Mistakes of the Past Are Back

Townhall.com ^ | September 25, 2014 | Judge Andrew P. Napolitano

[Individual Rights in NJ]

I generally like the Judge, but this article is silly and sophomoric.

[Chgogal]

German descent, huh?

In my family we changed it just a bit:
Wenn das Wörtchen “wenn” nicht wär, werde ich längst ein Millionär

[skeeter]

Right. No exit strategy, no invasion.

Staying in Iraq until things "stabilize", whenever that would be, is not an exit strategy.

[Kaslin]

No, but naturalized citizen from Germany. We used to say Vater as schoolkids in the 50s. My father’s ancestors were actually from Sweden

[Repeal The 17th]

“...
What if Obama’s plans are to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels
and induce them to fight ISIS...

What if the U.S. really cannot tell the moderate Syrian fighters
from the fanatical Syrian fighters?...

What if they are one and the same fighters,
whose moderation or fanaticism changes
with the politics and military needs of the moment?
...”
-
What if the U.S. House and Senate voted to arm and train them anyway?
What if their votes were all about getting reelected?

[SamuraiScot]

Well, Iraq was stable under Hussein and it isn't now.

This is just an isolated measure, but I think it should be borne in mind: Saddam's stability was a state of steady war against various hostile tribes and political enemies. When they found the Saddam-era mass graves in various spots after the U.S. takeover in 2003, the numbers were truly staggering.

I did a little calculation for an AT column and discovered that Iraqis died at a slower pace during their hot war against the U.S. than during peacetime under Saddam Hussein. (That means I excluded GW-1 and the Iran-Iraq war.)

He was a prodigy of killing. I'm not saying that fact should be dispositive in our foreign-policy choices—after all, it's their lousy country. But considering Lockerbie, plus his long history of funneling money to Pali suicide bombers and who-knows-who else, plus his gas attacks on the Kurds, etc., and culminating in his statement on 9-12-01 saying that we deserved 9-11 (the only such statement from a world leader at that time) I would say concerns about him were not unreasonable.

[Blood of Tyrants]

What if ridding the world of Islam would be an act of mercy?

[rottndog]

What if the principal reason for invading Iraq was to depose Hussein because he tried to kill President George H.W. Bush, whose son ordered the invasion?

Gee, I always thought that the assassination, or attempted assassination of a head of state by another head of state was an overt act of war.

A shame that the coward-in-chief at the time refused to see it that way and take care of business right then and there.

[skeeter]

That kind of brutality seems to characterize all mideast strongmen. Most dictators, period, for that matter.

I just don't believe there is a way for us to deal with them without the risk of making a bad problem worse, unless we are prepared to wage total war.

Obviously this is 20/20 hindsight - in 2003 I was supportive of the invasion.

[Kaslin]

Maybe article but different title. Your "already posted" is unfair because of the different titles

Besides Radix News is not on the Must excerpt list and if an article has to be excerpted it is the first 300 words from an article, unless the article is very short then it is 100 words or 50 percent whichever is shorter

[Kaslin]

Yeah the article was kind of strange.

[ex-snook]

"Kick my ass for saying it but I think its fair to ask whether or not invading was a mistake. "

No kicks here but it was worse than a mistake, it was an intentional deliberate misleading of the American people by groups with purposes not yet revealed.

[Chgogal]

Thanks, I didn't mean that you shouldn't have posted, I just meant that lengthy discussions happened earlier today/last night if people were interested. That's all. Sorry if I insulted you. I didn't mean to do that.

[TexasFreeper2009]

NONE of the above would have happened if CARTER hadn’t sent the middle east into a chaos death spiral that every administration since has had to deal with.

[Chgogal]

My Mom is a naturalized citizen from Germany and my Dad was a naturalized citizen from the Netherlands.

[Chgogal]

You mean like we never pulled out of the Korean Peninsula?

[OSHA]

What if Bill Clinton snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by failing to enforce the terms of the cease-fire which concluded the First Gulf War?

Amen. If Slick Willie hadn't let Saddam kick the inspectors out we would have KNOWN whether WMDs existed or not. But people (even out side) forget that.

[skeeter]

Exactly right. I don’t think more 65 year military commitments are necessarily desirable.

[Chgogal]

I think Europe, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan would think otherwise. The US has done a damn good job at being the best ever supper power. Keeping 25,000 Troops in Iraq would have been a stable force in the Mid East. Now we are so screwed without any options that make sense.

[skeeter]

30 million Iraqis fighting 70 million Iranians to the death was far better stabilizing force.

And no American mother's son needs to worry about being shot in the back by one of their "allies".