The President Can't Find a "War Czar"

[iplaw]

The war on terror is NOT limited to those who were involved in 9/11...should I speak More slowly, or should I use smaller words?

No one cares that Iraq wasn't involved with 9/11.  It simply isn't pertinent to the discussion of deposing Saddam.

quote:
1. It destabilized the entire Middle East, which is quite a neat trick.

Nonsense.  The region has always been in a state of destablization, and eventual crumbling of Saddam's regime with or without intervention would have us essentially in the same place we are in today.

quote:
2. It created MORE terrorist attacks around the world. Invading a country that didn't attack you will do that.

Ballocks.  Why don't you just simply state that the cause of terrorism is the resistance of it, tuck your tail between your legs and go hide...

Fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan certainly pissed these people off, would you have preferred we not go there?

Lastly, we were obliged to depose Saddam under the terms of 1441.  We didn't need any other reason than that.

quote:
3. Instead of a relatively stable country, we now have one plummeting into anarchy. Nothing like yesterday's bombing of Parliament and a major bridge in Baghdad to point that out.

Only someone who is completely uneducated about pre-war Iraq could say it was a "relatively stable" country.  

Yes we have sectarian violence in the interim, but we no longer have the threat of extermination of the Kurds or Shia, nor his neighbors.  No more indiscriminate genocide and the terrorizing of innocent civilians.

It makes me giggle when people who supposedly care about humanitarian issues still wish the Butcher of Baghdad was still in power.

quote:
4. Iraq distracted us from helping make Afghanistan more stable.

Nonsense.  There are ample forces which remain in Afghanistan to deal with the Taliban uprising.  Again, more troops won't secure Afghanistan, they need a viable national Army and economic reform, neither of which the US army can supply.

quote:
5. The invasion of Iraq led to more extreme elements taking over Iran.

How bout some proof on this one...I can't wait to see what you drag up, just please don't cite a story from Al Jazeera while you're at it.

quote:
6. The war led U.S. soldiers to the shameful acts of torturing detainees, which is a violation of the Geneva Convention and thus kept us from being on the moral high ground.

Rediculous.  A handful of rogue soldiers are now representative of the entire military?  You should be ashamed of yourself for creating that implication.

quote:
7. 600,000 dead in Iraq and counting, and little to show for it.

Taking numbers from that widely discredited report again hmmm... You do know that that number is absurd and no one accepts that report as correct...well, other than you.

quote:
8. A destabilized Middle East means higher oil prices, thus providing more profits to the terrorist-funding despots (i.e., Saudi Arabia).

So another no-no in the WOT is now assuring we don't pissing off countries which produce oil.  They get a pass on terroism simply because you don't want to pay higher gas prices...great.

quote:
9. Instead of a secular government in Iraq, we have an Islamic republic. Ditto for Iran. Which means more extremists.

Really?  What gives you that idea.  Last time I checked they had a constitution and participation from all elements within the country.  Would you have preferred a CIA installed military government?

Laughable again, that by implication you believe Iraq would be even approaching the thought of secular democracy if Sadddam was still there...

quote:
10. This long exercise in Iraq has severely strained our military forces and their ability to act in other world crises.

So because it was difficult and costly it wasn't the right thing to do?  I'm glad you weren't in charge of the D-day invasion.[xx(]

quote:
11. The U.S. has suffered a loss of stature on the world stage. At a time when we can use the help, other nations are telling us to screw off.

 Horse sh@t.  The US has lost stature with nations who had no regard for it in the first place.  Investigations into Oil-for-Food have illuminated the exact reasons for the EU's abstention over the Iraq war, namley France and Germany.  The rest of the tyrranical regimes in the ME will hate us regardless.

quote:
Iplaw, I know you're digging through tons of crap in an effort to find a pony. But the fact remains that this misadventure that is Iraq is one of the biggest foreign policy disasters in our history, and will take decades to recover from. It's time to stop being in denial and face up to the ugly truth.

It only ugly to those who refuse to face the facts about the warranted and sanctioned nature of the Iraq war.  

The ultimate freedom of the Kurdish people from extermination, and the demise of the only regime in the region to not once, but twice use chemical weapons on civilians, and the deposing of a tyrranical despot who terrorized his own people.

If we are not forced to capitulate by cowards like yourself, we may well, in the not too distant future, have an Iraq that is a secularize democracy.  Our protection is their best hope.

The only way to ensure that democracy NEVER takes hold....is to listen to people like you.

[iplaw]

Sorry Conan I couldn't resist, but I agree.

[rwarn17588]

Now iplaw says I'm a coward and anti-democratic. The latter's really rich, especially after I've used that anti-democratic right to free speech.

My dad always said that the ones who resort to name-calling first are the losers of the argument.

[}:)]

[iplaw]

quote:Originally posted by rwarn17588

Now iplaw says I'm a coward and anti-democratic. The latter's really rich, especially after I've used that anti-democratic right to free speech.

My dad always said that the ones who resort to name-calling first are the losers of the argument.

[}:)]

I don't mind calling names where appropriate.  Also, I never said you were anti-democratic...you're just indifferent as to whether people in Iraq will have the same freedoms as you and I do, which I think is worse.  As long as your gas is cheap and France and Iran are still pretending to like us, you're happy.

[shadows]

From the sidelines one has to exert little effort to determine the shill in the noble justification of the postings.

The solution of all of today's problems are at the end of the gun barrel.   The dead proves we are right.

[iplaw]

quote:Originally posted by shadows

From the sidelines one has to exert little effort to determine the shill in the noble justification of the postings.

The solution of all of today's problems are at the end of the gun barrel.   The dead proves we are right.

I wish the guy from the sideline could speak English.

[MichaelC]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

How do you people feel about 800,000 killed in genocide in Rwanda?

How do you feel about genocide in Darfur?

The truth is:  Both the US and the UN have a policy of non-involvement in full blown civil warfare, with or without genocide.  

Bottom line, genocide in itself is not cause for invasion, period.  This foreign policy was fortified under Reagan and Bush, with folks that felt the US Military was so valuable that it should NOT be used to "police the world."  It's a policy that I haven't always agreed with, I thought we should have gotten involved in Rwanda and today in Darfur, but I do understand the policy.  Our Military is extremely valuable, we have to be careful in the way we use it.

The only reason we're involved in this civil conflict right now, is because we started the ball rolling.  Had this started five or ten years ago without our help, we'd likely be at a point now where we'd be using our influence to divide the country or come to another solution.

[iplaw]

quote:Originally posted by MichaelC

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

How do you people feel about 800,000 killed in genocide in Rwanda?

How do you feel about genocide in Darfur?

The truth is:  Both the US and the UN have a policy of non-involvement in full blown civil warfare, with or without genocide.  

Bottom line, genocide in itself is not cause for invasion, period.  This foreign policy was fortified under Reagan and Bush, with folks that felt the US Military was so valuable that it should NOT be used to "police the world."  It's a policy that I haven't always agreed with, I thought we should have gotten involved in Rwanda and today in Darfur, but I do understand the policy.  Our Military is extremely valuable, we have to be careful in the way we use it.

The only reason we're involved in this civil conflict right now, is because we started the ball rolling.  Had this started five or ten years ago without our help, we'd likely be at a point now where we'd be using our influence to divide the country or come to another solution.

Saddam wasn't deposed simply because he committed unspeakable acts of genocide, which he did.  We had previously standing post war resolutions with automatic enforcement provisions as well, which he was in breach of.  Both these are in addition to his active involvment with terrorist groups, which are unrefutable.

Lastly, please explain to me how the US was the instigator of the current Darfur crisis...this should be rich...

[Breadburner]

Thank you I.P. and Conan for putting a smile on my face on this Sunny Sunday....Many beers on me If I ever get the opprutunity.....

[iplaw]

Maybe if I was drunk it would be easier to hear "Saddam wasn't involved in 9/11" over and over and over and over again as if it has anything to do with us taking him down.

Just on a side note...what did all you anti-Bushers think when Clinton unilaterally bombed an aspirin factory...how about the unilateral bombing of Taliban training camps...or the actions in Rwanda...or the actions over Kosovo.

What were the vital national interests that he protected in Rwanda or Kosovo?

[Breadburner]

Clinton did a great job giving the go ahead to shoot cruise missles at un-occupied terrorist camps....

[MichaelC]

quote:Originally posted by iplaw

Saddam wasn't deposed simply because he committed unspeakable acts of genocide, which he did.

 

Exactly.  Genocide was not the reason for the War.  Genocide is not in itself a reason for invasion in US foreign policy.

quote:We had previously standing post war resolutions with automatic enforcement provisions as well, which he was in breach of.  Both these are in addition to his active involvment with terrorist groups, which are unrefutable.

Invasion ran counter to US foreign policy established under Bush and Clinton.  Containment was the policy, the only known reasons for Invasion were the same reasons for Containment.  The only thing that has changed is an increased emphasis on terrorist activity, post 911.

quote:Lastly, please explain to me how the US was the instigator of the current Darfur crisis...this should be rich...

No one said that.  We're not involved in Darfur, because we (in all likelyhood) did not start that conflict.  We would not be involved in a full scale civil conflict in Iraq, if we hadn't started it.  The US does not intervene in full scale civil conflicts.  Only when a US presence can make a significant strategic difference in a civil conflict, is engaging even considered.  We allowed the civil conflict in Bosnia to go on for years, before the US found it's strategic opening.

[rwarn17588]

In other words, pick your battles carefully.

Or else you end up in a quagmire.

[iplaw]

quote:
Exactly.  Genocide was not the reason for the War.  Genocide is not in itself a reason for invasion in US foreign policy.

Though it was in Kosovo for Clinton...I bet you, as a good democrat were all for it at the time.  I never met a democrat who argues otherwise.

quote:
Invasion ran counter to US foreign policy established under Bush and Clinton.  Containment was the policy, the only known reasons for Invasion were the same reasons for Containment.  The only thing that has changed is an increased emphasis on terrorist activity, post 911.

And what an extremely important change in foreign policy that was.  After 9/11 we understood the danger posed by simply looking the other way when it came to terrorists, or assuming that they were not sophisticated enough to attack us internally.  Bush and Clinton were looking at the world from a totally different viewpoint.  The viewpoint that America was somehow hermetically sealed from terrorism the likes of what we saw on 9/11.  It's simply impossible to compare the times.

Also, if you understood the situation in Iraq pre-invasion, and you were being honest with yourself, you would have to concede that containment was ineffective, as we STILL don't know what happened to all that WMD, and we know for a fact that he was in negotitations to buy long range Nodong missiles from NK in late 2002.  Interesting for him to be buying Nodong missiles for WMD he didn't have...

The only way to guarantee compliance with UN mandates was a deposing of Saddam, becuase 12 years of toothless UN activity certainly didn't account for his WMDs.  Still to this day we don't know where those WMD went, and someone, somewhere has them.
 

quote:
No one said that.  We're not involved in Darfur, because we (in all likelyhood) did not start that conflict.  

Sorry for the misinterpretation.

quote:
We would not be involved in a full scale civil conflict in Iraq, if we hadn't started it.  The US does not intervene in full scale civil conflicts.  Only when a US presence can make a significant strategic difference in a civil conflict, is engaging even considered.  We allowed the civil conflict in Bosnia to go on for years, before the US found it's strategic opening.

That's not entirely the case.  Saddam's regime had been slowly imploding for a long time.  Most scholars would concur that his regime would have cracked entirely or began crumbling within 5 to 10 years by itself.  There were too many forces pushing on it, both inside and outside.  And with thousands of pounds of chemical/biological weapons still unaccounted for, that was a gamble that no one after 9/11 could make, well, at least anyone with a conscience and an interest in protecting the US and Israel, could take.  Here is an excerpt from Christopher Hitchens about the state of affairs in the region:

In 1991, which is also the year when the present crisis in Iraq actually began, it was Saudi influence that helped convince President George H.W. Bush and Secretary of State James Baker to leave Saddam Hussein in power and to permit him to crush the Shiite intifada that broke out as his regime reeled from defeat in Kuwait. If, when reading an article about the debate over Iraq, you come across the expression "the realist school" and mentally substitute the phrase "the American friends of the Saudi royal family," your understanding of the situation will invariably be enhanced.

Many people write as if the sectarian warfare in Iraq was caused by coalition intervention. But it is surely obvious that the struggle for mastery has been going on for some time and was only masked by the apparently iron unity imposed under Baathist rule. That rule was itself the dictatorship of a tribal Tikriti minority of the Sunni minority and constituted a veneer over the divisions beneath, as well as an incitement to their perpetuation. The Kurds had already withdrawn themselves from this divide-and-rule system by the time the coalition forces arrived, while Shiite grievances against the state were decades old and had been hugely intensified by Saddam's cruelty. Nothing was going to stop their explosion, and if Saddam Hussein's regime had been permitted to run its course and to devolve (if one can use such a mild expression) into the successorship of Udai and Qusai, the resulting detonation would have been even more vicious.

And into the power vacuum would have stepped not only Saudi Arabia and Iran, each with its preferred confessional faction, but also Turkey, in pursuit of hegemony in Kurdistan. In other words, the alternative was never between a tranquil if despotic Iraq and a destabilizing foreign intervention, but it was, rather, a race to see which kind of intervention there would be.  The international community in its wisdom decided to delay the issue until the alternatives were even fewer, but it is idle to pretend that Iraq was going to remain either unified or uninvaded after the destruction of its fabric as a state by three decades of fascism and war, including 12 years of demoralizing sanctions.

The disadvantage of an American-led intervention, it might be argued, was that it meant the arbitration of foreigners. But the advantage was, and is, that these foreigners at least have a stake in the preservation of a power-sharing system. Iraq has only three alternatives before it. The first is dictatorship by one faction or sect over all the others: a solution that has been exhausted by horrific failure. The second is partition, which would certainly involve direct intervention by all its neighbors to secure privileges for their own proxies and would therefore run the permanent risk of civil war. And the third is federalism, where each group would admit that it was not strong enough to dictate terms to the others and would agree to settle differences by democratic means. Quixotic though the third solution may seem, it is the only alternative to the most gruesome mayhem—more gruesome than anything we have seen so far. It is to the credit of the United States that it has at least continued to hold up this outcome as a possibility—a possibility that would not be thinkable if the field were left to the rival influences of Tehran and Riyadh.

-- Christopher Hitchens, Slate

[iplaw]

quote:Originally posted by rwarn17588

In other words, pick your battles carefully.

Or else you end up in a quagmire.

Nonsense.  I noticed you didn't bother to answer my questions about your take on Clinton foreign policy...seems like you just enjoy Bush bashing, because the exact same unilateral actions, taken by Clinton were given a pass by the same people decrying it now.