and I not only predict a John McCain win in November, but I also think old ‘Playboy’ will revert to his fighter pilot ways and settle the Iran problem with a thousand extra yards of stropping!
Posted on 03/02/2008 2:31:33 PM PST by chuckles
We've been several years into a war in Iraq, and it has been front and center in American and world politics the whole time. It s hard to believe that the purpose and execution of the war could be so forgotten and replaced with political spin, when most voters were alive and watching the whole time. It's one thing to have differences of opinion on the Civil War, and on a war that we saw with our own eyes every night on the news.
Bush 41 decided to invade Kuwait and Iraq to expel Saddam from Kuwait. We were successful and negotiated a cease fire with Saddam so he might stay in power and Iraq wouldn't be thrown into anarchy. Iran would have most likely been the winner of any other outcome of the war. We can disagree with this policy, but I think most would agree that that was what the policy was. After Clinton (42) came to power, he pretty much dropped the ball and allowed Saddam to shoot at our pilots, drive out the weapons inspectors, humiliate the UN, and thumb his nose at the world looking for WMD's in Iraq. There wasn't any leader in the world that thought he was bluffing with WMD's. NOT ONE! Clinton did nothing, not one thing to push back against Saddam's defiance. Remember, we were just in a cease fire with them, the war was never OVER. Then Bush 43 came to power. We, of course had 9/11 and Bush responded to Afghanistan in kind. The RE-invasion of Iraq came next. This was in fact just a continuation of the previous war.
Now is when people seem to get befuzzled with history. Bush had the perfect right to invade Iraq, at any time, without asking anybody, especially the UN. They had been breaking the ceasefire agreements for years. These were all agreed to by all parties, even the UN. Democrats started to grumble about "cowboy diplomacy", "going it alone", etc, so Bush 43, even though he had the power, went to congress and the UN to get the backing of the world and Democrats to make the quislings happy. The congress had their now, fateful vote, and the UN passed several resolutions,( I think 17), for Saddam to comply or risk "consequences". Their seems to be much ado about what these consequences might be, but most rational people would, IMO, think it meant to end the ceasefire and start hostilities again. Now, if anyone has a different recollection, I'm all ears, but that's what I remember.
How we got off on this, Bush is a "war monger", cowboy, unilateral country invader, is beyond me. He asked people that had NO SAY in what he did, and they APPROVED the invasion, then they backtracked and insist I'm crazy.
As a member of FR, I usually just peruse the threads and eventually someone will spout exactly what I'm thinking, so I don't have to come out of the shadows and post. However, now we are coming into an election, and the War in Iraq has become the hot potato, even though there should be almost no controversy at all. I wouldn't give Hillary the sweat off my,....off my,....off my armpit, but this seems to be the perfect comeback for her vote in the Senate FOR the war. Now instead, she is trying to backtrack because the whole world seems to think the war is illegal.
As far as McCain, this is his perfect war stance to shut up the quislings that have spun the war as somehow not sanctioned by the world. Everyone agreed at the time, but now, Bush is almost alone politically. Bush had the right, he had the legal precedent, and the approval of the world, to do what he did. He was successful, and should be lauded as a hero, but even the people that voted in favor of the war have turned on him and act like they NEVER supported it.
If anybody has any substantial differences in memory, please let me know I'm not living in a parallel universe. Am I just spinning in my own head because I think Bush did right, or is the media using some subliminal flashes across the TV screen to make us mental midgets and forget what really happened. Even people on FR have allowed the discussion to evolve from what actually happened. If we allow the slugs to shape the conversation, why be surprised when we get slime smeared on us. Once the field is set, it seems McCain should give the Dem winner a dose of reality. The war was legal and approved by EVERYBODY. The question now has become "Do you want to win?"
bttt
and I not only predict a John McCain win in November, but I also think old ‘Playboy’ will revert to his fighter pilot ways and settle the Iran problem with a thousand extra yards of stropping!
IT IS TIME TO GTF OUT!
The Iraqi people have gotten accustomed to the idea of America spending Billion and spilling its own BLOOD
AND THEN GETTING SPIT UPON AND DOING NOTHING ABOUT IT.
Iraq decided to put “NO LAW SHALL CONTRADICT ISLAM” in their constitution. Since that stays in -
WE GET OUT NOW.
It’s not that the press is unaware of the history, after all they helped conceal it.
It’s they are willing to distort anything that prevens the progress of the secular agenda. Show me a democrat politician and I’ll show you someone lacking in character.
Your memory is correct and the conservative and liberal bashing of the war has been utter dangerous nonsense.
The current war has been an unqualified success.
The 3000 deaths after five years are far less than the 10000 predicted in the six months just in Bagdad for 2003.
Al Qaeda has been more thoroughly discredited in this location than any other place on Earth.
Bush Jr. had the courage to start and finish what his father and Reagan were afraid to do.
A stalinist neophyte was crushed and a new and fundamental American ally has been built in the Middle East— the new American rival to the former soviet Union. This middle EAst fascism will not last as long as communism did.
We won two incredible wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The media lies.
Liberia was also pretty sweet and ignored.
Bush absolutely had the right, and could be thought to have the OBLIGATION to attack Iraq for violating the ceasefire they agreed to. The first Gulf war was to expel Iraq from Kuwait and disarm Iraq of it's WMD's that EVERYONE knew he had. Saddam agreed to the inspectors, but fought them from day one. He also fired upon our air defense forces which was a no-no. Clinton wouldn't do anything, so I think Bush was going to do something whether we had 9/11 or not. He went to congress and the UN to pacify the worms. They portray the decision as unilateral.
As for your arguments, they are valid arguments, but I think we still should have a presence in the ME and Iraq is as good as any. We are in several Muslim countries right now that have similar laws, some with worse. Kuwait hosts our troops and Saudi Arabia has in the past.
As a side note, we are technically at war right now with North Korea. We also signed a cease fire with them. Have they broken the ceasefire at any time in the past? Have past presidents ignored their antics, putting off the inevitable for some other administration? Has ignoring their antics helped in any way to promote the interests of the US and its allies? Would ignoring Iraq and Saddam have changed ANYTHING that some other administration wouldn't have to fix in the future?
The point is Bush has had all the dirty jobs, left over from previous administrations,( including Bush 41), and should get a little praise for doing the right thing. Bush has made many mistakes IMO, but this isn't one of them.
I think your assessment is pretty good. Nearly everyone was convinced at the time that there were WMD - Intellgence, Democrats, and even leaders in the Middle East. But we’re THERE now and to withdraw before stabilizing the situation would be a disaster and the Islamofascists will be dancing in the streets because America cut and ran. The basic difference is between those who see the war as a “distraction” and those who recognize that it’s another front in the international struggle against terrorism. Those Democrats who are competing with each other to see who can most quickly raise the white flag of surrender are oblivious to the consequences in their desire to appeal to their far Left base. Inadvertently, they’re encouring terrorists around the world and premature withdraw would be filled with horrible consequences for the region and for American prestige.
Oh, I agree it was good to go in ... but we should not have stayed once the Iraqis were allowed to decide that they wanted to follow islam more than Freedom.
Instead we should have mandated an American style constitution like Macarthur did with the nut case Japanese in ‘45.
On October 4, 1945, toward the end of a meeting with MacArthur, a high-ranking Japanese cabinet member asked whether the supreme commander had any instructions “about the make-up of the government.” The translator mistakenly used the word “constitution” for “make-up,” and the official left thinking that MacArthur had commissioned him to draft a new constitution. The Japanese did go to work, but MacArthur rejected their efforts in early February 1946 as “nothing more than a rewording of the old Meiji constitution.” Eager to avoid interference from other allies, MacArthur took matters into his own hands. He ordered his government section to draft a document themselves, and to do it before the first meeting of the Far Eastern Commission, set for February 26. Staff member Beate Sirota Gordon, then in her early twenties, still remembers the day well:
And one morning I came in..., it was ten a.m. and General Whitney [head of the government section] called us into a meeting room. It was too small for all of us. Some of us had to stand because there were about 25 of us. And he said, “You are now a constituent assembly.” You can imagine how we felt. “And you will write the Japanese constitution. You will write a draft and it will have to be done in a week.” Well, I mean, we were stunned of course. But, on the other hand, when you’re in the army and you get an order, you just do it. You just go ahead.
Their work resulted in a thoroughly progressive document. Although the emperor was acknowledged as the head of state, he was stripped of any real power and essentially became a constitutional monarch. A bi-cameral legislature with a weak upper chamber was established, and with the exception of the Imperial family, all rights of peerage were abolished. Thirty-nine articles dealt with what MacArthur called “basic human liberties,” including not only most of the American bill of rights, but such things as universal adult sufferage, labor’s right to organize, and a host of marriage and property rights for women. But the most unique and one of the most important provisions came in Article 9, which outlawed the creation of armed forces and the right to make war. It’s not clear whether or not the “No-war clause” originated with MacArthur, but it certainly would not have been included without him, and its presence in the constitution has had an enormous impact on Japan’s postwar history.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/macarthur/peopleevents/pandeAMEX102.html
Not entirely true.
He repeatedly warned us that Saddam had WMD and would use them (---if Saddam's having WMD was a lie, then it was a lie concocted by Clinton).
And he did take action after the bombing of the Cole: He pardoned 16 terrorists.
What I'm trying to do is correct history. Just ask what people remember about something like Mc Carthy. They will say he was in the House Committee on Unamerican Activities. He was a SENATOR! Just keep saying stuff unchallenged and you get crap for history. If Bush is remembered for bad stuff, then pin the Pharma bill on him or the Amnesty fiasco.
I can still remember today, screaming at the TV that he didn’t have to go to congress and ask for anything and then he went to the UN, and I had to take a pill. After all that a$$ kissn, he still gets called a cowboy that acts unilaterally.
There may come a day when we have to declare war on the religion of Islam and kill everyone that clings to it. But we are trying not to have to do that for right now. There are versions of Islam that are, for now more tolerant than Saudi Arabia. I think Jordan might fit that right now. The big question is when we do downsize or even leave Iraq, how will they think of the west from then on. The only thing they have to compare to, is how we treated them while we were there. I don't think you could take over Canada and turn around and say, "You will do exactly as I say".
Bush had the perfect right to invade Iraq, at any time, without asking anybody, especially the UN. They had been breaking the ceasefire agreements for years. These were all agreed to by all parties, even the UN.
I would imagine the culture would have fought us even harder
Our Blood should be spilled for Freedom, nothing else.
What is the final product we are going to get in Iraq? Another Shiite controlled oil rich country that considers US infidels? We already have that in Iran.
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