its true tchocky.

Simple fact of the matter is that people dont bother to use their minds and look critically at things. what DO they teach in schools these days??

all good but your not the most powerful nation on earth you cannot go to war without the senate backing and the president can be overruled china has the largest armed forces in the world that is a fact

There is a popular fiction that the intelligence services of the world were convinced that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction to such an extent, and with such certainty, that it justified an invasion.

Those of us not watching Fox news exclusively during to the run up to war seem to recall acute skepticism on the part of most of the world's leaders. We remember Hans Blix asking for more time for inspections because he couldn't conclusively prove the existence of proscribed weapons. And since the war we've learned a good deal about international intelligence services warning the CIA about the shoddy quality on which the Administration was basing its most outlandish and inflammatory claims. Germany was warning us off Curveball, a Chalabi asset, who provided the OSP with the verbiage employed about wild-eyed weapons programs. French and Italian services were warning us off forged documents that claimed Saddam was pursuing uranium from Niger.

Britain's intelligence seemed to not only back up our claims but expand on them. They were just about unique in that role and, notably, also reliant in good part on the quality of intelligence we were providing them. But look at what was going on behind the scenes there, we've got more than our fair share of Brits on this board who know the story I'll bet, and you see huge heaps of disagreement and controversy about the quality of the claims. Hell, one "damning report" turned out to be cribbed from some Californian kid's graduate thesis.

While it can be honestly said people had reason to believe Saddam may have hidden stocks of chemical weapons he couldn't account for that's a far cry from claiming suspicion as a fact, warning that he planed to use them against America via drone aircraft or give them to al Qaida. It's worlds away from scaring people with mushroom cloud images on the horizon. That's propaganda. The only damned al Qaida in Iraq were in Kurdish territory that was verboten to Saddam and when our intelligence services asked permission to launch a pre-war strike against them they were told, no, because having them there helped make the case for war.

The Bush administration for whatever reason wanted war with Iraq and nothing was going to stop that. They lied about being sincere in the desire for a diplomatic solution, they lied about their level of knowlege of Iraq's WMD capabilities and intentions, they deliberately blurred the lines between Saddam and bin Ladin.

The cornerstone of this effort was the Office of Special Plans out of the Pentagon and it has in recent months been severely repremanded by the Pentagon Inspector General's Office for its activities. They had one goal and that was undermining the professional intelligence services that were skeptical of the administration's claims. Yes, there were individuals in the CIA that also played ball but that was more as a consequence of the pressure being put on it via the Vice-President's office. The OSP bears a huge amount of further scruitiny and it will be scoured sooner or later.

I tried to edit just what I liked out of what you said, OddjobXL ... but I couldn't.

Why, because it is a well thought out truth that you have posted ... I don't know where the OP is ... she started all of this ... sabbath day is over Lady Avon ... where are you?

My post was in humor, but the one seed I would like to leave is America is not to be blamed for anything ... instead the free world should be saying thank you President Bush for expending human lives at cost of billions to protect us from bullies with the ability to do what they threatened like Saddam Hussein ...

Someone else said it on these very same forums,
"Can you imagine what Iraq would be like if Saddams son's were in power"?

Great post! :up: Couldn't have expressed it any better myself.

Name a single government or opposition having said that. Nobody I ever heared of ever said something like that. It is proven fact that Iraq once had chemical weapons, in the late 80s and early 90s. If they still had these in 2003 - this is the question. If you find a storing site, you still need to proove that once it was filled with something. And when that was the case.

If Bush really knew beyond doubt, on basis of solid evidence - AS HE AND MEMBERS OF HIS GOVERNMENT HAVE CLAIMED! - that Iraq still had weapons left from the stocks during the 80s and early 90s, and even was producing new ones, then it should have been possible to just go to these well-proven, well-known sites and show them to all the world. The Americans claimed to have solid evidence, or have you forgotten that?

All what was foudn so far was a little dirt under the fingernail, deriving from more than one and a half decade ago - when Iraq was confirmed to have had chemical weapons.

Arguments before one goes to war - may be reasons to go to war. Aeguments that are given not before, but after a war, and that has been chnaged, and altered, and replaced or complemented by others - or no reasons, but foul excuses.

So, it is beyond doubt that Iraq has had chemical weapons, and nobody ever said anything different as to my best knowledge. If it still had them during the last couple of years before the war - this is the decisive question.

And maybe next time you can spare your personal ranting, it makes it easier to communicate, you know.

Interesting piece from Salon

biased as hell, but that fits the thread nicely :P

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwa...acy/index.html

Who let the Dems out? Who? Who? Who? Who? Who?

Parroting the same nonsense as the rest of the Bu****ler crowd, Skybird? :down: When will you catch on?

We ought to define what constituted "solid evidence" PRE-invasion as some people here seem to confuse that with a post invasion standard where you have a press conference putting captured wmd on display and backed up with test results from independant labs confirming the substances in them.

Pre invasion "solid evidence" on the other hand would be reports from defectors, known prior posession and use, the logistic capability and techical expertise to make more, UN inspectors getting 10 years of the run around as well as periodic expulsions, NBC equipment and training for the Iraqi army and lets not forget Saddams own threats to use wmd if attacked.

All of that together would consititute pretty "solid evidence" imo and the opposition party apparently agreed with the administration, at least until it became politically expedient to pretend otherwise.

Great link. :up:

A decision was made and now more must be made as well...

like a dog that returns to the vomit ....again...to be or not to be, isn't that the question really, not did he have em or not...that can be haggled over by historians.I know the topic thread is to be or not to be, but is is hard for me to dwell in the past like that and not try to find some solution to the current situation. America future is definatly uncertain when our own leaders cannot agree to disagree and at least still be productive somehow...

I thought this was appropriate for my post at least...


The Gettysburg Address

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
November 19, 1863

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

God Bless the troops and see them thru.

Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. I wonder how many of my fellow American voters even remember what the Gulf of Tonkin incident really was.

I do agree we need to try to figure a way out of the situation we're in but I don't know how we can have a reasoned debate about it with the people responsible for it still in charge. They control information, or try to, and it's impossible to know the real intentions here. Are they just covering their asses after launching a floundering war or do they have genuinely good points to make about what the consequences of our action in Iraq will be? There's no way we can know and this administration has been caught red-handed in so many lies and manipulations, even beyond the Iraq war, you have to wonder how much you can trust them or whether too even bother. And before people start running for the nooses and the shotguns, no, I don't favor impeachment as a practical matter.

Right now I'm of the opinion Petraeus, our new leader in Iraq, is a pretty brilliant guy and after reading his manual on how to conduct counter-insurgency operations I'm convinced he knows what he's about. What I'm not sure of is whether brilliant tactics will ultimately counter a deepseated desire between the Sunni and the Shiites for score-settling or if they can ever get over their animosities enough to resolve political differences. Tamping down on militias in Baghdad does make for some breathing room but you see violence exploding anew elsewhere in Iraq that more than makes up for it. And, it's also true, that the Petraeus doctrine calls for many, many, more troops than he actually has even with the surge. But we just can't sustain that as a practical matter. I have heard from a buddy of mine in Ramadi that things are looking up there a little right now - that's a good thing. But long term, nothing will keep Iran from manipulating the Shiites and Saudi Arabia, land of the wahabbis and bin Ladins, from sending jihadis to help the Sunnis.

The best we can do, I believe, is contain the situation. The ISG has a good policy though even that's a longshot at this point. It's also a bipartisan report that sets up cover for both political parties to do the right thing. We see Bush slowly, and reluctantly, backing into elements of it under the influence of Condi Rice - the same administration official who okayed the report's panel forming. Tugging against her is Cheney and the remaining neocon element in the White House who still, according to one general that turned down the "war czar" post, do call most of the shots. On the other hand you see several Democratic presidential candidates also embracing the ISG including Obama.

It could yet show us a way out.

The only problem is there's no analogy between the 2.
A combination of both, I would think.
This is a lie that's repeated over and over again but it doesn't make it any truer, unless you hold by the philosophy of "false but accurate".
Yep. Which is why the US should shuffle out as smoothly as possible.
Right.

Talk to Iran and Syria. See where that gets you.

ISG - talk about certain people and their greed for oil dollars!

What was it someone here once said, quoting Santayana? "Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it." Oh................... that was you. :yep:

The Gulf of Tonkin Incidient was manipulated by the Johnson administration to give us causus belli against North Vietnam. People bought into the claim uncritically and so we ended up rooked into a war the American people didn't really understand, it was fundamentally about nationalism on the local level, and ultimately didn't have the will to sustain. Not that it should have ever been engaged in in the first place.

I really don't know where to start here. How much time do you have?

I think so, with caveats. Look, I'm as big a fan of those old French Foreign Legion films as the next guy but I don't think we need to retrace those steps. The caveats are that we need to engage the people with a stake in Iraq, which most definitely includes every nation in a position to cause trouble, and cobble together a consensus that minimizes the chance of this blowing up into a full blown regional war. To lower temperatures it's pretty clear moving our guys out is the answer. However, doing that too quickly or without a framework in place would, I agree with what I think is your intent here, lead to just such a situation.

There are no easy or good answers but staying there forever and crossing our fingers and hoping that magical unicorns and pixies show up to save the day isn't going to help at all. We simply can't sustain this pace of operations until kingdom come so it's best to figure out how to extract ourselves on our own terms but in a responsible way.

Iran was cooperating with us in Afghanistan and Syria was accepting rendition suspects for "interrogation" on our behalf. At least they were before the "Axis of Evil" speech. I don't mistake either nation for swell guys but I'm getting really annoyed with the demonization that's going on. The neocons want to push an agenda against Iran and Syria, I get that, but they can do that on their own dime. I think the American taxpayer is getting fed up with the crap they've gotten us into already. Even polls in Israel since the Lebanon action, perceived as a proxy war between Washington and Tehran, show increasing dissatisfaction with Bush's policies in the middle east and rightly so. They're in the worst strategic position they've been in a long time thanks to the good intentions of their champions in the neoconservative movement.

Care to expand on this line of thought?

As I said, these 2 are not like one another.
Spend it as you please. However, most go home and get dinner on the table.
That might actually be a good thing.
Temperatures will not be lowered either way. My concern is solely for the well-being of coalition forces taking a step back, so as not to get singed by the fireworks that will ensue.
That much we agree on.
LOL!
My enemy's enemy is my friend.

One Al Qaeda suspect thrown at Syria, as if the US was doing Syria a favor. Big cooperation there! Syria - gotta love 'em!

Anything else you care to blwo out of context and proportion?
Ah, the truth hurts.
There's that magic hookie-pookie word again.
Do moonbats have an agenda, too?

Fun with words. :roll:
There are ways to do things on the cheap.
Yada, yada. Proxy shmoxy. Hizballah attacks inside Israel, triggering a war. Israel blew the oportunity to fight the war the way it should have been fought. Now the idiots at the helm here are in major damage/spin control to keep their tushes on their power cushions.
Even I mostly agree with that, being a so-imagined little neocon meself. That's why the term is worthless.
I thought it was self-explanatory.

Israel's 59th Independence Day here, beginning tonight. Don't know how much of a chance to go online I'll have until Wednesday.

Wow, Avon Lady found someone she can parry with, standing toe to toe with ...

Good job oddjob ... you too Lady Avon :up:

Personally I don't think we should leave Iraq as long as one camafloged bible is being carried by our troops over there.

After WWII General McAuthur said, "What Japan needs now is 10,000 missionaries"

As for WMD's let them stay hidden ... I don't care if I ever hear the entire story (from the grave), as long as we don't have to start another thread on mass destruction, it's okay with me.