Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin are mad Trump didn't shoot first and ask questions later

Washington Examiner ^ | June 24 2019 | Jack Hunter

[rintintin]

The American Conservative Editor Jim Antle writes, "Thursday night was the night Donald Trump became president. You can imagine the hyperbolic hosannahs that would have been sung if Trump had gone ahead with his planned strikes against Iran, adding to the list of undeclared presidential wars. Instead he pulled back."

“Hyperbolic hosannahs,” indeed. Who might have led this pro-war chorus?

Conservative pundits Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin.

When President Trump decided not to strike after being informed it could potentially kill 150 civilians, he explained on Twitter, “10 minutes before the strike I stopped it, not ... proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone.”

A disappointed Shapiro tweeted in reply, “Disproportionate response to attacks on US assets are a good way of showing our enemies that we will mash them if they continue to escalate. The US doesn’t want war. You know who doesn’t want war even more? The ayatollahs who will find themselves quite dead if war occurs.”

In other words, “mash” them to show these pesky foreign countries we mean business, because such strategic military intervention including regime change has always worked out so well for us in the past (Thanks again, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton).

[Bob434]

[[Am I the only one who remembers saddam turned away inspectors and many of his generals thought they had nuke program]]

No you are not- While he was turning away inspectors, he was stalling for time- and everyone knew it- He was moving weapons out during that period- the msm knew it- but of course would never admit it!

The funny thing is, had this war been launched by clinton instead of bush, later, the msm would be supporting clinton 100%, and never had lied and made crap up like they did with bush-

[Bob434]

[[ My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! ]]

I think Saddam really felt that coudl have been written of him

[[ My name is Saddam, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!]]

[sparklite2]

He was turning away inspectors so they would not see that he did NOT have the bomb. It was theater on Hussein’s part to give the illusion of being a nuclear power. He wanted to be the strong man in the region.

[LS]

Yet the UN itself said he had WMDs. All his frontline soldiers had chem/bio suits.

No, the evidence for going in was 1000:1. Even if the one was right, ANY president would have gone in under similar circumstances. You couldn’t afford not to.

[Bob434]

Yeah sure- Israel bombed his nuclear facility- fearing he was in process of created a bomb- This was not theater- Everyone knew he had wmd’s- We found wmd’s- and it’s almost 100 Certainty he moved wmd’s before we could find them- troops on the ground stated they were doing so- but could never get proof- Sorry- but I’m not going to believe the lying conservative hating msm on any of this- the only redeeming fact they laid out was to later admit that yes, there really were wmd’s found- but they did their damnedest to try to downplay it-

[fortheDeclaration]

It is always easier to start a war then to end one.

[Pelham]

“Even the NYT’s admitted they had wmd’s”

And what did the NY Times writers claim that these WMDs were?

For a year Dubya had the 1,000 man Iraq Survey Group inspect Iraq for evidence of WMDs. The only ones that they found were chemical artillery shells manufactured prior to Gulf War I.

The laboratories for nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons were all dilapidated and showed no evidence of having been used for years.

This is all in the Duelfer Report, the final report of the Iraq Survey Group commissioned by Dubya. Dubya has publicly accepted it as accurate. It’s been available online for years. No one reads it.

[Bob434]

[[No, the evidence for going in was 1000:1. Even if the one was right, ANY president would have gone in under similar circumstances. You couldn’t afford not to.]]

Exactly- and again- We had just been attacked, and Bush stated that ANY nation that harbors, trains or helps arm terrorists WILL be considered valid targets as they are a threat to world peace- Saddam, while not directly linked to 9/11 that we could find, WAS directly linked to housing, arming and training other terrorists at that time- This is also the reason we went into Afghanistan- because they were housing , training, and arming terrorists- The ‘axis of evil- as Bush put it- and it was to send a powerful clear message to the increasingly hostile middle east that we are not going to stand for it!

There were several valid reasons for the war- this was one of them-

[sparklite2]

If there was anything to be found, it had already been trucked away to the Bekaa Valley before we attacked them. There were aerial photos of the truck convoys.

“But intelligence sources said the Syrians kept dual-use nuclear components for themselves while transferring the more incriminating material to Lebanon.”

https://www.wnd.com/2004/05/24713/#IyDToDzTzLZRfgWQ.99

[Bob434]

[[The laboratories for nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons were all dilapidated and showed no evidence of having been used for years.]]

Yeah, this is why Saddams own people had and used chemical suits- because their chemical weapons of mass destruction were so ineffective-

Look- everyone knows He shipped wmd’s out of his country- stalled the inspectors while he did so- people on the ground there knew it was happening- His own people knew it and stated such-

[Bob434]

Noone reads it, you're right:

 

 

• Slam dunk, right?  Bush lied.

  Not so fast.  First, the ISG did find WMD.  In fact, it found at least 53 of them. 

  'Beginning in May 2004, ISG recovered a series of chemical weapons from Coalition military units and other sources.  A total of 53 munitions have been recovered.' 

  Why haven't you heard that?  Possibly because that information was buried on page 97 of Annex F of Volume 3 of the Duelfer Report.

  Even if the number of WMD found were short of the 'large stockpiles' threshold demanded by invasion critics, what about the ability to produce and use WMD in a short amount of time?  Here, the Duelfer Report is explicit.

   

•   '[Saddam Hussein] wanted to end sanctions while preserving the capability to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) when sanctions were lifted.'

   

   

•  'we have clear evidence of his intent to resume WMD production as soon as sanctions were lifted'

   

   

•  'Saddam did express his intent to retain the intellectual capital developed during the Iraqi Nuclear Program.'

   

   

•  'Iraq took steps to conceal key elements of its program and to preserve what it could of the professional capabilities of its nuclear scientific community.'

   

   

•  'ISG found a limited number of post—1995 activities that would have aided the reconstitution of the nuclear weapons program once sanctions were lifted.'

   

   

•  'Saddam never abandoned his intentions to resume a CW effort when sanctions were lifted and conditions were judged favorable.'

   

   

•  'Iraq's historical ability to implement simple solutions to weaponization challenges allowed Iraq to retain the capability to weaponize CW agent when the need arose.'

   

   

•  'Iraq Could Maintain CW Competence With Relative Ease'

   

   

•  'ISG judges that Iraq's actions between 1991 and 1996 demonstrate that the state intended to preserve its BW capability and return to a steady, methodical progress toward a mature BW program when and if the opportunity arose.'

   

   

•  'Depending on its scale, Iraq could have re—established an elementary BW program within a few weeks to a few months of a decision to do so...'

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2005/03/no_wmds_really.html

 

[The Toll]

So what you’re saying is that the American people feel that the Invasion of Iraq was successful and they are itching for another one?

[Bob434]

soem of saddam’s own generals stated that very thing:

https://www.nysun.com/foreign/iraqs-wmd-secreted-in-syria-sada-says/26514/

[Bob434]

[[So what you’re saying is that the American people feel that the Invasion of Iraq was successful and they are itching for another one?]]

Seriously? That’s what you got out of everything I’ve posted?

[Romulus]

Then maybe you remember when Dubya lied to the UN General Assembly, saying we had definitive proof and knew just where the bad stuff was.

[Bob434]

bush lied? Or he was relaying what his generals and world intelligence was telling him? Give it a rest! EVERYONE in congress was saying the same thing due to the intelligence reports at that time- even liberals were saying Saddam had them and they were convinced of it-

[The Toll]

I must assume? We are so off topic with the WMD thing here, going down a very well beaten path that leads to nowhere.

That adventure was botched terribly, then add in Obama’s screwed up attempt to turn Egypt over to the Muslim Brotherhood, Destroying Libya, Destroying Syria, and what you get is an American public that wants nothing to do with any Middle East wars. You can’t win when you START from a place where maybe 10% of the population is invested. At most!

[Bob434]

[[going down a very well beaten path that leads to nowhere.]]

Only because those that think Bush lied about wmd’s as the only reason for war keep making the same false accusation time and time again- The path leads to the justification for war- but the ‘bush lied’ crowd keeps saying the same false things over and over again- The path is clear- the end result of the ‘bush lied’ crowd is not-

Read the duelfer report- Saddam was a major threat- and had the capabilities AND stated desire to reopen his WMD making capabilities back up and could have done so in very short order- This was just one of the several very valid reasons for the war- but hte ‘Bush Lied’ crowd keeps falsely claiming that it was the ONLY reason for the war, and because inspectors were prevented from doing their job, and Saddam had time to move weapons out, and we didn’t find them as a result- that the war was unjustified and Bush lied- This is nonsense-

[Bob434]

[[That adventure was botched terribly,]]

No it wasn’t! Saddam WAS a member of the axis of evil- He was removed as a growing threat- and the middle east now realizes that when they harbor, train and arm terrorists, we will not tolerate it-

We had just been attacked, and the middle east was housing, arming and training More terrorists, who’s stated goals were to attack the US- and showed with force, we would not just stand here and take it-

[sparklite2]

Another reason for hitting Iraq was that, in
Desert Storm, Saddam tried to kill Bush’s daddy.