aceventura3

Bush has always talked about a multifaceted approach. The war against terrorists is a war with real opponents, they adapt and develop new strategy based on the conditions they face. No one can say what might have been, people can only speculate on that. Here is another quote from the report, supporting current actions:

Political stability in Iraq is important. The Bush strategy is to give political stability an opportunity to take hold.

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"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
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ratbastid

I'm trying HARD to get the logic of this, because this has been your answer to "Bush Lied" for the last six months or so.

You're saying that if I tell a lie in order to get something, and you want me to have that thing anyway, for reasons other than the ones I lied about, that means I didn't lie?

tecoyah

No, it means if the person lies, but someone says he didn't lie, but someone else says he did, the other someone has to lie about the lie that the first one made to cover the lie he made himself, about the Non-Lie that started the second person saying he lied, even though the fist lie wasn't actually a lie to the third person who didn't believe the second persons lie in the first place.

Its really that simple.

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JumpinJesus

The thread title finally makes sense.

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Elphaba

^^ But the best response I've seen yet.

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aceventura3

Many people including Bush thought Saddam had WMD. There was some evidence suggesting that he did not, and there were some people who believed he did not have WMD. To my knowledge, other than a handful of Iraqis at the time no one knew with certainty. In spite of the WMD question, there were other reasons to use military force to remove Saddam.

I repeat this, because I don't understand why many don't want to accept this, and I find it interesting how in the end the response ends up being something like - well he just lied, and he has you (meaning me) fooled.

DC has used a NIE report to substantiate the view that the war in Iraq has caused the number of terrorist to increase. He criticized me for suggesting that conclusions in the report and those drawn from the report are speculation, he further stated that the NIE is credible even without knowing how they arrived at their key judgements.

This is the same NIE that did a report supporting the view that Iraq had WMD.

http://www.fas.org/irp/cia/product/iraq-wmd.html

I ask you to revisit the simplicity of your description on the series of lies because either it ain't so simple or the first "lie" was not a lie.

Also, please continue ignoring serious review of real data supporting or disputing the preconceived notions we all bring to the table. The refusal to see the possibility that Bush has not lied tells us a lot at this point about the agenda of the Bush detractors.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

tecoyah

Also, please continue ignoring serious review of real data supporting or disputing the preconceived notions we all bring to the table. The refusal to see the possibility that Bush has lied tells us a lot at this point about the agenda of the Bush Supporters.

Edited for clarity

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Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

Charlatan

I have come around on this point of view. Yes, there was justification to take out Saddam. There was, on one hand, good reason to be optimistic that Iraq could have been just like Germany in post WWII. All it needed to set its people on the straight an narrow was new leadership.

Sadly, Iraq isn't Germany or Japan. Iraq is more like Yugoslavia and it required an iron-fisted Saddam to keep it together. With Saddam out of the way, the US has to be the new Saddam. The US does not have the stomach to be the new Saddam.

Bush should have listened to what Chaney was saying when he was working for Bush Sr.

A case can be made for invading Iraq but the US should never have gone alone. The US really needed to have many more allies going in to both share the cost, share the nation building and share the post-Saddam heat. The Bush administration's Yippie-Kai-Ay attitude prior to the war (you are either with us or against us, thumbing their nose at Kyoto, the stance on the international court, etc.) lead to some of the US's stanchest allies saying, no.

Add to this, the administration did very little to prepare the american public for the long haul. Rumsfeld was all parades and flower stewn streets. This was always going to have to be a nation building exercise. Nations are not built over night.

Yes, it was a good idea to see Saddam go, but at what cost? America experiencing massive and spiraling debt. They are mired in a seemingly impossible war with public opinion collapsing. The latest reports suggest that Al Queda is back and able to strike again.

There are many lessons to be learned and I am not convinced history will be kind to Bush and his Administration.

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mixedmedia

Quoted for truth.

And I would much more impressed by a Republican party that had the humility to admit to this than I am by the tap-dancing and word-play that currently substitutes for honor and responsibility in DC when it comes to the war. And I think history would be much kinder to them if they did.

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aceventura3

Here is what I wrote to Will on 9/6 in the thread "What's all this hub-bub about George Bush".

I am open to all possibilities.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

ratbastid

I'm not saying he has you fooled. I'm saying he fooled an awful lot of people and you can't just step over that. The people who believed Saddam had WMD (of whom I was never one, btw) believed that because Bush and his posse told them so. Intelligence didn't support that claim--in fact, quite the opposite. But Bush claimed it, people bought it, and now we're up to our neck in a war we can't win.

I know you think there were other reasons to justify the war. What I'm curious about is why that belief of yours justifies your brushing aside the lies that Bush used to sell everyone in the country BUT you on this war.

Is it that if the rest of the country were only as smart as you, the lies would have been unnecessary? Why didn't he just say that the war was necessary for whatever reason YOU believe it was necessary? Which is....?

I'm just trying to get inside ace-world here. Because from outside ace-world, it looks like complete raving nonsense. I'm interested to see if there's any actual logic to ace-world on the inside, or if it really is the neocon lock-stepping it appears to be.

aceventura3

I think there were errors in judgment by many people regarding WMD. That does not qualify as a lie in my opinion. Many people thought Iraq had WMD, not just Bush. There were people in the Saddam government who thought Iraq had WMD.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

tecoyah

In my own research, it is clear to me Bush, and the highest levels of the administration were well informed that the WMD issue was in question on multiple fronts. Yet by using this cause as the primary justification, and indeed the reason given to the UN, he was not truthful....period. Added to this is the continuation of withholding information, as well as Using the vacuum of data to create a fear in the population designed to garner support, and the term deception almost seems kind.
Trying to spin this as an error in judgment ( as that is all you have left) does not convince me, nor many others that he was truthful.

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Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

aceventura3

Again, it comes to a judgment call.

You would take the risk that he had no WMD, did not have the ability to deploy them, nor the will.

I would error on the other side of the issue. I would error on that side even if I thought there was for example 90% chance he did not have WMD, because of Saddam's history and defiance.

And I would premise my arguement to the American people by saying there is a "chance he has WMD...". I guess you would say I am a lier.

On the other hand what would you say to the American people to justify your inaction, given the possibility that he might of had WMD? What would you say if you turned out being wrong and he used WMD? Oops, my bad?!?

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

dc_dux

ace...with such a premise ("there is a chance he had WMD") you would be more honorable and ethical than Bush, who made no such premise in any public statements.

Bush/Cheney et al not only made definitive declarations about WMDs, but also equally definitive statements about about Saddam-al queda connections in order to sell the invasion.

You might want to read a Congressional report, Iraq on the Record, (pdf) which identifies 237 misleading statements about the threat posed by Saddam that were made by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, and Rice:

Bush:
* The Iraq regime has developed weapons of mass death
* We found the weapons of mass destruction
* The liberation of Iraq removed an ally of al Queda

Cheney:
* We know with absolute certainty ..to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon
* Saddam has an established relationship with al Queda

Bush continues to mislead through fear with the implied threat to the homeland posed by the loosely affiliated al Queda in Iraq.

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tecoyah

I would be upset were we attacked by a 20 yr old mustard gas shell lobbed at us from a non existent navy....as I simply would not have found that a likely scenario, and would have been wrong. I would feel terrible for the tens of people who suffered at the hands of such a nasty weapon, and regretted my inaction.
Information is already leaking into the masses however, that is was known the issue of viable weapons of mass destruction had been discounted by the very people we sent to verify the existence of them. Both the CIA and the UN, explained the program was either not there, or incapable of creating a true threat Then we go into a delivery system and realize there was no possible way the Saddam Regime could actually deliver anything to our soil even if they had it.


So that 90% chance they were no threat to me...seems a bit more important in the context of safety, than the 10% you are playing off of.

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Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

aceventura3

In the past I said that I believed the Bush administration was guilty of exaggeration and hyperbole. I have also said that I have a problem with those who supported the war who only relied on the statements from the Administration without doing their homework.

I have read Bush and Chaney speeches very carefully. For the most part they talk about his intent, his capacity, his record and his defiance. There has been some discrepancies on what constitutes WMD, timing and Saddam's attempts at deception. Also, the administration has not been vocal relative to the possibility that WMD in Iraq had been relocated prior to the war. Technically, the question has yet to be answered.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

Charlatan

I had said before the invasion that Bush needed to tell the truth about Iraq. He needed to say that he was engaging America in a war of choice because it was the right thing to do.

Going to was over non-existent WMDs or some non-existent link between Iraq and Al-Qaeda was a mistake. One shouldn't go to war on the pretext of a lie as it will (and has) come back to haunt you.

Bush should have sold regime change on the premise that Saddam was defying the UN and making a mockery of their resolutions. He should have sold it based on removing a destabilizing influence in the Middle East in the hopes of replacing it with a beacon of democracy and modernization. Something that might have tipped the scales in favour of both region wide.

He should have combined this with massive efforts of diplomacy in Israel/Palestine - the Clinton deal needed to be put back on the table, Palestine needed to be told that suicide bombing needed to be scrapped in favour of Israel retreating to its borders of 1967, and Israel needed to be told , in no uncertain terms to stop the settlements in the West Bank and Gaza.

All of this needed to be combined with a massive attitude shift that would get rid of the arrogant, "you are either with us or against us" that left the US essentially without a coalition going into Iraq.

Bush should have taken more time to bring either NATO or some other larger coalition on board to aid in the nation building that was to happen post invasion. The US would not need any help in conquering Iraq, that was always a done deal that would take weeks. It is the years or decades of nation building that the US was never ready for.

The US public was not ready for the real cost and the real scope of this adventure. Bush never took the time to prepare them for it. There was no exit strategy.

With a real coalition at his side this might have gone differently.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

roachboy

but the invasion of iraq was the neocon's crowning moment--it was a rewind of the first gulf war, a demonstration that the us was now the global military hegemon and was not bound by the rules that constrain mere mortal countries.

no no: the american military hegemon plays according to its own rules, acts in its own interests, some huge muscled pinhead stumbling about bristling with armor, skull full of ayn rand.


the new sherrif is in town fellas.

so a viable coalition was not in the cards. had coalition building been a priority, everything about this farce would have gone differently: the "wolfowitz doctrine" would have been seen as the joke it was and wolfowitz himself would not have been rewarded for developing such a catastrophic "strategy" by being selected to lead the world bank....the rumsfeld school of "just-in-time war" would not have been given a chance to fail...

and a million iraqis would not have had the chance to die in this futile experiment.

an actual coalition would have been desirable, but it would have required a different american administration to have happened.

and i still wonder how things might have gone had the "wolfowitz doctrine" been other than a far right pipe dream---suffice it to say that we would be in a rather different political universe than we presently find ourselves in. but no matter now: there was no plan b.
iraq was supposed to be quick and easy.
it wasnt.
it isnt.

no amount of counterfactuals change that.
the bush administration threw the dice on the wolfowitz doctrine and the iraqi people lost. the administration lost. we all lost.


nb: after i put this up, i found the following in the guardian.
this is the just-in-time war, a tip of it:

http://media.fastclick.net/w/get.med...%2C00.html&d=f

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