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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ManyMoose who wrote (726068)	2/16/2006 2:07:30 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

"It's plain to me what you think." No it isn't. You are just IMAGINING that you 'know' what I think. You haven't guessed right once though, on that score.... :( "You seem to believe that getting a new democracy started in Iraq is distracting the US from the overarching task of putting bin Laden and other terrorists out of business." No, not really. "You use every opportunity to badmouth the policy that results in getting that new democracy started," No. Actually I've SUPPORTED Democracy around the world for decades --- (and that even includes the periods and the places when and where my US government was actively OPPOSING Democracy, and supporting supposedly 'compliant' Dictators, Autocrats, and War Lords of a variety of backgrounds....) "If Bush had listened to you , Saddam Hussein would still be in office," No. Actually I SUPPORTED the invasion (& posted those views here on this thread before it even happened), albeit with serious reservations about the cost to the American tax payers that would be entailed. I estimated that the taxpayers would be on the hook for about 1/2 TRILLION DOLLARS (God only knows how much when all the interest costs are added in over the coming years... because the ENTIRE SUM is on the 'national creditcard'...), and that great expense made the over-throw of Saddam a close call for me. Even so, I supported it because I though that the potential benefits could at least narrowly out-weigh the expected harms and costs. More then a half TRILLION DOLLARS (a figure we have JUST NOW reached) though, and it probably wouldn't be worth the expense.... (As I've posted here on the thread numerous times though: the IDEAL TIME to have deposed Saddam was in Desert Storm --- so I blame Bush I for leaving this mess around and the job unfinished. It would have been way cheaper --- and likely much more effective, with greater potential for success --- to finish the job back then. It's ALWAYS bad policy to wound a bear and then leave him in the woods to recover for another day. STUPID POLICY.... Even better and strategically smarter would have been for REAGAN & BUSH I to have NEVER propped-up Saddam in the 8 year long Iran/Iraq Gulf War to begin with!!!!!!!! Saddam would have fallen then, or been politically neutered back then, and the oppressed Iraqi Shiites would have been freed a decade or so EARLIER, and at TRILLIONS LESS EXPENSE, and God only knows how many lives spared.) The Iraqi Shiites would have had to fight for freedom in their own Iraqi Civil War (pretty similar to the civil war that's happening now), but that's normal and to be expected: Freedom usually has to be EARNED. "paying $25,000 to all the daddys and mommys who wanted their sons to blow themselves up." That support for Palestinian terrorist fighters against Israel (given to their families after their deaths) was largely a contest for political influence in the Arab world between Saudi Arabia and Saddam's Iraq. Saddam was trying to 'score political points' with the Arab masses, who are generally in favor of this stuff. Even so, the SAUDIS gave (and STILL DO!) more money to the 'families of martyrs') then Saddam ever did. Saudis give $35,000 to $50,000 per family. Do you have anything to say about that?