Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Bilow who wrote (193255)	7/26/2006 5:14:15 AM
From: geode00	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Except that Bush I didn't topple Saddam because he, or his advisors, understood the cost of such a thing. Before this invasion, most of the world was not on our side hence the coalition of the bribed and coerced. Remember that - rush before summer sets in - push when Bush had 200,000 troops at the border? It was a push to get people to do this and it required massive lying and bullying to get it done. I'll bet they thought that any delay would cause the US to begin hemming and hawing so they pushed it through. I think many people understood that this was a very bad idea. Others didn't think there was any particular urgency no matter how much they despised Saddam. Plenty of other people understood that this wasn't the way to go but the US didn't hear those arguments from the corporate media very often. IMO Rove was thinking only of reelection. He thought that a 'wartime president' was tough to beat and that Bush was a weak candidate without war. I think Rumsfeld, delusional and arrogant, thought of this entire thing as the physical incarnation of some theories he's been nursing for a couple of decades. I wonder if Rumsfeld can tell the difference between actual human beings and numbers on a page or pins on a map. I don't think there was any discussion about Iraq in the WH or the Pentagon. Bush doesn't like to discuss things because, heck, he might have to know something about something. The rumor is that he didn't even know that Iraq had three major ethnicities until the January before the invasion. Bush wanted to do something bigger than Dad had done and that was about it. Everything else: reelection, oil, military expenditures, remaking the military, warmongering, Israel, etc. were just bonuses for the pack. At any rate, by keeping the entire country off-balance they've been able to steal at a prodigious rate domestically. IMO, when it comes down to it, that is their ultimate goal. As long as their bank accounts are fat to the breaking point, Iraq is just an annoyance. Besides, what'a 31% approval rating if you own the voting machines? :)