Quote:
Originally Posted by aceventura3
Bush thought Sadaam was a threat. I thought he was a threat, even without any access to classified information.
Bush thought he needed to be removed from power. I thought he needed to be removed from power, even without access to any classified information.
Bush thought Sadaam had or was seeking nuclear weapons. I thought Sadaam had or was seeking nuclear weapons, even without access to any classified information.
Bush thought Sadaam would cooperate with terrorists in future attacks - if he hadn't already. I thought Sadaam would cooperate with terrorists in future attacks - if he hadn't already.
Today you folks sit around and think that if you only had access to classified information, some information that verified spefics actions and other information that contradicted spefic actions, everything above would not matter. Bush clearly communicated what he thought, and what he thought was true. if you thought his statements were lies, and that caused you to go from Sadaam is not a threat to Sadaam is a threat, there is nothing that can be said that will make a difference.
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The difference is, you and Bush are in the minority on that opinion, and you always have been. This was, at the time, a representative democracy. It actually takes something called the will of the people, which is what Bush was out to muster.
I never thought Saddam was a threat. I believed and still believe that he was contained and isolated both by the lingering US presence in the area, and by his political and religious opposition in surrounding states--a balance we tromped all over.
Not many people remember it, but there was a lot of skepticism in the air even when the WMD talk was being slung around. I personally never believed it. The whole Nigerian Uranium thing read like a Robert Ludlum sub-plot. I've never in my life been afraid of an aluminum tube.
My believing the lie is not a necessary condition to say that it is a lie.
My opinion is that you and Bush had the wrong opinion. The majority of Americans (70% or so) agree with me, for whatever that's worth. The opinion of Dennis Kucinich, among many others, is that Cheney and Bush cherry-picked the intelligence that fit their already-formed opinion, including intelligence they already knew had been falsified. That's called a lie.
It turns out that America and I were right about Saddam not being a threat to the US, having connections to Al Qaida, or having WMDs. So... do you just shrug your shoulders about that? Gee, sorry about the thousands of dead Americans, and the tens of thousands of wounded. Never mind the hundreds of thousands of dead brown people--they don't count, so why count them? We wanted to cowboy in there, so we did and damn the consequences.
I can only hope that in the end, it'll be the opinion of Congress that determines whether these in-my-opinion lying scumbag murderers deserve to keep their jobs.