Cheney Admits that He Lied about 9/11

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

"Neither in French nor in English nor in Mexican"

"Border relations between Canada and Mexico have never been better."

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

"Border relations between Canada and Mexico have never been better."

Si!

[vienna]

Strange but i never heard any serious claims that Saddam was linked to 9/11 somehow.
I don't remember Bush claiming that.

Ever since Nixon, presdients have not been in the habit of openly making claims. Nixon used to have proxies make statements or "leak" information to see which way the wind was blowing, politically. If whatever was being tested resulted in a negative reaction, the administration would disavow the statements/leaks and thus have clean hands. If the reaction was positive, the administration would then embrace the issue and make it it's own (and sometimes take full credit fo the idea). All the presidents since then have used the Nixon playbook to keep "clean hands" whenever there is a potentially touchy matter. There were many Bush administration proxies floating about the Iraq-9/11 alleged connection. After realizing that hound wouldn't hunt, they then turned to the WMD claims...

BTW, if you want a concise, more or less, analysis of the whole Iraq-9/11 situation, try reading the section about it in "9/11 Commission Report". It starts on page 334, "Phase Two" and the Question of Iraq:

http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf


<O>

Originally Posted by MH

In this case Americans are victims of self confidence and nativity about ME...something they cant get rid off to this day or at least play it this way for political reasons...to keep some doors opened.

You sound like you are quoting Thatcher talking about Lebanon

Originally Posted by MH

Strange but i never heard any serious claims that Saddam was linked to 9/11 somehow.
I don't remember Bush claiming that.

Don't you remember the fictional meetings with al-qaida that they made a big deal about?
What about the terrorist training facility with a real plane where saddam teaches them how to hijack airliners?

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

Don't you remember the fictional meetings with al-qaida that they made a big deal about?
What about the terrorist training facility with a real plane where saddam teaches them how to hijack airliners?

I do not recall to be honest. There was so much said at the time.

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

Obviously the postwar period was incredibly poorly planned, no question there.

However, predicting that a full scale civil war would break out is another thing altogether.

Since there was one long running but stalled civil war what other possibility apart from civil war was there when the Pershmerga were enlisted as allies?
Add in the failed civil wars in the South and it was plain to see what would happen in a created vaccuum.

Who knew the Balkans would dissolve into civil war in the 90s?

As for the Balkans, that was a surprise, that was expected to kick off in Kosovo. It was the expectation of that civil war which prompted Slovenia and Croatia to try and get out.

Why did Lybia not descend into civil war after Qaddafi was toppled? There was'nt much of a state apparatus left.

Libya is in civil war, the murders of the Americans in Benghazi are just one small event in that mess, the west of the country is far worse.

What about Egypt or Tunisa?

The same people are in power in Egypt ain't they, the MB are playing along nicely with the military to maintain the status quo.
In Tunisia the most of the military went with the protesters and only the heads of the police service changed

Why did Syria erupt in a civil war? surely not for lack of a repressive State apparatus.

Because this time there is lots of foriegn backing for the rebels plus the sunni elements from the Iraqi mess
Last time the Assads simply were able to slaughter them and move on.

Why has Saudi Arabia not dissolved into civil war? it has a large Shiite minority.

Where is the power vaccuum?
The house of Saud is keeping a very tight lid on the Iranian supported groups.

Its a lot easier after the fact to analyse what went wrong. It was not that obvious to anyone on april 9, 2003

It is a lot easier afterwards, however it is very easy to keep abrest of the situation as it exists and give a reasonable prediction of how the existing situation will develop if certain things are allowed to happen.

I do not recall to be honest. There was so much said at the time.

Ah you must remember the "training hijackers on a real airliner" one, it was hilarious.
Turned out the "secret terrorist training facility" was a rather well known exersize for the anti terrorist unit.

Edit to add: I wonder what the hearings at the 9/11 commision heard about politicians and "patriots" making the 9/11 Saddam link

[geetrue]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

And we will hear the true story concerning Benghazi 12 years later.

Perhaps sooner than you think if Mrs Clinton makes any moves towards running for office ...

Perhaps sooner than you think if Mrs Clinton makes any moves towards running for office ...

Have they worked out a suitable name for the "annex" yet to give it some sort of official standing?

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

Since there was one long running but stalled civil war what other possibility apart from civil war was there when the Pershmerga were enlisted as allies?
Add in the failed civil wars in the South and it was plain to see what would happen in a created vaccuum.

Not that clear to me. The Kurds had been in more or less open rebellion since the 60s and by 2003 had a de facto autonomy.

The sectarian conflict between Shias and Sunnis is a more recent development. It was pretty much unknown in 2003.

You look at the Middle East after 1945 and you see that for a long time it was shaped pretty much only by the Arab-Israel conflict and the Cold War.

Lebanon was in a civil war for most of the 70s and 80s. Both Shias and Sunnis had their own militias, but they were informal allies. The conflicts were: christians vs muslims, lebanese vs Syria, lebanese vs Israel so the muslim militias were usually fighting on the same side.

In Iraq, both Shias and Sunnis got along, the Baghdad neighborhoods were mixed and there was freqent intermarriages. During the Iran-Iraq War, most Iraqi Shias supported Iraq.

Even the Shia uprising in 1991 was perceived as an uprising against Saddam Hussein rather than a Shia-Sunni struggle.

Anyway, one thing for sure, it will be a long time before the US ever puts ground troops in the ME again. It gives a whole new meaning to the old dictum: "Dont start a land war in Asia".

[Stealhead]

You do realize that Saddam's regime allowed the Sunni to have control right? So most ****e kept their mouths shut or left the country.Once Saddam was gone the Sunni minority feared that they would loose control and the ****es feared that the Sunnis would get control again.And as a result they started killing each other.

In Saddams Iraq the Sunnis had power and the ****e did not by and large the ones that got along where the ones that where a part of Saddams bureaucracy and exceptions to the rule.

Maybe to you the uprising in 1991 was not seen as a Sunni .vs ****e thing but it was just like the Iran Iraq war was just like the killing that still occurs right now is.

The hatred between Sunni and ****e in Iraq and in the Middle East in general is far from something new.


From Wiki article on Sunni-Shia relations


"The governing regimes of Iraq were made mainly of Sunnis for nearly a century until the 2003 Iraq War. The British, having put down a Shia rebellion against their rule in the 1920s, "confirmed their reliance on a corps of Sunni ex-officers of the collapsed Ottoman empire". The British colonial rule ended after the Sunni and Shia united against it.[65]
The Shia suffered indirect and direct persecution under post-colonial Iraqi governments since 1932, erupting into full scale rebellions in 1935 and 1936. Shias were also persecuted during the Ba'ath Party rule, especially under Saddam Hussein. Under Saddam public Shia festivals such as Ashura were banned. It is said that every Shia clerical family of note in Iraq had tales of torture and murder to recount.[66] In 1969 the son of Iraq's highest Shia Ayatollah Muhsin al-Hakim was arrested and allegedly tortured. From 1979-1983 Saddam's regime executed 48 major Shia clerics in Iraq.[67] They included Shia leader Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr and his sister. Tens of thousands of Iranians and Arabs of Iranian origin were expelled in 1979 and 1980 and a further 75,000 in 1989.[68]
The Shias openly revolted against Saddam, following Gulf War in 1991, and encouraged by Saddam's defeat in Kuwait and simultaneous Kurdish uprising in the north. However, Shia opposition to the government was brutally suppressed, resulting in some 50,000 to 100,000 casualties and successive repression by Saddam's forces."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shia%E2...3Sunni_in_Iraq

Not that clear to you perhaps but very very clear to others.

[Sailor Steve]

You wouldn't have this problem if you realized that Shiite is spelled with two 'I's - either Shiite or Shi'ite.

[GT182]

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

"Border relations between Canada and Mexico have never been better."

Exactly! The "buffer zone" between the two counties is taking up all the slack.

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

You wouldn't have this problem if you realized that Shiite is spelled with two 'I's - either Shiite or Shi'ite.

I tried that and it still did the **** thing to me for some reason.

It might have been because I edited it when I noticed the missing "I" So I went to add in an extra i while editing it did not want to let me use Shiite. So I just left it that and I was famished and about to eat dinner so it is what it is.

Grammar Nazi all you want.

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

Not that clear to me. The Kurds had been in more or less open rebellion since the 60s and by 2003 had a de facto autonomy.

The sectarian conflict between Shias and Sunnis is a more recent development. It was pretty much unknown in 2003.

You look at the Middle East after 1945 and you see that for a long time it was shaped pretty much only by the Arab-Israel conflict and the Cold War.

Lebanon was in a civil war for most of the 70s and 80s. Both Shias and Sunnis had their own militias, but they were informal allies. The conflicts were: christians vs muslims, lebanese vs Syria, lebanese vs Israel so the muslim militias were usually fighting on the same side.

In Iraq, both Shias and Sunnis got along, the Baghdad neighborhoods were mixed and there was freqent intermarriages. During the Iran-Iraq War, most Iraqi Shias supported Iraq.

Even the Shia uprising in 1991 was perceived as an uprising against Saddam Hussein rather than a Shia-Sunni struggle.

Anyway, one thing for sure, it will be a long time before the US ever puts ground troops in the ME again. It gives a whole new meaning to the old dictum: "Dont start a land war in Asia".

De facto autonomy?
How much land were they claiming which was way beyond that de facto holding?
What is the only logical process for them pushing into that claim with the armed overthrow of the regime that holds it?
If you can come up with any logical answer apart from "civil war" then you may have a point.

You later come back to the Shia which you initially wrote off as "unknown", Steelhead has already dealt with that.

On Lebanon I am afraid you are very incorrect, in that long running mess just about every group has been allied with every other group and been at war with every other group.
It has been an ever shifting mess which never really shifts very far.

If you look at the mid east post-45 you will see religious tribal ideological national conflicts both linked to and seperate from the cold war and Isreali/arab issues.
If you look pre-45 you will see more of the history of these long running problems

As for not putting ground troops in again, do you really have that much faith in your politicians so as to believe they will not make the same mistakes they have already made time and time again?