Unfortunately, while we had a huge coalition together in 1991, all set and ready for Clinton, he had allowed it to fall into disarray by 1994 when we found wholesale violation of the ceasefire agreement. We ignored Turkey, and let its pro-U.S. Government begin its fall to Islamacists - this in particular caused much of the problem we are facing in Iraq today.
Do you know why Osama Bin Laden says we are his enemy? Because in defending Saudi Arabia, we, as non-Muslims defiled it by our feet being on the soil. He didn't care what we did while there. Our simple existence was intollerable. His demand? That we - and all non-Muslim nations - completely disengage from the Muslim world.
These enemies do not hate you because of what you, or I, or George W. Bush have done. They hate you because you are not Muslim, and are infuriated that the Islamic nations are not the dominant ones. I feel unprotected.
And yet every attempted terrorist attack on us in the U.S. since 2001 has been thwarted.
Most of all I feel alienated from my fellow citizens, because I don't understand what you are thinking. You voted for a man who started a war in Iraq for no reason, against the wishes of the entire world.
Hardly true on any number of counts.
In 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait, and showed every sign of intending to go into Saudi Arabia as well. An unprescedentedly huge coalition was formed. The United Nations even issued what amounts to a war decree. The U.S. Congress overwhelmingly voted to authorize military force (As an aside, Senator Kerry voted against this anyways). Hussein was told to remove Iraqi forces from Kuwait or face attack. Hussein refused to withdraw, and so the attack began.
The battles were so one-sided that immense pressure was put on the United States to halt the attacks.
Soon thereafter, that it's government be permitted to remain in power, Iraq agreed to a cease-fire which required Iraq to declare its inventories of various weapon types, and further to demonstrate to monitors that it was dismantling various weapons programs in a verifiable manner in the presence of those monitors.
That's a "cease-fire." A cease-fire is a conditional, temporary cessation of hostilities. Every time the Iraqis targeted on of our planes they were violating the cease-fire. When the Iraqi government turned one of the worlds largest marshes into that dust-bowl of a desert you saw our troops driving through, in order to commit genocide upon the Marsh Arabs (a 5,000 year old culture) who lived there, they were violating the cease-fire. Every time the Iraqi government refused inspectors access, they were violating the cease-fire. ...And when they failed to turn over their weapons stockpiles, they were violating the cease-fire.
At first, our response was to increase sanctions, and then we had a change in President. The coalition began to fall apart, until when, in 1994, the United Nations was about to give Iraq a clean bill of health on its WMD programs - but were stopped only when one of Husseins relatives told us where the stuff was, and the inspection team found immense quantities. There is no excuse for Hussein not being removed then and there, but he was given yet another chance, and more resolutions came and sanctions were tightened further.
Now Hussein sat as a hero: Overseeing the legacy of the Nazis (the Ba'ath party is a *Pan-Arab* party which began in Damascus, Syria under Nazi sponsorship in 1941 - though some sources place it as late as 1946 when it claimed its current name, it had the same leadership), and killing large numbers of his own people, he had successfully thumbed his nose at the United States and the United Nations. Hussein was now becoming a symbol of defiance, and of power among Arabs, and he was cementing his alliances with donations to various terrorist groups. Abu Nidal now called Iraq home, and Osama Bin Laden was investigating accepting Iraq's invitation if things didn't work out with the Taliban.
By 1995, the outcry against the sanctions grew with the propaganda that Iraq - a uniquely self-sufficient Arab nation - was suffering hundreds of thousands of deaths due to them, and in 1996, the U.S. Began to put pressure on the U.N. to not investigate anything that might lead us to find more violations. So, in 1996, the Oil for Food program began, and Hussein used it to fund arms purchases and a bribery scheme that spread BILLIONS of dollars among governments susceptible to them. By 1999, the sanctions were effectively gone, and France had negotiated huge preferential oil deals for when the sanctions were formally ended. As late as early 2003, French munitions were still being sold to Iraq, and used to shoot at our planes. Regional governments had ceased supporting us because the last time we had come in and not finished the job, making it more advantageous to oppose us than it was to support us and risk being left with an irate, but still-in-power Hussein.
By 2003, the U.N. had issued 16 resolutions demanding Iraq comply with the terms of the cease-fire. By law, they needn't have issued any, nor even within the U.N.s world did we require any further authorization in order to enforce the terms of the broken cease-fire. The word and threats of the U.S. To follow through lay in tatters. The U.N. Had turned its own decrees into a joke. The U.N. made another edict - unanimously - and promised serious consequences if Iraq failed to comply - but Iraq had an ace up its sleeve: Its ally (yes, ally) France had informed Hussein not to worry about a United States enforcement, as they would keep us tied up in the United Nations indefinitely. We did try to work within the United Nations, but when France told us that no matter what the circumstance they would veto any (reauthorization of) use of force against Iraq, it was over.
During the time we tried diplomacy, two men in a cargo van, at only six barrels a day could have moved the entirety of what Secretary of State Powell said Iraq had for WMDs from any point in Iraq with roads to any other point three times over. As has become clear in the run-up to the election, the United Nations had not been enforcing the destruction of materials needed for production of nuclear warheads, and further, had not even kept track of where it was, giving such divergent statements as 350 tons of HMX and RDX compared to 3 three tons in other places.
You voted for a man whose lack of foresight and inability to plan has led to massive insurgencies in Iraq,
The reason you think it massive, is that you hear about every...single...one...on television and in the papers. If there was similar reporting on simple traffic accidents for say, just the state of New York, you'd likely get the impression that there wouldn't be anyone left alive after a year or two.
To the extent that things went wrong, two stand out: The collapse of Iraqi forces took nearly two months less than expected, and so there was a gap in the arrival of follow-on supplies. One can hardly complain that the Administration is at fault for not expecting a miracle.
The other problem was with Turkey. In failing to attain pass-through rights with Turkey, whereas we had met and destroyed the hordes of nut cases in the south as they segregated themselves out and threw themselves at us, we left the nut cases in the north and west of Baghdad a means to survive. By and large, these constitute most of the native Iraqi resistance. The reason that we failed to attain those rights from Turkey was because we had neglected our relationship for nearly a decade, and the favorable government which had been there lost its power to a more Islamist one.
where weapons are disappearing into the hands of terrorists.
Do you have any idea how much weaponry Iraq had? The United States has about 1.6 million tons of ammunition and explosives. Iraq had about a million. We keep the bulk of ours in a few dozen places. Iraq not only kept theirs very dispersed after the first part of the Gulf war, but they were given another 6 months to disperse it further, even to the extent of building it into the walls of houses, while we played around in the U.N.
You voted for a man who let Osama Bin Laden escape into the hills of Afghanistan so that he could start that war in Iraq.
This also is insupportable...on both accounts. We did not ever know where Osama Bin Laden was - even to the country - at that time, and at no time were the number of troops in Afghanistan reduced. Further, the initial overthrow of the Taliban was done in exactly the same way as the Tora Bora campaign, except that we had far more American troops in Tora Bora.
By the way, I think you mean *mountains* of *Pakistan.* The Himalayas are not hills, and that we were able to fight in Afghanistan at all - much less that part of it - without losing tens of thousands is widely considered amazing, and in historical context is one of the most astounding accomplishments in military history. No one had done it since Alexander the Great, and he took much longer. Where we were fighting in Tora Bora was an area that the Soviets could never even establish a permanent base., and only occasionally could even get troops in there without being slaughtered. The Presidents opponents were complaining Afghanistan was a "quagmire" before the fires were even out in the rubble of the World Trade Centers.
You voted for a man who doesn't want to let people love who they want to love;
What the heck are you talking about? If you are talking about "gay marriage", that's about the government giving people and forcing companies to give benefits for people to raise children, who cannot possibly make children, and have no need to stay home. You can argue yourself whether it's appropriate to make these allowances for those that might not have children, but that's a whole other argument.
doesn't want to let doctors cure their patients;
Again, what you are talking about is pretty unclear.
doesn't want to let women rule their destinies.
Again, what you are talking about is pretty unclear - though at the least, it is wholly contradictory to your earlier complaints in regards the Muslim world.
Assuming you are talking about the subject in the second debate about federal funding for abortion, and about Partial Birth Abortion, I'll address what Senator Kerry said about them.
First, while Senator Kerry said he feels that life begins at conception, and that he personally opposes abortion, he argued that he supports forcing other people to pay for an abortion that they abhor.
Second, his argument that he opposed the PBA, and went to great lengths to vote against it, because it doesn't contain exceptions for the health of the mother relies wholly on people not knowing what Partial Birth Abortion is. Partial Birth Abortion is a practice that is so barbaric that even many chapters of NOW oppose it. The idea that PBAs are ever done for the health of the mother reflects a lack of understanding of what the procedure is. PBA was not designed for medical interests. It was designed specifically to evade legal definitions of "birth" and therefore infanticide. PBA is done on well-developed late-term babies, that are thus far enough along that normal abortion procedures are ineffective. To begin the procedure, labor is induced, and the mother goes through all of the same dangers of giving birth at that time. As the baby crowns, it is physically prevented from coming out of the birth canal, and is held inside the mothers body while the baby is turned around. The body is allowed to exit, but the head is kept inside until the baby can be killed via surgical implements. Why is the baby actively killed? Because it is "viable" at that time PBAs are done. Why is the head kept inside? Because if the head exits the mother, by law, it is now protected as a child, but as long as the head is kept inside, abortion laws apply.
I don't understand why you voted for this man. For me, it is not enough that he is personable; it is not enough that he seems like one of the guys. Why did you vote for him?
Why did you elect a man that lied to us in order to convince us to go to war?
Name the lie. Was there any notable argument that President Bush made that President Clinton, Vice President Gore, and Senator Kerry had not made in regards Iraq? Every intelligence agency in the world believed Hussein had WMDs, and in fact, it has been shown that Iraq had dozens of weapon types in violation to the cease-fire agreements, and had HUNDREDS of illegal weapons programs. By the way...during the 1990s the United Nations inspectors put their hands on tons upon tons of WMDs which were not destroyed by the time inspectors were thrown out of Iraq. Where did they go? No guesses. Prove it.
(Ten years ago you were incensed when our president lied about his sex life; you thought it was an impeachable offense.)
No. President Clinton lied about whether he was hiring, firing, and promoting women within government service - or having this done on his behalf - based upon whether they would have sex with him, consentually or not, and using the powers of his office to intimidate and punish witnesses. An aside was his granting secure area access to women who would "put out."
Clinton's behavior, and our tolerence of it, by the way, are major arguments the Islamacists use to paint us as too decadent to be allowed to survive. Ones that even moderate Muslims apparently find difficulty refuting.
Why did you elect a leader who thinks that strength cannot include diplomacy or international cooperation?
Apparently you didn't notice us playing around at the U.N. in the leadup to the second part of the Gulf War. Apparently you didn't notice the cooperation with Pakistan, and with numerous other regional nations who allowed us to base our planes and troops. Apparently you also haven't noticed that we do have multiple countries, including some Muslim ones helping us track down Al Queda, despite what they say publicly. Apparently you also haven't noticed that while the French government openly takes pot shots at us, that its intelligence services are now working with us.
France has openly had a policy for decades of opposing the United States in order to get us to defer to them, and to seek their particular assent. It is part of a power-trip on thier part, as they have become so hollow then have little more to use to assert themselves beyond knee-jerk opposition. Frances *goal* is to undermine us and our interests. This is not new. It is a large part of why they were not part of NATO for decades, and even now are only a kibbitzing member.
By the way, were you paying attention when during all of this France invaded the Ivory Coast without either United Nations, nor international approval of any kind? Nobody blinked. The United Nations is by and large composed of tyrants and despots, and generally has very different interests from those of the United States. Is France your standard? We certainly had a much larger coalition than France did.
Why did you elect a man who did nothing except run away and hide on September 11?"
This is just plain silly. What good would it do to have our Commander-in-Chief killed, as opposed to going to a command center where he could be briefed on what was going on and issue commands? This wasn't something he did on the spur of the moment. This is something that is a standard response, and has been in place in one form or another for decades. Even Senator Kerry ran out of the Capitol, though he wasn't going anywhere. One of the mess-ups that day was Rumsfeld going from his office when the plane struck the Pentagon, in order to help deal with the disaster personally, but where he was out of contact.
Are you terrified? I don't think you are. I don't think you realize what you have done. And if anything happens to me or the people I love, I blame you. I wanted you to know that.
The Islamacists counted on us being too emotionally weak to defend ourselves. Hussein counted on the French being able to keep us tied up in knots in the U.N. and therefore unable to follow through. Those you oppose have kept you safe. Blame us? Go ahead. We can take it. We understand responsibility.