Posted on 05/19/2004 1:22:00 PM PDT by aft_lizard
With 760 dead in Iraq and over 3,000 maimed for life, home folks continue to argue why we are in Iraq -- and how to get out.
Now everyone knows what was not the cause. Even President Bush acknowledges that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. Listing the 45 countries where al-Qaida was operating on September 11 (70 cells in the U.S.), the State Department did not list Iraq. Richard Clarke, in "Against All Enemies," tells how the United States had not received any threat of terrorism for 10 years from Saddam at the time of our invasion.
On Page 231, John McLaughlin of the CIA verifies this to Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. In 1993, President Clinton responded to Saddam's attempt on the life of President George H.W. Bush by putting a missile down on Saddam's intelligence headquarters in Baghdad. Not a big kill, but Saddam got the message -- monkey around with the United States and a missile lands on his head. Of course there were no weapons of mass destruction. Israel's intelligence, Mossad, knows what's going on in Iraq. They are the best. They have to know.
Israel's survival depends on knowing. Israel long since would have taken us to the weapons of mass destruction if there were any or if they had been removed. With Iraq no threat, why invade a sovereign country? The answer: President Bush's policy to secure Israel.
Led by Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Charles Krauthammer, for years there has been a domino school of thought that the way to guarantee Israel's security is to spread democracy in the area. Wolfowitz wrote: "The United States may not be able to lead countries through the door of democracy, but where that door is locked shut by a totalitarian deadbolt, American power may be the only way to open it up." And on another occasion: Iraq as "the first Arab democracy ... would cast a very large shadow, starting with Syria and Iran but across the whole Arab world." Three weeks before the invasion, President Bush stated: "A new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example for freedom for other nations in the region."
Every president since 1947 has made a futile attempt to help Israel negotiate peace. But no leadership has surfaced amongst the Palestinians that can make a binding agreement. President Bush realized his chances at negotiation were no better. He came to office imbued with one thought -- re-election. Bush felt tax cuts would hold his crowd together and spreading democracy in the Mideast to secure Israel would take the Jewish vote from the Democrats. You don't come to town and announce your Israel policy is to invade Iraq. But George W. Bush, as stated by former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and others, started laying the groundwork to invade Iraq days after inauguration. And, without any Iraq connection to 9/11, within weeks he had the Pentagon outlining a plan to invade Iraq. He was determined.
President Bush thought taking Iraq would be easy. Wolfowitz said it would take only seven days. Vice President Cheney believed we would be greeted as liberators. But Cheney's man, Chalabi, made a mess of the de-Baathification of Iraq by dismissing Republican Guard leadership and Sunni leaders who soon joined with the insurgents. Worst of all, we tried to secure Iraq with too few troops.
In 1966 in South Vietnam, with a population of 16,543,000, Gen. William C. Westmoreland, with 535,000 U.S. troops was still asking for more. In Iraq with a population of 24,683,000, Gen. John Abizaid with only 135,000 troops can barely secure the troops much less the country. If the troops are there to fight, they are too few. If there to die, they are too many. To secure Iraq we need more troops -- at least 100,000 more. The only way to get the United Nations back in Iraq is to make the country secure. Once back, the French, Germans and others will join with the U.N. to take over.
With President Bush's domino policy in the Mideast gone awry, he keeps shouting, "Terrorism War." Terrorism is a method, not a war. We don't call the Crimean War with the Charge of the Light Brigade the Cavalry War. Or World War II the Blitzkrieg War. There is terrorism in Northern Ireland against the Brits. There is terrorism in India and in Pakistan. In the Mideast, terrorism is a separate problem to be defeated by diplomacy and negotiation, not militarily. Here, might does not make right -- right makes might. Acting militarily, we have created more terrorism than we have eliminated.
If these Cretins represent the Republican party then I feel a reverse-Regan impulse coming over me ... I'm not leaving the Republican Party, it's leaving me.
> WETA wasted a lot of money bringing Gollum
> to life through CGI.
LOL, there is a striking resemblance.
Maybe they didn't want the Klansman baggage damaging their PR.
He likely should borrow some of Ketchup Boy's Botox, too.
I don't know any neurologists but I do know one ticked off pyschologist by the name of Charles Krauthammer.
Wow two newbie in a row.
Neocon bump?
LOL, Charles Krauthammer a neocon?? He has been a Republican for over 20 years.
Lord, this idiot has pontificated destructively and played destructive DC games long enough.
Please remove him from public life and shut his face decisively from any nearby microphones or print media.
In Jesus' Name.
LOL- He might as well have said that he did not give a shit for Israel's security.
A Silver-back S.C. Senator trying to incite a base that is already black, increasingly Muslim and prone to urban legend.
Imagine Robert Byrd in his Grand Dragon robes and old Fritz in his Waffen SS uniform...and Kennedy in a Nazi sink the Bismark official uniform.
This is why a large part of the Senate sucks. The Democrats are acting like cornered RATS with dementia.
Do you think this printed rascism will be noted on the news.
I think the Jewish ADF needs to denounce him publically.
I want to know when Jews became safe political targets again, joining Christians and conservatives.
It is not clear to me exactly how Saddam threatened Israel really. He clearly threatened US interests, and his own citizens, and was a mass killer. But to the extent Hollings is even partially right, however de minimus, isn't that a delightful bonus?
Hollings seems to be falling into the trap, that if the US puts the screws on Israel, the Arab militants will be housebroken and leave the US and its interests alone. That comes under the heading of an unsubstantiated leap of faith.
In any event, Hollings doesn't seem to give a damn about the presence of evil on this planet, or the duty of the US to the extent prudent and practicable, to oppose it. I think Hollings is morally challenged on that point, and dissent from his truncated moral compass. JMO.
Thank you, thank you! I'm here til Thursday. Try the veal - it's delish!
If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.
Unless he has misrepresented the views of any of these three men, there's nothing wrong or anti-Jewish about his statement. Let's not fall into the liberal mentality of "to criticize the views of particular black people is to be anti-black."
That statement really makes my blood boil!
Oh that's funny. Then why does he only list Jews? Do you think only Jews are pro-Israel? Give me a break.
Which non-Jews were as prominent as the men he listed in pushing for war with Iraq?
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