Reminder to Self: “Don’t get sucked in; get back to work; you have a family to feed and deadlines looming.”
[quote]jjackkrash wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
No AQ set up shop in Iraq. And thanks to the Arab Spring Obama presided over and encouraged they’ve set up shop in those half dozen other countries. Not to mention the Muslim Brotherhood taking over Egypt.
[/quote]
What evidence supports this statement? Do you mean after the U.S. invaded, or before? IIRC, the 9/11 Commission report flat-out refuted a pre-invasion link between Iraq, Al Queda, and 9/11, and CIA director Tenet admitted on 60 Minutes the U.S. intelligence community could not ever verify that there was any Iraqi authority, direction and control, or complicity with al-Qaeda for 9/11 or any operational act against America.
I mean after. I have never suggested that Saddam had anything to do with 911. If you read what I wrote, I said we chose the first theatre of operations in 2002 and Saddam invited AQ into Iraq in response to Bush announcing his intentions.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]jjackkrash wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
No AQ set up shop in Iraq. And thanks to the Arab Spring Obama presided over and encouraged they’ve set up shop in those half dozen other countries. Not to mention the Muslim Brotherhood taking over Egypt.
[/quote]
What evidence supports this statement? Do you mean after the U.S. invaded, or before? IIRC, the 9/11 Commission report flat-out refuted a pre-invasion link between Iraq, Al Queda, and 9/11, and CIA director Tenet admitted on 60 Minutes the U.S. intelligence community could not ever verify that there was any Iraqi authority, direction and control, or complicity with al-Qaeda for 9/11 or any operational act against America.
I mean after. I have never suggested that Saddam had anything to do with 911. If you read what I wrote, I said we chose the first theatre of operations in 2002 and Saddam invited AQ into Iraq in response to Bush announcing his intentions.
[/quote]
Gotcha. Gotta go. I got work and I just can’t get sucked in. F’ing deadlines.
Apply the definition of the world hyperbole to this in a way that the two fit.
As for the rest, I will be back later.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
A ‘mushy narrative?’ I wonder whose admin has been better for regional stability?[/quote]
When regional stability entails starting a war against a regime that had committed war crimes more than a decade prior, based in large part upon lies about the said regime’s nuclear capabilities/aspirations and some pictures of some shiny metal tubes in the desert that turned out not to be what they had been purported to be; promising that we’d be “greeted as liberators” and planning about three weeks ahead only to find that the invasion set in motion a decade-long, bloody sectarian clusterfuck which claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and left thousands of wives, mothers, and children (“with the army you have,” remember that one?) back home to greet the coffins of Americans kids who died for who the fuck knows what; and trillions of dollars gone, burnt up, wasted on a fight that won us appallingly little and cost us appallingly much–and all this while there were actual, direct threats to our national security from a stateless terrorist organization which had just a year and a half prior kicked us in our gut and which was more closely affiliated with a half-dozen Middle East countries not called Iraq…
[/quote]
This is blatant nonsense. Please evidence this, keeping in mind that the word “said lies” entails an extension beyond publications owned by Arianna Huffington and al Jazeera.
Huffington post on Obama’s foreign policy approval.
‘You can’t fool all of the people all of the time.’
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]jjackkrash wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
No AQ set up shop in Iraq. And thanks to the Arab Spring Obama presided over and encouraged they’ve set up shop in those half dozen other countries. Not to mention the Muslim Brotherhood taking over Egypt.
[/quote]
What evidence supports this statement? Do you mean after the U.S. invaded, or before? IIRC, the 9/11 Commission report flat-out refuted a pre-invasion link between Iraq, Al Queda, and 9/11, and CIA director Tenet admitted on 60 Minutes the U.S. intelligence community could not ever verify that there was any Iraqi authority, direction and control, or complicity with al-Qaeda for 9/11 or any operational act against America.
I mean after. I have never suggested that Saddam had anything to do with 911. If you read what I wrote, I said we chose the first theatre of operations in 2002 and Saddam invited AQ into Iraq in response to Bush announcing his intentions.
[/quote]
AQ set up shop in many countries, before and after 9/11.
I know that you know which major event in recent Iraqi history brought AQ into the country in force.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
A ‘mushy narrative?’ I wonder whose admin has been better for regional stability?[/quote]
When regional stability entails starting a war against a regime that had committed war crimes more than a decade prior, based in large part upon lies about the said regime’s nuclear capabilities/aspirations and some pictures of some shiny metal tubes in the desert that turned out not to be what they had been purported to be; promising that we’d be “greeted as liberators” and planning about three weeks ahead only to find that the invasion set in motion a decade-long, bloody sectarian clusterfuck which claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and left thousands of wives, mothers, and children (“with the army you have,” remember that one?) back home to greet the coffins of Americans kids who died for who the fuck knows what; and trillions of dollars gone, burnt up, wasted on a fight that won us appallingly little and cost us appallingly much–and all this while there were actual, direct threats to our national security from a stateless terrorist organization which had just a year and a half prior kicked us in our gut and which was more closely affiliated with a half-dozen Middle East countries not called Iraq…
[/quote]
This is blatant nonsense. Please evidence this, keeping in mind that the word “said lies” entails an extension beyond publications owned by Arianna Huffington and al Jazeera.
Huffington post on Obama’s foreign policy approval.
‘You can’t fool all of the people all of the time.’[/quote]
The Huff Post does generate some real news from time to time.
But don’t worry, smh will be back with a truckload of data showing how bad GWB was for finishing the war started under GHWB [u]by Saddam[/b].
He will also shovel the tripe that BHO was responsible for shutting down the war in Iraq in spite of the fact that GWB had already implemented that plan.
Then he will have to deal with the fact that BHO was responsible for escalating the Afghan war and this won’t jive with the narrative that saving American viscera is all that matters with BHO because he is such a magnificent humanitarian, isolationist, and peacemaker.[/u][/quote]
I was going to rebut this point by point, beginning with your twisting of “tries not to” into “all that matters,” and then moving on to guesses at what I’m going to say that aren’t accurate in the slightest. But you are too smart, and your post is too weak, to merit that kind of treatment, so I’ll make it simple.
American presidents are, by definition, not actual pacifists. They cannot be, and they would be horrendous leaders if they were.
However, some are flippant (and personal chicken-shit cowards who avoided combat in major wars when presented with the chance to fight in them) with the lives of the young men they’re supposed to be leading. By starting unnecessary wars, for example.
Now, here is the distinction that matters: Between a president who sends troops into combat in a war he planned and started (a war for which he made a case with faulty and also plainly incorrect evidence), and a president who is elected in medium bellum and sends troops into combat as part of a sound military strategy recommended to him by his military advisers who are concerned with winning or at least not utterly losing a war that has already begun.
Another fine distinction would be between the wars themselves. You might notice that I am not criticizing, and have not criticized, Bush for Afghanistan, but only for Iraq. So, there would be utterly no contradiction to be found in my own position vis-a-vis the Afghanistan surge and my distaste for presidents who blithely throw lives into the furnace, even if the Afghanistan surge were otherwise comparable to the initial decision to invade Iraq, which it is not.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
Point? The Bam Admin is almost universally recognized as having the stupidest (I could probably come up with a more sophisticated adjective, I admit) foreign policy in American history. [/quote]
OK, so this is the quote.
If you’re really standing by this, Push, then I’m going to refute it. But I don’t want to go hunting stats and spending time if you’re not serious about standing by it and arguing that it is so–so, are you?
By the way, I could cite the Duelfer Report, or the findings of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, but I’d rather just quote this:
“The biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq. I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess.”
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]jjackkrash wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
No AQ set up shop in Iraq. And thanks to the Arab Spring Obama presided over and encouraged they’ve set up shop in those half dozen other countries. Not to mention the Muslim Brotherhood taking over Egypt.
[/quote]
What evidence supports this statement? Do you mean after the U.S. invaded, or before? IIRC, the 9/11 Commission report flat-out refuted a pre-invasion link between Iraq, Al Queda, and 9/11, and CIA director Tenet admitted on 60 Minutes the U.S. intelligence community could not ever verify that there was any Iraqi authority, direction and control, or complicity with al-Qaeda for 9/11 or any operational act against America.
I mean after. I have never suggested that Saddam had anything to do with 911. If you read what I wrote, I said we chose the first theatre of operations in 2002 and Saddam invited AQ into Iraq in response to Bush announcing his intentions.
[/quote]
AQ set up shop in many countries, before and after 9/11.
I know that you know which major event in recent Iraqi history brought AQ into the country in force.[/quote]
Yes, the defeat of the Taliban after 911. He broke his leg and went to Baghdad with several dozen followers. He had already been sentenced to death twice in absentia in Jordan. King Abdullah of Jordan said he sent numerous reports to Saddam’s IIS(Iraqi Intelligence Service) requesting extradition and providing information as to his location. King Abdullah said his messages were ignored.
Zarqawi was already the second most wanted terrorist after OBL before he entered Iraq in 2002. Saddam’s regime allowed him to recuperate in a Baghdad hospital, set up training camps in the Sunni triangle and sleeper cells throughout the country. They allowed them to operate there.
Additionally, after coalition forces removed all former Ba’athists from the civil service many joined the Sunni insurgents. Bush made strategic errors and hyped up the danger of Saddam but the threat was and is obviously AQ. Bush deserves the credit for dropping two guided bombs on Zaqawi’s safe house. Zaqawi was responsible for literally thousands of deaths. AQ now operate in Syria and have safe haven in Yemen.
Lastly, as I mentioned before the Arab Spring has toppled several governments including our second most important ally in the region(Mubarak). These are the facts. Not some bullshit about Obama’s heroism in killing OBL. Any president would have done that. And drone attacks? Wow! The US military and intelligence killed some AQ operatives while Obama was playing golf.
He began his presidency with the Cairo appeasement speech and bragged about ending the war in Iraq. He then helped spark the Arab Spring, had Gaddafi lynched, lost Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen to the fundies and now the sectarian conflict started by AQ has spread to Syria. The only thing keeping them out of Lebanon is Hezbollah. But he ‘brought the boys home’ or some such shit.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]zecarlo wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]zecarlo wrote:
Well, does she still believe the WMDs were stolen by werewolves? [/quote]
They were moved to Syria and Lebanon while Bush was frigging around with the UN. Google ‘Iraq WMD moved’ and read the Washington Times article.[/quote]
The Washington Times is not a reliable source. [/quote]
What about satellite photos of the sites at Nasyaf and al Baida near the border of Syria and Lebanon? I guess Haaretz is not reliable either? Nor the second in command of the Iraqi airforce nor award winning Syrian journalist Nizar Nayouf? You’re a goofball.
[/quote]
The second in command of the Iraqi air force? You should have said that originally. I, like all Americans, trust anything a subordinate of Saddam would say. They are stand up guys.
She believes in werewolves. Werewolves!
[quote]zecarlo wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]zecarlo wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]zecarlo wrote:
Well, does she still believe the WMDs were stolen by werewolves? [/quote]
They were moved to Syria and Lebanon while Bush was frigging around with the UN. Google ‘Iraq WMD moved’ and read the Washington Times article.[/quote]
The Washington Times is not a reliable source. [/quote]
What about satellite photos of the sites at Nasyaf and al Baida near the border of Syria and Lebanon? I guess Haaretz is not reliable either? Nor the second in command of the Iraqi airforce nor award winning Syrian journalist Nizar Nayouf? You’re a goofball.
[/quote]
The second in command of the Iraqi air force? You should have said that originally. I, like all Americans, trust anything a subordinate of Saddam would say. They are stand up guys. [/quote]
The story has been corroborated by numerous sources. Saddam had already used nerve gas on the Kurds and against the Iranians during the Iran/Iraq war. The only comeback I’ve ever heard from this is a non sequitur that we helped him procure the WMDs that he didn’t have. Let’s agree to disagree on this.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
invited al Qaeda into his country.
[/quote]
Link to a reputable source that confirms this and refutes the April 2007 DOD report that found that Hussein was not directly cooperating with AQ. I will respond to the rest later tonight or tomorrow.
[quote]zecarlo wrote:
She believes in werewolves. Werewolves! [/quote]
I hope you are not really this dumb and that is an attempt at humor.