Big Dave is a (Fill in the Blank)

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
21

[quote]mindeffer01 wrote:
It looks to me like misperceptions that lead to faulty conclusions on a grand scale. Thats hard enough to rectify with people of your own culture, let alone people of a different one.
It’s all screwed up.

Instead of seeing liberators a lot of Arabs see occupational forces.

Instead of seeing a rebuilding of infrastructure they see oil thirsty robbers making themselves comfy.

At least thats how I seee them seeing it. Thats how it gets screwed up.

[/quote]

Good call. If our own people keep spreading misconceptions and lies about how evil we are, how do we hope another culture will trust us?

22

Wanted to add that the Highschool where I teach has now had 6 refugee children from Iraq (3 girls and 3 boys) who have joined the marines because of their strong pride in what we’re doing and their love of Iraq.

23

Zap,

US troops may be supporting the elected government of Iraq but the real position of the US is surely something more influential than that. The phrase puppet government come to mind.

You say that the reason for the war is because the Islamic extremists want to take over. The invasion of a secular Iraq and removal of Saddam may have been due to a number of factors but defeating non existent Islamic extremism cannot have been one of them.
Or have I misunderstood you?

24

[quote]peterm533 wrote:
Zap,

US troops may be supporting the elected government of Iraq but the real position of the US is surely something more influential than that. The phrase puppet government come to mind.

You say that the reason for the war is because the Islamic extremists want to take over. The invasion of a secular Iraq and removal of Saddam may have been due to a number of factors but defeating non existent Islamic extremism cannot have been one of them.
Or have I misunderstood you? [/quote]

The invasion of Iraq was for many reasons. Directly fighting al-Qaeda was not one of them.

Saddam was certainly a terrorist supporter, but he was not an Islamist, he was definitely more secular.

I do not think the administration anticipated that we would be fighting the Islamic extremist groups in Iraq to the degree we have been.

I think they expected the struggle in Iraq would have been well over by now and Iraq would be an ideal base to fight against extremism.

A healthy middle eastern democracy would go along way to cure the extremist ills.

It appears to me that Saddam sowed the seeds for the destruction of Iraq by setting up parts of the “insurgency” before he was driven out of power.

Saddam did not work closely with al-Qaeda but at the end he protected Zarqawi and appears to have plotted with him.

We should have expected Saddam to try to destroy Iraq if he couldn’t have it. After all he did set the oil firlds in Kuwait ablaze because he couldn’t have them.

As to the term “puppet government” I am sure there is a certain degree of that. Just as there was in Germany, Japan and Italy. I think it is the US’s intention to move away from this type of relationship as quickly as is prudent.

Regardless of the stated reasons and the hidden reasons for the Iraq war, I see it is now integral to the overall war on terror.

History will be the judge if it was a blunder or a good move.

25

Zap,

Thanks for your perspective.

I appreciate that the establishment of a democratic Iraq may be useful as an antidote to middle east terrorism- although as yet the invasion appears to have had the opposite effect-or even to corrupt despotic regimes but I wonder if there is any support for the view that that was an aim of the Bush administration?

Oil has been discussed elsewhere as a motivating factor but does anyone think think that the rationale attributed to Paul Wolfowitz above i.e for its own security the United States needed to withdraw from Saudi Arabia but that doing so would destabilize the region if Saddam Hussein were left in power, was a dominant motive?

26

[quote]peterm533 wrote:
Zap,

Thanks for your perspective.

I appreciate that the establishment of a democratic Iraq may be useful as an antidote to middle east terrorism- although as yet the invasion appears to have had the opposite effect-or even to corrupt despotic regimes but I wonder if there is any support for the view that that was an aim of the Bush administration?

Oil has been discussed elsewhere as a motivating factor but does anyone think think that the rationale attributed to Paul Wolfowitz above i.e for its own security the United States needed to withdraw from Saudi Arabia but that doing so would destabilize the region if Saddam Hussein were left in power, was a dominant motive?[/quote]

Wolfowitz had a lot of input to the strategy. Much of what I mentioned has also been attributed to Wolfowitz.

27

[quote]peterm533 wrote:
Zeb,

You didn’t say it but is the implication that the purpose of the invading army was to remove a murderous dictator?

In any event, having done so continued occupation of a foreign country carries a heavy price that I am surprised is apparently acceptable to most in the US.

[/quote]

We (all of us both parties) thought that there were wmd there. However getting rid of a murderous dictator is not a bad thing.

If my Aunt, sister, brother, friend had been tortured or killed by a dictator you bet I would be glad that he is gone.

As far as “occupying” the country, we will leave when both the Police force and Army are strong enough and motivated enough to do the job. Doing anything less would leave a vacume for yet another dictator.

In the end will will not only win, but look good doing it…You’ll see :wink:

28

That’s true but you seem to emphasise an altruistic motive which may have been an unintended consequence but surely not the prime motivation?

Winning against terrorism is a difficult proposition and not the usual
outcome. Given the endlessly renewable pool of Islamic fundamentalism it is difficult to see how a clear victory is going to be achieved.

29

[quote]ZEB wrote:
We (all of us both parties) thought that there were wmd there. However getting rid of a murderous dictator is not a bad thing.[/quote]

The other way of looking at it is that it was a convenient cover story. Even thought the U.N. inspectors weren’t finding anything, it was a reasonably safe bet to assume that WMDs would eventually be found, regardless of the fact that no intelligence supported it at that time.

So WMDs were trumpeted ad nauseam in every speech Bush gave for months, until everyone was convinced that WMDs simply carpeted the whole of Iraq, frontier to frontier.

When it later became evident that WMDs were in fact not present and that none would ever be found, it then became necessary to spin the initial cover story as some kind of “intelligence failure.” After 9/11, people were more than willing to believe that something was not working right at the CIA.

People will more readily accept that their leaders where acting in good faith on bad intelligence rather than believe that they’ll lie to cover other lies.

Shouldn’t that have been the plan from the start? Disbanding the Iraqi army and starting from scratch made sure that that process would take at least a decade; more, it made sure a large number of disgruntled mercenary would be available to the insurgency.

Was the “Shock & Awe” part too easy? You wanted to make the rebuilding part difficult?

Either the plan was to go in, take down Saddam, and be out ASAP while leaving a stable Iraq behind; OR the plan was to somehow keep a large presence in the region for years on end.

That’s the safe way to bet. I’m not sure it’s a foregone conclusion though. Let’s hope that it’ll have been worth the cost.

30

pookie,

I’m getting real tired of the jealous canadian perspective. Yes, we get it. We are large and powerful and you are small, weak, and petulant.

Your little spit-balls are irritating.

Read this:www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/09/20020912-1.html

September 2002 to the U.N.

George Bush tells you exactly what he thinks. What’s remarkable, is that he goes ahead and does it.

In summary, I want you to focus on the humanitarian reasons that you keep denying. Only a damn fool would contend that the Iraqi people’s welfare wasn’t one of the MAJOR goals of this invasion.

Read the speech. Don’t skim. No more canadian newspaper “headlines.” Read the entire article. If I don’t feel you’ve read them, I’m going to post them in their entirety.

Good luck,

JeffR

31

[quote]JeffR wrote:
pookie,

I’m getting real tired of the jealous canadian perspective. Yes, we get it. We are large and powerful and you are small, weak, and petulant.

Your little spit-balls are irritating.

Read this:www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/09/20020912-1.html

September 2002 to the U.N.

George Bush tells you exactly what he thinks. What’s remarkable, is that he goes ahead and does it.[/quote]

I’ll give you this: Chimp-in-Chief does sound a lot better in print than on live video. I miss all the stumbling and mispronounced words. Are you sure those are his own words he’s reading?

Yup, humanitarian reasons are invoked. A couple of times in a sea of WMDs. When you’re appealing to the U.N. to support your pet project, you might as well throw in everything you can think of. I’m a bit surprised he didn’t include the deterioration of the Garden of Eden too. http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?ArticleID=3920&DocumentID=298

It’s obvious that the speech was written to try and get as much support as possible for the war.

For some reason, it didn’t convince anyone that wasn’t already on board. Maybe they had better intelligence than you did concerning those weapons?

I’m curious as to how you’ll “feel” I’ve read it or not… If you do post it, please search and replace all occurences of “nuclear” with “nukular”, for authenticity’s sake. But I digress.

It doesn’t sound any better now than it did then. Especially now that hindsight shows about half of that speech to have been based on either deception, or very crappy intelligence.

The result being that not only are people more convinced that ever that your administration invaded under false pretenses; but even your impressive “Coalition of the willing” is slowly dwindling: BBC NEWS | World | Americas | America's 'dwindling coalition'

(And the BBC is a British newspaper. Those are allowed, right?)

Look, your administration wanted to go into Iraq. Fine. Just stop being bitter because the rest of the planet wasn’t as easily hoodwinked as you were by Bush & Co.

32

[quote]peterm533 wrote:
That’s true but you seem to emphasise an altruistic motive which may have been an unintended consequence but surely not the prime motivation?

Winning against terrorism is a difficult proposition and not the usual
outcome. Given the endlessly renewable pool of Islamic fundamentalism it is difficult to see how a clear victory is going to be achieved. [/quote]

Again, I honestly believe that we thought that Saddam had WMD. Both parties republican and democrat thought so as the best intelligence at the time was leaning in that direction.

Altruistic? Not at all! We invaded Iraq to protect the USA. However, what protects the USA also makes a better world. Saddam is gone now and the world is a better place! That is a fact. When we leave Iraq in a stable condition the world will again be better off for it.

“The endless pool of Islamic fundamentalists” will dry up when they see the futility of their actions. Most people don’t realize that every single suicide bomber gets promises from above for performing that hidious act. They promise their families money etc. Yes, they are also promised a place in heaven according to the twist that their leaders put on their scriptures. However, overall I think That if they were not bribed they would not be doing it.

As far as the safety of the USA, we have not had one single attack on our shores since 9-11. Whatever you might think of President Bush, give him his due! We may not connect Iraq to Osama for many years, or ever for that matter. But as my Grandmother used to say “the proof is in the pudding.”

33

“We invaded Iraq to protect the USA. However, what protects the USA also makes a better world. Saddam is gone now and the world is a better place! That is a fact.”

I am not sure what actually consituted such an immediate threat that required military intervention.

As for making the world a better place,
having lost well over 50 fellow Londoners a few weeks ago and narrowly escaping a second wave of murderous attacks last week with more predicted I cannot agree with your assertion.

34

[quote]peterm533 wrote:
“We invaded Iraq to protect the USA. However, what protects the USA also makes a better world. Saddam is gone now and the world is a better place! That is a fact.”

I am not sure what actually consituted such an immediate threat that required military intervention.

As for making the world a better place,
having lost well over 50 fellow Londoners a few weeks ago and narrowly escaping a second wave of murderous attacks last week with more predicted I cannot agree with your assertion. [/quote]

I guess you would have to ask yourself a few questions:

Would we have suffered a terrorist attack anyway? Are these latest attacks directly related to our involvement in Iraq? At what point does a power, such as England stand up to world wide terrorism?

I’m not claiming I have any of the above answers. However, I do know that the world changed on 9-11 and not just for America!

35

Zeb,

We have been dealing with terrorism and bombimg in this country for 30 years.

Are these latest attacks directly related to our involvement in Iraq? Absolutely.

Are we better off? Absolutely not.

36

[quote]peterm533 wrote:
Zeb,

We have been dealing with terrorism and bombimg in this country for 30 years.

Are these latest attacks directly related to our involvement in Iraq? Absolutely.

Are we better off? Absolutely not.[/quote]

I agree in the short term, you probably are not better off. However, in the long term…

37

[quote]pookie wrote:
ZEB wrote:
We (all of us both parties) thought that there were wmd there. However getting rid of a murderous dictator is not a bad thing.

The other way of looking at it is that it was a convenient cover story. Even thought the U.N. inspectors weren’t finding anything, it was a reasonably safe bet to assume that WMDs would eventually be found, regardless of the fact that no intelligence supported it at that time.

So WMDs were trumpeted ad nauseam in every speech Bush gave for months, until everyone was convinced that WMDs simply carpeted the whole of Iraq, frontier to frontier.
[/quote]

I’m sure these quotes have come up before:

“One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line.”
President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998

“If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program.”
President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998.

“Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face.”
Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998.

“He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983.”
Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18,1998.

“[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq’s refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs.”
Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998

“Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process.”
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998.

“Hussein has … chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies.”
Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999.

“There is no doubt that … Saddam Hussein has reinvigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies.”
Letter to President Bush, Signed by Joe Lieberman (D-CT), John McCain (Rino-AZ) and others, Dec. 5, 2001

“We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandated of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them.”
Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI), Sept. 19, 2002.

“We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country.”
Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002.

“Iraq’s search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power.”
Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002.

“We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction.”
Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002.

“The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons…”
Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002.

“I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force-- if necessary-- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I b elieve that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security.”
Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002.

“There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years … We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction.”
Sen. Jay Rockerfeller (D, WV), Oct 10, 2002.

“He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do”
Rep. Henry Waxman (D, CA), Oct. 10, 2002.

“In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weap ons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members … It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons.”
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002.

“We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction.”
Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL), Dec. 8, 2002.

“[W]ithout question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime … He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation … And now he is miscalculating America’s response to his contin ued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction … So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real …”
Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003.

38

I see.

39

I truly hope no one choked on their Canadian Bacon when they read those.