Al ...Re This is silly. You're splitting hairs.
<ggg> And this coming from the party that was splitting the word "is" 3 yrs ago. There is no way anyone, besides the most rabid leftist could believe that speech had anything to do with the riots. The main problems are the timing and the speech itself. GB seniors speech was on feb. 15, the ground assault started on week later on the 23, and the war was over on the 27. There is no way, even if GB gave the baddest, most inciteful speech on earth, the Iraqi general could have mobilized an army, took receipt of the weapons from the CIA, or whomever, and started to wage a successful campaign against the 4th largest standing army in the world at that time. Put it in perspective. The US has the best logistics, and the fastest army in the world. In the 91 Gulf war, there was at least a month or two, after the troops, and equipment were offloaded, before they were positioned, and ready to attack. Now the air war started before then, but the ground assault didn't, and the revolters has no air force. IN 2003, it took the US several months to ship the troops in, and at least a month, of positioning troops, before they were ready to even think about starting. With the transports, and logistics the revolutionaries had, it would have taken many times, at least 3-4 times as long, considering they could only travel at 1/3 the speed.
Secondly, up until the troops went, Saddam always had the option to give up, and unilaterally withdraw his troops intact, which means the revolutionaries would have been on a suicide mission; which means the general would have had to wait until the ground war started, to be sure. I gave you a link, showing the revolution started 4 days after the war, when a returning soldier fired upon a statue, of Saddam. The article says nothing about GB, or even the CIA, inciting that soldier, or the people who joined him. Show me a link which proves otherwise.
Another problem you have, pointing to that speech, where you claim GB told the revolutionaries he would support them , is that, there is no way, one could interpret that one line in that speech, as a promise of support; or even as a hint, subtle or otherwise. Here is that line again taken from your post 180443.
Here's the sentence... And there's another way for the bloodshed to stop, and that is for the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands and force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside and then comply with the United Nations resolutions and rejoin the family of peace-loving nations. (Applause.)
Notice that GB is saying in both the military, and the people; in other words a coup de tat, carried out in their own hands. There will be no CIA and Shah of Iran, type of involment here. In other words,have a coup, and do it yourself, and this war can be avoided. Thats all he said, period. He said nothing about revolutionary war, or civil war, and splitting the country. That is a figment of your imagination.
All over TV are heartbreaking pictures of Kurds in the mountains of northern iraq freezing to death and being killed by the thousands. Bush and the world does nothing.
Au contraire. A Bush did do something about it, while the leftist, and your sympathizers in France, Germany, Russia, Belgium etc. did nothing about it. Which just goes to show you how much of a hypocrite you are, with your next sentence. If you thought GB senior should have taken Saddem out, 12 yrs earler, against UN wishes, because of Saddams brutality, why after 12 more yrs, of terror, torturing, WMD discoveries, sanctions, massive starvation, why are you now against GWB going against UN approval, and finally getting the job done. WE didn't have the international communities approval in 91 either, plus Russia was an ally of Saddam at that time. Certainly the cost in human lives was less, as the bombs are more precise now, the US has better body armor, and better tactics; and our supply lines were shorter this time, as we staged in Kuwait, with its built up port facilities. There is no way, if we would have gone in 91, you could say American lives could have been saved. We lost over 400 US lives in the Gulf war, less than half that in 03, during major hostilities.
Now, before you get your undies in a bunch, I know we still are losing lives trying to install a democratic government. True, however we would have had to do that after either war. There was a great risk Russia would try to do to us, what we had done to them 10 yrs earlier in Afghanistan. In addition, the risks of civil war were greater then than now. The Shite community, and especially the call to spread Islamic fanaticism, through Ayatollah Khomeni's fanatical revolution, was much greater then. 12 yrs later, Russia imploded, and the revolution in Iran had lost a lot of its steam, plus a lot of the clerics in Iraq are less radical now, having seen the failures of Khomeni's revolution in Iran. So democratization has a far better chance now, than it had 12 yrs earlier. |
