which Signym has quoted from in previous posts in this thread). Cheney's one-percent doctrine, which he formulated and expected the CIA and other agencies to implement, was that any threat that had a one percent likelihood of being legitimate should be acted upon. Saddam having WMD and ties to al Qaeda and using al Qaeda as surrogates to attack the US with WMDs passed the one-percent test. So we attacked - just like the architects of the war had planned on doing before 9/11. But pretty much any threat you can dream up passes that one percent test. The question you need to ask yourself is if our government should be implementing foreign policy based on 100 to 1 odds. I don't think we should. Your mileage may vary].

And it's not that the people on this site don't like dissention. It's that they, (or maybe I should just speak for myself) I, have a problem with genocide as a foreign policy. And this is exactly what you are calling for when you fantasize about, "dropping 100 megaton greeting cards all over the middle east." I don't think my country should be engaging in genocide. You do. Does it make you a troll? No. Does it make you horribly misguided and showcase an appalling disregard for human life? Yes.

[* edited to add: Just to add a little detail on my use of the word genocide. Genocide, amazingly, is really too weak a word. There are approximately 290 million people living in what is considered the Middle East (190 million if you ignore Sudan and Egypt). It takes a pretty sick puppy to get off on the idea of killing 190 million people. It would be the single worst atrocity committed in the history of the world. Is that how you want your country to be remembered?]

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Originally posted by chrisisall:

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Originally posted by Hero:

1) That Iraq was in material breach of the ceasefire terms presented under the terms of Resolution 687. Iraq's breaches related not only to WMDs, but also the known construction of prohibited types of missiles, the purchase and import of prohibited armaments, and the continuing refusal of Iraq to compensate Kuwait for the widespread looting conducted by its troops in 1991.



And poor Kuwait still awaiting money for damages and the return of several thousand prisoners taken north in late 1990. We know they were alive in 1991, they never returned and no trace was found in 2003 (except a mass grave near the prison).

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So....Iraq holds prisoners illegally, kills a bunch of 'em, and rubs our face in the fact that it won't co-operate or follow the mandates- they get badder and badder, and we wait with thumbs securely inter-anal until...Oh my! That threat of destroying the WORLD TRADE CENTER!! It was REAL!!!
Hollow crap.

Hero, you have no logic, you follow blindly, you're an appologist and a lackey. And you won't stop for a second.
In your next life, on your deathbed a hundred years from now, you'll be saying that the beginning of the 21st Century was a glorious period, no matter what history says or how events played out.

I'm just posting to amuse myself now, some peeps never will get it Chrisisall

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Originally posted by chrisisall:

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Originally posted by Hero:

1) That Iraq was in material breach of the ceasefire terms presented under the terms of Resolution 687. Iraq's breaches related not only to WMDs, but also the known construction of prohibited types of missiles, the purchase and import of prohibited armaments, and the continuing refusal of Iraq to compensate Kuwait for the widespread looting conducted by its troops in 1991.



And poor Kuwait still awaiting money for damages and the return of several thousand prisoners taken north in late 1990. We know they were alive in 1991, they never returned and no trace was found in 2003 (except a mass grave near the prison).

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So....Iraq holds prisoners illegally, kills a bunch of 'em, and rubs our face in the fact that it won't co-operate or follow the mandates- they get badder and badder, and we wait with thumbs securely inter-anal until...Oh my! That threat of destroying the WORLD TRADE CENTER!! It was REAL!!!
Hollow crap.

Hero, you have no logic, you follow blindly, you're an appologist and a lackey. And you won't stop for a second.
In your next life, on your deathbed a hundred years from now, you'll be saying that the beginning of the 21st Century was a glorious period, no matter what history says or how events played out.

I'm just posting to amuse myself now, some peeps never will get it Chrisisall

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Originally posted by Righteous9:


brooklynbrowncoat -

we've lost over 2,500 soldiers in iraq and more than 10,000 have been injured. Is that the ends you're talking about? Making it easier for them to kill us over there so they don't have to come over here?

So many of our soldiers are just kids for christ sakes. How can you ignore them in the rhetoric of saying that this is making us safer?

Will you still be saying so after the number passes the 9/11 milestone?

I'm not even going to try to appeal to your compassion for the 100,000 Iraqis who have died by our hands, because you sound like a person that doesn't recognize humanity where he doesn't have to.

But the logic itself is astronomically flawed. We've only had one 9/11. How do you even know this has made us safer at home?

When the pentagon says we are creating more terrorists in the world, when the rest of the world is starting to trust us less and less, when our friends are getting fewer and farther between, why do you expect this to translate into less activity bent on hurting us and our country?

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Originally posted by brooklynbrowncoat:
im not forgetting anything- i agree Bush lied and they had all this planned already. but sometimes the end justifies the means. for a few years now we've had our armies killing insurgents and jihaddists, which is preferable to having them come over here killing us.

they seem to like to fly planes into buildings.
nasty habit, much worse than crack.

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Like I said, irradiate the bastards. we have a very good contigency plan for people who attack and want to kill us- kill them first
what ever happened to an America that was brave enough to pass around mushroom clouds?

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Originally posted by Righteous9:
we've lost over 2,500 soldiers in iraq and more than 10,000 have been injured. Is that the ends you're talking about? Making it easier for them to kill us over there so they don't have to come over here?

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So many of our soldiers are just kids for christ sakes. How can you ignore them in the rhetoric of saying that this is making us safer?

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I'm not even going to try to appeal to your compassion for the 100,000 Iraqis who have died by our hands, because you sound like a person that doesn't recognize humanity where he doesn't have to.

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But the logic itself is astronomically flawed. We've only had one 9/11. How do you even know this has made us safer at home?

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Originally posted by Hero:

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Originally posted by Righteous9:
we've lost over 2,500 soldiers in iraq and more than 10,000 have been injured. Is that the ends you're talking about? Making it easier for them to kill us over there so they don't have to come over here?

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The idea is that you make the enemy come to you on ground of your own choosing. Rather then allowing these people to fight us or Isreal in piecemeal fashion in times and places of their own choosing, we have created this opportunity to for them to swarm into Iraq and die by the tens of thousands. Afganistan was a similar opportunity but was too remote to allow easy access for the enemy.

Every American casualty is unfortunate and tragic, such is the way with a society like ours that places such high value on individual life. But militarily speaking our casualty rates are extremely low given the scale of our undertaking. The most recent comparable episode when the Soviets invaded and occupied Chechnya has produced far more casualties in a far smaller scale conflict. Casualties are so remarkably low we could, if we chose, maintain our ability to continue to prosecute this conflict indefinately and without conscriptions practiced by the Soviets or by Americans in past conflicts.

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So many of our soldiers are just kids for christ sakes. How can you ignore them in the rhetoric of saying that this is making us safer?

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Wars are always fought by the young. It aint fair, but war aint about being fair. Its about killing the enemy.

Americans are unique in that we don't go out of our way to tussle with anybody. We never would have fought Iraq in 1991 or 2003 if Saddam hadn't beat the snot out of our little buddy in 1990. That said I think the neither of the wars was avoidable. The reason is that even had Saddam never invaded Kuwait in 1990, his nature was such that he would have eventually done something to cause the war. I think this is especially true of the later conflict. Saddam pushed and pushed until we had no choice but to respond...and who can fault the President for choosing to launch the attack on Iraq in 1998? After 2001, the US changed from a policy of containment to one of libertation. Saddam failed to change from his policy of provocation to one of aquiessance (like Libya did). Thus 2003 was inevitable.
Will you still be saying so after the number passes the 9/11 milestone?

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I'm not even going to try to appeal to your compassion for the 100,000 Iraqis who have died by our hands, because you sound like a person that doesn't recognize humanity where he doesn't have to.

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I think its tragic that so many deaths have been caused entirely by Saddam Hussein's failure to surrender and leave the country and lately by the deliberate actions of terrorists making war upon our Iraqi allies.

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But the logic itself is astronomically flawed. We've only had one 9/11. How do you even know this has made us safer at home?

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We know its working because we have only had one 9/11. The Iraqi conflict is one part of a strategy in the war on terror and the failure of the enemy to lauch followup attacks is proof that the strategy is working. By your logic the lack of a WW2 Japanese invasion of Hawaii has nothing to do with their military defeat and occupation. Or how can we prove that the levy is working just because the river hasn't flooded since they put the levy in. That guy only murdered once, how do we know that putting him in jail made us any safer?

H

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Originally posted by Hero:
The idea is that you make the enemy come to you on ground of your own choosing. Rather then allowing these people to fight us or Isreal in piecemeal fashion in times and places of their own choosing, we have created this opportunity to for them to swarm into Iraq and die by the tens of thousands.

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But militarily speaking our casualty rates are extremely low given the scale of our undertaking. The most recent comparable episode when the Soviets invaded and occupied Chechnya has produced far more casualties in a far smaller scale conflict.

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Casualties are so remarkably low we could, if we chose, maintain our ability to continue to prosecute this conflict indefinately and without conscriptions practiced by the Soviets or by Americans in past conflicts.

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Its about killing the enemy.

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Americans are unique in that we don't go out of our way to tussle with anybody.

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After 2001, the US changed from a policy of containment to one of libertation. Saddam failed to change from his policy of provocation to one of aquiessance (like Libya did). Thus 2003 was inevitable.

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I think its tragic that so many deaths have been caused entirely by Saddam Hussein's failure to surrender and leave the country and lately by the deliberate actions of terrorists making war upon our Iraqi allies.

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We know its working because we have only had one 9/11. The Iraqi conflict is one part of a strategy in the war on terror and the failure of the enemy to lauch followup attacks is proof that the strategy is working.

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That guy only murdered once, how do we know that putting him in jail made us any safer?
H

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The idea is that you make the enemy come to you on ground of your own choosing.

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Rather then allowing these people to fight us or Isreal

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in piecemeal fashion in times and places of their own choosing

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we have created this opportunity to for them to swarm into Iraq and die by the tens of thousands.

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Afganistan was a similar opportunity but was too remote to allow easy access for the enemy.

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Americans are unique in that we don't go out of our way to tussle with anybody. We never would have fought Iraq in 1991 or 2003

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if Saddam hadn't beat the snot out of our little buddy in 1990.

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That said I think the neither of the wars was avoidable. The reason is that even had Saddam never invaded Kuwait in 1990, his nature was such that he would have eventually done something to cause the war.

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Originally posted by SevenPercent:
And I've got a magic rock in my pocket that protects me from tigers, because I havent been attacked by one yet.

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We put him in jail (sanctions, a no-fly zone, inspections). While in solitary, he tries to keep his security blanket (the possibility that he may be armed...

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If we find out they have or are making illegal weapons...we generally take unilateral action to disarm them, most often without seeking prior approval from civil authorities, outside jurisdictions, or the United Nations.

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Originally posted by SignyM:
Back to WMD again? Didn't you JUST say our invasion was part of the GWOT and that Iraq was a convenient location for fighting terrorists and/or protecting Israel?

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Originally posted by rue:

Thanks for your posts. I've been noticing the self-contradictions but didn't tally them up.

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Originally posted by SevenPercent:
"It was about wmd's" --> Someone proves it wasn't --> "It was about resolutions" --> Someone proves it wasn't --> "It was about freedom" --> Someone proves it wasn't --> "It's about fighting terror" --> Someone points out it's making terror worse --> "Terror's not the problem! It's about wmd's!"

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Why does it have to be about one thing?

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Originally posted by SignyM:
Wouldn't the presence of a credible WMD threat make Iraq an exceptionally inconvenient choice for fighting terrorists? To make this pellucidly clear, why would Bush choose to invade a nation that he was convinced had real WMD in order to attack a secondary target? IF Bush "chose" Iraq as the flypaper, either he would had to have known ahead of time that Saddam didn't have WMD or he was willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of American casualties.

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Originally posted by SignyM:
Similarly, we can't be fighting a proxy war in Iraq and have a prayer of bringing "liberty" to that nation because the conditions will be too chaotic.

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Originally posted by SignyM:
But more importantly, if Saddam had WMD why didn't he use them?

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We know Saddam was reaching out to Al Queda, we know Al Queda was reaching out to Saddam.

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But we had already neutralized most of their command and control

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thousands of militants marching to the "sound of the guns"

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Now it appears that the Taliban is faltering

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although with the US Marines standing behind them saying "you can do it!"

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Our best bet is to keep up the pressure to break them before they can adopt any sort of coherant unified strategy

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Originally posted by SignyM:
Saddam had an active weapons program and a "massive stockpile" of WMD and medium-range missiles (120 miles range specifically) - enough to be a credible threat to Israel or Kuwait, if not to the USA directly. He was in the process of feeling out AQ in order to potentially transfer either some items or at least some knowledge to AQ in order to create extra difficulties for the USA. Bush invaded in order to interrrupt those plans. And Saddam, not being militarily gifted, did not manage to fire off even one canister, despite having a massive stockpile of deployed weapons. But Saddam was so clever that he managed to hide them in ways that we can't find anything but 15-year-old duds. Alternately, he shipped them off to Syria instead of using them to defend Iraq.

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He hid or shipped out the country a large portion of his arsenal of very expensive conventional weapons in 1991. But in 2003 he'd leave it all to be discovered. Lets not forget the numerous conventional weapons caches located in schools and mosques, missiles, planes buried in the sand, why not hide other things too...case in point the 500 artillery shells that we did find (and lets face it, they arent exactly forthcoming with this stuff so who knows what else they found and haven't declassified yet).

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Originally posted by rue:
Zero,

How many people in the Bush administration have been in military combat? There was Powell, but he got out. And then there was .... I can think of ... none. Pehaps you can come up with a name or two. Otherwise, I'll say that republicowards are always ready for others to die, as long as they get more $$$

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Originally posted by Hero:
Liberals, always willing to give you the shirt off of someone else's back.

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