"Tell you what I'll do. When I run across a report of any overlooked stockpiles of WMD's, that didn't get sent to Syria, I'll post it."
Fair enough. And while you are at it, please let us know exactly when the WMDs went to Syria. If they went before the war, then obviously, the war was unnecessary to take them out of Saddam's hands. If, however, the intent of the war was to eliminate the WMDs from the area, and if, as you seem to think, they went to Syria, then the war obviously failed in that respect as well. So, depending on when the WMDs left, assuming that they were ever there after the first Gulf War, the war was either unnecessary or a failure. Like I said, be sure and let us know which one it is.
Posts: 17283 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
Originally posted by DorianGreyed: "Tell you what I'll do. When I run across a report of any overlooked stockpiles of WMD's, that didn't get sent to Syria, I'll post it."
Fair enough. And while you are at it, please let us know exactly when the WMDs went to Syria. If they went before the war, then obviously, the war was unnecessary to take them out of Saddam's hands. If, however, the intent of the war was to eliminate the WMDs from the area, and if, as you seem to think, they went to Syria, then the war obviously failed in that respect as well. So, depending on when the WMDs left, assuming that they were ever there after the first Gulf War, the war was either unnecessary or a failure. Like I said, be sure and let us know which one it is.
So was the war unnecessary??? No it was not. Action had to be taken. The issue had to be resolved. At the time it was the next natural step in the War on Terror.
As for being a failure. It will be if we cut & run like some would want us to do. If we look past the biased news media reports we see every day, we can see a lot has been accomplished in Iraq. The very fact they have a Constitution & a duly elected government is quite a feat in itself in the short time this process has taken place.
Posts: 2277 | Location: Martinsville, IL | Registered: 06-03-02
Nizar Nayyouf does seem like a remarkable man. He is "Syria's most well-known political prisoner". He walks with crutches - a result of torture in Syrian prisons.
His letter to a Dutch newspaper about WMD hidden in Syria was apparently published January 5, 2004.
"The United States has no credible evidence that Iraq moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria early last year before the U.S.-led war that drove Saddam Hussein from power, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said Friday.
Rice said, ``Any indication that something like that happened would be a very serious matter.
``But I want to be very clear: we don't, at this point, have any indications that I would consider credible and firm that that has taken place, but we will tie down every lead,''
The US government, which has every motive to claim that Hussein had, in fact, possessed WMD, and which has access to much more information than any of us, discounts the 'hidden in Syria' theory. But anyway, once more, if the weapons had been moved to Syria before the invasion, then the invasion was a failure. It failed to secure the WMD. Shouldn't Syria have been invaded instead?
(I'm puzzled by one sentence in Lighteningrodd's link. It says 'Nayouf, who has won prizes for journalistic integrity, says he wrote his letter because he has terminal cancer.' There's no question about Nayouf's integrity, but why would he need terminal cancer as a reason to criticise actions of the Syrian government? He's been criticising the Syrian government, at risk to life, limb and family, all his life.)
quote:
The very fact they have a Constitution & a duly elected government is quite a feat in itself in the short time this process has taken place.
Is this the reason for the war? That would make it a war of choice, wouldn't it? Did the US invade Iraq in order to depose Hussein and set up a democracy there?
quote:
...it was the next natural step in the War on Terror.
Why? Iraq had no collaborative relationship with al Qaeda, and nothing to do with 9/11.
The natural next steps would surely have been stabilising Afghanistan, and paying attention to the Pakistan/Afghanistan border, or looking at support for al Qaeda in Saudi and other countries. Maybe building support for and links with moderate Muslims and Muslim governments, to isolate the fanatics. Or finding Bin Laden.
Why would the natural next step have been to pick a country with relatively weak links to fundamentalist Islamic terrorism, and try to bomb it into being a democracy?
1) Saddam Hussein sponsored terrorists openly. For example, he reimbursed the families of Palestinian suicide murderers because they were willing to indiscriminantly blow women and children to bits on busses and in malls.
2) Saddam Hussein was known to have met with terrorist organizations from around the world, including members of Al-Quaida.
3) Saddam Hussein was known to have aggressed against is neighbors several times, most notably Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait.
4) Saddam Hussein pursued a campaign of genocide against the Kurds and the Ma'dan.
5) Saddam Hussein was known to have developed biological and chemical weapons for the purpose of killing greater numbers of people more quickly.
6) Saddam Hussein had an entire department of his government dedicated to the development of new weapons. According to all UN weapons teams and US military reports, he had channeled hundreds of millions of dollars into this department during the years of embargo, in direct violation of UN resolution.
7) Saddam Hussein was known to have developed vx-nerve gas and anthrax, and was pursuing the development of nuclear weapons.
8) Intelligence agencies of at least 5 countries have not just suspected but confirmed that Iraq had WMD capabilities, including: the US, UK, Russia, Jordan, and Egypt.
9) Saddam Hussein was issued a direct ultimatum from the UN security council AFTER our invasion of Afghanistan, and he openly defied the UN and the weapons inspectors. He had no intention of cooperating with the orders of transparency asked of him from not the US but the world.
The world has become stupid. They believe that a man like this is all of a sudden not capable of having or using WMD's, and would rather harbor bitterness against the one small group of nations that had the guts to step up and take him out.
Why isn't the world demanding an investigation into where the WMD's went instead of pretending that the invasion was not necessary?
Posts: 239 | Location: Great lakes area | Registered: 11-07-05
1) Other Arabic leaders gave, and give, support directly and indirectly to Palestinian terrorists. If this doesn't necessitate a war against them, why did it necessitate a war against Hussein? President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently called for Israel to be wiped off the map - and all anyone did was tell him off.
2) The meetings led to nothing - there was no collaborative relationship. Other countries - Saudi Arabia for example - had and have much stronger links with Al Qaeda and 9/11. If links to Al Qaeda necessitate war, why weren't these other countries innvaded?
3) Hussein was incapable of projecting any military power outside Iraq (and not even entirely within Iraq) at the time of the invasion. The invasion was certainly not necessary to protect his neighbours.
4) The genocidal campaigns were conducted at the end of the Iran/Iraq war, twenty years ago, and the end of the first Gulf War, ten years ago. They did not necessitate invasion at those times, apparently, so why would thay have done so, so much later?
5) Hussein's WMD programs had been wound up by the mid 90's. No arsenal or of WMD has been found, nor any threatening attempts to develop one.
6) He had developed nothing threatening, and showed little sign of being able to do so.
7) Hussein's WMD programs had been wound up by the mid 90's. No arsenal of WMD has been found nor any threatening attempts to develop one.
8) They were all wrong. Hussein's WMD programs had been wound up by the mid 90's. No arsenal of WMD has been found, nor any threatening attempts to develop one. If this intelligence was the reason for the war, then the war has been an awful mistake.
9) It was up to the UN Security council to decide what to do about this. Defying the UN did not necessitate war - people do it all the time.
There's no credible evidence that Iraq moved WMD before the invasion.
What actually made the war necessary, as opposed to being (for the sake of argument) a reasonably good option, on balance? Was it a war of necessity or of choice?
What actually made the war necessary, as opposed to being (for the sake of argument) a reasonably good option, on balance? Was it a war of necessity or of choice?
NNN,is the best spinner of facts that you will run into Bunkboy.
Apparently,many people thought it was a war of necessity,including many democrats.
If it was a war of necessity, what made it so? If not, was it a mistake? A choice? Opportunism? What?
Why can't you be honest with yourself and others,and admit that you just cannot accept facts?
How many times must one tell you the answer to you questions? You constantly throw off all answers with your spin,and come back with the same reply. It is useless to try and respond to you. You will not accept anything except what you want to hear. Sorry that I cannot accommodate you.
I will use your own word "On the other hand, a closed mind never wavers". So true.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: Scotty,
Posts: 3165 | Location: From the Mountains to the Sea. | Registered: 06-08-02
Are you really saying that, for example, the mass murders that were ignored twenty years ago and ten years ago made war necessary in 2003? Is it so terrible to question that idea?
Whenever I have questioned it on this board, I've never had a reply explaining why my doubts are wrong and pointing out how such actions then made the war necessary now.
Rather than exasperation and abuse, how about some discussion? I'm always willing to listen; I read all your posts carefully, and I do learn from them.
I've listed briefly why I doubt Bunkboy's reasons necessitated war; why not rebut my rebuttal, and point out why, in your opinion, they did?
Going back to those Democrats who supported the war. Here's one now:
'Almost three years ago we went into Iraq to remove what we were told - and what many of us believed and argued - was a threat to America. But in fact we now know that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction when our forces invaded Iraq in 2003. The intelligence was deeply flawed and, in some cases, manipulated to fit a political agenda.
It was a mistake to vote for this war in 2002. I take responsibility for that mistake. It has been hard to say these words because those who didn't make a mistake - the men and women of our armed forces and their families - have performed heroically and paid a dear price.
The world desperately needs moral leadership from America, and the foundation for moral leadership is telling the truth.
While we can't change the past, we need to accept responsibility, because a key part of restoring America's moral leadership is acknowledging when we've made mistakes or been proven wrong - and showing that we have the creativity and guts to make it right."www.washingtonpost.com
One of them, at least, has the courage to admit making a mistake.
'[Former Powell chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson] said Cheney must have sincerely believed that Iraq could be a spawning ground for new terror assaults, because "otherwise I have to declare him a moron, an idiot or a nefarious bastard."..
...He said he has almost, but not quite, concluded that Cheney and others in the administration deliberately ignored evidence of bad intelligence and looked only at what supported their case for war.
A newly declassified Defense Intelligence Agency document from February 2002 said that an al-Qaida military instructor was probably misleading his interrogators about training that the terror group's members received from Iraq on chemical, biological and radiological weapons. Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi reportedly recanted his statements in January 2004.
A presidential intelligence commission also has dissected how spy agencies handled an Iraqi refugee who was a German intelligence source. Code-named Curveball, this man, a leading source on Iraq's purported mobile biological weapons labs, was found to be a fabricator and alcoholic.'www.truthout.org
'Lawrence Wilkerson, who was Mr Powell's chief of staff, said he had begun to doubt whether Bush administration had put forward an honest case for war.
"You begin to speculate, you begin to wonder ... was this intelligence spun? Was it politicised? Was it cherry-picked? Did, in fact, the American people get fooled? I'm beginning to have my concerns," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.' www.guardian.co.uk
It seems clear that the war was not necessary.
Did the Bush administration mistakenly believe the war was necessary? Did they 'spin' the evidence to make it seem necessary although they must at least have suspected it was not? Did they think that none of this mattered as it would be a cakewalk that paid for itself - the ends justifying the means?
'Yet for all of that, lying about WMD is too strong a word to use. It isn't that the administration knew there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The point is that the administration wanted to invade Iraq anyway, and WMD were only the most acceptable excuse. As antiterrorism expert Richard Clarke noticed right after 9/11, the Bush team was determined to use that national tragedy to push their Iraq agenda. Rumsfeld is quoted as saying after 9/11 that it would be better to start with bombing Iraq -- which had nothing to do with 9/11 -- rather than Afghanistan, in which Al Qaeda dwelt.
I am sure that the Bush administration thought there would be at least some weapons of mass destruction lying around in Iraq to justify its war. Indeed, it seemed reasonable that there might be and surprising that there were none. But weapons of mass destruction were the excuse, not the reason, for the war, and that was the deception perpetuated on the American people. The real reason was to get rid of a potential problem even if there was no immediate danger, control an oil-rich country that could be made friendly to Israel, and promulgate neoconservative theories about the transformational powers of democracy in the Middle East -- none of which would have been acceptable to Congress or the people as a cause for war.
And so by accentuating the positive and eliminating the negative, as the old song goes, they manipulated the available intelligence. Uninterested in anything that didn't support their Iraq plans, the Bush team ran through all the intelligence yellow lights, and some red ones, in order to sell their war. Bush's statement that Congress saw the same intelligence as he did is most certainly not true.'www.boston.com
'...we are under a rigid doctrine in the West, a religious fanaticism, that says we must believe that the United States would have invaded Iraq even if its main product was lettuce and pickles, and the oil resources of the world were in Central Africa. Anyone who doesn't believe that is condemned as a conspiracy theorist, a Marxist, a madman, or something. Well, you know, if you have three gray cells functioning, you know that that's perfect nonsense. The U.S. invaded Iraq because it has enormous oil resources, mostly untapped, and it's right in the heart of the world's energy system. Which means that if the U.S. manages to control Iraq, it extends enormously its strategic power, what Zbigniew Brzezinski calls its critical leverage over Europe and Asia. Yeah, that's a major reason for controlling the oil resources -- it gives you strategic power. Even if you're on renewable energy you want to do that. So that's the reason for invading Iraq, the fundamental reason.' Noam Chomsky
'In his Fox News interview Vice President Cheney did not give an inch on the necessity of the NSA spying or of the war itself. "When we look back on this, ten years hence," he insisted, "we will [see that we] have fundamentally changed the course of history in that part of the world."'www.tomdispatch.com
Would anyone have supported starting the war, if the reason given had been to 'fundamentally change the course of history'?
'The message has not changed much since the shift from weapons of mass destruction. The president repeated it yesterday. "By helping Iraqis build a democracy," he repeated, "we will gain an ally in the war on terror. ... We will inspire reformers across the Middle East. ... We'll bring hope to a troubled region, and this will make America more secure in the long term."
If those had been the reasons given for going to war three years ago, we would not have invaded Iraq.'www.baltimoresun.com
