I can understand that, but that threat has not been removed by his removal. In fact, it may have be increased as a result of further radicalization of Islam (which perceives our military interventions as "Crusades" for "Zionist' interests).
The threat has not been removed, but it has been lessened. Now there is one less government sponsor of the development of nukes intended for the U.S. Al Qaida has already proved that it does not need to be provoked to wage a terrorist war against the U.S. There have been attacks against us since at least the 80's. Bush was the first to recognize it for what it was. Even my hero Reagan didn't get it. The intent of the Islamists to destroy Israel and the U.S. was solidly there well before the Iraq War, or even 9/11.
If one out of ten Muslims is an Islamic radical, that's a potential army of 100 million (no fuzzy math this time!). I believe mine is a conservative figure.
I fully agree. I think there are more than that who are very sympathetic with terrorist actions and could be enlisted to participate.
So, the question is have we made our world safer, and the answer is no. Just the opposite.
I agree with the question, but the answer is unknowable at this time. If we surrender by cutting and running, then the world is MUCH MUCH less safe. However, if there is ultimate victory in Iraq, I believe the world will be safer in the long run. They are going to attack as long as they are alive and can keep recruiting. A stable democracy in Iraq would demoralize them.
That program was blown to pieces by the Israelis. Active production of weapons-grade plutonium and activities associated with such a project are easily detectable, as is the case with N. Korea and Iran. What's the point of lying?
Thanks to Clinton, the DPRK got NINE free years of development without our knowledge, until now it is too late. They have it, and will never let it go. I hope Bush doesn't fall for this latest absurdity of paying them off with fuel oil. That is another joke.
But what was suggested is that somehow the program has "advanced" to the "imminent threat" level.
The suggestion was actually that Iraq was on a path of inevitability, and I think that was correct. The madmen leading the Axis of Evil will never stop developing weapons technology unless forced to.
Yet the UN inspections, and intelligence reports were not as certain as politicians.
I suppose we disagree on how much weight should be accorded to UN inspection reports.
In September 2002, the International Institute for Strategical Studies (IISS), which calls itself the "world's leading authority on political military conflicts," said...
From what I could find, the IISS is nothing more than a private British think tank, like the Heritage Foundation is here. You showed that their findings were hyped to the public, but I don't see any evidence that there was actual reliance on them. Governments have their own independent data that can't be made public. Quoting think tanks is a PR move. Maybe it's unsavory, but in today's world it appears that wars must be "sold" to the public.
Bush and Blair have both suffered tremendous political losses as a result of this war. I still haven't heard a credible argument as to how it would benefit either of them to manufacture the war on false pretenses. War for oil doesn't cut it. I don't think the Islamists hated Britain nearly as much as they hated the U.S. and Israel. What was the threat to Britain's oil supply? As I said before, anyone can buy it on the open market.
So, it is clear who was doing the lying for our side, and we didn't stop him. The urgency and even panic situation was being created deliberately and without despite facts on the ground to the contrary, by various "analysts" and emigre groups.
I'm sure there were politically based "facts" flying around on all sides. Bush was convinced that regime change was in our interests, so why would he question the rhetoric of a like-minded ally?
Yet it was precisely the hysteria created that cut short the mandated Blix inspections which were to end several month later. In other words, the inspections could have been completed in time prescribed, and there was no need to go for a predetermined invasion date.
I am sure that Bush and Blair were convinced, as I was at the time, that the Blix-led inspections were a sham. It made no difference whether the inspections were ever "completed" or not. No weapons would have been found, regardless. Saddam obstructed them from the beginning, and Blix and company thought that was just fine. They just kept negotiating. Again, this was the failure of the hard left to recognize evil for what it was and is.
But, my theory is that we knew very well that Saddam had nothing, and that Blix's inspections would reveal that he had nothing, and would not give us the casus belli we were looking for, so we decided to cut the UN inspections lest they rob us of an opportunity to launch the war everyone was itching for. I am sure the neocons and everyone up the chain knew that there was nothing in saddam's arsenal all along.
If you agree that Saddam was a madman dictator, then what is your theory to explain Saddam's unilateral and SECRET disarming? Iraq was getting really hurt with sanctions at the time. All Saddam had to do was say, "hey come on in and look anywhere you want, we disarmed all by ourselves in the interests of world peace", etc. Yet, according to you, Saddam chose the sanctions in order to protect a weapons program he didn't have!!! AY CARAMBA! :)
It's a poor choice of words and a poor counter-argument because it has nothing to do with the Holocaust. In fact it degrades it. You are mixing apples and oranges.
It was a good choice of words because denying Middle East terrorism is to ignore the facts to the same degree that Holocaust deniers do. While the Holocaust was certainly on an incomparable scale (to date, that is), both it and terrorism are centered on murdering innocent civilians.
It was precisely the formation of Israel that provoked instability (ethnic cleansing and Palestinian refugee problem) and retaliatory Arab terrorism which hasn't stopped to this date. ...
Your quote that I was reacting to with my Holocaust comment was the following:
"There was no terrorism or instability in the Middle East. The only terrorism that existed after 1945 was Israeli terror tactics against the British there."
You said stable Middle East and no terrorism, except for the Israelis. That denies common knowledge. Now you appear to acknowledge Arab terrorism, but only as retaliation. I like to ask this of people with your view: What do you think would happen if magically, all weapons above a machine gun suddenly disappeared from Israel and its Arab neighbors? Would Israel SEEK to launch a major offensive to take over the whole region? Or, would most of the Arab countries SEEK to drive the Jews into the sea? I know the answer for certain. The only side that doesn't recognize the other's right to exist is the Arab side. Arabs don't want to relocate the Jews so they can reclaim "their" land. No, they simply want to KILL all Jews. That's a big reason why I oppose Israel's enemies.
Yes, Saddam kept Iran in check and he kept the various factions in Iraq in check.
LOL! Yeah, Saddam sure kept the Iraqi factions in check alright. All he did was torture and murder all dissenters AND their families. WAY TO GO Saddam! Do you really want to keep defending this guy? I don't know if that is what you are really trying to do, but it sure sounds like it.
How was it lessoned? Now we have al Qaida in Iraq whereas before there was none. Hussein's subsidizing of terrorists went as far as Palestinian entefada uprising against Israel. It's the same as the aid being pumped to the Palestinian "martyrs" by Saudi Arabia. It was never directed at us.
The intent of the Islamists to destroy Israel and the U.S. [sic] was solidly there well before the Iraq War, or even 9/11
I have not been aware that Islamic radicals planned on destroying the US. Where did you get that information? Again, Iraq had no connection with al Qaida, which actually launched an attack on us. Removing Saddam could not have diminished al Qaida's desire to hurt us and did not diminish the threat that they might try because there was no such connection.
However, if there is ultimate victory in Iraq
I remember the Vietnam war and there were diehards like you (and in those days like me) who argued the same impossibility...It's not that we were ever defeated outright on the battlefield, but we lost the war the way the French won in Algiers but lost the political war at home and abroad. We only prolonged the agony and wasted many lives in order to save face, which we lost in the end the hard way.
Thanks to Clinton, the DPRK got NINE free years of development without our knowledge, until now it is too late
Which brings up an excellent point: politicians are not liable. They enjoy immunity and any damage they incur through sheer stupidity or even carelessness costs them nothing. They retire, sell memoirs and live happily until they go to hell. trouble is, they drag an awful lot of people with them. Responsible government is accountable for its actions, the way responsible professionals carry liability and can be brought on charges of negligence. Clinton's kangaroo impeachment was an excellent example of how immune, and what real chameleons the politicians truly are. Do not forget that Clinton could not have gotten off the hook for lying under oath were it not for willing Republicans voting to protect their privileges as Congressmen regardless of party affiliation.
The suggestion was actually that Iraq was on a path of inevitability
That is hardly a justification for war. Suggestions are just that. Hard evidence of inevitability would be signs of troop movements, missile launchers being activated, radar "paintings" of potential targets, etc.
I suppose we disagree on how much weight should be accorded to UN inspection reports
The UN inspections had a mandate and we pressed for them in 2002. When it became obvious that WMDs did not exist the neocons and the bush administration realized that the UN will never approve going into Iraq. Something had to be done, even if circumventing the UN, to make sure the UN inspectors do not confirm absence of all the conjectures and lies about them: pre-emptive strike based on conjecture and cooked up evidence.
Powell's disastrous demonstration in the UN showed that the UN was not willing to rubber-stand our request to invade another country that was no threat to us, its regime's distasteful dictator notwithstanding. When this test failed, it was clear we would have to "go it alone" and before the UN inspections were completed.
From what I could find, the IISS is nothing more than a private British think tank, like the Heritage Foundation is here. You showed that their findings were hyped to the public, but I don't see any evidence that there was actual reliance on them
Public hype was the number one aim because the key to going to Iraq was no longer a UN SC resolution authorizing force (which we would never get based on available evidence), but convincing the American and British people that, already sacred to death by 9/11, that Iraq was an growing imminent threat. The aim was to sell the story to the American people and get Congressional approval. Thus all the hype they could muster was the main propaganda staple, completely dismissing facts, but relying on pure speculations and scare tactics.
Bush and Blair have both suffered tremendous political losses as a result of this war
Actually, it affected their careers next to nothing.
I still haven't heard a credible argument as to how it would benefit either of them to manufacture the war on false pretenses
Not them, Israel. Saddam was a nuisance for the Israelis only, with his support for the Palestinian suicide bombers. The lying emigre groups with Chalaby at the helm managed to convince the naive and the stupid that the Iraqis would be welcoming Americans and their Christian allies as liberators (of course that was a perfect example of taqquiya or legitimate lying Muslims can exercise to deceive the infidel in order to gain upper hand), and the idea of controlling such vast oil reserves and the geoplitical significance of that to us and the region was intioxicatingly attractive, especially in view of the fact that it would place Saudi Arabia in a subservniant position.
Bush was convinced that regime change was in our interests, so why would he question the rhetoric of a like-minded ally?
Regime change was not our reason to go to war. It was an after-thought strategy concocted after WMDs proved to be non-existent.
If you agree that Saddam was a madman dictator, then what is your theory to explain Saddam's unilateral and SECRET disarming?
He didn't disarm. There were some old weapons left from previous war with Iran and Gulf war that deteriorated. The "tonnes" of anthrax and other biological weapons were concoctions of Iraqi emigres without a shred of evidence. As Deufer's (sp?) report indicated in October 2006, 'just about everything' about Iraq the public was made aware of was untrue.
While the Holocaust was certainly on an incomparable scale (to date, that is), both it and terrorism are centered on murdering innocent civilians
Casual comparisons to the Holocaust are a poor choice because they diminish the horror of the Holocaust.
You said stable Middle East and no terrorism, except for the Israelis,..
...against the British...you forgot or left out that part. The British left Palestine in 1948. Therefore my statement was not open-ended. But, apparently you don't know the history, and you didn't botherto check the facts before firing back.
Palestine was stable. The only instability came from the Israelis settling the region illegally and resorting to terror tactics against the British authorities there, both military and civilian. Examples that come to mind are the bombing of the King David Hotel by Irgun in 1946, and the killing of over 90 people there, civilians included; or the assassination of Lord Moyne, British Deputy Resident Minister of State, by the Lehi organization, aka the Stern Gang in 1944.
The Irgun, by the way, was a terrorist organization and its remnants have morphed into a political party known as Likud (Ariel Sharon's party). Former Israeli PM ( 1977-1983)Menchaim Begin was an active member and the head of the Irgun between 1943-1948, and took part in its terrorist activities and carried command responsibility for its atrocities but was never tried.
The two gangs were actively involved in ethnic cleansing of large areas the UN designated areas where future Arab (Palestinian) and Jewish states were to be formed. Without such ethnic rearrangement of population (the major cause of the Palestinian 60-year refugee problem in neighboring Arab states), Israel could not have become a viable state and proclaim independence in violation of the UN Charter.
This is pure verifiable history and not a denial, certainly nothing even comparable to the Holocaust denials.
Yeah, Saddam sure kept the Iraqi factions in check alright. All he did was torture and murder all dissenters AND their families
We certainly thought so, when Rumsfeld provided him with weapons needed to fight Iranians and keep Kurds and Shiites in check, when we knew he was getting and using chemical weapons and did nothing to stop him. When we needed him, we looked the other way, then got outraged retroactively when he was no longer "our thug." The same was the case with Romania's Causcescu, making him the recipient of our aid and financial support, even though his human rights violations were an abomination. The list of Latin American dictators ala Pinochet and South Korean generals, or Haiti's Papa Doc and numerous others we used is impressive. Funny, when they were doing good things for us, their inhumanity didn't bother us the least, like the case of Taliban which we helped arm.