Posted on 06/22/2014 10:48:17 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
ormer Vice President Dick Cheney fired back Sunday after Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) criticized his position on Iraq. In an appearance on ABC's "This Week," Cheney argued Paul, who is widely seen as a potential presidential candidate in 2016, is an "isolationist" who doesn't understand the "absolutely essential" need for America to be involved in the Middle East.
"Now, Rand Paul and — by my standards, as I look at his — his philosophy, is basically an isolationist. That didn't work in the 1930s, it sure as heck won't work in the aftermath of 9/11, when 19 guys armed with airline tickets and box cutters came all the way from Afghanistan and killed 3,000 of our citizens," Cheney said, according to a rush transcript of the show.
Paul addressed Cheney's position on Iraq in an interview with NBC that aired on "Meet The Press" Sunday. In that interview, Paul critiqued a Wall Street Journal op-ed written by Cheney and his daughter, Liz, that was critical of President Barack Obama's foreign policy and handling of the crisis in Iraq. The Cheneys said Obama's "rhetoric" about ending the Iraq War had "come crashing into reality" after troop withdrawals were followed by jihadists from the group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) taking territory in the country. Paul argued Cheney and others who supported the Iraq War were primarily to blame for many of the current issues in the Middle East.
"What’s going on now — I don’t blame on President Obama. Has he really got the solution? Maybe there is no solution. But I do blame the Iraq War on the chaos that is in the Middle East," Paul said. "I also blame those who are for the Iraq War for emboldening Iran.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
If this quote is accurate, I really wonder about Paul's syntax. Is he using present tense when he means to use past? Is he sequencing historic events chronologically or according to some Lew Rockwell formula?
As much as I respect Dick Cheney events have shown that Saddam was maybe the least worst option from the US perspective. I cannot help but believe that Dick was the driving force in that adventure. Dick not accepting his own culpability in this destroys his argument.
G. Sr had the wisdom to override Powell and not remove Saddam when he had his chance.
I really used to like Dick Cheney, but that was back in the days when I actually trusted the Federal government. Now, I know that the Federal government has been rotten and corrupt for a long time.
G. Sr had the wisdom to override Powell and not remove Saddam when he had his chance.
I think Powell wanted to withdraw, not take Baghdad and remove Sadam.
Paul has an odd way of running as a Republican for POTUS. Support Obama and trash Bush.
I’ve often wondered if the difference between George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush was that the elder one carried some wisdom from flying combat missions in World War II and getting shot down on a mission over the Bonin Islands in the Pacific Ocean.
...and Head of CIA and a lot of State Department experience. Sr. knew how the world turns.
My memory says just the opposite.
Your memory is probably better than mine.
...and Head of CIA and a lot of State Department experience. Sr. knew how the world turns.
Yep, into the “New World Order”.
Right now, the place I’d choose to be in the Middle East, other than Israel, would be Kurdistan, courtesy of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney who overthrew Sadaam after G.H. W. Bush and Powell allowed him to gas them.
William J. Clinton
Statement on Signing the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998
October 31, 1998
Today I am signing into law H.R. 4655, the “Iraq Liberation Act of 1998.” This Act makes clear that it is the sense of the Congress that the United States should support those elements of the Iraqi opposition that advocate a very different future for Iraq than the bitter reality of internal repression and external aggression that the current regime in Baghdad now offers.
Let me be clear on what the U.S. objectives are:
The United States wants Iraq to rejoin the family of nations as a freedom-loving and lawabiding member. This is in our interest and that of our allies within the region.
The United States favors an Iraq that offers its people freedom at home. I categorically reject arguments that this is unattainable due to Iraq’s history or its ethnic or sectarian makeup. Iraqis deserve and desire freedom like everyone else.
The United States looks forward to a democratically supported regime that would permit us to enter into a dialogue leading to the reintegration of Iraq into normal international life.
My Administration has pursued, and will continue to pursue, these objectives through active application of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions. The evidence is overwhelming that such changes will not happen under the current Iraq leadership.
In the meantime, while the United States continues to look to the Security Council’s efforts to keep the current regime’s behavior in check, we look forward to new leadership in Iraq that has the support of the Iraqi people. The United States is providing support to opposition groups from all sectors of the Iraqi community that could lead to a popularly supported government.
A Paul wrong on foreign policy, imagine that!
Thanks.
Sorry Dick. I used to like you when I believed in you. Now I see I was duped. Iraq was not worth all the lives, limbs, brains, and money we WASTED there.
“We’re almost there”.
“Just a little bit longer”.
“Just a few thousand more troops”.
“We must maintain security while we nation build”.
“We just need this last SURGE”.
“We just need a little more time to train Iraqi soldiers”.
Meanwhile,
4487 U.S troops killed,
32,223 wounded,
Percent of U.S. soldiers wounded with serious brain or
spinal injuries 20 %
Total percentage of U.S. soldiers who served in Iraq War who developed serious mental health problems within 4 months of returning home 30 %
1 TRILLION dollars wasted.
And Dick, you want to get us involved in Iraq again?
The only way I would get involved anywhere in the Middle East again is dropping nuclear bombs from stealth aircraft.
Obama has been in charge for four and a half years now. Blaming Bush will not improve anything. A coherent policy is what is needed.
In Chaney’s defense, he stated if we went in alone, which we didn’t in 2003.
Exactly!
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