Yes, we were. By whom? This is the important question you're missing. The main problem with your line of reasoning is that you're conflating Al-Qaida with Iraq or perhaps the entire Middle East. If you cannot distinguish between enemies and neutral parties, or even between different enemies, or even keep track of which enemy was responsible for which offense, then you cannot know how to react. The enemy who attacked us on 9/11 was Al-Qaida, an international terrorist network based in Afghanistan but with operatives in several different countries worldwide. Al Qaida was not in league with Saddam Hussein, because Al Qaida saw him as a "secular infidel." And "Bin Ladin had in fact been sponsoring anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi Kurdistan, and sought to attract them into his Islamic army." (9/11 Commission Report, page 61). They were two quite separate enemies. (In fact, America wasn't an object of Hussein's aggression; his problem with the U.S. was that we stopped his aggression against his neighbors.) Brent Scowcroft, National Security Advisor to George HW Bush, laid the situation out pretty well here: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.ht ml?id=110002133. Furthermore, after the first Gulf War, then-Secretary of State Dick Cheney noted that Saddam's capacity to threaten his neighbors had been virtually eliminated http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/pubs/soref/chen ey.htmhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2705275.stm.
Top U.S. military commanders argued against invading Iraq because it was at best tangential and at worst entirely counter-productive to the war on terror. These include General Anthony Zinni, http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/zinni.html, General Joseph Hoar, http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/s803482.htm, and General Norman Schwarzkopf, who commanded U.S. forces in the first Gulf War http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2705275.stm.
Yes, we absolutely need to get the guys who attacked us. But to do that, we need to get the guys who attacked us. This "hit 'em where they ain't" strategy is just bloody stupid. Afghanistan is a justifiable war. Iraq is not.
"Thank you England and
Poland and the other nations in our coalition. Together, we will root out and wipe out terrorism anywhere, anytime, in any country that threatens us."
Heh, well, at least you didn't forget Poland. But you did neglect to note something about Poland: http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2004/s1069242.htm "[Polish President] ALEKSANDER KWASNIEWSKI (translated): They deceived us about the weapons of mass destruction, that's true. We were taken for a ride."
I'm sorry, but those are just some really bad reasons. They seem (IMHO, etc.) to indicate precisely the sort of warhawk thinking that starts world wars. Germany had a desire for liebestraum, America has a hankerin' for oil. Following your suggestion, we'd be walking right into inciting a global conflict.
#1 "WMD's were just a floater to get us into Iraq and prepare for the next targets." It's appalling that you think it's acceptable for a nation's leaders to give the country's citizens outright lies to justify an unprovoked war. Were the United States to move on to "the next targets," it would incite phenomenal anti-American sentiment worldwide, and exacerbate the problem of terrorism. Furthermore, it... Ach, I'm not even going to bother to refute all your points. Just look here: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.ht ml?id=110002133
George HW Bush's National Security Advisor breaks it down for you and explains things pretty well.
You should be aware that in that quote, Orwell was referring not to those who might be opposed to a particular war, but to those who are staunchly opposed to war for any reason, including America's involvement in World War II to stop Hitler's attempt to take over the entirety of Europe while annihilating the Jewish race. Your argument here does a splendid job of knocking down a straw man, but does not respond to those against whom you are arguing.
Also, your grammar sucks.
Preaching to the choir, man. I'm with you. I was just saying that it hadn't cost that much yet, although it likely will cost $200 billion or more over the next year or two. And yeah, that's sort of a quibble. I was just pushing for more specificity.
Also, the American lives lost in Iraq tally is closer to 1,053. Total wounded: 7,290. Total Iraqi civilians killed, thirteen to fifteen thousand. Do you have any figures on total number of Iraqi civilians wounded?
I like this sort of brazan challenge to common sense. How do we know that the world is round?
Well:
It would take me all night to list all Bush's lies, but here's a few. The falsehoods told by George Bush (and most other politicians) can fall into five categories: Self-contradictions, falsehoods stated while ignorant or with a plausible after-the-fact claim to ignorance, statements that are only technically or half-true, lies by implication, and outright lies.
Some outright lies:
The single worst lie Bush has told, I think, is that the terrorists attacked us "because they hate our freedom," and that "America has been called to defend its freedom." That isn't true (defend it from what? Radical Muslims cannot take away an American's freedom; the government can), and it's clear that he said it mainly because if you can invoke the word "freedom," you've got a pretty good soundbite. If you can get Americans united in what they believe is the cause of freedom, you can get most of us to blindly play 'follow the leader' even to the point that we will eschew freedoms and the right to privacy in the name of freedom.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/04/20 020409-8.html "They ["the people we're dealing with"] hate our freedoms."
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20 020328.html
"They ["an enemy that are nothing but a bunch of cold-blooded killers"] hate what America stands for. They hate our religious tolerance. They hate our freedom of speech. They hate freedom of the press. They despise freedom. They despise freedom."
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20 010920-8.html " On September the 11th, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country.... freedom itself is under attack.... They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.... This is not, however, just America's fight. And what is at stake is not just America's freedom. This is the world's fight. This is civilization's fight. This is the fight of all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom.... Freedom and fear are at war. The advance of human freedom -- the great achievement of our time, and the great hope of every time -- now depends on us."
In fact, the Al Qaeda group attacked us because it is a group of Islamic extremists that believes that the force of what they call "jahiliyya" (infidelity), represented by the West and epitomized by America, is on a crusade against Islam. Usama Bin Ladin turned his focus from the Soviet Union to the United States when he became aware that the U.S. had stationed troops in Saudi Arabia, home of the Muslim holy lands. He came to see the United States as "the head of the snake," ultimately responsible for all the regional conflicts in the Middle East, citing America's apparent support for Israel in the Arab-Israeli conflict, the growing global effect of American culture, and other influences. In 1998, Bin Ladin issued a fatwa declaring it the duty of what he believed to be "real Muslims" to kill Americans.
They don't give a shit about freedom. There was no terrorist group sitting around in a cave at one point that suddenly decided, "Hey, you know? America is way too free. Let's go hijack some airplanes and let's show 'em." Freedom doesn't enter into it. What they hate is what they percieve as our "imperialism" and what they call our "crusade against Islam." It's quite irrational, but that is the al Qaeda assessment of the world. If there is a madman on the loose, you should at least want to know what has driven him mad so that
I haven't seen the $200 billion figure coming from anywhere other than from Kerry. Most other sources say the war's cost far is a negligible $120-140 billion. (http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=253)
Although apparently some say he meant the $200 billion figure to mean the eventual cost, he implies that we've already spent that much. We haven't, but we have somehow misplaced $8.8 billion.
(http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/interna.asp?idnews= 25168)
This question will never make it to the President, but I'd like to know how he responds to the arguments against the Iraq invasion presented by Brent Scowcroft in 2002 (http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.h tml?id=110002133)
Or George Bush Senior's statement in 1998 that invading Iraq would have "incalculable human and political costs" (http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/gulfwar.asp)
He also said "Whose life would be on my hands as the commander-in-chief because I, unilaterally, went beyond the international law, went beyond the stated mission, and said we're going to show our macho?" he asked. "We're going into Baghdad. We're going to be an occupying power -- America in an Arab land -- with no allies at our side. It would have been disastrous. We don't gain the size of our victory by how many innocent kids running away -- even though they're bad guys -- that we can slaughter.... We're American soldiers; we don't do business that way." (http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1999/03/a19990303bus h.htm)
Or Dick Cheney's assessment in 1991 (http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/pubs/soref/che ney.htm)in which he said that "I think the proposition of going to Baghdad is fallacious," that invading would get the U.S. "bogged down in a quagmire," and that "Saddam Hussein's offensive military capability, his capacity to threaten his neighbors, has been virtually eliminated."
I want to know how the President (or anyone else, really) can reconcile the 2003 invasion of Iraq with these pronouncements. Obviously the situation has changed over the years, but it clearly has not changed enough to prevent the situation that Cheney described.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, we were. By whom? This is the important question you're missing. The main problem with your line of reasoning is that you're conflating Al-Qaida with Iraq or perhaps the entire Middle East. If you cannot distinguish between enemies and neutral parties, or even between different enemies, or even keep track of which enemy was responsible for which offense, then you cannot know how to react. The enemy who attacked us on 9/11 was Al-Qaida, an international terrorist network based in Afghanistan but with operatives in several different countries worldwide. Al Qaida was not in league with Saddam Hussein, because Al Qaida saw him as a "secular infidel." And "Bin Ladin had in fact been sponsoring anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi Kurdistan, and sought to attract them into his Islamic army." (9/11 Commission Report, page 61). They were two quite separate enemies. (In fact, America wasn't an object of Hussein's aggression; his problem with the U.S. was that we stopped his aggression against his neighbors.) Brent Scowcroft, National Security Advisor to George HW Bush, laid the situation out pretty well here: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.h
Top U.S. military commanders argued against invading Iraq because it was at best tangential and at worst entirely counter-productive to the war on terror. These include General Anthony Zinni, http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/zinni.html, General Joseph Hoar, http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/s803482.htm, and General Norman Schwarzkopf, who commanded U.S. forces in the first Gulf War http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2705275.stm.
Yes, we absolutely need to get the guys who attacked us. But to do that, we need to get the guys who attacked us. This "hit 'em where they ain't" strategy is just bloody stupid. Afghanistan is a justifiable war. Iraq is not.
Heh, well, at least you didn't forget Poland. But you did neglect to note something about Poland: http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2004/s1069242.ht
"[Polish President] ALEKSANDER KWASNIEWSKI (translated): They deceived us about the weapons of mass destruction, that's true. We were taken for a ride."
I'm sorry, but those are just some really bad reasons. They seem (IMHO, etc.) to indicate precisely the sort of warhawk thinking that starts world wars. Germany had a desire for liebestraum, America has a hankerin' for oil. Following your suggestion, we'd be walking right into inciting a global conflict.
t ml?id=110002133
#1 "WMD's were just a floater to get us into Iraq and prepare for the next targets." It's appalling that you think it's acceptable for a nation's leaders to give the country's citizens outright lies to justify an unprovoked war. Were the United States to move on to "the next targets," it would incite phenomenal anti-American sentiment worldwide, and exacerbate the problem of terrorism. Furthermore, it... Ach, I'm not even going to bother to refute all your points. Just look here: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.h
George HW Bush's National Security Advisor breaks it down for you and explains things pretty well.
This was a few weeks ago:p 13,0,6455949.story?coll=all-newslocal-hed
http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-b3_5breakinse
MERE COINCIDENCE!?!?
Well, yes, it probably is.
Ah, never mind.
I'm running Firefox o.9.1, yet when I Check For Updates it says no available updates could be found. Why is that?
You should be aware that in that quote, Orwell was referring not to those who might be opposed to a particular war, but to those who are staunchly opposed to war for any reason, including America's involvement in World War II to stop Hitler's attempt to take over the entirety of Europe while annihilating the Jewish race. Your argument here does a splendid job of knocking down a straw man, but does not respond to those against whom you are arguing. Also, your grammar sucks.
Preaching to the choir, man. I'm with you. I was just saying that it hadn't cost that much yet, although it likely will cost $200 billion or more over the next year or two. And yeah, that's sort of a quibble. I was just pushing for more specificity.
Also, the American lives lost in Iraq tally is closer to 1,053. Total wounded: 7,290. Total Iraqi civilians killed, thirteen to fifteen thousand. Do you have any figures on total number of Iraqi civilians wounded?
Mm, and I meant to link this, too. http://www.mydd.com/story/2004/8/20/213846/709
There's plenty to choose from.
Ach, "brazen," that should say. Whoops.
I like this sort of brazan challenge to common sense. How do we know that the world is round?
... freedom itself is under attack. ... They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other. ... This is not, however, just America's fight. And what is at stake is not just America's freedom. This is the world's fight. This is civilization's fight. This is the fight of all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom. ... Freedom and fear are at war. The advance of human freedom -- the great achievement of our time, and the great hope of every time -- now depends on us."
Well:
It would take me all night to list all Bush's lies, but here's a few. The falsehoods told by George Bush (and most other politicians) can fall into five categories: Self-contradictions, falsehoods stated while ignorant or with a plausible after-the-fact claim to ignorance, statements that are only technically or half-true, lies by implication, and outright lies.
Some outright lies:
The single worst lie Bush has told, I think, is that the terrorists attacked us "because they hate our freedom," and that "America has been called to defend its freedom." That isn't true (defend it from what? Radical Muslims cannot take away an American's freedom; the government can), and it's clear that he said it mainly because if you can invoke the word "freedom," you've got a pretty good soundbite. If you can get Americans united in what they believe is the cause of freedom, you can get most of us to blindly play 'follow the leader' even to the point that we will eschew freedoms and the right to privacy in the name of freedom.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/04/20 020409-8.html
"They ["the people we're dealing with"] hate our freedoms."
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20 020328.html "They ["an enemy that are nothing but a bunch of cold-blooded killers"] hate what America stands for. They hate our religious tolerance. They hate our freedom of speech. They hate freedom of the press. They despise freedom. They despise freedom."
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20 010920-8.html
" On September the 11th, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country.
In fact, the Al Qaeda group attacked us because it is a group of Islamic extremists that believes that the force of what they call "jahiliyya" (infidelity), represented by the West and epitomized by America, is on a crusade against Islam. Usama Bin Ladin turned his focus from the Soviet Union to the United States when he became aware that the U.S. had stationed troops in Saudi Arabia, home of the Muslim holy lands. He came to see the United States as "the head of the snake," ultimately responsible for all the regional conflicts in the Middle East, citing America's apparent support for Israel in the Arab-Israeli conflict, the growing global effect of American culture, and other influences. In 1998, Bin Ladin issued a fatwa declaring it the duty of what he believed to be "real Muslims" to kill Americans.
They don't give a shit about freedom. There was no terrorist group sitting around in a cave at one point that suddenly decided, "Hey, you know? America is way too free. Let's go hijack some airplanes and let's show 'em." Freedom doesn't enter into it. What they hate is what they percieve as our "imperialism" and what they call our "crusade against Islam." It's quite irrational, but that is the al Qaeda assessment of the world. If there is a madman on the loose, you should at least want to know what has driven him mad so that
I haven't seen the $200 billion figure coming from anywhere other than from Kerry. Most other sources say the war's cost far is a negligible $120-140 billion. (http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=253) Although apparently some say he meant the $200 billion figure to mean the eventual cost, he implies that we've already spent that much. We haven't, but we have somehow misplaced $8.8 billion. (http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/interna.asp?idnews= 25168)
Oh yeah, Brent Scowcroft was George HW Bush's National Security Advisor. Forgot to mention that.
This question will never make it to the President, but I'd like to know how he responds to the arguments against the Iraq invasion presented by Brent Scowcroft in 2002 (http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.h tml?id=110002133)
p )
He also said "Whose life would be on my hands as the commander-in-chief because I, unilaterally, went beyond the international law, went beyond the stated mission, and said we're going to show our macho?" he asked. "We're going into Baghdad. We're going to be an occupying power -- America in an Arab land -- with no allies at our side. It would have been disastrous. We don't gain the size of our victory by how many innocent kids running away -- even though they're bad guys -- that we can slaughter. ... We're American soldiers; we don't do business that way." (http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1999/03/a19990303bus h.htm)
e ney.htm)in which he said that "I think the proposition of going to Baghdad is fallacious," that invading would get the U.S. "bogged down in a quagmire," and that "Saddam Hussein's offensive military capability, his capacity to threaten his neighbors, has been virtually eliminated."
Or George Bush Senior's statement in 1998 that invading Iraq would have "incalculable human and political costs" (http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/gulfwar.as
Or Dick Cheney's assessment in 1991 (http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/pubs/soref/ch
I want to know how the President (or anyone else, really) can reconcile the 2003 invasion of Iraq with these pronouncements. Obviously the situation has changed over the years, but it clearly has not changed enough to prevent the situation that Cheney described.