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

To: michael97123 who wrote (215101)	1/26/2007 5:44:32 PM
From: Katelew	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Well said, Michael, and so very sad. Kateluddite :0)

To: michael97123 who wrote (215101)	1/26/2007 6:01:45 PM
From: neolib	Respond to of 281500

Other folks think that while getting rid of saddam was a good thing, the civil war was inevitable and given that, the US shouldnt have broken Humpty Dumpty and continued to deter saddam as best they could instead of overthrow. After all we do that with iran and NK today. Problem was that iraq was seen as low hanging fruit and was chosen to make an example to the islamic world of US strength. No matter which category one is in, all have to admit that it turned out to be very bitter fruit indeed. Very well put. It might have been possible even to overthrow him if a very good post invasion plan, along with very good US understanding of Iraqi issues had been in place. Instead, we tried to make Iraqi look like America, and failed predictably.

To: michael97123 who wrote (215101)	1/26/2007 6:20:07 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

>> Facts. Few...see below >> There were apparently few or no wmds in iraq. True. This was the view of the UN inspectors. But the Dick camp called them incompetent for not finding the nonexistent weapons. Why? >> Everybody in the world leadership community believed there were and the only real question was how far along on nukes they were. Not at all! Absolutely nobody wanted to see a nuclear armed Saddam. The sheer difficulty of getting UN resolutions against Iraq and convincing the world indicates the fallacy of above statement. In fact you contradict it yourself further down. >> This all was a huge intel debacle. Nope! Do you really believe this? Do you remember how easy it was to discover the Niger yellow cake document was a poor forgery? How come the Dick party didn't figure it out? Could it be because they did not want to? Or are you saying they were criminally incompetent? Do you remember the outdated student paper that was plagiarized and tauted as the best and greatest intel on Iraq? Did you hear anyone pay the price for that debacle? Could it be that there was no interest in finding the truth and the whole thing was a propaganda rather than fact...after all, nobody punishes his propagandists for lying for the cause! >> Some folks got it right, guessing that saddam was a blowhard. A lot of people got it right. Some were highly decorated intelligence and military experts. How come they were demonized instead of taken seriously? >> Some iraqi expatriates deceived the US govt. Debatable. It is more likely that like the Niger report, the admin was willing reward anyone who'd help them make the case for the war. >> ome folks who say they got it right in fact could care less about wmds and were obsessed by US "imperialism" and "bush" and thus didnt get it right at all. Perhaps. Doesn't really change the facts about the nature of the invasion and the way the "intelligence" was shaped around it. >> Some folks think that getting rid of saddam was a good thing and that the real failure is fighting the post war civil war. By far most people did not like to see Saddam in power. The issue was whether or not he should be toppled via an invasion or some other means or in fact if it should be the US to do it or the Iraqi people themselves. There were also plenty of people who did not like Saddam but felt that was the Iraqis problem and that Bush should mind the business of the American people rather than the Iraqis. >> Problem was that iraq was seen as low hanging fruit and was chosen to make an example to the islamic world of US strength. And therein lies the rub! There he was. And ugly brutal SOB that not even his mother would morn. What is more, he had a lot of oil, a great strategic location, and not a single tooth to bite us back on the rear with. A low hanging fruit indeed! So the intelligence was shaped to justify picking it. Now since you are smart enough to see this, why do you still peddle the other statements as "fact"? ST

To: michael97123 who wrote (215101)	1/26/2007 7:51:08 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Are you sure? <Everybody in the world leadership community believed there were and the only real question was how far along on nukes they were. > It's amazing that "world leadership" is shown so frequently to be totally moronic. I think it's because the primary requirement for being "world leadership" is an overweening belief in one's own importance and perspicacity and the ability to con other people into going along with it. What matters is being a leader. They get a grab bag of fashionable things to dress themselves up in Emperor's New Clothes and strut around the world stage, pontificating about this that and the other. They are all dressed in anti-Global Warming aka Greenhouse Effect aka Climate Change accoutrements now, creating huge carbon footprints as they race around the world posing and jabbering, having lunch, flash hotels and luxury travel, away from their banal and prosaic lives in something for which their talents are more suited. To me it was pretty obvious that there were no or next to no WMDs and absolutely no nukes in Saddam's clutches and nowhere near any nukes. The most the COW found was intentions to have programmes to develop plans which might one day be used to acquire WMDs. Hardly an imminent threat. "World leadership" should have their budgets cut by about 99%. Our own ridiculous anti climate change prime minister has created a carbon footprint in the last year from pole to pole and from date line to GMT and back again. Her green miles are enormous. To her credit, she didn't buy the WMDs and the need to conquer Iraq, preferring to work through the UN, though I haven't heard she was interested in a reconstitution of the UN into something sensible. Her aim is, I think, to be UN Boss. Mqurice