On 2/26/13 6:30 PM, Eisboch wrote:


"F.O.A.D." wrote in message
m...

On 2/26/13 6:09 PM, Eisboch wrote:


"F.O.A.D." wrote in message
m...

On 2/26/13 5:48 PM, Eisboch wrote:


wrote in message ...

On Tue, 26 Feb 2013 15:50:06 -0500, "Eisboch" wrote:



"jps" wrote in message
...


And everybody in the room was signed up for the other's objective. It
all made sense to them but it was a giant miscalculation. They were
all looking for an excuse to invade Iraq, long before 911.

-----------------------------------------

Indeed. The stage was set back in 1998 when then President Clinton
signed the "Iraq Liberation Act" which passed the House by a vote of
360 to 38 and by the Senate by unanimous consent. The Act essentially
established a policy for regime change in Iraq. Here's what Clinton
had to say back then:

"Iraq admitted, among other things, an offensive biological warfare
capability, notably, 5,000 gallons of botulinum, which causes
botulism; 2,000 gallons of anthrax; 25 biological-filled Scud
warheads; and 157 aerial bombs. And I might say UNSCOM inspectors
believe that Iraq has actually greatly understated its production....
Over the past few months, as [the weapons inspectors] have come closer
and closer to rooting out Iraq's remaining nuclear capacity, Saddam
has undertaken yet another gambit to thwart their ambitions by
imposing debilitating conditions on the inspectors and declaring key
sites which have still not been inspected off limits.... It is obvious
that there is an attempt here, based on the whole history of this
operation since 1991, to protect whatever remains of his capacity to
produce weapons of mass destruction, the missiles to deliver them, and
the feed stocks necessary to produce them. The UNSCOM inspectors
believe that Iraq still has stockpiles of chemical and biological
munitions, a small force of Scud-type missiles, and the capacity to
restart quickly its production program and build many, many more
weapons.... Now, let's imagine the future. What if he fails to comply
and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route, which gives
him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass
destruction and continue to press for the release of the sanctions and
continue to ignore the solemn commitments that he made? Well, he will
conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will
then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an
arsenal of devastating destruction. And some day, some way, I
guarantee you he'll use the arsenal...." .... President Bill Clinton,
1998

One could say that Clinton talked the talk but Bush walked the walk.



People want to forget that.

----------------------------------------------------

Some people also want to forget that Clinton ordered the bombing and
cruise missile strikes on targets in Iraq in 1998 based on "Iraq's
failure to comply with United Nations Security Council resolutions as
well as their interference with United Nations Special Commission
inspectors."

And he also ordered the famous strikes in Afghanistan and Sudan. The
cruise missiles fired at suspected terrorist camps were an attempt to
kill bin Laden, who was thought to be connected to the bombing of the US
embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Problem was, bin Laden wasn't there.
It was also later determined that the strikes in Sudan at a
pharmaceutical plant was based on bad intel or just bad decision making:

"the evidence that prompted President Clinton to order the missile
strike on the Shifa plant was not as solid as first portrayed." Indeed,
officials later said that there was no proof that the plant had been
manufacturing or storing nerve gas, as initially suspected by the
Americans, or had been linked to Osama bin Laden, who was a resident of
Khartoum in the 1990s."

This is why I don't automatically buy into the "Bush lied us into war"
routine, favored by many. Seems there were enough mistakes and bad
intel to go around for everybody.


Once again, Clinton was smart enough to not invade Iraq with a huge
military force and depose Saddam Hussein. G.W. Bush was not that smart.

---------------------------------------

One might say that Bush was successful whereas Clinton was not. :-)

We will never know what "could have been" had Hussein remained in
power. We can only speculate.
Not to dismiss or minimize the price paid in American or innocent Iraqi
lives, but the reality is that it is a price that sometimes has to be
paid and a pain to be borne. Dismissing it all as "lies" serves nothing
but to make those who lost a loved one (who was doing his/her job) even
more painful to bear.

It has happened before and will certainly happen again.



One might say that Clinton was smarter and more successul, because
during his watch, Americans weren't sent in to invade Iraq, 4000
Americans weren't killed, tens of thousands of Americans weren't
injured, at least 100,000 Iraqis didn't die, and we didn't blow what
will turn out to be $2 billion plus on a moronic war effort.

------------------------------------------

Only time will tell. Until then, the debate will continue.





In the mid 1980's I had a friend from Iraq, a tech guy, who wanted me to
join him in an import/export venture with his native country. I don't
remember many of the details, but part of it involved exporting Pampers
and similar baby products to Iraq and importing dates or figs and rugs.

He gave up on that and actually started importing pretty decent leather
gear - handbags, briefcases, et cetera - from somewhere in South America.

He seemed to have some pretty decent contacts in Iraq. They're probably
all dead now.

"Urin Asshole" wrote in message
...


I think your argument that we should not automatically buy into the
"Bush lied" argument is valid. Unfortunately, he was highly motivated
to get us into this war, and his cabinet and VP were motivated as
well. So, while he may not have lied knowing the full extent of the
bull**** he was proposiing, he certainly was culpable and by any
reasonable definition knew or should have known that it was mostly
bull****. He and his relied on very, very suspect intel and completely
disregarded strong evidence that there was nothing to it.

-----------------------------------------------------

I am of the opinion that Bush made a mistake in not listening enough
to Colin Powell instead of Donald Rumsfeld. Their roles should have
been reversed with Colin Powell as Sec of Defense and Rumsfeld as Sec
of State. I think Powell's military background, including being the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff better qualified him to advise
Bush about going to war. Powell was cautious about it. Rumsfeld was
governed by his massive ego.

On Tue, 26 Feb 2013 21:05:43 -0500, wrote:

On Tue, 26 Feb 2013 13:53:06 -0800, Urin Asshole
wrote:

On Tue, 26 Feb 2013 16:34:14 -0500, wrote:



People want to forget that.

More bull****. Clinton got the job done in Iraq and Saddam was
contained. In fact, he'd give up his quest for WMDs, but Bush didn't
give a **** and lied so we could invade.

The only thing Clinton got wrong was that Saddam would use them.

Dumb****s on the right want to forget that.

If Clinton "got the job done" why were we still there bombing them a
couple times a week?
The air guard was still "flying the box" and bombing anything that lit
them up on the day Clinton left office.

Was that how we planned to "contain" Saddam forever?

How many Americans died because of the air campaign? I guess zero is a
failure?

Well, let's see... how expensive is the Iraq war? Couple of trillion
and counting? How many years could we contain them for the same price
without an American dying?

On Tue, 26 Feb 2013 20:23:07 -0500, "Eisboch" wrote:



"Urin Asshole" wrote in message
.. .


I think your argument that we should not automatically buy into the
"Bush lied" argument is valid. Unfortunately, he was highly motivated
to get us into this war, and his cabinet and VP were motivated as
well. So, while he may not have lied knowing the full extent of the
bull**** he was proposiing, he certainly was culpable and by any
reasonable definition knew or should have known that it was mostly
bull****. He and his relied on very, very suspect intel and completely
disregarded strong evidence that there was nothing to it.

-----------------------------------------------------

I am of the opinion that Bush made a mistake in not listening enough
to Colin Powell instead of Donald Rumsfeld. Their roles should have
been reversed with Colin Powell as Sec of Defense and Rumsfeld as Sec
of State. I think Powell's military background, including being the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff better qualified him to advise
Bush about going to war. Powell was cautious about it. Rumsfeld was
governed by his massive ego.


I tend to agree, but Powell didn't push hard enough and has some
responsibility... sitting in front of the UN and the US population
without a lot good info. Rumsfeld would have been a disaster in any
position.

On Tue, 26 Feb 2013 21:26:41 -0500, wrote:

On Tue, 26 Feb 2013 20:23:07 -0500, "Eisboch" wrote:

I am of the opinion that Bush made a mistake in not listening enough
to Colin Powell instead of Donald Rumsfeld. Their roles should have
been reversed with Colin Powell as Sec of Defense and Rumsfeld as Sec
of State. I think Powell's military background, including being the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff better qualified him to advise
Bush about going to war. Powell was cautious about it. Rumsfeld was
governed by his massive ego.


Powell was the guy who pushed GHWB to cut off the war in 1991 and not
go to Baghdad.
Our big mistake was not just going home then.

Bull****. Israel would have finished it and it would have been a lot
more of a mess and probably cost us more lives. Powell and GHWB were
right. Our big mistake was electing GWB.

On Tue, 26 Feb 2013 21:23:59 -0500, wrote:

On Tue, 26 Feb 2013 17:06:33 -0500, "F.O.A.D." wrote:

One might say that Clinton was smart enough to talk the talk, and Bush
was dumb enough to walk the walk.

Talk translated into bombing and the rest of the world was getting
weary of it. We were running out of allies by 2000. It was basically
just us and the Brits by them. Even the Saudis were getting tired of
hosting us. That was why it was so easy for OBL to get recruits from
there (19 of the 20 hijackers were Saudi) and they chipped in massive
amounts of money.

Suddenly you're concerned about the rest of the world??? You don't
givee a crap about it for anything else.