Willravel

I've only been a liberal for maybe 9-10 years. Before that, I was a big confusing mess of the opinions of people around me. Part of my introduction into politics was about being honest with myself. The honest truth us that on many fronts, Clinton was an excellent leader and president. He wasn't perfect, though. Allowing homosexuals in the military was a huge civil rights victory, but NAFTA was a huge mess. In dealing with Iraq, Clinton had inherited a military stance from Bush1, and instead of taking a more progressive, peace-oriented stance, Clinton decided that it would make him appear weak and, while in the midst of the Lewinsky circus, made a very difficult and incorrect decision.

When I say I dislike Bush, it's not on generalities. I'm a pretty easy going fellow, and I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. Bush had exhausted that before 9/11. He took endless vacations immediately preceding one of the greatest attacks on US soil. That was enough for me to go from "I didn't vote for him, but I'll support him" to "he's lost my trust". It was from there that virtually ever decision he has made has been wrong and has come with dire consequences not just for the government, not even just for the US, but for the whole world. "Dislike" isn't really the right way to put it. It's more like I think he's the wrong man for the job, and someone else should be in his office right now cleaning up his numerous messes.
There was one, and we took action, but each action requires UN permission. Had the US had it's own treaties and agreements with Iraq, we would have had the legal right to move on them unilaterally (depending on the treaties and/or agreements, of course). This was a UN resolution, and as such the UN was the organization to decide on any actions taken in response to their own resolutions. The US appeared before the security council, but was voted down.

If we had a concern about Saddam, then we needed to make a better case with real, hard evidence. Since that evidence didn't exist, there was no case to be made. Saddam, in reality, was no longer a threat to anyone. If you want proof of that, Saddam had changed all of the oil in Iraq to Euros. His plan, had the US not invaded, was to become a serious part of the European economy. Eventually that was about accumulation of more wealth, but that's several steps away from being a danger to anyone. The nice thing is that it's clear now that not only did Saddam not have the means to acquire or create any type of nuclear weapon, he didn't even try. Saddam had no WMDs, including nukes, and was not seeking to acquire them. Those were lies and factual errors.