redd if Saddam was such a threat why didn't the administration go after him before 9-11? Why wait until you have the enemy on the run in to Pakistan? And you are in the middle of taking over one country already. Don't throw U.N. resolutions at me. We pick and choose the ones we like. And what do you mean Blame America. I said these guys thought Iraq would be a cakewalk. How is that blaming America? BTW The POTUS is the Commander in Chief He is supposed to give the Generals the mission and oversee the progress. When they are not progressing he's supposed to pull the plug. This POTUS waits for the Generals on the ground to tell him. At this point that may be a good idea.

Because 9/11 was the action that changed the mindset of threats to the country...

Just like people not wearing a seatbelt until they get into an accident...Or they don't stop drinking until their liver explodes...

People don't realize a situation until it meets them head on...That's not an American thing...That's a human thing...

Bin Laden created a fatwa in 1998 for the destruction of America...and we didn't listen until we saw the fruition of that threat...They started this war decades ago...America ignored it until it was on their doorstep...

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"You get the respect that you give" - cnredd

So the threat from Iraq never really changed. Just Bush' mindset. Thats what I have been saying.

You understood that Spencer? Please explain to me what spankster714 was talking about.

Simple the people who rule our land told Bush to do it. Look at the amount of money made in all areas that support the war and don't leave out Defense Research. They probably told him we have troops over there in Afgan so do it. And he did.
You guys talk like Bush is in control of everything. Thats an illusion.

And while I disagree with you, hopefully not your last...
Welcome and let your voice be heard...


I think you're missing the point.
Their actions are consistent with ALREADY trying to distance themselves from the U.S.
They are pretending they don't "owe" us anything, but literally and figuratively.
These actions should be warning bells to anybody who wants to listen.

America has a LONG history of getting involved in the Middle East, only to have it bite us HARD later.
We previously supported bin Laden and Hussein for different purposes. And look where that got us.


In other words "I don't want to look at these issues so I'll change the subject..."


I'm sorry, but that WAS the issue.
That WAS a major reason for the U.S. invading Iraq. Our perception of his threat TO US.
Do you really need me to quote the variety of ways the Bush administration claimed that he would attack the U.S.?


I guess you did need that.
Let's review, shall we???

Recognizing the threat to our country, the United States Congress voted overwhelmingly last year to support the use of force against Iraq.
....
The terrorist threat to America and the world will be diminished the moment that Saddam Hussein is disarmed.

President Says Saddam Hussein Must Leave Iraq Within 48 Hours

Need I go on?
Quit trying to reinvent history!


Talk about trying to reinvent history.
Let me quote to you from the horse's mouth...

(Bush) Now, look, I didn’t—part of the reason we went into Iraq was—the main reason we went into Iraq at the time was we thought he had weapons of mass destruction. It turns out he didn’t, but he had the capacity to make weapons of mass destruction.

Democracy Now! | President Bush Admits Iraq Had No WMDs and 'Nothing' to Do With 9/11


Substantiate this claim...


No. It's not a "diversion".
One of the very real reasons we invaded Iraq was because Bush insinuated a connection to 9/11 and explicitly claimed a supportive role with al Qaeda.
All terrorist organizations are NOT created equally.
al Qaeda HAS attacked the U.S.

Other "Hussein" supported terrorists? Can you name ANY that have attacked America?

Bush drove us to war by making us feel Saddam was a threat to US.
This world is FILLED with all sorts of violence that happens EVERY DAY. But the U.S. doesn't get involved unless it's overly egregious, or unless WE are directly threatened.

While Saddam WAS wrong, he was NOT worth $1-2 trillion dollars of wrong.


Are you for real?
Have you ever stopped to ask yourself how we could have been SO WRONG about Iraq in the first place?
Have you looked at the investigation as to why our "intelligence" went so wrong?

The Bush administration put resources that would claim Iraq was doing things they weren't on a pedastal for the spotlight, and those that dared to contradict him got the "Plame" treatment.


I'm sorry, but WHAAAAATTTT???
Anybody who thinks this claim should be taken seriously should just review what was said about Clinton and Kosovo...

"No goal, no objective, not until we have those things and a compelling case is made, then I say, back out of it, because innocent people are going to die for nothing. That's why I'm against it."
-Sean Hannity, Fox News, 4/5/99

"American foreign policy is now one huge big mystery. Simply put, the administration is trying to lead the world with a feel-good foreign policy."
-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

"You think Vietnam was bad? Vietnam is nothing next to Kosovo."
-Tony Snow, Fox News 3/24/99
(I think this is my personal favorite, and I would love to see Snow compare the three on the elements.
But alas, such honesty cannot be expected from THAT man...)

"Well, I just think it's a bad idea. What's going to happen is they're going to be over there for 10, 15, maybe 20 years"
-Joe Scarborough (R-FL)
(And today, McCain doesn't care if it's 100... )

"Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life?"
-Sean Hannity, Fox News, 4/6/99

"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is."
-Governor George W. Bush (R-TX)
I wish we could hold him to his word.

So don't talk to me about "politically expedient".
Bush asked for the Iraq war during his post 9/11 swell of public opinion. He skewed the intelligence and swept the contradicting evidence under the rug.

Democrats who went along with it should no more be criticized than the AMERICAN PUBLIC who initially supported the war due to the false pretenses, then came to realize what the war would REALLY be like and changed their minds.


You need to recheck your assessment of the Democrats.
Personally, I am NOT in favor of the "pull-out now" mentality. Never have been.

What the REAL underlying issue is that we need to have SERIOUS discussions about our future plans for our military involvement in Iraq, and not left up to the devices of a dictator who doesn't want to listen to the American public.
While I have no doubt that the "pull-out now" crowd does exist, they are NOT representative of the mainstream Democrat party.
Just look at the two "primary" Democratic candidates. Tell me how many of them were insisting that we had to leave "now".

As for "winning" the war, I'll put that up next to Bush's "Mission Accomplished" banner.
There is a LOT more that needs to be done before we can call this a "success". And that is PART OF THE REASON WHY I brought up the whole "Iraq not crediting the U.S." thing in the first place.
To refuse to see the implications and direction of that is to march blindly into more trouble.

I am sure that the following will be misrepresented, but I'll say it anyways...
I don't know why people are glowing so much over "democracy" in Iraq. I don't think they're ready for it.
America? Very proud of it. Despite our problems, I think we have shown it successful.
Iraq?
There is an author (I can't remember at the moment) who wrote about cultural development and how some cultures "need" a dictator to advance, cause they can't function "democratically" in a manner that progresses.
Other cultures are developed enough to the point where they can make democracy work.
cnredd or maybe SC brought up a case (a while back) where a country actually VOTED AWAY their democracy. (can't remember it's name at the moment)
cnredd brought up another article that showed that an astounding percentage of Pakistan (?) approved of suicide bombings. And that doesn't cover the lesser shades of crazy...
(I need to get some more coffee cause I can't remember details right now...)

And don't get me wrong. I do NOT want Saddam back. I do NOT think he was a good dictator.
But I AM cautious about what we're going to get now that we've put a whole different ball-game into play. I am not going to blindly assume it's all going to be good just because it has the stamp of "democracy" on it.

Preemptive war (or a preemptive strike) is waged in an attempt to repel or defeat a perceived inevitable offensive or invasion, or to gain a strategic advantage in an impending (allegedly unavoidable) war.

This type of warfare is not without risk,the reason for the preemptive attack in Iraq may fail to materialize and the blowback "world opinion"...may be severe! Bush decided to take that risk...undoubtedly..Saddam was a "potential" risk but that risk could also be applied to other world leaders. We could spend years debating the "justification" in our preemptive attack on Iraq. Perhaps some day a coalition of nations will try to justify their preemptive attack on the United States! Preemptive warfare at times..may be justifiable but it remains a controversial tactic with unknown risks to they who support such tactics and attempt to justify them like Japan tried to justify their preemptive attack on Pearl Harbor!

People keep trying to compare Iraq to Afghanistan and miss the critical point. Afghanistan was the wake up call, Iraq was the result of seeing that we cannot afford to ignore sabre rattling. We ignored OBL's rhetoric for far too long and allowed him to build up a 3rd rate nation into one that could attack us directly. A nation that we had helped defend against the Soviets turned against us. Then, when a stronger nation rose up with a lot of the same style of rhetoric, we responded to make sure that they never had the chance to carry out the same kind of attack. We removed a threat to WORLD peace, not just our own. Iraq had shown itself to be willing and able to invade other nations, using horrific tactics. It had shown itself to be willing to commit crimes against it's own people that were equally horrific, if not worse. It had shown itself to be a greater threat than a nation that had already attacked us. The lessons of 9-11 were quickly forgotten following the wave of BDS psychosis that swept this country's left in the wake of Pres. Bush beating the left's glory boys twice. The left's hatred for the President has over-ridden any semblance of sanity and manifested itself repeatedly in waves of blind hatred for anything the man accomplished during his term in office. Had Pres. Bush personally ran into a burning building and saved 40 orphans single-handedly, we'd hear about how it was all a set up and that the only reason they were orphans was because of the Pres. The left in this country has completely forgotten the reality of 9-11, the reality of the horrors of Baathist Iraq, the considerable parallels between Iraq and Afghanistan and the basic human compassion for oppressed people. They have thrown out thier ideals and common sense in a wave of BDS inspired hatred that over-rides their personal ethics, their collective morals and thier ability to think objectively.

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Our nation has not always lived up to its ideals, yet those ideals have never ceased to guide us. They expose our flaws, and lead us to mend them. We are the beneficiaries of the work of the generations before us and it is each generation's responsibility to continue that work. - Laura Bush

God is a conservative -

Ecclesiastes 10:2--"A wise man's heart inclines him to the right, but a fool's heart to the left."

So now we cannot allow "sabre rattling"?

What SC talked about is very real. We NEED to be careful when we go after people with "preemptive strikes".
But it seems in your opinions, "preemptive strikes" are their own justification...


"ignored"?
We ACTIVELY SUPPORTED him against Russia.

And now when I talk about "Iraq's" rhetoric and how they single-handedly beat their enemies and don't owe us anything, THAT GETS ignored...
We have "helped defend" Iraq against threats to their current government, and nobody seems to give a damn when Iraq ignores it.

All I want (for starters) is SOME consistency here!


SC's statements above were brilliant. (#57)

To add on my own two cents, to attack another nation because they are or could be a threat is VERY shaky ground.
It's not a presumed justification.

There are MANY ways to deal with such situations. And God help us if somebody decides to use our own standards against us.
What if some nation wants to bring up our CIA's efforts in other countries? Our aiding of rebels in different countries?
Wait! Let me guess.
It's THEIR activism which must be stamped out if they rattle sabres, but our sabres must be free to rattle unopposed!


Yes. It "had shown" that.
IN THE PAST.
And we DEALT with that IN THE PAST with our previous Iraq invasion.
And I SUPPORTED Bush Sr 110%.

But to take what Saddam did YEARS ago in an attempt to justify our invasion many years AFTER we left???
WHY did we even leave then if what he "had shown" was so bad????
We LEFT!!!!
And we would have STAYED out of their country if it hadn't been for Bush misrepresenting the "intelligence" picture, ACTIVELY LYING about what the war would be like, and all that other crap.

We LEFT!!!
And the ONLY reason America agreed to go back was because of a small list of things which were JUST PLAIN INACCURATE. NO TRUTH to them at all.

And now you want to sell the Iraq war based on something that happened BEFORE WE LEFT????
From my perspective, you're proving that we had no REAL justification in the first place!


Do NOT invoke 9-11.
This has NOTHING to do with 9-11.
Having to stoop to that only shows how pathetic your case is.

I don't think ANYBODY here is against going after al Qaeda.
In fact, it was BUSH HIMSELF who said that he did not care where bin Laden was, and people like you NEVER SAID A THING.
(If a Democrat would have said that, hail stones would have come from the sky thrown by Republicans...)

So do NOT pretend that we have "forgotten" anything.


His popularity rating is in the toilet.
Even amongst Republicans, a MAJORITY feel he is doing a poor job.

Don't try to blame this on "the left's hatred".
The REAL issue at work here is that if this were all done by a Democrat president, you would ask for the pitchfork and bonfire already.
The only reason you support him is because of your "love" for the president.

Get over your blindness. The emperor has no clothes.

Or you could have fat, sassy, and well to do little Dhimmis with no debt sometime in the future wondering why you didn't do your job in trying to maintain freedom in the world so they wouldn't have had to fight Islamism in all it's permutations.

They would be right in saying you blew it.

Money means nothing if it means gaining those riches by allowing our freedoms to be eaten up by Islamism.

Here, I'll demonstrate for you.

How much money would it take for you to go back to living in the closet and keeping your sexuality a secret?

No amount of money would be enough, I'd bet.

Well, guess what, smart guy?

Back in the closet is where you'd be forced to go if Islam took over.

And if you are really interested in our children's future I hope you'll think for a moment about the Gay little kids who won't have the option to choose between money or freedom.

Stop being so selfish. Give them a choice like you have.

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Every step taken toward the installment of Sharia law will be justifiable to the person who values appearance more than freedom and democracy.