It's this simple: come clean on WMD, or leave Iraq
 

Easterbook of recent-ESPN-firing fame comes up with a clear and succinct statement about WMD in Iraq:

http://www.tnr.com/easterbrook.mhtml?pid=894

I couldn't have said it better myself! It's not often that I agree with a conservative columnist in the National Review.

This would save the US tons of money a day. Just leave, no more useless expendatures.

Thanks for the post! It's refreshing to see that some Conservative idealogues aren't fueled by blind patriotism and hatred for all things Islamic.

we'll never find wmds cuz they dont freakin exist.

bush will never admit this and we will keep searchin forever.

We won't leave anytime soon. Having another ally/pawn in that region is too important for us the pass up, and is very much in our best interest, even if we lose a soldier a day to do so.

Thats right, lets leave Iraq to Saddam so he can come back in power and torture and murder all those that cheered when America came in. Or leave it to Al Queda, so they can make billions on the oil and make even more threating weapons to kill US ALL. Or we can leave the nation of Iraq to an Iranian style theocracy that will ensure a race war between the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.

Great Idea, Harmless Rabbit. You make me believe more and more that Coulter was correct when she said liberals always go against America's best interests.

By the way, you may want to mix it up a little -- you've said the last line verbatim in about six threads now.

What a dumb idea.

I agree with what you say, but not because saddam would come back into power or the taliban would supposedly take control, but because of many different reasons...

First let me say that I hate war, the only difference between you and the people you're fighting against is the geography they were born in. Now that being said, President Bush might have dragged the American image through the mud with this war, but imagine how we would look if all the peace keeping forces we have in Iraq were suddenly wisked away without leaving any sort of government structure behind after we nearly destroyed every bit of their old way of life. Do you think the Iraqis would be any better off now?

Whether we want it or not, Bush has left us a mess to clean up that will take more than 10 years to fix. If we pull out now we will only hurt Iraq more and even further damage our credibility and our percieved abilty to follow through with our goals.

People almost always die when any major progress is involved and some extremists are resistant to it.

LOL, yeah let's just pull out that would solve everything. Quite a strategy. The Iraqis would be SO much better off if left without an army or any security, you know how friendly Iran is, I'm sure they'll offer a helping hand.

Although I am tempted to say we should just pull out because that would screw over France, Germany, and Russia since Iraq owes them a ton of money and they would never get it then.

By your logic, we haven't found Saddam yet, so he must not exist either. :D

Saddam has to exist, who else did we ally ourselves with out of convenience and complete disregard for human rights? Oh yeah, the names pinochet, and the contras come to mind. Was donald rumsfeld hugging a ghost in those infamous pictures? Besides, i never saw no damn WMDs on TV shooting that rifle into the air in front of screaming loyal iraqis.

This is the second time, and if shoe fits.... Look at Everyone Of Harmless Rabbit's posts. I think the guy is really some Frenchmen who hates america trying to weaken us.

Actually, I suggest we pull out now and let a UN coalition run by Germany, Russia, and France jointly help the region transition to orderly self-government. I certainly never suggested that we *just* leave.

Also, this wasn't my idea, it was the idea of a conservative columnist at the New Republic. Feel free to attack my "liberal" ideas though, it makes me smile. :)

FEL: Whoa there, mighty Flame Warrior of Doom! For thine hast forgotten that the laws of war do not permit such activity in this here arena....

I don't think immediate departure is a good thing....leaving a power vacuum is the only thing we could do to make things worse it seems...giving it over to hte UN if they would take it would be the moral thing to do. Now that the damage is pretty well all done, staying to help fix it is the best thing i can think to do. but frankly, the fact that his father is now making motions of support for Ted Kennedy in public, is probalby a sign that Dubya has farked himself beyond beleif on this.

The un messes up most everything it touches. For each East Timor, there are hundreds of failures. Giving Iraq to the UN will do about as much help as the UN does to Africa. The UN's track record on nation building is abysmal.

Who ever said the UN was moral? Remember this is the organisation made up by dictators and repressors. They have Libya sitting as head of the Human Rights commission. UN and Moral in the same sentence is the craziest thing I ever heard.

I am satisfied with our policy even if the threat of WMD was needed to galvanize public and world opinion so that those who would have kept us from doing what was and is the right thing to do - given the geopolitics of the region and the need for security and stability in the world - were and are rendered sufficiently powerless to subvert the effort.

Moving our troops out is the wrong thing to do, whether you supported this war or not. Easterbrook and his ilk seem to think we can just remove our troops, pretend the whole thing never happened, and just go on to the next war. Like it or not, we have made this commitment to the Iraqi people and we must follow through or risk destroying our credibility even further.

By the way, I found this piece by another conservative, Alan Reynolds of the Cato Institute, to be a much better summary of the WMD debate:
http://www.cato.org/dailys/10-21-03.html

Speaking of east timor... Did you know that kissinger was there in indonesia, giving his approval mere days before indonesia invaded? How about all of the weapons that indonesia(btw, the most populous muslim nation in the world) recieved from us even after it was evident that they were commiting massive atrocites on that island.
For every iraq, there are many examples of places where the us has just sat idly by and watched a ruthless dictator commit human rights abuses against his own people. Including, oh, iraq.

That being said, we shit in this bed, now it is time we sleep in it. I'd be fine if the un took over, and we'd, as a country, might be able to work on reducing the national debt instead of cleaning up our messes on the other side of the world.

Would you have felt the same if the United States was invaded in the mid 1800's by some country who objected to the way the U.S. was treating it's native inhabitants?

Given the historical record of our government tolerating, even supporting, vile individuals who gave a wink and a nod to anticommunistic dictators this sudden grasping of the human rights straw makes for only straw men arguments.

2Wolves

If it were not for the French this country would not exist. Stillborn to be precise. That should cut them some slack and does with conservatives with any knowledge of history beyond the past 30 years.

2Wolves

So you are saying in the 1800's terrorists wanted to take over the nation so they could wage war globally and rid of the world of the infidel? That a nation wanted to save the US from factions that would kill each other?


And your forgetting that communists have killed well over 100 million people, I am glad that we supported the lesser of the two evils. It sucks, as you agree, but how much worse would the world be with MORE communist nations being supported by a still in existance Soviet Union?

Nice attempt at spin. Your justification, as previous stated, had to do with how Saddam was treating his citizens not how terrorists were even involved in anyone's imagination. There is no proven link between the secular former Iraqi government and bin Laden. None. Zero. Bupkis.

Not forgetting the millions killed by pseudo-socialism, but you've appear to have forgotten the dead nations of the American continent.

As I stated many of those dictators had only a passing glimmer of anti-socialism in thier programs; extracting maximum power and self agrandiziment (sp?) was much more important. Don't confuse the lable with the reality.

And don't try to spin what I write as I don't walk away from bushwa.

Now, how about giving me an answer to my question?

2Wolves

I am talking about now, you know HERE and NOW.

In the 1800's the world was treating people much worse. We have become a better place than it is now. That is why I am against Israel's treatment of Palastinians, and Saddam's treatment of his people. Had their been a nation like the US is now, and fought on indian rights, and won, the world would have been different. And its is a moot point as there was no such nation. The sad truth is only a few people cared about them at the time.
Why are you so mired in the past? My Romany family was slaughted by Germans. Do I hate them? Do I blame them? My uncle was killed in a concentration camp. My mother remembers him ( I dont obviously, he was dead before I was born). So I guess I should scream and talk about what if, or I should look at what his happening right now and say "People are getting killed in Iraq, and Saddam has the resouces to stymie the UN untill he is in a postion of powe to wage war on his terms, or we can stop it now with a minimum of loss to life."
THat is what I choose to do. I cant change the past, nor can you. But you can realise that we saved the most lives with our course of action in Iraq, but to do so you would have to drop your blind hatred of Bush, and some of you would rather hold on to hate than realse that we saved lives. Its rather sad.

As far as the terrorists part, I was talking about leaving the nation now, as the thread was talking about. If we leave now, Al Qaida would have a decent change to take over, or at least set up shop. So in that context, I talked about it in the 1800's. If I was not clear, i am sorry.

Ok, one at a time:

1. Still dodging the original question. I asked how you'd feel about that possibility as that is what
the United States did to Iraq. You ran from the premise.

2. "Mired in the past"? Yeah, yesterday was a real iron clad bitch. Tomorrow looks like more of the same.

3. Germans.... Nuremberg.... Tell me, when was the last time a caucasian stood in the dock for killing an American native
or taking away their language, or ..... you've probably stopped reading already.

4. Wage war on his terms" The Republicans didn't seem bothered by this when the Iran / Iraq war was going on. What changed?

5. Saved whose lives? Not citizens of the United States. I worked with an Iraqi in the 80's, who's job it was
during the aforementioned conflict, to crawl into the desert at night with a one meter metal rod to find Iranian
land mines. His personal view? Vote against any and all Republicans he could find after getting citizenship.

6. Al Quida is not a governmental organization. They did not attempt a coup in the 'stan. They have not tried
to overthrow the Saud family. What G-2 do you possess that is not available to the CIA, NSA, DIA, etc, etc, etc?

2Wolves

But sir, we clearly have records and statements proving that he does in fact exist.

That's good logic, one of my favorites, not the only logic working for pro-war either. Everyone has heard it though I'm sure.

I guess people have forgotten that the reason Rumsfeld is so sure Saddam had WMD is because he sold them to him in the first place.
[IMG]http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0UQAAAMIZ3EKRIDyEmjJuC1bFNf9RT7s93NXt90quQD*cMrJMERdIE5qk*wOp0AXs56qRJN0yXkUHxDTLRvz1wiWMzmqQroCvUE8aMpQZvPNCThckBNC6bQZxhpAWTYQb/Rumsfeld-vs-Saddam.gif?dc=4675444508116214680[/IMG]

No way, the US smashed the system and destroyed the goverment. Now it is their duty to establish an new one. Sorry but you have to pay the bill.

Precisely. Saddam was our mess, and we need to clean it up.

I remember being glued to my television when the skirmish started. At one point (I was watching FOX news) a group of soldiers came across hundreds of steel barrels. I thought "wow that was fast; they found them". Nothing was stated. It almost as if the just brushed of the barrels as harmless products. I didnt hear anything more about that find until weeks later.

I was listening to a political talk radio show one morning and a journalist commented on the barrels stating the reason that that paricular find was'nt publicized is because of whose name was on the barrels.

There'e no doubt that in the past decade; the US along with many other countries supplied Iraq with technology and supplies for WMD. Perhaps the reason the confidence was so high in the adminstration is because of that fact.

Either way; whatever the reason for or for not going to war is secondary at this point. Perhaps if Bush would have made it a humanitarian cause by promoting the rape, murder, and probable secret preparations for attacks on the US or the country the US is protecting.

Ghad! Red letters on a blue background! My eyes are bleeding now....

Sorry

What amuses me so much about this response is what it says about you.

The author of that blog is the conservative columnist who previously was employed by ESPN. The point of Harmless Rabbit's post was clearly to demonstrate that not only "liberals" disagree with the current administration's handling of Iraq.

You are so mired in your battle of ideology that you have reduced yourself to a state where everything is black and white. There is no point in debating the issues with you because you will fight for your right-wing agenda on principle. Everyone who disagrees with you is anti-American. Which, ironically, is the most un-American thing I've seen in this forum to date.

Unfortunately it's a recurring theme among those who would defend the administration's policy under any and all circumstances. Let me ask you a hypothetical question, Food Eater Lad. Answer it honestly. What would the Bush administration have to do for you to disagree with it?

Hey HR, my comments were directed at the idea of the post, not you or your liberal philosophies. Funny how I didn't even mention anything about liberalism yet you still bring it up.

If you meant that it should be taken over by a coalition then you should have said that in your comments instead of just agreeing that we should pull out. As far as the reality of such a coalition occuring, they'd never do it.

Oh, I guess I should state my opinion on the matter. I don't think the question here is whether we should pull out of Iraq or not. Obviously we cannot do that, nor do I think we should.

The statement that sparked this debate was a rhetorical device. What I would like to see, which was reflected nicely in a conservative's column, is for the administration to come clean on our reasons for being in Iraq.

The entire thing has been handled through a veil of misinformation and manipulation of the public opinion. Non-existant "weapons of mass destruction" (I'm getting so sick of that term), the subtly implied (and also non-existant) link between Saddam and Al Qaeda. People who supported the war befor we went in said nothing about liberating the Iraqi population. The average American thought we should "nuke em all" in fact, not even understanding that Iraqi civilians were being oppressed by a cruel dictatorship. The stated reasons for going to war was that Iraq presented an imminent threat to the national security of the United States. We now know this to be patently false, and evidence dictates that the administration knew this and played it up anyway to the public to gain approval for its actions.

The administration has played the general public like a finely tuned instrument. It makes me angry. Do I think there may be good reasons to overthrow an oppressive dictator? Of course! But if we are going to discuss this honestly, the first step is to admit that we didn't go into Iraq to liberate Iraqis. If that were our goal, there are many other countries whose leaders are guilty of human rights violations that far exceed those of Saddam's.

Nizzle this was a strange engagement all the way around. The Nukes in Africa issue, the irony in the questioning of whether he had WMD when the US participated in the development of them. (along with other nations)

The point you make is what I thought as well about the liberation. The most interesting aspect is what the name of the war was. Pyschologically strategic.

I disagree with how Afghanistan was abandonded. I think the best way to show the fundies that the American way of life is not so bad is to make Afghanistan a better pace due to American influnce. The biggest error the Bush Adin did was leaving the job before the quality of life was risen. True its better than under the taliban, but not as good as it could get. Nothing will show the fundies that they are wrong then a damn good lifestyle.