Study: Bush led U.S. to war on 'false pretenses'

[rmnunez]

So you think everything that is going on in Iraq was intended to go as it is? This is a novel perspective, I thought there were some mistakes. What was the aim of disclosing tortured and humiliated prisoners in Abu Ghraib? Why was Saddam's capture delayed? How come they insisted on those WMDs which never were found?

[robby 1957]

what a bunch a BS . . . it was Saddam that lied .. get OVER it . . .

[Matt W]

robby, this is a debate board. Kindly debate. If you're going to call BS, I suggest you either prove it, or provide backup for your point of view.

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[BobbyO]

Quote by: lsbskins1 The answer to the first two questions is no. The answer to your third and fourth questions are tied together. There are multiple "bad guys" in Iraq. The difference between you and I is that where fault lies with the US, I am willing to admit it. "Everything" is not the fault of the US, but just because we were faced with vexing and difficult problems does not mean that any course of action we may have taken was therefore good. As I have stated over and over again, in respone to many different issues, seeing a problem and acting is not enough. Your actions must be reasonable and accomplish whatever logical aims you may have. If your "solution" fails is this reguard, it should be challenged and deserves to be criticized. Unintended and unforeseeable consequences are one thing. If you create an oxygen rich incubator for premature babies because you know that many of them die for lack of oxygen because the lungs are late developing organs and later discover that you used too much oxygen and this led to blindness, you did not do "wrong". You adjust back on the oxygen, leaning from your mistake. But when thousands of people are screaming from all corners of the globe, "Do not do this! It will lead to more chaos, not less. It will be this way because of A, B, C and D" and they end up later to be proved to be right, you can not claim that you did not and could not know there would be problems. And you must accept the fact that you have screwed up in a major way, caused more problems than you solved and quit clinging to notions that have been disproved. If you do not, you remain PART OF THE FREAKING PROBLEM and you were always PART OF THE FREAKING PROBLEM, whether you intended to be or not.

And if thousands of people around the world said don't build that incubator because it leads to blindness...?

I am sure you are willing to criticise the USA where it needs criticising, So where excatly in the war is NOT the USaAs fault? Is it the USA's fault because saddam faked his WMD's? Is it the USA's fault because Islamic fundamentalists chose to blow up others not of their liking?
If the answer is that the USA would not have had these problems if it never attacked Iraq, the answer is of course "yes." And that it would have different problems. Saddam has said he would have reconstituted his weapons program. Would that be a problem? Iran would be bordered by a weaker Iraq as opposed to a stronger USA? Would that be a problem?

[lsbskins1]

If you want to know what I think would have been reasonable, look here:Study: Bush led U.S. to war on 'false pretenses'

As to questions about suicide bombers being "our fault", it is our fault that the tactic works for them on a certain level. It is our fault that some of their rhetoric seems reasonable to the average Islamic person. It is not our fault that they are willing to throw reason and compasion into a big pile of burning shit. What I am saying (if you read the above) is that there will always be fanatics. You can not stop them by scaring them, you can not stop them with reason. You can not ever stop them completely. What you can do ( if you read the above passage, you would know my stance) is make them seem just as crazy and unreasonable as they are by making them as marginalized as possible. When they stand on a wall and scream through a megaphone "America does not want you to succeed, they want to kill you" and you respond by wrecking one of their countries and killing thousands of innocent people, it makes it seem like they might be right to people who have lost jobs, running water, electricity and children in the "war on terror".

[Milton Bradley]

Hard to believe that in the face of all that has transpired over the course of this war that there are still people attempting to defend GW. We're at six pages of denial, and counting.


I guess that subscription to "ones own reality" comes with a lifetime subscription. I mean, Nixon had to die before they went in, and cleaned up all the lies he was promoting in his Presidential Library.


Casn we expect the same level of devotion to George "Wiretap" Bush?

[Zeebadee]

Quote by: Milton Bradley Casn we expect the same level of devotion to George "Wiretap" Bush?

I think that's been made crystal clear by the claim that it wasn't bush and his administration that wanted the war. Instead, the war happened because, "saddam faked his WMD's".

LOL, and yeah, that little old lady that got mugged on a New York street was mugged because she faked having valuables in her purse. Entirely her own fault.

[rmnunez]

I think Bush wanted to attack Iraq and Saddam nicely set himself up for that. Undeniably there was deception from Saddam, he admitted he sought to induce the impression he had WMDs to keep the Iranians at bay since his military had been demolished after Desert Storm and he couldn't rebuild them fast enough with all the sanctions and import restrictions.

Unfortunately, his exagerations may have fueled fear in Bush after intervention in Afghanistan since the troops there could be within range. Obviously Saddam wasn't about to admit he was just bluffing, so the inspectors got the run around and Bush got more antsy, felt like his concerns were not being taken into account.

Did the rest of the world know Saddam was bluffing? Why didn't someone tell Bush it was just a hoax to keep the Iranians back?

Saddam gave us indicia of WMD procurement, he had all sorts of suspicious purchases, research programs, inventories of unaccounted for precluded materials allegedly destroyed without a trace, all of this suggests there was some WMDs in Iraq, none were allowed, all should have been surrendered, none were.

Pursuit and even possesion of WMDs was not the only thing that made Iraq a good target. There was the deplorable human rights record, the genocidical slaughter of Kurds and erradication of the Marsh Arabs. Saddam also repressed, persecuted and killed political dissidents, incarcerating, expropriating and exiling whole families. If inducing the impression he was dabbling in WMDs, plus the ocassional genocidical atrocity, as well as severe repression of any political dissent weren't enough, Saddam also had attacked Kuwait and Iran, which would reasonably support the notion he was dangerous to his neighbors and there are a number of them which are big oil suppliers the US relies on. Toss in the suggestion he may have had some terrorist contacts, resentment over alleged plots he was involved in to kill Bush's father and the ocassional shot at no-fly enforcers, and it makes a good argument to attack Iraq.

[grandpa]

Quote by: rmnunez I think Bush wanted to attack Iraq and Saddam nicely set himself up for that. Undeniably there was deception from Saddam, he admitted he sought to induce the impression he had WMDs to keep the Iranians at bay since his military had been demolished after Desert Storm and he couldn't rebuild them fast enough with all the sanctions and import restrictions.

No, the United States set up the invasion, not Saddam. And the sanctions punished the Iraqi people far more than they did Saddam.

Of course, these longstanding efforts aren't only economically strangling Iraqis:

Full cost excluded on Iraq, Afghanistan

The $515.4 billion in Pentagon spending for 2009 that President Bush proposed to Congress on Monday does not include the cost of fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush asked for $70 billion as an "emergency allowance" for war costs for the first part of the budget year, which begins Oct. 1.

Grandpa h.

[xyzer]

Hard to believe that in the face of all that has transpired over the course of this war that there are still people attempting to defend GW. We're at six pages of denial, and counting.

Not all deny anything! The war has been too protracted and seems like its going to last a few more years. It hasn't really stabilized the middle east and has spawned at least one other disruptive Islamic nation..Iran. US foreign policy has been unsuccessful against Islamic jihad? How many presidents and Congresses have tried? Has the Israel Palestine problem ever beem satisfied? Perhaps its time for the UN or some other power to try to mend the mess that the spread of Islam has created?


I should also remind you deniers that hind sight is 20/20? And Congress also believed in the effort, as did the UN. I dont read of many of you condemning your representatives for their up vote allowing Bush to use resources and invade Iraq? Have you forgotten that the legislature is the one that makes this type operation happen? Congress up until last year willingly funded the Iraq operation did it not? Get real!

[robby 1957]

It's nice to know that the 'moderator' has his own view point .. can you 'prove' that Saddam didn't lie .. he told the whole world and especially the UN that he had WMD .. do you want the list of democrat opperatives who ALSO believed that he had em . . . I would suggest that you either moderate civil discussion or get into the debate .. sniping from the 'sideline' is unfair . . .

[Matt W]

Actually, robby, I do. If you want to chat or rant, there are plenty of sites for that. Have a reasoned argument or don't post. It's that simple.

And read the big red banner next time, hmm?

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[rmnunez]

Sanctions are a step taken only because critical lefties are so strongly opposed to war conservatives who cannot resolve things diplomatically try this to see if they can do any better.

Invariably sanctions don't work because they take too long. Additionally they will always produce hardship for many more than the decisionmakers they are aimed at influencing. Another important difficulty with sanctions is that they are supposed to induce sufficient discomfort for the population to pressure its government to do something to avoid them, but most often are applied to regimes which are not at all responsive to popular pressures.

Look at the countries currently labouring under the most draconian sanctions: Cuba, North Korea, Iran, and then a few others. These governments are repressive, if their citizens complained about any hardships from sanctions, they're likely to be shot, so there won't be much pressure on Castro, Kim or the Ayatollah. Sanctioned governments are usually quite corrupt and their leadership, by virtue of all it has looted, is immune from any hardship due to sanctions.

But we can't just move from failed diplomacy directly to war, the critical left won't tolerate this, so we've got to try the economic sanctions route to see if that will work. Naturally, the critical left will gripe about how ineffective the sanctions are and how the people are made to suffer, but so what, nobody believes these sanctions can work anyway, they are just done because diplomacy failed and we can't go to war without something more.

[grandpa]

Quote by: rmnunez Sanctions are a step taken only because critical lefties are so strongly opposed to war conservatives who cannot resolve things diplomatically try this to see if they can do any better. Invariably sanctions don't work because they take too long.

This is interesting logic, but I don't think it holds up. As many would point out, the crippling Iraqi sanctions were not better, as they were a group punishment. For Iraqis, they were like mass-murder. But America is very good at killing people in various ways.

Grandpa h.

[xyzer]

Hmm? Sanctions against Iraq really worked didn't they? How long did the the UN rail against Saddam? 20 years? How many petro dollar profits did he accumulate at the expense of the Iraqi children?
Have sanctions against the likes of Iran and North Korea stopped them?

Agree with rm, sanctions are a sop to the anti war, emotion driven pacifists!

[rmnunez]

You're right gramps, the sanctions didn't work in Iraq either, they don't work anywhere. They didn't work in Iraq because Saddam was fabulously wealthy and felt no hardship, and because despite the suffering of millions of his subjects, they could bring no pressure to bear against him for change to reduce those sanctions. This is why sanctions don't work well in Cuba, Iran or North Korea either.

Sanctrions aren't often resorted to, usually when there's some dispute between governments, the diplomatic process is effective in resolving this. I suspect there are cases we never know about, when the dispute cannot be resolved and then economic pressure is applied effectively to bring them back to the bargaining table diplomatically.

The US is the most important market for most countries, so if the US threatens to impose restrictions, add tariffs or somehow slow things down, this will immediately mess up things in the threatened country. Countries which are focused on a single major export likely face very substantial effects from any US sanctioning. Countries which have diversified their economies and have developed other markets can cope better.

But the effectiveness of sanctions depends on the responsiveness of the sanctioned government to the hardships resulting to its population. If millions died in Iraq as a consequence of US sanctions this is a measure of Saddam's viciousness, not of the US', after all, Saddam could induce the relaxation of those sanctions whenever he wanted, but never did. Look at Cuba, if Castro wanted to restore economic relations with the US to what they were like in 1959, all he has to do is pay a relatively insignificant amount of compensation to a few hoteliers who got expropriated by the communists. Its a few million in exchange for billions in trade, why not?

[grandpa]

Quote by: rmnunez You're right gramps, the sanctions didn't work in Iraq either, they don't work anywhere. They didn't work in Iraq because Saddam was fabulously wealthy and felt no hardship, and because despite the suffering of millions of his subjects, they could bring no pressure to bear against him for change to reduce those sanctions.

I'm tempted to even say propaganda works better, at least assuming America would have ever challenged Hussein (or trained him) in a humane manner (i.e., a way which wouldn't punish the whole of Iraq).

The point is, Iraqis didn't make the choice.

Grandpa h.

[BobbyO]

As to questions about suicide bombers being "our fault", it is our fault that the tactic works for them on a certain level

.

It isn't working for them. Millions of Iraqis voted for the government, and are Iraqis are turning their backs on such folks and tactics throughout 2007.

It is our fault that some of their rhetoric seems reasonable to the average Islamic person

.

If the average Islamic person sees no other option, perhaps. But the al queda types have demonstrated who they really are. And Iraq, and the Arab world is turning against them.

What I am saying (if you read the above) is that there will always be fanatics. You can not stop them by scaring them, you can not stop them with reason. You can not ever stop them completely. What you can do ( if you read the above passage, you would know my stance) is make them seem just as crazy and unreasonable as they are by making them as marginalized as possible.

And how do you make them appear crazy? By letting them rule?

When they stand on a wall and scream through a megaphone "America does not want you to succeed, they want to kill you" and you respond by wrecking one of their countries and killing thousands of innocent people, it makes it seem like they might be right to people who have lost jobs, running water, electricity and children in the "war on terror".

[/quote]

And when they demonstarte that THEY are the true problem, it works just as well.

[BobbyO]

[

QUOTE=lsbskins1;475626]It was not necessary to make Sadam more cooperative, it was necessary to insure he was not a true threat. We could have kept up in much the same way in Iraq,

By 2001 the consensus for the sanctions was eroding.

secured Afganistan more effectively and helped to create a real bastion of democracy in the region

Why would a far more primitive Afghanistan been a far more likely standard beaer of democracy in the region. heck, it isn't even in "the region." Its out in the boonies.

all with the support and good-will of the world community.

During the buildfup, the issue wasn't ust a question of whether the USA should go in. It was also a defense of the saddam regime. Why wuld that situation have been any better?

Once we had fought the real war against terror, we could have kept up a real coalition of the truely willing and used the power of our still present moral standing in the world to promote a Middle East peace plan that would have showed the average Arab citizen (who really only wants some kind of secure life and an expectation of future success) that the western world is not opposed to that happening.

But why would crushing Arab freedom fighers have shown the Arab world we were on their side?
And as an aside, why does the burden fall only on the west to show they are serious about a real settlement in the mid-east? Are the Arabs true innocents and bystanders in the problems in their own backyards?

All of our policies in the middle east are focused on securing our power and control.

So supporting governments which fight back against the local crazies are what? puppets of a mad American desire for control? Or an effort to marginalise the crazies?

there is a small radical branch of Islamic idiots who believe that the world will not be right until it has been returned to the state of being that existed when Mohhamed walked the earth. The way you defeat them is to marginalize them.

Sure, you demonstrate what a world under the Islamic idiots would be like.

You make life agreeable to the majority so that their idiotic rantings seem just what they are.

The problem here is that this involves a theological debate, and a theological debate within the realm of Islam. I am not so sure that the opinions of Christians will carry much weight.

And just like the KKK and the militia morons in the US will never completely go away, they get less support when the world around them does not lend creadence to their stupid ideals. If you are shooting at them every chance you get, they get to wag their fingers and scream from the mountains "Oppression!"

You are assuming that "fighting back" as opposed to "fighting for."

And in case you haven't seen it before, I will say it again. I lived in the DC area on 9/11. I worked 3 blocks from the Pentagon.

I lived across the Hudson in New Jersey on 911. Only me being late to work that day kept me from being on Chambers St when the first plane hit.

You would not care either (if it was one of your family) that we TRY not to kill innocents. Those people are just as innocent and just as dead as any American. We feed the monster when we do stupid shit like that

.

The tactics of the "Islamic idiots" is to strap bombs on people and explode them in crowed markets. Do you think maybe THAT is the problem in Iraq? Do you think maybe those tactics have the effect of turning Iraqis away from its advocates? How come an unfortunate accident which kills some innocent creates a monster, but a deliberate response which kills innocents is okay?

Is Bin Laden weaker? Yes, but he does not care. He cares that millions more despise us now. Can HE attack us with the same effect? No, but he does not care. He cares that millions of more brains are being applied to finding ways to attack us and thousands of more cells with the same ideology are being spawned. It was a stupid, short sighted solution. It will cost us if we do not stop it. It has already cost us, just not in civilian blood, yet.

[/quote]

I am quite sure Bin Laden would prefer to live in a palace than a cave... He cares that he is weaker.
And the evidence sseems to suggests that millions of little bin laden's are not being spawned. They are fleeing.

[thx1138]

Quote by: xyzer Hmm? Sanctions against Iraq really worked didn't they? How long did the the UN rail against Saddam? 20 years? How many petro dollar profits did he accumulate at the expense of the Iraqi children? Have sanctions against the likes of Iran and North Korea stopped them? Agree with rm, sanctions are a sop to the anti war, emotion driven pacifists!

Where were Saddam's petro dollars banked? Banks in New York and recycled into the U.S. economy, So the U.S. was the one that profited from his petro dollars, until he swicthed to the Euro which are banked in Europe (That's why France and Germany were so against attacking Iraq.). So you're starting to get close, keep digging.