Posted on 02/25/2020 9:42:55 AM PST by rintintin
Well, I think LBJ may have gotten more people killed in useless wars than W. I rate Lyndon as worse than W on my list.
I've not read it all...but rang very true to me.
You should read it...
There's a sheet load of POTUS's..worse than GWB...IF you take everything into consideration...IMO.
You and I know...POTUS's have had people murdered.....I don't think GWB..had anyone murdered.
The Project for a New American Century January 26, 1998 Open Letter to Bill Clinton:
The Honorable William J. Clinton
President of the United States
Washington, DC
Dear Mr. President
We are writing you because we are convinced that current American policy toward Iraq is not succeeding, and that we may soon face a threat in the Middle East more serious than any we have known since the end of the Cold War. In your upcoming State of the Union Address, you have an opportunity to chart a clear and determined course for meeting this threat. We urge you to seize that opportunity, and to enunciate a new strategy that would secure the interests of the U.S. and our friends and allies around the world. That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power. We stand ready to offer our full support in this difficult but necessary endeavor.
The policy of containmenf of Saddam Hussein has been steadily eroding over the past several months. As recent events have demonstrated, we can no longer depend on our partners in the Gulf War coalition to continue to uphold the sanctions or to punish Saddam when he blocks or evades UN inspections. Our ability to ensure that Saddam Hussein is not producing weapons of mass destruction, therefore, has substantially diminished. Even if full inspections were eventually to resume, which now seems highly unlikely, experience has shown that it is difficult if not impossible to monitor Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons production. The lengthy period during which the inspectors will have been unable to enter many Iraqi facilities has made it even less likely that they will be able to uncover all of Saddam’s secrets. As a result, in the not-too-distant future we will be unable to determine with any reasonable level of confidence whether Iraq does or does not possess such weapons.
Such uncertainty will, by itself, have a seriously destabilizing effect on the entire Middle East. It hardly needs to be added that if Saddam does acquire the capability to deliver weapons of mass destruction, as he is almost certain to do if we continue along the present course, the safety of American troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil will all be put at hazard. As you have rightly declared, Mr. President, the security of the world in the first part of the 21st century will be determined largely by how we handle this threat.
Given the magnitude of the threat, the current policy, which depends for its success upon the steadfastness of our coalition partners and upon the cooperation of Saddam Hussein, is dangerously inadequate. The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy.
We urge you to articulate this aim, and to turn your Administration’s attention to implementing a strategy for removing Saddams regime from power. This will require a full complement of diplomatic, political and military efforts. Although we are fully aware of the dangers and difficulties in implementing this policy, we believe the dangers of failing to do so are far greater. We believe the U.S. has the authority under existing UN resolutions to take the necessary steps, including military steps, to protect our vital interests in the Gulf. In any case, American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council.
We urge you to act decisively. lf you act now to end the threat of weapons of mass destruction against the U.S. or its allies, you will be acting in the most fundamental national security interests of the country. If we accept a course of weakness and drift, we put our interests and our future at risk.
Sincerely:
Elliott Abrams
Richard L. Armitage
William J. Bennett
Jeffrey Bergner
John Bolton
Paula Dobriansky
Francis Fukuyama
Robert Kagan
Zalmay Khalilzad
William Kristal
Richard Perle
Peter W Rodman
Donald Rumsfeld
William Schneider, Jr.
Vin Weber
Paul Wolfowitz
R. James Woolsey
Robert B. Zoellick
https://www.noi.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/iraqclintonletter1998-01-26-Copy.pdf
The Weekly Standard’s November 17, 1997 “Saddam Must Go” editorial:
Some nations can afford to suffer more humiliation than others. When you’re the United States, even a little humiliation exacts too high a price. This isn’t just a matter of national pride. When the world’s strongest power abases itself, allies begin to worry, adversaries start whetting their appetites, and pretty soon America’s international credibility — a big and important component of national power — starts taking a dive.
This past week, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein humiliated the United States: First he ordered the expulsion of American officials from a United Nations team charged with ensuring that Iraq is not producing weapons of mass destruction. Then he demanded an end to all flights by American U-2 surveillance aircraft over Iraq and threatened to shoot them down. Then he moved some equipment that could be used to manufacture weapons out of the range of video cameras that had been installed by the U.N. inspection team to keep watch over them.
A few observers, including some administration officials, have described Saddam’s actions as foolish. Some fool. Saddam’s actions are well calibrated to achieve three important aims: to embarrass and thereby weaken the United States; to exploit divisions in the international coalition that defeated him in the Gulf War but has been fraying ever since; and last but certainly not least, to build as rapidly as possible the weapons of mass destruction that can put him back in the driver’s seat in the Middle East — a scant six years after his armies were decimated in Operation Desert Storm.
Despite the Clinton administration’s denials, Saddam appears to be succeeding on all three fronts. The last is particularly alarming. According to a report in the New York Times, U.N. inspectors believe that Iraq now possesses “the elements of a deadly germ warfare arsenal and perhaps poison gases, as well as the rudiments of a missile system” that can launch the warheads. Thanks to Saddam’s recent actions, the U.N. inspection team “can no longer verify that Iraq is not making weapons of mass destruction” and specifically cannot monitor “equipment that could grow seed stocks of biological agents in a matter of hours.”
The Clinton administration’s response to Saddam so far has compounded the humiliation, and the danger. On the one hand, officials trying to sound ominous in warning Saddam against a wrong step have succeeded only in sounding ridiculous — as when President Clinton declared it would be a “big mistake” for Saddam to shoot down an American U-2. On the other hand, the administration has agreed — or worse still, has been forced to agree — to a number of concessions to Saddam’s bullying. Rather than simply telling Saddam to shove it and preparing the first wave of air and missile strikes, the United Nations dispatched a team last week to “talk” with Saddam about the importance of complying with U.N. resolutions. The Clinton administration insisted that these talks were not “negotiations,” but that pretense was all but exploded when the U.N. and the United States agreed to suspend the U-2 flights Saddam had complained about. This appalling concession, intended to improve the atmosphere for these non-negotiations, was the worst of the administration’s missteps so far.
All these concessions were evidence, moreover, that the old Gulf War coalition is indeed collapsing. Apparently, the United States has been having a devil of a time convincing other Security Council members to approve any kind of military action against Saddam, no matter how long he defies the international community. At the end of last week, administration officials started talking about trying to persuade them at least to impose new sanctions on Iraq. Even that action, however, pitiful as it is, would be difficult given the clear determination of the French and Russians to remove sanctions altogether.
But here’s the really bad news. Even if the United States summoned the courage, alone or with U.N. approval, to launch a missile strike against Iraq this week or next, such an attack would gain only a brief pause in the downward slide of U.S. policy in the Gulf. Saddam has already calculated that he can survive another cruise-missile strike, as he survived the last, and may even come out of it in a stronger position. Once the assault has ended, the situation will return to the status quo ante: The international coalition will continue to collapse, Saddam will continue to probe for weaknesses, and U.S. credibility will continue to erode. Indeed, a U.S. attack that leaves Saddam in charge of Iraq, no matter how much damage it does to his country, might serve only to expose the futility of American power
So there is really only one alternative now. It has become increasingly clear ever since the Gulf War ended that the Gulf War ended badly. The decision to leave Saddam in control of Iraq, and to hope vainly that he would be overthrown or assassinated by his own people, was a mistake — an understandable mistake, perhaps, but a mistake nevertheless. We were sorry to see former President Bush last week denounce those who are now coming to this conclusion. The fact that he erred in letting Saddam remain in power does not detract from his magnificent accomplishment in fighting the Gulf War and liberating Kuwait. It would be a real service to the nation if Bush could acknowledge his error. Because what we most need now is to take the difficult but inescapable next step of finishing the job Bush started.
American policy toward Iraq should aim at removing Saddam from power. We are under no illusions about what will be required to accomplish this goal. There will be no coup against Saddam and no assassination at the hands of his own lieutenants. Nor, unfortunately, will an air and missile strike do the job. In a sustained air campaign, we might get lucky and hit Saddam by accident, but if we didn’t get him during the weeks-long barrage of air and missile attacks in Desert Storm, we’re unlikely to succeed in a shorter and smaller attack today.
We would certainly support a serious and sustained air attack on Iraq, and the sooner the better. But the only sure way to take Saddam out is on the ground. We know it seems unthinkable to propose another ground attack to take Baghdad. But it’s time to start thinking the unthinkable. The fact is, it would take fewer than the half-million troops deployed in Desert Storm to roll into Baghdad today, especially after an air campaign scattered or destroyed whatever resistance Saddam might be able to throw up. Who knows how many Iraqi soldiers would even fight in a Desert Storm II? Their last experience against American forces and weapons was not such as to encourage exceptional valor
If you don’t like this option, we’ve got another one for you: continue along the present course and get ready for the day when Saddam has biological and chemical weapons at the tips of missiles aimed at Israel and at American forces in the Gulf. That day may not be far off.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/saddam-must-go
“they dared to point out that George W. Bush was a globalist stooge — and a retarded baboon, to boot.”
Bush is a northeastern patrician, McGovern liberal just like Laura, and just like his children (and every other Bush).
Newsmax wrote a story about W in 1999, since apparently unavailable, which described him as a “Texas Democrat”. Well, no, the oldtimer Texas Democrats were pro-family, pro-gun conservatives. Some here might be shocked if they read that article, to find out that W moved the TX supreme court to the left, named part of I-35 after a late abortionist, and championed a massive expansion of Texas state govt.
Read The Pink Embassy about W’s pick as ambassador to Romania. It could just as well have been Obama’s pick.
Bush was a disaster. My most enduring memory is now of him holding hands and swinging arms with Michelle Obama.
I think more than a few here, though probably unwilling to admit it, find your second sentence more likely...
We’ve seen government agencies allied with MSM willing to go all out to remove Trump. What else are they willing to do?
Worse. I got suspended for saying McCain was,a tool in 2008 and Romney in 2012. Many Freepers have selective memories.
Please take me off your ping list. I didn't request to be added to it.
Bush is a globalist fool. A dirtbag betrayer for open borders. He created the TSA.
The Bush Crime Family is also written by Roger Stone. Take a read.
I’ve read it..........
I think today’s coup perps are the same ones who stole all the W’s from GWs keyboards..
Ah, yes, the usual suspects.
The Weekly Standard never met a war it didn’t want the US involved in, especially in the Middle East. Israel has the strongest defense in the Middle East. It can take care of itself. As for our troops in the Middle East, they shouldn’t be there.
Nobody at the Weekly Standard saddled up and went off to war.
If Saddam had weapons of mass destruction (I love how the warmongers use phrased guaranteed to scare people into supporting war.), he would have most likely used them on his arch enemy, Iran. Saddam was no worse than any other tyrant. How about the little nut in N. Korea?
The usual suspects indeed.
Those who had been paying attention to neoconservative writing since the 1980s could have been aware that neocon interest in a strong American military wasn’t confined to defeating the threat that Soviet Communism posed.
There was a streak of truimphalism in them. And a belief that the world could be remade to fit their own idea of how it ought to be. “The End of History and the Last Man” by one of their own, Francis Fukuyama, was a blueprint for what these neocon lords of the universe had in mind.
America ended up as the sole military superpower when the USSR fell and our neocon pals wanted to use that opportunity to re-engineer the world, starting with the Middle East. They intended to select some Arab state and pound it into submission and then turn it into a Western style democracy. Easy peasy according to these geniuses, because of course in their mind the whole Islam thing was going to be nothing to worry about.
Some people who had been paying attention to all of this could smell a rat when that same crowd began insisting that Iraq just had to be invaded and Saddam Hussein overthrown.
“Huh? There were plenty of WMDs in Iraq. Stocks of yellowcake, tons of chemical munitions.”
Yellowcake is hardly the scary threat that you’re pretending it is. If you have $29 you can buy yourself a gram. Just don’t eat it.
https://unitednuclear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=873
99% of it is U-238 and that’s not even radioactive enough to make a decent dirty bomb, much less an actual nuclear fission bomb.
The U-238 that makes up the vast majority of yellowcake is non-fissile and cannot sustain a chain reaction. You need something to sustain a chain reaction or you don’t have a bomb. Something like U-235.
Yellowcake is a first step in processing uranium ore before it is enriched. Nothing has been done to concentrate the tiny amount, 0.7%, of U-235 in the natural ore.
That’s a long way from even the low enriched uranium of 20% U-235 that is used as reactor fuel.
Weapons grade uranium is 85% U-235.
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