Posted on 08/04/2003 9:16:27 PM PDT by Pokey78
Edited on 04/23/2004 12:05:46 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
No wonder you're so confused. Your ignorance of American politics is muddying your thought process. I've already refuted your statement. If you want to define yourself as an impractical ideologue, fine, but don't expect everyone to join your cause. The vast majority of conservatives and an overwhelming number of Republican's support the efforts of PresBush. FReepers also back PresBush`s decisions and support the war on terrorism with an 80%-90% level of approval. This isn't a complicated issue. PresBush is the elected leader of the US and CIC of the armed forces and America is at war. Either you support the President or you don't.
I support the President.
I have to say that I never paid much attention to his rationale. This is a war I have expected, as I mentioned in my earlier post, since the seventies. I was disturbed that we didn't finish it in '91, and the mud-wrestling spectacle of the US "containing" Saddam for a decade after the war was a mistake of the highest order. Our "containment" policy did more harm than good to our strategic position, and it meant yet another decade of misery for people in the region.
There was never any doubt what Saddam would do if we withdrew from the region with him still in power. We had, after all, decades of experience dealing with him. We knew what he wanted to do, and couldn't, when the Shah was in power in Iran, and we know what he did the moment the Shah departed the scene. We know what he did to the kurds again and again until we stopped him, and we could surmise that the slaughter would resume the moment we backed away.
WMD was the legalistic explanation that was perhaps the only one you were listening to, and to which I paid little attention. Perhaps you didn't agree that the war was necessary, and so for you it all hinges on whether or not there were WMD, and for me this is a war that was 10 years too late, and WMD was only a tactical question.
I didn't support this war because Bush persuaded me, I saw it as an absolute necessity even before 9/11. Bush's personal rationale seems to have been 9/11, but again, it needed to happen with or without 9/11; 9/11 simply brought into focus the folley of leaving toxic situations to fester endlessly.
Then it Saddam was pretty stupid to not come clean, thus giving us a fantastic reason to open up another base of operations right in the heart of the Islamofascists.
In your dreams, pal. You haven't even dealt with my statement, and anyone here can see it.
LOL Look, if you want to boil this down to the lowest common denominator, have at it. The individual candidate and the message of their overall political agenda win elections and when you win you get to govern. Right now, America is at war and supporting the President goes beyond strict ideology. Your brand of politics appears limited to rightwing fringe extremism and reactionary absolutism. That places you in the minority opinion. So be it.
vbmoneyspender is correct. The primary reason for taking Hussein down was his sponsorship of terrorism. The WMD business was a sop to the UN-groupies like Powell and Blair.
Personally this "we armed Saddam" crap is getting spread far and wide. It will become another fat lie that people think is true because they heard it so often.
I've addressed your original statement several times now. It's not my fault you're to stupid to comprehend my remarks and are incapable of handling fair, honest and intelligent debate. Instead you've chosen to be dismissive and turn tail and run for the hills. Doesn't take much to scare you off. LOL
If you pay attention, you may learn something.
You don't win elections being an impractical ideologue and once you're elected, you don't gain political victory by adhereing to a strict ideology or philosophy. Politics is all about governing in the realm of human relations and in poltiics, you compromise and you negotiate or you will never have any success.
Exactly, what don't you understand about that explanation?
You may be playing a bit fast and loose with the lives of men and women willing to sacrifice them to protect America. You seem to be saying that the main cause for which many gave their lives and hundreds suffered injury was alleviate the misery for people in the region. Well, that may be worth American lives for you but not me (and, I think most of the rest of the country). I am also not happy about having to pay the price for rebuilding an Islamic state.
Hopefully, those WMD will soon be found and destroyed. I would like to think that the reason our soldiers lost their live was to prevent those weapons from being used against us or our allies.
At the same time, though, Iran has the USA and Turkey on both its Iraqi and Afghan frontiers, and Syria has the USA, Israel, and Turkey on its frontiers, and these are good things. In this day and age any good news is welcome.
Gone are the days when the concept of allies and enemies were clearly understood, and everyone had some concept of what Grand Strategy was all about. I doubt seriously that Bush understands these things either. He thought it necessary to generate some sort of "sound bite" rationalization which would be able to fit into a nightly news slot, instead of a well-argued explanation of the nature of the geo-political threat and what would be necessary to destroy it.
By going on about WMD, and not explaining what grand strategy is, or even acknowledging that such an idea exists, though, the President has thrown away an excellent opportunity to explain these things. He has no real concept of a "bully pulpit," and once again an excellent chance to help turn the nation around is thrown away.
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You can't explain what you are too stupid to understand or too timid to say.
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