View Single Post
Old 05-31-2004, 08:17 AM   #64 (permalink)
cthulu23
Banned
 
cthulu23's Avatar
 
Quote:
Originally posted by Hwed
The jury is still out on that. We do know that Saddam and Al Qaeda had plenty of pre-9/11 mingling.

The point is, Saddam had everything to do with the next 9/11. Preemptive action is always risky, because the benefits aren't as tangible.
ALthough Saddam Hussein did have some loose ties with Al-Qaeda, we know that he considered Muslim fundamentailists as a threat to his stability. Does anyone else remember the message from Bin Laden that welcomed the invasion of Iraq as it was toppling a secular leader? Saying that Saddam would undoubtedly be involved the "next 9-11" smacks of wishful thinking and is not based on any fact that I am aware of.

In any case, if there were any sort of damning evidence implicating Saddam in 9-11, we would have heard of it by now....instead, we've heard statements from Rumsfeld himself admitting that no such connection can be made. While there is always a possiblilty that new evidence could emerge, I'm not holding my breath.

If you look through my earlier posts, you can see that I argue that the invasion of Iraq had very little to do with 9-11, as it has been a large point on the neocon to-do list for at least a decade.

Quote:

This is a war on terrorism, and when it comes to terrorism, Saddam was a clear threat to the US. The man sponsored terrorists, had WMDs, used them on his own people, defied UN resolutions for over a decade while suffering severe economic sanctions brought on by his unprovoked invasion of a sovreign nation.

I realize it makes folks feel good to paint flowers on their faces and carry signs and wear communist flags and say "Peace!" But what is peace? Is it simply the absence of conflict? Lots of European countries tried that version of peace in WWII by appeasing Hitler, and Hitler ate them for lunch.

True peace is the absence of threat and the presence of justice. In Iraq, we are eliminating a threat to our country while bringing justice to theirs.
Even Rumsfeld has backed off of the "imminent threat" business, as could be witnessed by his contortionist-like act on "Face the Nation." Here are some choice quotes as he tries to deny that the administration ever said that Saddam was an "imminent" threat:

Quote:
SCHIEFFER: Well, let me just ask you this. If they did not have these weapons of mass destruction, though, granted all of that is true, why then did they pose an immediate threat to us, to this country?

Sec. RUMSFELD: Well, you're the--you and a few other critics are the only people I've heard use the phrase `immediate threat.' I didn't. The president didn't. And it's become kind of folklore that that's--that's what's happened. The president went...

SCHIEFFER: You're saying that nobody in the administration said that.

Sec. RUMSFELD: I--I can't speak for nobody--everybody in the administration and say nobody said that.

SCHIEFFER: Vice president didn't say that? The...

Sec. RUMSFELD: Not--if--if you have any citations, I'd like to see 'em.
Kind of reminiscent of the whole "definition of is" business, isn't it?

Comparing anti-war forces to the appeasers in Europe pre-WWII is misleading, as Saddam was already under sanctions and was not being given any concessions to appease him. I'll ignore your mischaracterization of all who oppose the Iraq war as communist hippies as it is beneath comment.
cthulu23 is offline  
 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360