No, the left claim that Bush lied about WMD, when just a few months earlier, they were saying the exact same things about Saddam.
[quote]Marmadogg wrote:
At the end of the day one person made the final decision to go to war in Iraq.
Denying that is intelectually dishonest. (nothing new)
Analogy:
I say I want to hit Joe.
You say you want to hit Joe.
You hit Joe and I give you a hard time for actually physically hitting Joe and your reply is but you wanted to hit him too.
A court would charge you with assault and battery and I would not spend 1 second in court.
This is a fact. What you belief and what is a fact are mutually exclusive.
I blame the Democrats for Vietnam and training Al Queda and the Taliban.
I blame the Republicans for fiasco in Iraq.
The only people who disagree with either points are partisan hacks.[/quote]
The analogy sucks-Its more like this:
You say-that guy living down the street has been exposing himself to women and children-I’m gonna do something about it.
I say-no I’m gonna do something about it.
Then I go over there and get myself killed.
Anyway, Bush decided to go to war for MANY reasons. Perhaps he looked at the quotes of many democrats and even thought-"hey, I’m gonna be a sneaky bastard. Those dems have been saying they are afraid of WMDs and worried about national security.
Now we got 9-11 and we’re already over there in the eastern lands somewhere, nobody’s gonna ask any questions if we just go in to Iraq. Then I get revenge for what they did to my daddy, and get rid of a genocidal maniac, and it may even help out with oil somehow too…"
Anyway, life is complex, but we did have a treaty with Iraq which was completely independent of the U.N. Why? because we “defeated” them and they signed a treaty. They violated it, thus the original gulf war was resumed.
As a teacher, I know that if you children will push to see how far they can get. If you step in earlier, it is usually better. War sucks, but if we had waited another year or two, it would have been worse.
And can someone remind me why Clinton bombed Serbian cities?
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
You desperately want me to be cheerleading for Bush’s numbers, but that is not what I am doing. Elk asked a question - I gave an objective answer. You want to race and find a poll that has Bush lower - that wasn’t my game. That’s why I told Elk to ‘take from it what you will.’
…What you want is a schoolyard pissing contest - “my lowest poll numbers are one percent better than your lowest poll numbers - nah nah nah” - but as I said before, I don’t put stock in polls very much. The only barometer I am interested in are the elections themselves.
Oh, and as a man of science, I am sure you understand the point of Margin of Error - since you are so fixated on the slightest differences in the numbers for partisan advantage, remember that the MoE is generally plus or minus 3, so a 41 can be as low as 38 or as high as a 44.
In sum, low 40s is low 40s is low 40s. Who cares? [/quote]
I don’t want a pissing contest. I wanted the truth. You claimed that Elk was wrong. You didn’t simply say that there are varied answers. I found polls that proved that Elk was not wrong. That is as simple as it is.
Any further discussion on what I truly feel was held with RainJack, not you.
And by the way, teacing intelligent design in highschool science is a stupid idea. I’ve heard several different “proponent” of ID disagree over what it means.
[quote]mertdawg wrote:
As a teacher, I know that if you children will push to see how far they can get. If you step in earlier, it is usually better. War sucks, but if we had waited another year or two, it would have been worse.[/quote]
I maintain that if Carter would have kicked Iran’s ass when they took American hostages, militant Islam would have ended right there.
[quote]reddog6376 wrote:
I maintain that if Carter would have kicked Iran’s ass when they took American hostages, militant Islam would have ended right there.[/quote]
I agree 100%
[quote]reddog6376 wrote:
No, the left claim that Bush lied about WMD, when just a few months earlier, they were saying the exact same things about Saddam. [/quote]
What you are conveniently leaving out is Bush took us to war and got everyone on board by talking about mushroom clouds and the now debunked by the CIA, the WH, and the State Deparment ‘16 words’ for the SOTU.
Americas next generation will be thoroughly computer literate but will allow beliefs to over ride facts.
We can thank CNN for puting that into motion.
[quote]reddog6376 wrote:
mertdawg wrote:
As a teacher, I know that if you children will push to see how far they can get. If you step in earlier, it is usually better. War sucks, but if we had waited another year or two, it would have been worse.
I maintain that if Carter would have kicked Iran’s ass when they took American hostages, militant Islam would have ended right there.[/quote]
Nope.
Carter helped the Taliban in Afganistan and Al Queda was born.
Um, and there is this country called Saudi Arabia that has been funding Wahabism for decades with the blessing of the United States.
Iran is a footnote.
[quote]Marmadogg wrote:
What you are conveniently leaving out is Bush took us to war and got everyone on board by talking about mushroom clouds and the now debunked by the CIA, the WH, and the State Deparment ‘16 words’ for the SOTU.
[/quote]
He acted on the best available intellegance available at the time. Regardless of whether you agree with his action or not, the claim that “Bush lied” is pure bullshit.
[quote]mertdawg wrote:
And can someone remind me why Clinton bombed Serbian cities?[/quote]
Because they were the only static targets in an terribly complicated war.
Because he felt the need to do something to try to stop the violence and didn’t have the will to commit American ground troops.
The UN had taken a bad situation and made it worse with it’s selective and intermitent humanitarian aid and the one sided arms embargo.
I honestly don’t know what Clinton could have done better. Ignore the situation and be damned. Invade and Americans go home in body bags for something that is not strategically important to America.
The Serbs and Russians deserve much of the blame for that situation. Of course the Croats and Muslims commited more than their share of atrocities.
The Muslims actually looked like the most innocent of the sordid bunch, up until the foreign extremists started to flow in.
[quote]Marmadogg wrote:
reddog6376 wrote:
mertdawg wrote:
As a teacher, I know that if you children will push to see how far they can get. If you step in earlier, it is usually better. War sucks, but if we had waited another year or two, it would have been worse.
I maintain that if Carter would have kicked Iran’s ass when they took American hostages, militant Islam would have ended right there.
Nope.
Carter helped the Taliban in Afganistan and Al Queda was born.
Um, and there is this country called Saudi Arabia that has been funding Wahabism for decades with the blessing of the United States.
Iran is a footnote.[/quote]
No, Carter was pre Taliban.
Taliban was inconsequential during US involvement. The Taliban movement started rolling in the early 90’s.
Taliban was strongly supported by Pakistan.
Saudi Arabia is very guilty of funding these bastards, but there is no US blessing.
Iran is providing funding and weapons for anti-government forces in Afghanistan. These forces are not necessarily Taliban, although they will ally with them when it suits their purposes.
This is a horribly complicated situation. Ignoring it, as we had in the past will nor make it go away.
Generalizing and laying blame on one or two events is too simple to be accurate.
On what Zap Branigan wrote:
My gosh Zap, you have my respect for looking at that situation in a non partisan manner.
Back to the original posters point:
Both parties thought that there were wmd’s in Iraq.
To say that Bush should not have acted on this information (that all believed to be true) would have been a deriliction of duty, especially in this post 911 world that we live in.
Furthermore, I don’t think that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake as having a democratic government in Iraq could very well bring stability to the entire region.
Those who claim that Bush “lied” are quite wrong. Those who think it has something to do with oil are not only wrong, but actually so far off base they are indeed funny as there has been not one scintilla of proof to indicate any such happening.
In fact, I find that I can almost determine the ABB people by this fantasy about the Iraq war being about oil and the Bush family…(eye roll).
Pro X,
“I don’t want a pissing contest. I wanted the truth. You claimed that Elk was wrong.”
Uh, negative again, Pro X - I never claimed Elk was wrong about anything, her is what Elk said:
“Just curious about quite the leader ole Bill. Were his approval ratings ever as low as Ole Georgies are now?”
I let him know what I found, knowing full well there are all kinds of polls all over the place. My piece was not a refutation of Elk’s point, merely pointing him in the direction of some credible polls.
[quote]Elkhntr1 wrote:
On what Zap Branigan wrote:
My gosh Zap, you have my respect for looking at that situation in a non partisan manner. [/quote]
Anytime our military is deployed I have always supported their mission regardless if it most logical choice at the time. They have never been sent on an evil mission in my lifetime although some missions should have been planned better.
Some people that post here don’t think deployment to Iraq was the most logical move. Thats cool. I have no problem with that.
What gets me irate is when those people start to say our soldiers are just as bad as the terrorists, compare Gitmo to Nazi death camps and all other crazy shit.
Clinton did some things with military deployments I think he could have done better. I understand his rationale for doing what he did even if I disgreed.
[quote]reddog6376 wrote:
He acted on the best available intellegance available at the time. Regardless of whether you agree with his action or not, the claim that “Bush lied” is pure bullshit.[/quote]
I never said Bush lied nor have I said anything about lying.
Actions based on intelligence is the only thing I have a problem with.
Iraq FUBAR’ed and it is Bush’s fault.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Elkhntr1 wrote:
On what Zap Branigan wrote:
My gosh Zap, you have my respect for looking at that situation in a non partisan manner.
Anytime our military is deployed I have always supported their mission regardless if it most logical choice at the time. They have never been sent on an evil mission in my lifetime although some missions should have been planned better.
Some people that post here don’t think deployment to Iraq was the most logical move. Thats cool. I have no problem with that.
What gets me irate is when those people start to say our soldiers are just as bad as the terrorists, compare Gitmo to Nazi death camps and all other crazy shit.
Clinton did some things with military deployments I think he could have done better. I understand his rationale for doing what he did even if I disgreed.[/quote]
It’s nice to even see someone like you on the boards who isn’t trying to degrade Clinton at every turn while shining the light of omnipotence on Bush. I learned more from what you wrote in your last two posts than any of the other tripe in this thread.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
No, Carter was pre Taliban.[/quote]
Technically that is correct but the Taliban came to power as a result of the defeat of Russia in Afganistan. Carter trained and armed Al Queda.
Bottom line…Carter’s fault.
[quote]Taliban was inconsequential during US involvement. The Taliban movement started rolling in the early 90’s.
Taliban was strongly supported by Pakistan.[/quote]
You are missing the point again.
BS. As long as the House of Saud provided and open spigot to the US from their oil fields we have been ‘hands off’. Our inattention shows our culpability.
We did the same thing Iran did for different reasons. At the end of the day we had a larger impact than Iran did unfortunately.
[quote]This is a horribly complicated situation. Ignoring it, as we had in the past will nor make it go away.
Generalizing and laying blame on one or two events is too simple to be accurate.[/quote]
Your chums on the right do it all the time.
To each their own.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Anytime our military is deployed I have always supported their mission regardless if it most logical choice at the time. They have never been sent on an evil mission in my lifetime although some missions should have been planned better.
Some people that post here don’t think deployment to Iraq was the most logical move. Thats cool. I have no problem with that.
What gets me irate is when those people start to say our soldiers are just as bad as the terrorists, compare Gitmo to Nazi death camps and all other crazy shit.
Clinton did some things with military deployments I think he could have done better. I understand his rationale for doing what he did even if I disgreed.[/quote]
I take issue with the civilian leadership but I never have a problem with the enlisted.