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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: michael97123 who wrote (176461)	11/30/2005 9:19:43 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Why would anyone who was against the Afghan war not admit it? I still think it was the wrong thing to do- Afghanistan is a mess now too, and the same old war lords are getting back in power. Al Qaeda caused 9/11, and Al Qaeda is the organization we should have gone after- where AQ was in other counties, go in and get them- but don't go after the country- since that's a HUGE mess- and I just hate to see the billions flowing down the drain. It's painful to watch all that money flowing down international gopher holes (where, most probably, some of it is getting in to the hands of people who are funding terror). Wars, and the inevitable expensive contentious reconstructions, are a distraction from what should be our purpose- getting the terrorists that harm us, and shoring up defenses in the US. I'm all for killing enemies, but economically. And wars are fine, if they are the last resort. Unfortunately I don't agree that Mr. Bush's wars were wars of last resort- and he certainly hasn't concentrated on Al Qaeda. At the moment I'd say he is all wrapped up in a pretty pink ribbon tied to his problems in Iraq. I'm not sure he is even paying attention to Afghanistan, which is still a huge problem.

To: michael97123 who wrote (176461)	11/30/2005 9:46:11 AM
From: Sam	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Many here i am certain were against the afgan war as well although most will never admit that for obvious reasons. Please point to examples of this. Opposition to the bombing of Afghanistan was minimal, virtually non-existent, after the Taliban essentially allied themselves with Osama. And the patriots among the opposition, unlike some of the posters here, would make the case that we should have concentrated on al quaeda and bin laden first. That was the position of almost everyone that I know of. I don't know who you are referring to when you say "some of the posters here." The argument of those like Hawk and certainly the Bush admin was that (1) there were ties between Al Qaeda and Saddam and (2) Al Qaeda isn't just "one" organization, it is an umbrella of mad violent terrorist anti-Western Islamists. However, if you read the National Journal article I posted yesterday, you know that the first argument was believed to be false by CIA and the State Dept well before the Bush admin push for war (and the reasons for that belief hidden from both Congress and the public). And the second was no reason not to go after the people we believed actually committed the crime rather than someone we knew didn't commit it. We went after Iraq because of an idee fixee that amounted to a delusion (to give it a charitable motive), not from a well considered plan. The basic proof, if you need any at this point, that it was not well considered was the remarkable incompetence of the Aftermath. I won't go into chapter and verse of that incompetence and the absurd assumptions that they made, it has all been posted here ad nauseum.

To: michael97123 who wrote (176461)	11/30/2005 9:46:51 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Respond to of 281500

The opposition argument is that we could have been more patient because the threat wasnt imminent or at least turned out to be not imminent. The problem is that there was even LESS information available about whether or not Saddam presented an imminent threat in the aftermath of 9/11. Afterall, there had not been ANY inspections conducted in Iraq in five years because Saddam refused to cooperate with the UN resolutions. So on what basis were we to rely in assessing the actual threat that Saddam presented? We had evidence of his non-compliance and non-accountability with regard to his WMD stockpiles and programs. We discovered re-occuring cases of Saddam's subordinates hiding documentation and material related to WMD production during the period of UNSCOM. Violation after Violation that UNSCOM INVESTIGATIVE unveiled, despite Iraqi attempts at deception and subterfuge. But we had little, to NO, information to cover the 5 year period prior to OIF. So the only way we were EVER going to know was clearly to overthrow Saddam and root through any documents we discovered in detail. Now I feel pretty comfortable, based upon post-facto analysis dependant upon evidence, that Saddam probably wasn't an imminent threat. Saddam was the man who controlled whether he remained in power or not. He made the choice not to cooperate and fully disclose, not us. He created the conditions that led to his overthrow. Blame him. Hawk